Wild about Wildflowers March 1, 2015

My fifth grade teacher, Ruby Stauffer, loved wildflowers. Mrs. Stauffer lived in the countryside of southeastern Pennsylvania, and it seemed that everything we kids learned that year was somehow filtered through the lens of these delicate plants, from sexual reproduction to art and presentation. The year culminated with a visit to Mrs. Stauffer’s home and a tramp through her local woods to inspect, collect, and catalog the local beauties - Jack-in-the-pulpit, May apple, forget-me-knots, mountain laurel, and trillium – as we tried all the while to avoid an encounter with poison ivy. Back at home, wildflowers were ironed between pages of wax paper for preservation, descriptions were written in our best cursive, covers were made with block letters cut out of black construction paper, and all of these sheets were bound together by round-headed brass fasteners. I will never forget working on that project, hovering over the round, orange table in my bedroom on a sunny Saturday afternoon, cooled by the white-and-black striped awning that shielded my open bedroom window, and listening to the sounds of other kids playing outside. 

All this is to say that there is a special place in my heart for the humble wildflower, and I look forward to its appearance after the winter rains of Northern California.  Last week’s “Park Wavelengths” announced the arrival of chocolate lilies at Chimney Rock, so I convinced another wildflower-keen friend to join me for a weekend of spotting and photographing the early spring blooms. I downloaded a list of 120 species (!) of early spring flowers sighted at Chimney Rock over the past 20 years and grabbed the plastic-coated identification guide I had picked up at the Bear Valley Visitor Center.

Rain was forecast for Saturday, and as we drove through the bend in Sir Francis Drake, just north of Inverness, gigantic raindrops hard-plopped onto our windshield and sunroof.  But within a few miles, we emerged from the grey zone to a brilliant blue sky and dry land under foot.  Our short hike took us first to the edge of the westward cliffs, where we spotted families of elephant seals with their new young, waddling to keep up with their mothers and emitting little squeaks.  One little guy was so tiny (from our vantage point), that I held my breath while an enormous male passed by him. 

The big winners at Chimney Rock were Douglas iris and checkerbloom, and at first we thought that might be all there was to see.  But soon we found many other species: Indian paintbrush, blue-eyed-grass, blue larkspur, buttercups, mules ears, wallflower, wild cucumber, field chickweed, seaside daisy, and the low lying and aptly named footsteps of spring. Indeed, for a single day on a small patch of earth, quite an exciting variety, except the chocolate lily (also known as mission bells).  Ah well, perhaps another day.

The White-Crowned Sparrow February 3, 2015

Death should not be the first entry for 2015, so I am posting this second.

When I woke to prepare coffee, I spotted a host of sparrows in the shaggy rose bush.  Cradled in its sturdy bifurcations were half-a-dozen sparrows, who seemed unperturbed by my presence.  One by one, they disappeared to the lavender or the rosemary, except the closest, with white cheeks and crest.  I am nearly hopeless in bird identification, but this one was kind enough to look me straight in the eye and wait for me to locate my bird book.

Coffee made and in hand, I then glanced nearby to find a fallen sparrow, killed by flying into the glass panel of my front door.  Was the rose-bush sparrow grieving the loss of his partner?  I folded my hand around the still warm bird and buried her underneath.

Before I go to sleep February 2, 2015

Today was bright and hot.  As I returned to Almost Pi after a painting class in Novato, the sun had just set and the full moon had just risen.  The sky was covered with a puffy honeycomb of small clouds, dark blue-grey on their bottoms and sparkling along their edges by the full moon behind it.  I couldn’t help but pay attention to it, rather than the road, as I drove alongside the Nicasio Reservoir.

It was 10:30 when I turned off the bedroom light, opened the window, and curled under the bed cover.  It seemed the sky had cleared, so I folded sleeping Pogo into my arms and we went out on the deck to look around.  There were deer in the pasture, Orion’s belt overhead, a clear moon to the south and its eerie glow washing over the deck.  In the distance white mist lay low before the Inverness Ridge.  Everything seemed fresh, alive, urgent.  I slid back inside, crawled under the cover, and settled into a cool night of dreams.

Geology Rocks September 21, 2014

Yesterday was the Point Reyes National Seashore Association’s fourth annual Dinner on the Pacific Plate.  PRNSA supports the efforts of the National Park Service.  It ran the Trails Challenge that I did two summers ago in honor of the Seashore’s 50^th Anniversary, as well as a myriad of nature and art courses, such as the plein air painting weekend I enjoyed in June a year ago.

This year I took up PRNSA’s offering of a rock tour, the geological kind.  Prior to the fund-raising dinner, we were given a choice of ten guided adventures in the Seashore, and I opted for “Discovering Drakes Bay Geology”.  Being geology-challenged, I relished the opportunity to learn something about those iconic bluffs that allegedly reminded Sir Francis Drake of the white cliffs of Dover.  The guide for our small group was John Karachewski, a fellow geek who clearly delighted in sharing his enthusiasm for all things geological.

John started with a basic tenet of geology: one must think in four dimensions, the fourth being time.  He took us through the book that described the evolution of the Point Reyes Peninsula, where each chapter covers a few million years or so, from a time when the Peninsula and all of the Western edge of California south of it – through San Francisco, Los Angeles and down to Baja California – came to slide northward on the Pacific Plate by about 400 miles.  After the great subduction of the Farallon Plate under the Atlantic Plate, the Pacific Plate started its slow migration northward, with fits and starts in the form of 80,000 earthquakes, each the size of the great 1906 quake.  He described how the granite bedrock in Point Reyes was once part of the southern end of the Sierras, near the Mohave desert and why we don’t see it just a few miles away here at Pi on the Atlantic Plate.

As for the cliffs themselves, they are formed from eons of clay, silt, sand, and other sedimentation when the land mass was still submerged under water.  He recommended that we could actually tell what each layer consisted of if we were willing to grab a bit and stick in our mouths.  None of us took him up on that - yet.

A visit from Mary September 20, 2014

A few weekends ago my sister Mary took a spur-of-the-moment trip from her home in Cleveland to visit me.  At 8am that Saturday, I retrieved her from her ridiculously early flight at SFO arrivals, scooped up Pogo the cat from my house in San Francisco, and to the pulse of periodic meowing we hightailed it up to Almost Pi.   The weather here was as lovely as I have ever seen it, and we planned to head out for a big hike but soon found our plans derailed by the many other enticements of Point Reyes.

First, we fortified ourselves with goodies and music at the Farmer’s Market surrounding Toby’s Feed Barn.  Then we thought, why not quickly stop by the opening of the BayWood Artists’ show at the Red Barn?  There, we ran into a friend of mine from Marin Oratorio, who pointed out the blue posts that marked the San Andreas Fault, which essentially passes right through the Red Barn itself.  It turns out Mary had never taken the Earthquake Trail, so that prompted another diversion; how I love to point out that displaced fence! 

We then noticed the sign for the Woodpecker Trail, which I had never been on, so that led us to yet another fascinating little hike.  Equipped with a Western Birds app on my iPhone, we checked out the calls for the various woodpeckers, and sure enough, we heard them calling back to us!  The path deposited us uphill at the Morgan Horse Ranch, so of course we had to poke around there, another first for me, I’m ashamed to say.  I knew nothing about this quintessential American horse, not to mention the importance of this Ranch in breeding and training Morgans for this and other national parks.  By this time we were ready to give up on the big hike, and opted instead for a look at the Bear Valley Visitor Center, where there was a small exhibit on the Marconi telegraph stations and where Mary treated herself, and me, to a few lovely souvenirs.  We packed in a very late lunch of burgers, root fries, and beer at Marin Sun Farms before returning to Pi to bundle up Pogo once again and watch the sun set over the horse pasture together.  We came inside to enjoy some Strauss vanilla ice cream (Pogo, too), pulled out our books, and Mary quickly conked out.

Every visitor is an opportunity to see something new or see it with fresh eyes.  Keep coming!

Quiet July 13, 2014

I am a member of two book clubs, and I often find myself sinking into the quiet of Almost Pi for one of my two monthly obligate reads.  This weekend I have been immersed in Elizabeth Gilbert’s “The Signature of All Things”.  As much as I didn’t like her earlier book, “Eat Pray Love”, and as resistant as I was to reading this new one, I was quickly sucked into the story of adventurers, circa 1800, who traveled the world to unearth new botanicals for passion and profit.  Alma Whitaker, the scholarly daughter of one such remarkable man and now the world’s expert in mosses, meets Ambrose Pike, who has just returned from two decades in Mexico and Guatemala where he studied orchids and produced exquisite lithographs of them. 

Alma asks him, “What would you like to do [now]?”  To which Pike responds, “I would like never to travel again.  I would like to spend the rest of my days in a place so silent – and working at a pace so slow – that I would be able to hear myself living.”

I know the feeling.  Pi is the place where I can hear myself living. 

Ten Years Ago June 15, 2014

It was ten years ago today that the seeds of Almost Pi were sown.  My mother passed away on that day, and as she was only 25 years older than I, her death gave my own life more urgency.  She had had dreams that were unfulfilled, and I knew that it was now time to act on a big one of my own: to build a small home for myself and Annie somewhere in the magical grasslands of west Marin or west Sonoma counties.

I quickly vowed to look at every affordable lot in those two agricultural regions and to buy one by the end of that year.  This was not a whim – after all, I had been searching for property for six years – but rather it was a resolve to move forward.  I had to accept that it wouldn’t be “perfect”, but I knew that it would be very good and the catalyst for a great adventure. 

By August I had narrowed my search to two parcels, one in west Petaluma and the second here in Point Reyes Station, a small community whose charm increasingly provided the gravity for my weekend orbits.  One warm evening, I suggested to Annie that we drive out to experience the settings in the dark.  We couldn’t even locate the land on Spring Hill Road in Petaluma, so foggy was the night.  We then made our way to Route One, not far from Tomales Bay.  We stood on the bottom rung of the horse fence to look over the lot, a gently sloping horse pasture.  The downtown sparkled in the distance, the stars were out, and every once in a while, a car passed by.  “This one,” Annie declared.  “It’s safer.” 

That was it.  By October I owned 3.13 acres with a lovely view of the Inverness Ridge.  It took another 2.5 years to plan and to build, but as I sit here writing these words, looking out over the horses nibbling outside my window, I’m so glad that I followed my heart.   

It is Almost Pi, and it is almost perfect.

Quail Crossing May 10, 2014

Late in the afternoon I drove to Bear Valley for a quick walk to the meadow and back, and I rushed to return to Pi for my ritual of sunset-watching over a glass of wine.  As I left the nearly drained visitor center parking lot, the car in front of me abruptly stopped for no obvious reason.  What could it be?  Quail crossing!  An extended family of head-bobbing quail, about two dozen in all, scattered to either side of the road, let us pass, and regrouped. 

The sunset would have to wait.  I quietly whipped around to watch them for a while and to listen to their delightful chirps.  Were they also celebrating Mother’s Day with a little reunion?

Bluegrass and Blue-eyed Grass April 20, 2014

Whenever I am at Almost Pi, I try to attend whatever is on at the Dance Palace.  Last night it happened to be bluegrass with Blaine Sprouse.  I know nothing about bluegrass music and have never heard of Blaine Sprouse, but apparently he is one hot bluegrass violinist and he is now a resident of Inverness.  He and his contingent of very talented local musicians – on guitar, banjo, mandolin, cello, and bass – got the SRO crowd at the Palace stomping their feet in delight.  Mine, too!

Twelve hours later, I encountered another kind of blue grass.  This morning’s weather was beautiful and as it is whale migration month, I headed out to the Point to search for the cetacean mothers and their babies.  Though I peered through my Grandfather Fisher’s binoculars for a few hours at four different locations, I failed to spot a whale.  Still, I hiked out to Chimney Rock to look at the April wildflowers.  Among the many beauties – checkerbloom, pussy’s ear, scarlet pimpernel, lupine both purple and yellow, Indian paintbrush, and poppy – was the tiny blue-eyed grass, which seems more purple than blue, but charming just the same.

Back to Normal April 17, 2014

I was beginning to despair that the wildlife at Almost Pi had simply disappeared.  The drought had lasted so long, and I hadn’t seen a bobcat, an egret, or even a gopher in ages.  But when I arrived today, a heron flew into the green pasture as if to reassure me that all was well with the ecosystem.  By mid-afternoon a family of deer leapt through the grass, now almost as tall as they are.   Birds of all sorts and sizes, from the tiny hummingbird who seemed keen to explore the corners of windows, through a pair of goldfinches who lingered by the rosebush and irises, to vultures who were enraptured by the neighboring field, brightened my day.