Time Travels May 7, 2015

It is easy to lose track of time here.  My watch and my computer tell me it is 11:34.  I slept till 9:30. 

Very little happens outside my wall of windows, and yet, everything happens.  I see the gardener in the small field next door.  Horses grazing, endlessly.  Grasses swaying.  Butterflies dancing.  Sunlight shifting.  Slowly.  I become a part of this setting, and it has become a part of me.

Grasses May 7, 2015

I have never been able to look at a field of tall grasses without falling in love with it.  Wheat in Idaho, corn in Pennsylvania, grazing grains in California.  And now I live amid the grass of Pi.  By spring it hides my house from the road, buries my small car, and envelopes the hammock.

If the April winds have one benefit, it is to toss the grasses to and fro, generating a visual music that drifts in from every window, keeping me company as I read and write.

It won’t be long before the grass is mown, as part of Marin fire protection.  But until then, I sit and watch, mesmerized.

Limantour Beach April 27, 2015

It was a brilliant Monday morning, hot with no sign of clouds or wind.  Normally in April, I am exhausted by the relentless assault of ocean air, but today seemed to promise a calm and sundrenched rest on Limantour Beach.  Into my large straw market bag I tossed sunblock and sunglasses, a beach towel, water and a few snacks, a collection of Chekhov stories, yesterday’s crossword puzzle, and a couple of pencils. 

Shortly before 11, I joined all of three other cars in the parking area, and on the beach I spied only eight other people as far as the eye could see in both directions, one sitting, the others walking.  I headed toward to the Limantour Spit, now closed to protect the young harbor seals, and eventually settled into a spot hidden in the beach grass, near a scrawny cypress.  How long had it been since I had spent time on a beach, alone, just sitting?

A ladybug, struggling to crawl out of a little depression in the sand, caught my eye.  He made no progress, sliding back into the pit each time, eventually tumbling onto his back.  I gently scooped my hand under the sand, hoping to lift him up and free him, but he disappeared and I was distraught.  I kept gently scooping sand and spreading it out, hoping he would emerge.  A light breeze blew over the sand, pixelating it and eventually uncovering the little bug who again struggled to right himself.  This time I shored him up with a flat stone, and he made it onto all sixes.  The sand blew off of him, and he flew away. 

By 1 pm, fog had obscured Chimney Rock, and then Drake’s Beach, and I knew it was heading toward me.  The Black Monk read and the top-left corner of the puzzle completed, I called it a day.  Back at the car, as started to fold up my towel, I discovered on it another ladybug.  I gave the towel a soft shake, and he flew off too.

The Scrabble Game April 13, 2015

Almost Pi is a gift of time in a simple setting, and when I am here with Annie, we slow down to play a word game or two – her specialty.  This past holiday season was tumultuous for her – and me – and we tried to regroup over the New Year by hunkering down here at Pi.  We started a game of Super Scrabble, with its quadruple word corners.  The board is two-thirds full and I am losing.  Annie already has 536 points.  Vamp, jilted, thorny, whams, and relaxed. 

For some reason, we were not able to finish the game.  The board, wooden tiled racks, and score pad are still on the coffee table.  It is Annie’s turn, and I’m waiting for her to come back.

Close Encounters of the Equine Kind March 23, 2015

A few weekends ago, I arrived to find someone leaning against my horse fence on Route One and snapping a few photos of the pasture view across to the Inverness Ridge.  It was an artist who was scoping out a place for her collective, the BayWood Artists, to meet for a day of plein-air painting in preparation for their next Point Reyes National Seashore Association exhibition. I said, “Certainly, I’m happy to have you paint here.” What a treat for me!  

Two weeks later she set up her easel and paints, and before long the horses came by to see what was up. One of them was particularly persistent, nuzzling against her, threatening to sample the oils on her palette, and I, in turn, took a few photos of the two of them.  She said it was one of her happiest moments painting. Excellent!

Finally the Chocolate Lily March 9, 2015

On the day following my previous post, my wildflower-keen friend and I hiked the big loop from Muddy Hollow Road through White Gate and Estero Trails. It was another exciting day for wildflowers, with literally thousands of Douglas irises greeting us along the way, as well as well as beach strawberries, morning glories, and some of the flowers we had seen on Chimney Rock. A few poppies poked their way through the ground, the cow parsnips were on the cusp of opening, and we spotted a single blue violet as we neared the end of the trail.  I was eager to see what would emerge over the next few weeks.

This past weekend, I dragged another friend – a wildflower-spotting reinforcement as it were – to take the Inverness Ridge – Bucklin – Bayside loop. Once again, we were deluged with colorful blooms, many of the ones noted the weekend before, but quite a few new ones, too, including bleeding heart, dwarf bramble, milk maid, and forktooth ookow (what a clunky name for such a gentle blossom!).  We took photos of a half-dozen yellow flowers that we simply could not identify on the spot, and later failed to find in my guidebooks.

And then, within the final mile of the hike, my companion, who by this time was well-trained to pause at every new species encounter, said, “What’s this?”  And there it was – the chocolate lily!  It was tucked into a shaded area, all alone. We inspected it, nabbed a photo, and celebrated our find with a glass of wine.

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.