At the Lake Again

 

We're having a bit of a weird summer this year. Our average highs are 8 degrees lower than last summer, thanks to a persistent low pressure in the upper atmosphere which has strengthened the marine layer, a blanket of cool, moist air. It results in morning fog that finally burns off by afternoon. This pattern has kept onshore flow steady and temperatures down. 

And I love it.

Last week I went to the lake early, hoping for some wildlife sightings that are usually more frequent in this kind of gloomy weather. I had just gotten out of my car in the parking lot when I was greeted by the call of a Red shouldered hawk. I scanned the trees and finally found him/her, well hidden near the top of the tree.

A lone fisherman took advantage of the overcast day as well.

I decided to take the Fisherman's Trail which skirts the western shore of the lake. There was a breeze rustling in the leaves of the Cottonwood - a lovely whispering sound.

The lake was very still, but I could always hear the loud calling of the Canada Geese who were congregating on the more open part of the lake.

While I was trying to identify a bush by its fruit, there suddenly was a whoosh and the hawk was landing on a branch in the trees behind the bush. Look at that beautiful guy!

Some of the Armenian Blackberries were flowering while others had already developed fruit. They were lining the path, ready to be picked.

There were willows and California wild grape (Vitis californica).

The reflections in the lake were truly amazing.

Further on I saw these dried grasses - I have no idea what they are, but I think they simply look lovely.

Then I left the Fisherman's Trail and walked along one of my very favorite little paths. Not many people walk here, maybe because in some places the path is very narrow and dry grasses grwo into it. Unfortunately I had forgotten my tick repellent, so I crammed the legs of my pants in my hiking socks. I'm really not keen on ticks (apart from those who feasted on a Western fence lizard before).

Poison Oak is found here as well, just as "popular" as ticks. Beautiful to look at, but stay away from it if you don't want a terribly itching and burning rash.

Dead trees overgrown with lichen and moss, probably offering a splendid habitat for all kinds of insects and tiny critters.

The trail then flattened out...

... and I had reached the top of the slope, a very favorite spot of mine. And look who was already waiting for me, sitting on a bare branch.

I had been following his/her call all the way up.

S/he wasn't alone. Not too far from the picnic area (and a world away) I saw a family of Black-tailed deer.

Here's a short video of the two fawns, and if you listen carefully you should be able to hear the call of the Red shouldered hawk.

Toward the end of my walk I saw these two California ground squirrels near the picnic site, having their second breakfast.

It was such a pleasant day that I sat next to the lake with my journal. The sun finally came out when I packed up and left for home.

It was such a wonderful morning.

Six Months of Books

 

When I retired from teaching last summer I thought that I would spend entire afternoons reading. Reality, however, looks very different - since last summer I've seldom spent the afternoon hours just reading. I always found it curious when retirees would tell me that they just "don't have time" and I wondered, well, you should have all the time in the world. Now that I'm a retiree myself I just join that chorus of "not having time" - I have been busy all the time. However, I am slowly getting to the point that I don't have to feel guilty at all if I sit in the garden in the shade of the big tree and spend my afternoon lost in a book. I have a rather large library on my Paperwhite, but most non-fiction books I still prefer to read as a "real" book. As an alternative to reading I also like to listen to audiobooks while I knit, stocking up the inventory in my Etsy store.

Not surprisingly, the first six months of this year haven't been the best "book months" in my life. The shop kept me busy (here we go, "I don't have time"), but I was still able to get a few good and enjoyable reads in.

Please don't expect book reviews - I can't write them, but I will share some thoughts about them.

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby van Pelt was one of the first reads this year that I thoroughly enjoyed from the first to the last page. The remarkable bright creature is Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living in a small aquarium in the fictional little town called Sowell Bay in Washington state, who also is one of the narrators in the novel. The other two narrators are Tova Sullivan who is the cleaning lady in the aquarium, working the night shift, and Cameron, a young man who never knew his father and is now looking for him. While Marcellus definitely was my favorite character, I really liked everyone in this beautifully told story. There wasn't a single character that was bad or evil, something I don't find often in novels. The book woke my interest in octopuses (seriously, I had to research what the plural of 'octopus' is!) and consequently I also acquired Sy Montgomery's The Soul of an Octopus (haven't read it yet).

Years ago, Elephant's Child introduced me to the Australian writer Jane Harper and I am so grateful for that. Since then I have read some of Harper's books, my favorite being Exiles, the third of the Aaron Falk series. I was looking forward to Force of Nature, the second in the series, but I felt quite disappointed in this novel. I didn't like the characters (except for Aaron) and just couldn't get into the story. I found the plot dragging along. Usually I find Harper's books very atmospheric, especially The Dry (the first Aaron Falk and also the first book I read by her), but I missed that here as well. Still, I will go on reading Harper's books, they are so much more complex than just mysteries.

Did I ever tell you by Genevieve Kingston was featured in our local paper. It sounded interesting and it's a very personal memoir about a family who lived in the adjacent neighborhood to mine. All the places and even some people are familiar to me - it's different to read a book that has such a personal connection. When the writer's mother was diagonosed with terminal cancer, she made little packages and wrote letters for her two children for each of their birthdays up to the 30th and for special days like graduation, driver's licence, wedding etc. This way she still was there for her children's important events, even though not in person. I found this very touching and such an endearing act of love.

Sometime in the 90s I read the late Batya Gur's Michael Ohayon series - I think her books were published in the 90s in Germany and I read them "hot off the press". I remember that I really liked detective Ohayon, a Moroccan Jew now living in Israel, and all his cases were quite complex. Murder on a Kibbutz is the third in the series and describes Kibbutz life in great detail. It actually takes a while until the murder happens, but at that point we already know a lot about the people in the community and the existing rules in this particular kibbutz. This is not a typical mystery, but a rather slow and very interesting story. For me it was quite intriguing to read this book again, this time in English and not in German, and I have to say that I liked the German translation better. The language in the German edition was "rounder" and flowed better (I really have no other way to say this).

Let's stay with the mysteries for a moment longer. Saying that I love Tony Hillerman is like saying that I love wine, but yes, I love Tony Hillerman. And what I love even more is listening to his books, especially when they are narrated by George Guidall who does an excellent job in bringing the stories to life. In case you are not familiar with Tony Hillerman, his mysteries take place in the Four Corners area of Arizona and New Mexico featuring Navajo Nation Police Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee and later joined by Bernadette Manuelito. Hillerman's books are always full with interesting cultural details about the Hopi and Zuni and especially the Navajo Nation Police. Since I have been to the Southwest fairly often, I can also picture easily the locations and the arid landscape. It's not really necessary to read these books in order, you quickly catch up. The series starts with only Joe Leaphorn, Jim Chee turns up in book 4 and only in book 7 do they start to work together. Manuelito joins in book 12 (there are 28 books in the series). Hunting Badger is book 14; currently I'm listening to People of Darkness which is book 4 (and therefore the first Jim Chee).

Recently I was going through one of the chaotic shelves and realized that I have this book about California Native Plants for the Garden. I had bought it several years ago, but it kind of "disappeared" in a pile of books. I spent several evenings reading about native plants, making lists what I want to add to my garden in the fall, reading plant profiles and noticing that I am on the right track with my garden. I also have more shade now because I had planted a few trees and that opens up possibilities for different plants like Monkey Flowers (Diplacus). Fall planting time will be very exciting this year.

In the spring of last year, the Sonoma Land Trust (a local environment organization that I support) had invited Rosanna Xia to a webinar about her book California Against the Sea. I had registered for this webinar and found the outcome of her research fascinating. I eventually found her book in my favorite bookstore in Mendocino. Rosanna Xia is an environmental reporter for the Los Angeles Times where she specializes in stories about the coast and ocean. She writes extremely well and parts of her book are almost thrilling. The way she describes how the California Coastal Act was finally adopted in 1976 and established the California Coastal Commission rivals a detective novel. Repeatedly she warns about how climate change warms our oceans and how rising sea levels will change our coasts and how we can work with nature to meet our future. California has a coastline of about 840 miles (general outline of the state's edge along the Pacific Ocean) however, including all the inlets, bays etc the total shoreline length is by far longer. The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) measures it at 3,427 miles. In short, lots of coast is endangered by rising sea level. Every chapter is dedicated to a different region/area, and I wasn't surprised to find that Gleason Beach was the object of one chapter.

Gleason Beach is on our Sonoma Coast and the first time I saw it was in February 2001 on our preview trip to Santa Rosa before we decided to move here. At that time the coast looked like this:

I remember being completely fascinated and also a bit envious of the people who were able to live so close to the ocean, hear the waves crashing on the shore all the time and have this stunning view over our beautiful, wild ocean. But on second glance I noticed the damage that was already happening, the tarps that were spread out to hold back the steps down the cliff. Yes, tarps against the ocean. What a concept!

24 years later it looks like this:

Xia describes what we pretty much witnessed over the past two decades - houses falling into the sea, homes being red taped, and the road, famous Highway 1, becoming undriveable. Now there is a new bridge further inland that was built with great care for the environment. My guess is that the last few homes will go down in the next 5-10 years as well.

And this is only one of the stories in the book. There are many more, some frustrating and some filled with hope that communities are doing the right thing to live with the new reality of a rising sea. It is a highly fascinating read.

Wild Sonoma by Charles Hood with a beautiful foreword by Jane Goodall is a splendid little guide to the flora and fauna of my county with rich illustrations and a good sense of humour. I learned quite a bit of interesting facts and there are trails described in the books that I still don't know and want to explore soon. 

Last but not least I got these two treasures - The Lives of Fungi and The Lives of Lichens. David posted book reviews about them on his blog and since I am eager to learn more about both, it was a no-brainer to buy these two books. They have excellent photos and description and are perfect for deepening my knowledge about both lichens and fungi (that knowledge is still pretty small).

These were just a few of the 24 books I read in the first half of the year, but certainly the ones that have stayed with me.  And since there are a couple faces on the book covers, I join Nicole's Friday Face Off.

Time With Kaefer

 

It's more than a week ago that Kaefer flew back to Germany, but the memories still linger. We had a really good almost two weeks together and of course it was wonderful to see her again. She was exhausted though - the two weeks right before her trip to the US she was on a work trip in Malawi followed by a very exciting and extremely packed weekend in Nairobi (she is now the proud "parent" of an orphaned elephant) and she had just landed in Frankfurt when she was back on a plane not even 48 hours later, this time to Chicago. She spent two days there, met up with a high school friend and both drove down to the South of Indiana to attend the wedding of yet another high school friend. Finally she flew from Indianapolis to Oakland from where we picked her up. I get tired just thinking about all of this.

The two weeks we spent together were relatively quiet. She really just wanted to hang out - and go out to the coast. 

One day we drove to Gerstle Cove of Salt Point State Park (her idea, and I was thrilled since I love this place so much) where we just walked and climbed (Kaefer) along the tafoni. There is a bench on the path where we always stop and take a photo.

Since she wanted "real" fish and chips we went further up to Gualala - there's a seafood shack that serves delicious fish and chips and other seafood. This driver, though, waiting in front of the shack, was a bit strange and I doubt his or her driving abilities...

Kaefer had wanted to do a "photo shoot" since she doesn't have any good pictures of herself that she can use on professional websites like LinkedIn or on her university's department's site. Selfies just don't cut it. So one day we went to the lake and took pictures - it reminded me a lot of the time when I took the senior pictures of her and some of her friends. Just like back then, we had a lot of fun together. The pictures turned out pretty nice as well.

The following picture made me pause and my heart skipped a beat. I hadn't realized it when I took the photo, but when I looked at it on the computer I thought seeing a young version of my mom - everything, the nose, the expression, the way she holds her hand is like my mom. I have often seen certain similarities between Kaefer and my mom (even though she also looks a lot like her dad), but never as clearly as in this image.

It has become a favorite photo.

A family photo had to be taken as well. Of course.

A new ice cream shop had opened in town and of course we had to try it out. It was sinfully good and easily replaced lunch on that day.

On another day we went to our favorite beach. "Going to the beach" in our corner of the world usually does not involve packing bathing suits, but taking winter jackets, hats, sometimes even gloves and scarves with you. But this day was reasonable, not even too windy. As you can see in the top photo, that is our usual attire when we "go to the beach".

Kaefer also checked an item on her "things I want to do in my life" list - but that will be "fodder" for another post.

The day of her departure came way too soon. We had left quite early since we're never sure about traffic, but eveything went fine. So we decided to go up the Marine Headlands before crossing Golden Gate Bridge and going to the airport. A couple years ago the road from where you have a great view of the bridge and San Francisco was turned into a one-way road. In order to get there you have to drive through a one-lane tunnel that almost always involves a five minute wait at a red light. The tunnel is VERY narrow.

But when you're up at Conzelman Road, you are rewarded with great views - if there is no fog. The marine layer was already rolling in and the very fast moving fog hid and revealed the Golden Gate Bridge in rapid sequences. We actually like the bridge with fog a lot. It was also VERY windy - just look at my hair, and even the Geek's!

With so many faces - even though they're always the same ones - I'm linking up to Nicole's Friday Face Off.

Non-Dominant Flowers

 

A couple weeks ago or so I took a free online class by Laly Mille which is the first lesson of her Flower Flow course. I had already taken this class a year ago, but since it was free and I hadn't really done much "artsy" in the recent weeks, I decided to join again. I like Laly Mille's art and her very calm way of teaching lovely art classes.

We started with spreading some gesso on old book pages, music sheets - whatever we had. After it was dry the task was to draw flowers and leaves with our non-dominant hand. That would be my left hand. I had already enjoyed this a year ago, but this time I even enjoyed it more. I did a few with watercolor pencils, but "discovered" that I liked the graphite ones much better (I used the graphite aquarelle pencils by Faber Castell, a 4B and an 8B). Then the flowers and leaves are "smudged" with matte medium or regular gel (I used matte medium) and finally narrowly torn out.

Most (but not all) of the flowers in the photo above are from last year, whereas the ones in the following picture are only new ones.

I didn't make exactly bouquets, but just tried to combine some of the flowers and leaves. I decided to go with a wildflower theme and attached them to four 5x5 watercolor panels that I had prepared with some collage "fodder".

Final steps inlcuded some gauze that I watercolored as well as some parts of the plants and I also added some watercolor sprinkles. It was a lovely project that I thoroughly enjoyed (and of course it took me longer than the four or five days of the class).

Here are my four wildflower collages:

I haven't done any art since then... and I don't think I will do any in the next two weeks because Kaefer will be here!!! At the moment she is in Chicago where she meets up with a high school friend and then the two will attend the wedding of another high school friend that is taking place somewhere in Indiana. On late Sunday afternoon she'll land in Oakland. Both the Geek and I are very excited to spend some time with our favorite girl. I assume that I probably won't be in blogland during those two weeks.

I also have a face for Nicole's Friday Face Off - I got a haircut! My last haircut was five days before the lockdown in 2020 and since then I have cut my hair myself. Thankfully it was a really good haircut and since my hair is curly one couldn't notice that my cuts weren't particularly accurate. But now I felt annoyed by the length of the hair, and when I heard that my neighbor cuts hair nothing could stop me. I just had to walk down a block! She did a fantastic job and I'm so happy about my short hair.

A couple more things.

Thank you for your comments about my D-Day post. Some of you mentioned how very concerning it is where our country is going to now, and I fully agree. One noted that I see it from both perspectives, as a German and as an American, so the two opposing "parties". I want to mention here the visit of the German chancellor Friedrich Merz to the Oval Office on June 5th. He reminded the president  that the following day was June 6th, D-Day, and how important that day was. Mr. Trump's reaction was "that wasn't a very pleasant day for you" and then "that wasn't a great day". Mr. Merz was visibly taken aback and emphasized in very clear words that this was the beginning of the liberation of Europe from the Nazi regime. The chancellor of Germany had to tell this to the president of the USA who didn't seem to have a clue about June 6th. I am not particularly fond of Mr. Merz, but at this moment I was very proud of him.

And - Los Angeles. I assume you know what I am talking about. I am so appalled, I can't even find words for that. But thankfully someone else did that. I am not a big fan of the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, but when he delivered his address to Californians yesterday I felt deep respect for him. He found the right words and he certainly wasn't mincing them. Usually I stay away from declarations like "I'm so proud to be a ... (insert name of country), but today I'm saying "I'm proud to be a Californian".

We will peacefully join the protest on Saturday, and I hope many many people will do so across the country.