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Sunday, November 1, 2020

Late October Walk

 


A few days ago I went out to Crane Creek Regional Park. This beautiful park is nestled among the vineyards in the gently rolling hills. My drive there is along back roads through more vineyards, passing Matanzas Creek Winery with its beautiful lavender garden and climbing over wooded hills and finally halfway descending to the entrance of the park. Beside featuring a disc golf course this park has many beautiful nature trails, some of them in the valley, some up the hills, offering extensive views.


I like the wide open space of the valley with its old, big trees. The landscape in fall is bone dry and the domineering color is shades of goldenbrown. This looks very different in spring! But I love it in all the seasons.

The first thing I saw when I started my walk was this hawk perching on a fence post. I'm sorry that the photo is not very good - all the pictures in this post were taken with my Pixel phone, which has a great camera, but when you zoom in very much (like I did here) the photos become very pixilated.


Some of the old trees haven't survived the many storms we have had in the past 12 months. They  now offer shelter and nesting places for birds and little mammals. Woodpeckers are searching for insects hiding in the bark, scrub jays hop from branch to branch and squirrels chase each other up and down the tree.


The creek of course is just a dry bed but in spring after the winter rains it will carry water again. Now people love to shape cairns out of the rocks in the creek bed.


As I mentioned the park has many trees, among them a high number of buckeye trees.  They flower in the early summer, but now they carry the buckeyes that gave this tree its name. Not very long until the buckeyes will fall out of the peel to the ground.




My favorite place where I like to stop and write in my journal is this picnic table under a big buckeye tree. Someone had put a few buckeyes on the table.



I love to stop here and sit. It is so quiet and not many people pass by. I can listen to the birds and the bees humming in the wildflowers. Often there is some rustling on the ground when ground-feeding birds flip the leaves in search of food. After a while I got up and continued my walk up the hill and back down to the valley.




I went up for a last view over to the Coastal Range when I saw this pumpkin on a fence post. I does look like it is munching on this post, doesn't it?







8 comments:

  1. Thank you for taking us walking with you.
    Those colours (and unfortunately the trees which didn't survive) are very familiar and do have a beauty of their own.
    Love the pumpkin gnawing on the post in your last shot.
    Thank you.

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  2. I can see why you would stop to journal right at that very spot. It's beautiful --the whole area is. (And y a lavender field, too?! Wow!) It is a glorious spot and I'm glad you have this place to visit in these stressful days.

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  3. Looks peaceful indeed (minus that hungry pumpkin ;-)...).

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  4. It’s always enjoyable to take a walk and thanks for the tag along chance, Carola. You were right about the dry conditions which was so evident in the photos, but still the area looked like a nice getaway and nice to have a seating area to write in your journal. The pumpkin may have been strategically placed on the pole for birds and other critters to enjoy.

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  5. Love the pumpkin in your last photograph :)

    All the best Jan

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  6. This looks like a peaceful place to walk. And those trees are so old and beautiful, aren't they? If only they could tell us stories. The buckeye photo is very cool. And I love that last photo - it's so Autumn looking.

    I hope you have happy and health November days, Carola.

    ~Sheri

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  7. It is really interesting to see the differences in the season between Northern Cal and New England. Such beautiful scenes.

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  8. So many of may favorite things, too ... those wide open spaces, old trees and a beautiful hawk! Thanks so sharing such a nice walk.

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