In the Forest by the Lake

 

I love to walk around our lake, but when the days are hotter I prefer to hike through the forest next to the lake, away from the more popular paved trail right at the water. The forest is so much cooler with far less people. The trails are dirt trails which I prefer to paved trails anytime. The trail in the photo above leads up the hill and is lined with California buckeye (Aesculus californica)  and Western spice bush (Calycanthus occidentalis). From here you can take other trails that go deeper into the woods.

The solitude up here is wonderful! But eventually I have to leave the forest and get into a more typical dry landscape. Even though it's much hotter, I love this view of the Mayacamas Mountains in the distance.

This is where I saw a family of turkeys today - two females and three youngsters.

The forest has many wildflowers, but even here I still find some beautiful plants, like these Blow Wives (Achyrachaena mollis), a native and therefore well suited for this area.

Pacific Madrone (Arbutus menziesii) is a beautiful tree with a reddish bark that contains water and stays cool in the summer - quite handy in the summer heat.

 Salsify (Tragopogon porrifolius) looks like a fairy plant after its bloom when it's about to disperse its seed in the wind.

Eventually we arrive at the water. If you look really hard you can see an immature Black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) perching on the log in the bottom left.

Today I walked out on the peninsula because I had seen muskrats there and sometimes saw otters frolicking in the water. But I had no luck - instead I found this:

Plastic containers, old socks, a soda can, a food container, a napkin and a bit later I found a giant plastic soda container with plastic lid and straw. It made me incredibly mad. This is such a beautiful place that many people enjoy without leaving all their trash behind that is not only disgusting but can harm the local wildlife. Is it really too much to ask to pick up one's own trash and dispose it in a trash bin? Granted, there wasn't one right there, but is it so hard to carry it to the next available trash can? If they were able to bring it in, they can also take it out. I'm tired cleaning up after people who have absolutely no respect for nature and no regard for other people.

Okay, vent over.

Rain's theme at Thursday Art and Dinner Date is "heat wave". Although the last two weekends were very hot, so far we have been spared the incredible heat under which much of the country and Southern Europe have to suffer. But when it's really hot, I don't like to cook and prefer cool food.

Strawberries, peaches and nectarines mean "summer" for me and are great snack food on hot days.

Poké is great summer food for dinner (or lunch), there are so many ways to make it, and of course it always reminds me of Hawai'i. Caprese is a favorite, preferably with tomatoes and basil from the garden, followed by plum clafoutis for dessert (with plums from the neighbor's garden).

But the best, of course, is gelato!

Stay cool, everybody!