It’s always a pleasure (and an education) to take a class with John Muir Laws.
pinyon jays
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arugula/rocket
I don’t have a lot of success with growing spinach, arugula, lettuce or basil. They flower and seed so quickly!
Come to think of it, I don’t have a lot of success with brassicas or corn either — they get totally infested with aphids. Thank goodness for tomatoes!
don’t eat the lilies!
After completing this sketch, I was hiking back down the trail, and met a group of young adults on their way up. One guy asked me if there was asparagus growing nearby, because he’d just picked and eaten some. Uh … no. There is no asparagus growing here. After reminding him that all plants in the Park are protected, and that some are poisonous, we parted ways. A little further down the track I found the broken plant. I knew it was some kind of lily about to flower, but it wasn’t till I got home I learned that it was Toxicoscordion fremontii (Frémont’s deathcamas or common star lily). As the name suggests, it’s highly toxic to livestock and humans.
I hope he’s OK, but … what a foolish human being! People, don’t go eating plants in the wild unless you know for sure what they are!
under the elder
I wasn’t trying to write a poem, but now I realise that the first two sentences sound like I was.
hondo canyon
I left early for my appointment in the Valley so I could spend an hour in Topanga State Park on the way. I hiked less than a mile into Hondo Canyon before stopping to sketch the view. I am so lucky to be surrounded by protected lands here; it’s easy to just slip into a state park for an hour’s shinrin-yoku in the middle of an otherwise busy day.
succulents
Our neighbour is the Succulent Queen, and she sometimes gives us nice little arrangements as gifts. More frequently, she drops off a garbage bag full of cuttings, just one of her many generosities towards us.
charmlee
I took Bodie out to (dog-friendly) Charmlee Wilderness Park yesterday for a three-mile hike. It had probably been about nine years since we were last there. She was pretty excited to visit someplace new, and smell all the critters. The wildflowers are popping, and the area seems to be recovering well from the 2018 Woolsey Fire.
blood orange
Blood oranges were first discovered and cultivated in Sicily in the fifteenth century. They are a natural mutation of Citrus x sinensis, although today the majority of them are hybrids. High concentrations of anthocyanin give the rind, flesh, and juice of the fruit their characteristic dark red color. [Source: Wikipedia]
We need to get this one into the ground. I’m amazed it’s bearing fruit in this quite small pot. We just haven’t quite agreed on where it should be planted.
random
The dining room table is my desk/art table. Once a week I clear it off and wipe it down, but mostly it’s covered with assorted books, art supplies, bags, hats, sewing tools and other random detritus. This is a small subset of what’s in front of me.
arbutus unedo
I wasn’t the only one enjoying the strawberry trees in the library garden. The birds, bees and butterflies were hanging out with me.
hashiworks 