Welcoming the little Shanghai cherry

I planted what I think is a Shanghai cherry tree today. Prunus tomentosa. It was free from the plant exchange hosted by the local hardware store every year.

Thinking how apt that my first planting at Hale Makua, in this place in the mountains, is a cherry. An Asian native comes to me unbidden. And a hedge plant at that just when I was looking for ways to define boundaries. That my new, and hopefully fruitful, Shanghai friend is short lived is also emblematic for the nomad while I am hoping to find some succor in the fact this little tree  flourishes best in hard winter conditions. We take on the colour of the company we keep. Maybe my Shanghai cherry will help me make the mountain winters fruitful.

"I have no plants to exchange because I have just moved into a rented house. Can I make a donation?" I ask. "Oh no, just take whatever you want." Mary says. She is really pushing plant adoptions. "We arrived this morning to find plants abandoned on the doorstep. Please take them." says Mary as I herd a bunch of plants into a stash on the side.

So I walk out with the cherry tree, shasta daisies, irises, rudebekia, coreopsis (maybe), rhubarb, my old friend rose campion (lychnis), autumn raspberries and spring onions. What a mix.

It seems I am gardening again. How did this happen?

After two hours of lawn mowing on Friday afternoon after work, I thought I was done with the chores. That was before I went to the plant exchange and brought home a whole lot of roots demanding urgent planting.

Of course nothing was prepared for them.

No kayaking. The rest of the weekend was spent digging and recovering from digging. And talking to the neighbours. Two Marys, a Penny and a Ruby. All stopped by at various times to talk with me. The garden is unfenced and on a corner. Wide open and way too easy for people to stroll in. One of the Marys rode her ride-on lawnmower across. Then returned later with a huge bag of rhubarb.

Privacy fencing would have been the first thing I would have done. But I am renting. The landlord has other things on his mind and fencing me in is not a priority. He is putting down stone chips around all his shrubbery. To prevent weeds? So he doesn't need to water? I am not really sure. It is an interesting gardening style blending a zen minimalism with small town suburban shrub arrangement. He likes straight lines, it seems.

I put my head down and dig in spite of the exposure making me uncomfortable. My borrowed views, of main street, small town USA, and backyards, are interesting, even if not conforming to conventional aesthetics. My research tells me that the Prunus tomentosa is used for hedges, along with berries for birds, jam, pies or juices. This helps me decide to site it on the alley boundary which leads me to a Sunday afternoon garden bed digging undertaking.

Right now the back yard un-lockup stretches a vast flat blank. The areas I have dug, so far, are in straight lines - anathema to me. I am following where a previous tenant worked the earth with a rototiller (so Ruby, one of my morning visitors, informed me) for the food garden and following the boundary line on the alley for the other. Gardens have a way of evolving around me so I am not too worried about the strip mining look of it at the moment.

One of the first things I do today is to make a little piece of rock path. I only had five rocks, and a handfull of pebbles, but it is a start.

In remembrance of rock path work at Eldorado. And Hale Ike.

Of course now, having sunk hands into earth, I would like to work the garden daily, not just a few hours at the weekend.

I do not intend to keep these straight lines. For now, though, they will do. For a beginning.

On a Sunday morning peaceful it was not in this backyard un-lockup. Rather the day was rent with a cacophony of power tools as people in the 'hood revved up the motors on their yard-domination equipment. Got to take control here! Can't let nature get the upper hand. Muster the forces. Buy and accumulate tools, preferably ones with on/off buttons and which make noise and fumes.

 Later in the afternoon things quieted down a bit. While I quietly dug out grass with my human muscle powered old garden fork, I listened to the merry chirping of little birds in the garden tree.  Which itself has busted forth in fresh leafy brilliance and lovely little sealed packets of something: flowers? seeds?

Singing freedom songs

Nostalgia bug still got me by the throat.

27 April 1994, the day I voted in the first ever democratic elections in the country of my birth. Along with the majority of South Africans, I had also just voted for the first time ever.

Oh! how we danced! And stood in those famous, serpentine, three mile long queues.

All those Freedom babies born 9 months after this celebrating, will be 18 come this December/January and able to vote themselves in 2013. What a thought: Made in Democracy comes of age.

It was a home hair cut - a friend took about 20 inches off in the midst of the festivities because uuuh....I forget why... but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

I do remember that the severed hair lay like a dead animal on the kitchen floor. We laughed about that too. Everything was possible. We balanced a brief moment on the razor's edge of right action, possessing all hope.

I didn't cut my hair again until 2008.

The age I am in this picture, is the age Lionheart will be, come August this year. Curious/fearful symmetry.

Nostalgia break

Sometimes the past can break us, bittersweet nostalgia a poisonous draught.

Time keeps on slipping.

Goats and bunnies, living the American Dream with celestial navigation

Up high in the forested mountains, in a cedar cabin off grid, no indoor plumbing, very harsh conditions in winter and with spring thaw having finally melted the snow enough for me to navigate the road, I visit friends MaryBeth and Doug.

I meet a field full of lovely shaggy angora, shetland and nubian goats including some fresh-minted kids, and about 60 bunnies. Dreamwisp-soft, fluffy, shedding angora bunnies.

Living the American Dream. "Do you think you are seeded by a star?" MaryBeth asks? "Facebook has these quizzes: Are you a star seed? Well, yeah..."

Yasgar's farm lives!

Long, long ago, way before I ever thought I would end up living and working in the United States, I pictured a life of living in a cabin in the woods, raising some animals, just such yarn ones as Marybeth's, living according to natural rhythms, making goat milk cheese, barefoot in a sunlit kitchen.

The farm is on the market. MaryBeth and Doug need to move on. They are poised, waiting for the universe to breathe. And hoping for a way to get the next bale of hay for feed for the animals.

The long harsh winters. Ageing in a cold climate. Solitude. All these are hurdles. Not insurmountable, but hurdles nonetheless, which loom large. Large enough at times to blot out the stars necessary for navigation.

May the stars align fortuitously for you, MB and D. With love and blessings.

A ceremony of sagebrush

Looking for sunshine and a little warmth early in the season, I take my kayak first-footing in Sun Lakes State Park where I put in at Park Lake, for a paddle in a basin of buttes and mesas of the channelled scablands.

I am the only vessel amongst teeming bird life, on water that is icy cold still with snow melt and the long slumbering winter. It turns out to be a space and place of clarity and reflection. Once again I am the first footprint of the day, or in this case, the season.

A wind builds up some chop to offset the strange wobbliness of the Merlin on flat water, and making the edges of the mineral rich lake foam.

Sagebrush is just putting up fresh new season growth. Life is fragrant again. Most of the park is still closed for the season: the picnic tables are raised empty vessels waiting, bare limbs of deciduous trees  reach for the sky.

 Birds own the day: geese, ducks, some swooping birds of prey: hawks, falcons, eagles, a loon with an eerie other-world cry. The air is rich with squeaky-toy duck calls. Geese honk and hiss at me. "Aloooooooha" I call. "I bring you greetings from Nene, your Hawaiian cousins. "

En route back, I stop at the Dry Falls viewsite. Close to fifty fishermen dot Dry Falls Lake, the one I decided not to paddle on this day. I had actually been shooting for Deep Lake but the gate was still locked for the season so I had to settle for Park Lake.

I possibly paddled a meditative five miles with my new Shuna paddle allowing me to skim across the surface. Not bad for a first of the season paddle with Merlin kayak, sleek and eager on the reflective water. The first signs of spring buds and fresh sagebrush make the day ceremonial. It is more prayer paddle than warrior, with the exercise being mainly mental: keep in the moment, keep on the surface. There are winter deeps in these brooding, glacier carved lakes and ancient, monumental landscapes which cloak in mystery: very cold and sometimes indifferent to a solitary speck of humanity. I pull myself away from connecting with those fantastic monsters which lurk in the deeps. The work is to raise the attention up.

Running with the parhelion pack: a piece on the side

I am fresh returned from a little bit of a road trip to a professional conference which took me a round trip 800 miles over the mountains and exposed me to upmarket casino resort culture.

Unfortunately I forgot my camera battery recharger. When I discovered, in the first hours after arrival, that the camera was showing low battery levels, I stopped taking pictures. Without the means by which I interrogate the moment, part of me became paralyzed.

It could also have been the culture shock of descending from the mountains to all the fake fountains of clamour, greed and superficial glitter of The Other Side. Of the state. And the crazy rush of urban living, rude contrast to my rural eyrie. A paradigm shift is required to cross the Cascade Mountain range.

In all it was a very drippy, damp (I do not miss that perma-wetness at all) few days in which I was not well fed, and not just because the very fancy casino resort where the conference took place had very little awareness of the vegetarian diet. Don't even get me started on vegan options.

The little crack letting in a smidgen of light came from reunion with the old salt: the cedar skinned trickster and cedar storypoles. Together we do harvest golden apples of the sun well.

Near the end of the long weary road back my heavy heart was lifted by a small magnificence: what I think was a sundog loping alongside of me in the late afternoon, setting sun, stormy sky. A red/orange/yellow flare of light to the right of the sun.

This is the first time ever I have encountered the parhelion phenomenon for real. I risked the camera to capture the rare radiance of the piece on the side.

Once I left the damp, drippy side of the state the skies were lovely beyond recording. Deadhorse Gulch is still in flood season.

{Click on the images to have them open in a separate viewing window}

Blue day, new day

Not long now and that crescent moon setting in my dawn will be curtained by leaves, and in a sunny sky.

I love the opalescent early hours, even though they are frosty yet here in the mountains. Once was a life when I could walk barefoot out into a bird-loud, bare-skinned, warm dawn. What happened? Remind me, someone, anyone, why I am living in a cold place.

Someone to watch over me

Spent the day paddling my Merlin kayak with all manner of water birds.

Came home to this little beauty of a messenger in the garden tree.  I think it is Cooper's Hawk, (Accipiter cooperii) though I did have to page through two books several times, going back and forth.

Chicken skin at first, thinking it might be a Merlin (Falco columbarius), but after a bit of research, I think not.

A spot of natural predation of those gangs of greedy starlings who have been mobbing the bird feeders isn't such a bad idea.

Lunacy at the lake: Loon Lake

En route back from my Big Smoke shopping spree Saturday,  under a bit of a blue, puffy-cloud sky,  I take a detour to investigate the thaw at Loon Lake. Last time I looked, a month or so ago, this lake was frozen over.

I find geese (my old friends branta canadensis), ducks, gulls, reflections, receding snow and ice still in the southern shadows. Around a bay an eagle fishes from the ice.

On this day the lake has a very tempting solitude, beckoning me to kayak here before the summer crowds fill it with a lunacy of jollity and jet skis.

The boat launch and public fishing spot at the far end of the lake has a slightly uneasy feel, however. I wouldn't leave any valuables in a vehicle here. Strong feeling of something wicked has hung out here recently. Chicken skin and waterbird voices. This water is keeping secrets in its depths, reflecting back an infinity of sky, not yet ready for stirring after its winter dreaming under ice.

(Hint: click on the pictures to open them in a slideshow screen. Pretty impressive, huh?)

Bicycle love: April fooling

On a trip to the Big Smoke for a bicycle tyre pump, amongst other things, I found this sign. The sun was behind it but I did the best I could with what I had. I have 3 bicycles. Does that make me delirious with happiness? Hmmmm.

My main objective of the journey was to invest in some form of e-reader. This is professional development. Yes I could have bought one online but I wanted to support local, independent or family owned business so I found my way through the horrors of downtown to Auntie's Bookstore. Only to find that they do not sell e-readers.

However the nice staff in Auntie's directed me across the road to Huppins, a family owned and operated business which has been around more than 100 years. Here I discovered agents for that great enhancer of  the Chinese economy, which takes the Washington State fruit as its symbol. Yes, with that famous bite out of it.

I went in for an e-reader and walked out with a tablet. Good salespeople, Huppins? Admittedly the tablet is second generation, not the latest with it's unimaginable resolution. I am also not totally in love at this stage. Seriously seeking counseling if this relationship is to become anything worthwhile. My silver bird of a laptop just does it all so well and has been my companion for so long now.

LAX to GEG via PDX

Yes I am posting out of sequence again. I just can't seem to get the chronology thing these days.

Coming back from Hawaii I flew Los Angeles (LAX), Portland (PDX), Spokane (GEG) in the early morning.

A window seat afforded me beautiful opportunity for volcano portraiture along the Cascades mountain range which is a whole long line of young volcanoes who are liable to erupt anytime. One of my permanent bookmarks is the USGS Volcano hazards website

Unfortunately I am not that good at knowing which mountains I am looking at from above, though I do believe this one with the scoop out of it is Mount St Helens. This volcano erupted pretty spectacularly in 1980, then had some little burps and splutters in 2004, which reawakening has led to a continuous gradual eruption of magma within the crater. Yes, I live within striking distance of active volcanoes. Interesting thought. Pele here, Pele there. Pele everywhere. Ash from the 1980 Mount St Helens eruption spread rapidly across eastern Washington. 

I found all kinds of things I didn't need in the literature in the seat pocket and not what I wanted: a physical geography atlas of the Pacific Northwest with our flight path plotted. 

From PDX to GEG in a little puddle jumper, I am mesmerized by the artistry of the landscape geometry from above. First it is deserty and dry, then increasing snow appears as we approach Spokane.

The landing was an interesting first for me too as we came down through heavy, wet snow with absolutely no visibility at some stages. Then we had to walk from the tiny plane to the terminal, completely exposed to the elements and me still in Hawaiian tropical clothing, Birkenstock sandals and socks in a snowstorm. What a rude welcome back!

I suspect that it has taken me two weeks to engage with the pictures because it was such a horrible return to reality. Do I really live in a place of such long, cold, snowy winters? Is this me? Pinch me someone, wake me from this nightmare of frigidity. What makes a life worth it? Where is my tipping point?

Lion lying down with the lamb: weather and garden report

The weekend certainly straddled extremes with the weather, as befits the season of transition and change here in the mountains.

Saturday dawned to a flurry of a snow storm with big, heavy, wet flakes blotting out horizons, blurring the neighbourhood. My heart sank. I had outside things planned. Luckily that sky-dandruff did not last long. Temperatures were too high for the flakes to build up into much in Deadhorse Gulch. I managed to get a good quota of outside time into the two days.

By the end of the weekend I was out in the garden with sun warm on bare shoulders, rooting around in the wet earth, pulling out grass from established garden beds, excavating old plastic bed edging, reveling in the burgeoning buds everywhere. Tweeting and chirping of little birds made for sublime background music, when the neighbours FINALLY managed to corral their minute, pesky, extremely irritating, yapping ball of fluff. A chihauhau next door does not bode well for peace. This one seems to take it as his life's mission to drive me mad with the pitch and ferocity of his yipping. If ever one needed a nuisance ordinance it is for yap-machines such as this, though one has to wonder whether the owners are impervious or maybe have the volume of their tv up so loud, that they do not hear the ruckus. At least cats do their fresh earth digging silently, stealthily.

The first tulip buds are swelling on the southern suntrap wall. They are looking like they will be yellow to me, but time will tell. If the deer don't get there first. I know from prior experience that a favourite pudding for deer is roses and tulips. Yum!

The as-yet-unidentified shrubs with their dragon-head branch end buds are growing, greening. Looking forward to what unfurls.

The garden tree has grown all fuzzy along the branches. A close examination shows little popcorn like explosions. Leaf buds? Flowers? I don't have enough botanical knowledge.

In the rudimentary vegetable patch which I inherited from previous tenants I discover the first sproutings of the season.  Looks like allium (onion) family to me. I chop some leaves from a garlic chive flavoured clump to add to my evening pasta. Maybe it is garlic itself? The first feeding from Hale Makua: hopefully there will be much more.

The soil will need a bit of enhancement - this little piece of earth does feel sour, exhausted and in need of feeding. I am considering a trip to some horse owning friends just out of town.

Fortunately I am not a person with pollen allergies. The air outside right now is champagne to my senses. I take huge gulping draughts of it on a Saturday late afternoon bicycle ride out to the flooded fields on the south western edge. The light is returning. The wheel is turning.