Autumn Equinox

At dusk tonight we went up Humboldt Rd. which rises immediately out of the valley on the eastern edge of Chico. The moon rose over pale tummy hair grass and itchy seed sharers as we wandered the Stilson Canyon north ridge. As we were leaving we heard the gargling chortle of sandhill crane overhead heading south.

On Monday we paddled the Feather River with Ann and Linda in order to see the salmon and experience a free day. The day was rich with birds, fish and the funny little lion faced otter person below.

On Sunday I went out (on bio-diesel) to Pine Creek which is north of Chico about 10 miles. I love where we live but it is too tree sheltered to experience the sky fully. The clouds that day were incredible and it rained some and generally outdid itself for glory and constant changes in all directions.
This is my favorite time of year and I'm grateful in the midst of fairly constant consternation about human activities to have this wonderful husband who encourages me and us to support our spirits in nature.

From here

I was headed over to the creek clean up on Comanche Creek this morning but decided to do a pre-creek cleanup instead. This is what I hauled out in about about 60 feet from the ditch. Why, I wonder do we dump garbage into creeks, rivers and oceans?

I am the heart burn of the Albatross. I am the constant bag woman muttering collective prayers to ancestral gods who never listened. Pinching strings of snotty plastic and strofoam curds from rich ditch mud. Scanning, plucking, prying each scrap of harvest with a prayer. My desire, my will, my hope that the collective slob stops polluting.

Ah, a change in subject. We paddled out on Black Butte Lake last Monday. Even this has its story: From 8/28 to 9/18/1863 all the indigenous people in the Sacramento valley were rounded up and made to walk, in the driest time of the year, to Round Valley. 461 started the Nome Cult Trail of Tears and 277 survived. Every year at this time people walk a route to remember them that would have taken them through the valley where this lake was built by the US Corps of Army Engineers.

We were graced by a quiet and beautiful time there. This isn't a great photo but you can see a dragon and a heron in the same frame and in the photo below some mystery human had built random cairns along the lake.

Last weekend there was also a really sweet gathering for City Council candidate Mark Herera out at the GRUB farm. I smeared something on my lens but like the trampoline shot anyway.

May your summer end slowly.

Just a quiet morning

Sitting here plucking basil leaves while the photos downloaded. Last night made crabapple jelly til late that didn't come out as sour as I like but is a gorgeous pinky color. Yum time for winter mornings.
I wanted to write about the nothing which is the fullness of a morning here in silence. (Michael is finishing up the strawbale workshop in Concow.) Yesterday I bought starts at Little Red Hen, a nursery I support because they hire and foster disabled folks and their $$ go to provide services for people with autism spectrum disorders. The photo above is their heavenly blue morning glory fence. You have to be brave to have morning glories since they like to take over but the depth of the blue really is heaven to sink into.

My morning of transplanting the winter starts began with catching morning light on the complicated brainy deep red of the coxcombs. All the while I was fretting about how to finish on time at the clinic on fridays and about how to stop annexation of the farmland around here, while watching the jays on the sunflowers and finches on the primrose, weeding, harvesting, dead heading, wandering my little queendom. Eventually my cares soothed away.

The gleaming flowers of the gourds a few posting ago have become small waisted full sized gourds of pale green. Their course is to stay in the garden until they are mottled, moldy, and brown. Some will rot, others will harden. I don't know why some things are profusely successful and other things succumb but the fall part of the cycle is here and I'm planting with a beckon to spring, harvesting, and watching.

One last burst of the luscious gold of the sunflower! These are the symbol of the peak of life, of our link to our health and short lovely time here. (That's why the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons campaigns use the sunflower... the solar link of being just perfectly blessed by harmony with the sun's strength and not destroyed by the hubris of radiation. That is our fragile sun story for another year.)

Our neighbor Bruce is a Master Farmer. He often has excess on Saturdays after Farmers Market. My peppers are small and tight..something is missing in my soil but his are gorgeous. He put out a mix of peppers, cukes, and lettuce on his share table and they were the first thing I saw on our porch table today. Fresh light and vitamins be in your safe and organic food as peppers brighten and finish up these last weeks of summer harvest.

Labor Days

My work week is now three days so tonight I am at the end of my four day weekend. Tonight, after a day of mostly working on a timeline of events for the 50th Anniversary of the Chico Peace Endeavor, we went for a walk on the south rim of Butte Creek Canyon at dusk and the sunset turned out to be glorious. I used it as a chance to give Thanks for the life of Walkin Jim Stoltz who died on Friday. He was a remarkable man for the miles he hiked and for the glory of nature he lived and sang about.

There were also birthdays-- Here is Fiona Scout on her first birthday. It was really rewarding to be around young parents and their babies and to share in Fiona's milestone.

There was a big theater presentation by Blue Room people out at the end of Estes Road and I held my SAVE the GREENLINE sign for the traffic going by and then walked down for the free theatre which was post modern, odd, at moments really fun and included segments of Dave Guzzetti which I appreciated since he reviewed some of the histoy of his city council time. He still does Woody and Friends on KZFR on Monday mornings which is consistent with all that I love of Chico and the wide world.

My work commute takes me past this sign. In the neighboring county of Glenn Crystal Geyser wants to take groundwater for their huge bottling plant. The folks at Friends of Orland and Save Our Water Resources are trying to get the city to rescind approval of the plant until Orland complies with the California Environmental Quality Act. Everybody is after northstate water. See www.aqualliance.net to read about their lawsuit to protect delta trust fisheries.

Speaking of north state surface water. We got out on the river for a lazy canoe from the "wash out" to Ord Bend. We did do a bit of Labor Day stuff too but I'll let it go at this............... Thanks for all you do in your labors to make this world a better place.