Green Girl

“Back already from your trip?” you ask, “I thought you just left for Evolution Valley yesterday?”.

Lesson #1 - Gaiters do not work when they are in your backpack and not on your legs
Lesson #2 - Watch your footing on granite when shaley rocks are present, regardless of slope
Lesson #3 - If you do need to bail on your trip to seek medical care, do so where you have relatives living right down the hill

After 6 hours in the car yesterday we arrived at the high country reservoir called Florence Lake which looked interesting as its mostly drained right now so they can do work on the dam.  The usual packing, sunscreening, clearing out the car and putting stuff in bear boxes and we were off to the closed down store at the edge of the lake  to consider our route. The dry lake was the reason we  needed to hike extra mileage, as the water taxi was not running, but also offered another opportunity to cut some mileage off the southern shore maintained trail route. The off trail northern route looked doable as the basin was mostly smooth granite, little mud as far as we could see.

We set off and not 500 yards from the lot I slipped on some shaley granite. Torqued my ankle a bit but popped back up prepared to go on. Until I looked down.  A wide 2″ gash in my shin  - dark red with fatty tissue popping out.  Shit. It hadn’t even hurt that much.   I sat down and compressed it and it wasn’t bleeding much but was looking nasty.

Jim and Donna were sweet in their care and irrigated it, neosporined it and taped it up best they could (which the doc later said looked great).  I decided starting an a long trip was probably not the best idea without getting it looked at.  We figured out logistics and they went on and I headed down hill in Donna’s car, not finding a medical center until two hours later - the Clovis Hospital.  After many hours there (why I did not think to go further on to an Urgent Care instead, I do not know) I drove just a few minutes to my sister-in-law’s family home where her brother Robert awaited (my hero), scarfed down dinner, made some calls trying to locate an open store with water treatment tablets (did not) and went right to bed.

Doc said I coulda hiked on in, and I considered it but did not have any of the communal  gear, including water treatment  - a key issue - and it would have been a 2 hour drive and a  9 mile hike to catch up with them - a lot for a tired sore ankled girl. So, I decided to come home and just chill, work on house projects, get a massage and sit staring at the ocean instead of a lake.

I now feel as tough ass as the most pierced and leathered in Santa Cruz with my 5 stainless staples sticking up outta my shin. Gonna make a pretty scar I tell ya.

Feeling grateful for my good life, having medical insurance, and the love of all my peeps.

Patrick’s Point on the Humbolt Coast. A deep, wide stretch of smooth rock beach, undulating between very fine and large rocks wet by surf and drying.  They slide on each other easily, forcing a slow walk, enticing one to gaze down at their multi-hued gray golden loveliness.  Opaque quartz everywhere, but the one who has a discerning eye and is patient for quality finds agates.  They let the light clear through and are smoother in the hand than the others, often found shining in the footsteps of those who came before.   Best to come right as the tide recedes but always some somewhere on this grand sweep of beach, golden in the sunlight, you too shining in the company and true-hearted conversation of a new friend, the depth and play of that, the “come here, I have something I want to show you” hand-in-hand discovery of it all.

There’s nothing on the website about it, but when you come to Strawberry Music Festival, you are welcomed into the Strawberry family and begin to learn the Strawberry Way.  Absent a master list, I can tell you it includes things like:

* Kids have as much free fun as possible, including you grownup kids
* Be kind, polite and considerate to each other
* Share, help, pitch in
* Smile at your neighbors (even if they were up playing late next to your tent)
* Conserve water, don’t litter, recycle
* Pick and sing until you can’t any more

You come home feeling like a peaceful co-existence is possible and are reminded to live the Strawberry Way every day.

This was my first Fall Strawberry and we Tequila Mockingbirds were less than a dirty dozen this year, but we took to the event like a drunkard to rum sitting in with Camp Hold On, Camp Let Go for the jams and sneaking kitchen access wherever we could find it.  It was warmer, dustier than spring, with higher attendance even without a sell out crowd.  I enjoyed my first real jamming time, made some really sweet and unexpected connections with folks in and out of camp and still soaked in all the usual naps in hammocks, Birch Lake swims and rambles into neighboring camps to lend an ear and a voice.  Photos and more stories are here and replaying in my happy mind.

Two stories stand out for the Festival.

One: Luka (from Camp Let Go, Camp Hold On) tugged at his mom’s shirt in the middle of the Sunday Happy Hour Jam and asked ” Hey, are those the ‘I Got It At The Mall’ people? ”  We Mockingbirds now have a reputation.

The second is simply the advice “don’t over underestimate” - originally applied to the imbibement of the corn likker Mahlon brought in from the midwest and then liberally applied to other situations with great gusto and fun.

Come with us sometime to the high wood.  We’d love to shower you in fast pickin’, slow jams, good liquor, and a heartful of the Strawberry Way.

Today I am almost 4 weeks into 3 months off work.

While it has been filled and sometimes feeling a bit too busy with all the goodness and experience, I yet can feel myself slowing down.  My mantra for this time is to Move only When Ready: when the energy is right, when my heart tells me too, only then say yes, make a plan, do the  next thing. Meanwhile, nap when needed, read a lot, go easy on the chores, dunk naked into fresh water whenever possible.

So many sweet experiences so far:  Great eats and girl time in Sonoma County with Lise and Lesli; Kitchen talks and fun everyday time with three great boy-filled families - hikes, building things, spaceships and dinosaurs, rope swings, football practices and frostys (hugs to Parrotts, Lows, Liskes); A successful and exuberating five day solo trip into Caribou Lakes Basin in the Trinities;  A new affair with Kosk Creek and Big Bend Hot Springs (where my toes can be seen poking up in the photo, past which is our secluded creekside camp in the trees (big heart gratitude to Robby, Osita and Sneaky).

This weekend - Strawberry Fall Music Fest, never been - aiming for fun.  After that, more backcountry time I think - we’ll see where to move next when I get to next week.

More posts and photos from my recent adventures to come. For now - read this and eat well.

Vegetable Love
by Barbara Crooker

Feel a tomato, heft its weight in your palm,
think of buttocks, breasts, this plump pulp.
And carrots, mud clinging to the root,
gold mined from the earth’s tight purse.
And asparagus, that push their heads up,
rise to meet the returning sun,
and zucchini, green torpedoes
lurking in the Sargasso depths
of their raspy stalks and scratchy leaves.
And peppers, thick walls of cool jade, a green hush.
Secret caves. Sanctuary.
And beets, the dark blood of the earth.
And all the lettuces: bibb, flame, oak leaf, butter-
crunch, black-seeded Simpson, chicory, cos.
Elizabethan ruffs, crisp verbiage.
And spinach, the dark green
of northern forests, savoyed, ruffled,
hidden folds and clefts.
And basil, sweet basil, nuzzled
by fumbling bees drunk on the sun.
And cucumbers, crisp, cool white ice
in the heart of August, month of fire.
And peas in their delicate slippers,
little green boats, a string of beads,
repeating, repeating.
And sunflowers, nodding at night,
then rising to shout hallelujah! at noon.

All over the garden, the whisper of leaves
passing secrets and gossip, making assignations.
All of the vegetables bask in the sun,
languorous as lizards.
Quick, before the frost puts out
its green light, praise these vegetables,
earth’s voluptuaries,
praise what comes from the dirt.

knee deep in the Merced River

Yosemite Valley

summer arrived

This is not a self portrait but it could be.  So much summer loveliness and fun already this year!  Non-linear yin time floating in lakes and between conversation, stillness and music. Watching humpbacks breach, flipper wave and slap just off our anchorage in Pelican Bay on Santa Cruz Island for almost an hour, then hearing the birches chatter their happiness at the sun and blue sky days in the high Sierra. It truly was the best Strawberry Music Fest yet, I felt so free and comfortable in my own skin and truly part of a tribe of beautiful people. There was just enough cutting loose tequilla drinking and laughter, great jams and warm afternoon forest hammock time to create a perfect experience.  I enjoyed introducing Dona to the festival, sharing an adventure to Channel Islands before hand, and the road trip together between all the fun fueled by McConnells famous ice cream in Santa Barbara and the purple paint splashed sight of lupin in the meadows - snowy dogwood brightening the shadows under the pines.  All this, and only May - what a summer to come here in my 40th year!

What suprises me about trains is that you forget where you are going, the journey so catching you up in its thousands of stories. A twenty hour trip becomes timeless and therefore instantaneous as you move moment to moment meeting people of all walks over meals in the dining car, reading good literature and gazing out the windows in the observation car. And there you are with them, absorbed in the experience, settled into the quiet, when suddenly you remember where you are going - what awaits at the train station - and a fresh happiness warms through your chest. So quickly is the trip over in this way!

In a just eleven days I trained with Dona on the Coast Starlight to Portland (Natascha hooked us up with a train fun kit in the round bag in the photo) and met folks returning from Death Valley asking why we were vacationing in the Northwest this time of year and were seated at lunch with a mom and her cool 20 year old arty son named Jared who was a bit punky and friendly and won points for having ‘Water For Elephants’ in his bag.  We visited the Klien family, tried Stumptown cofee and smelled daphne for the first time.  I then trained to Seattle on the Cascades run and met an octogenarian traveling by herself visiting family and a woman crotcheting amazing lace on her grandmother’s needles while I journaled, sipped a nice bourbon and shared chocolate truffles. We visited Melissa and Lara and ate and laughed well.  After several hundred dollars spent at the art and yarn stores,  Dona and I drove to Port Townsend for Artfest and snow and then clear blue days in the middle of a ring of mountains. What a region is this Sound, surrounded as it is by the Olympics, Cascades, Ranier, water, islands, sky.  Flying home we went right over the Trinities and I saw the Caribou Lake basin where I went off trail last year, and the Wedding Cake deep in snow, where I hope to go next.  And this just the first of the wonderful adventures planned for my fortieth year.  Welcome spring!

The plum trees outside work are the first monniker of spring, but they always feel like winter as the petals slowly spin down light as air, the closest thing we have to snow.

Science is back. Hope is back.  Perhaps, even, America is back and we are here to move it forward.  Senator Elliston told us “there are no allies, cuz we are all IN this movement.” Van Jones told us to be brave and really make this live when we go back home. Akim Steiner told us” today there are more jobs in renewable energy than in the oil and gas industries.”  He also told us that in 20 to 30 years there will be no more viable commercial fisheries at the rate we are going.  Leo Gerard told us that 58% of the goods we buy from China today come from American companies that moved there in the last decade.  Here in D.C., just weeks after Barak’s inaguration, I rubbed shoulders with Jim Hoffa, with Phil Angeledes, with Jared Bernstein, with hip hoppers, Sierra Clubbers and steel workers all here to move America forward together.  Good Jobs can be Green Jobs.  Check it out at the Blue Green Alliance website. (Bout time I wrote something that connects with my site’s monikker, eh?)