Orange Tinted Smoke

There is a huge wildfire burning near the area I live, and the gray smoke coming from it is not only a reminder of the danger that comes to my area each summer with the wildfires, but is also the creator of some fairly strange looking mornings and evenings.

Unlike a cloudy day, where the thick, gray clouds will block out the sun for a muted day where colors can pop against the cool background, the voluminous smoke creates a film for the sun to filter through.  This, aside from being a health hazard, gives us fire-light scattered across every object in sight.

The sun turns red, the blue morning sky is hidden behind the smoke.  We wake to find our quilts and walls and floors bright orange, an orange so bright, in fact, that the camera can't pick up on it properly to show you how vivid it really is.  Outside everything looks oversaturated, and you can hold your hand up in some spots to see beams of light shinning through the smoke, much like you would see the light shinning through thick clouds of dust in an old room.

It really is sort of pretty, but the destruction of the fire is not worth the nice colors it creates.  Houses have been lost, roads shut down, people evacuated from their homes.  The amount of smoke in the air is, as I mentioned before, a health hazard.  Despite the nice summer temperatures, we can't have our windows open, least the smoke fills our house, too.  It makes for summer days spent inside, instead out enjoying the sun like we might be otherwise.

The mornings are orange, and the days a pale yellow with bright gray tinted skies.  But the evenings have purple in their skies.  Gray tinted yellows, teals, and sometimes even greens accompany the dusty purples when the red sun sets.  These sunsets will have to be left to your imagination, though, because the camera sensors fail me once again in not being able to pick up on what the colors really look like.

Despite the color show it gives us, I hope the fire is put out soon.  Even after it is, the smoke may hang around for a while after it, but perhaps we might still get to spend our last few summer days outside, like we should be.  More importantly, let's hope no more houses are lost before it finally burns out and leaves us.

Em

Summer Garden

Carrots and asparagus, tomatoes, lettuce, and peppers.  Herbs and onions, strawberries and rhubarb.  Lots of green sprouts and ferns nestled happily in our garden beds, growing away, getting bigger, while we wait for the right time to pull them out and enjoy them.

By no means has my garden ever been big enough to actually replace the need to go to the grocery store for a certain item, but still, there is something nice about seeing it all grow, even when half of it doesn't grow right and you don't really get anything from it.  The strawberries, for instance, haven't given a single berry yet.  They seem far more concerned with growing runners to root more plants then they are with giving me berries.  World domination is clearly more important than jam to them.

On the other hand, some plants take off.  There are two giant rhubarb plants sitting at the beginning of the garden that are over 6 years old.  I can get 3 harvests from them in a single year.  The growing season here isn't a very long one, either, so this makes that fact even more amazing.  Similarly, there is a potted chive that I just can't seem to kill.   Usually I'm very good at killing plants.  But this chive is stubborn.  It keeps coming back in it's pot each year without any help or encouragement, and despite how many times I forget to water it, it just doesn't die.

I'm very proud of my chive.

Getting out in the dirt is something that just makes me feel good anyways, regardless of wether or not the plants end up being useful or not.  Still, there is something about my small garden that does seem a bit, well.... small.

I almost think it would be better to grow an herb garden.  Something that perhaps you could keep inside your house and use all year long.  Or, for the outside garden, to just pick one plant you really love, and I mean really, really love, and just fill all the garden beds with that single plant.  That way you could eliminate the need to buy that particular produce from the store.  It just seems like it, the garden, would be a bit more useful that way, like there would be more of a reason to grow it, instead of planting handfuls of a ton of plants that don't really grow anyways.

It does make me a bit disappointed that my garden isn't exactly as useful as maybe I would like it to be.  But, I must remember that it isn't really my garden, either.  It's our garden, my family's garden, and we all have our plants we love and would like to grow.  We have to share and help each other, just a family should.  So really, in that respect, I can be very proud of my garden, of our little garden.

It may be little, but it certainly is very green, and varied.  As much I would like to strive for a more 'useful' garden in the future, I can be happy with what we have now.  There is a very summery feel to it.  You can't deny that.  The rhubarb and the chives continue to flourish, and so perhaps the rest of the little experiment plants don't need to be quite so fruitful as they need to be there just make the gardener smile.

Over all, I love going out water it in the summer evenings when it's cooled down a bit, checking to see if the plants have gotten any bigger, going barefoot in the dirt, and sometimes just sitting there in middle of it imagining what it would be like if we just had a little more room for things to grow.  It's very good starting place, our garden.  A very good little place, in the middle of it all, to sit and just be happy to look at the life that you grew.

Not everything in life really needs to be 'useful', I think.  Somethings just need to be there, for no other reason than to make you smile at life.  That's what our little garden is for me.

Em

Lake Hike

My family and I went for a hike in the middle of the week to a lake a couple of hours away from our house.  I woke everyone else up at five in the morning, and was ready to head out the door by six with backpack packed, extra clothes in the truck, cooler filled with goodies to make sandwiches, and breakfast sitting in my stomach.

We got out of the house about an hour later, though, because we didn't actually know where we were going until then.  We are so good at planning ahead, you see.

The road trip there was great, but I'll just jump straight to the part where we got to where we were going.  I took 85 photos that day.  Well, I actually took over 200 photos but 85 was what I was left with after editing and weeding out blurry duplicates.  I can't show you all of those photos ( as much as I would like to ), but I'll give you a good 15 of them to show you what our hike was like.

We came across a field just before we got to the beginning of the trail.  We stopped to take a look at it because we had seen some birds flying around that we wanted to get some pictures of.  Naturally, as soon we stood outside the truck, waiting for them to land somewhere, they decided they were going to be stubborn and hop around in the grasses where we couldn't see them any more.

The field was still beautiful to see though, and the flowers growing around it in random sprigs where so pretty.

Do you see the bee in the middle of this flower?  I didn't even notice he was there until I edited the photo!

We drove up the rest of the road and made it to the head of the trail.  It's almost a mile hike in just to get to the lake itself, and it's a steep mile.  From the top of the trail to where the lake is is about a 300 foot change in elevation.  It's rocky and winding all the way down, but not so hard if you're used to hiking.  If you were careful, you could hop from rock to rock on the way down and feel like a mountain goat, an expert at traversing the mountain landscape.

Speaking of the mountains, they were looking their absolute best that day.  The skies were clear and wonderfully blue all day long, the trees fresh and green, the rock white and rugged.  What more could you ask for?

It was a great sense of achievement to finally see the lake nestled down in-between the mountains.  We had a choice to go either left or right to start walking around it.  We decided to go left to start.

It was beautiful looking across the lake, seeing how clear and clean it was, and how blue.  The reflections on the water were almost perfect.  If the lake had been still, it would have been like looking into a mirror.

When we got around to the south side of the lake, we found that there was still snow tucked away back there.  Piles and piles of it covered the slopes, creating fun areas to slide down.  Feet spread, arms out, and with a running start, we slid down them, posed like a surfer riding the waves.  And then we got back up and did it again.

Once we got back to hiking though, these slippery slopes became a difficulty.  You had to dig your feet into the snow to be able to walk on it without falling, and even that didn't work at times.  I almost slid sideways into a creek.  My sister managed to actually slide into a tree.

I fell over far too many times, pinwheeling and digging at the snow to try and stop myself from sliding too far.  At one point my feet went right out from under me and I fell straight onto my back, sliding all the way down a little hill.  The impact was so hard that my water bottle came out of my backpack.  Instead of coming down to help me up, my mother first thought to stop and take a picture of me sprawled out on the ground where I finally came to a stop.  Such love and concern, I tell you.

When we got out of the snow and were on the west side of the lake, we found a waterfall.  It was gorgeous, and it sounded even better.

We had to hike across it, at a part where the water spilled over some rocks and was only an inch or so deep.

Then it was back up, coming around to the point where we split off and went left at first.  We had gone all the way around the lake, but now it was time to tell it goodbye.

Even though we were hiking the same trail up as we had going down, the view looked at bit different seeing it from a different angle.  It was wonderful to look between the trees and across the mountain we were on to see other mountain ranges hanging in the distance.

Going back up was obviously much harder than going down.  Where as coming down the only time we had stopped was to snap tons of photos, going up we had to stop to drink some water and take a breath or two.  Like I said before, the trail was rocky, steep, and not always clear.

It was fun though, and so great to make it back to the truck and have that feeling of "I did it!".  Down, around, and back up again made for a three mile hike altogether.  It was great.

We made some sandwiches and ate some candy bars and graham crackers, then piled in the truck to start heading back home.  As we were driving out though, we saw a little turn off to our left that we hadn't looked at before.  So we decided to make a quick detour and see what it was.

I'm so very glad we did go look at it.  It came to a flat area in the mountains behind one of the peaks.  In the dirt there we saw groundhog tunnels, the dirt pushed up where they had been digging underground.

We decided to climb up over that final peak to see what there was to see.  We found snow, which we used to make little snowmen.  This really cracked me up for some reason.  Snowmen, in the middle of June.  Who would have thought?

We found lots of flowers growing on the sides of the rocks.

But the best part of all was the view.  The air was so clear that you could see for miles.  The whole forest was spread out before us, the nearest town little dots in the valley, and way out on the distant horizon, the tips of a named mountain range we knew for certain was an hour drive away from where we were standing.

Perfect.  Just, perfect.

I worked on editing my photos on the ride home, and had every intention of creating this post that very afternoon, but I ended up being too tired.  I didn't do much else that day except lay around like a blob.  I was a very happy blob, though.  I don't think a day can get much better than that one was.

Em

Strawberry Moon

Last night there was a full moon on the summer solstice, an event that has not happened since 1967, and will not happen again till 2062.  This rare event is called a Strawberry Moon, and my daddy and I went out into the backyard last night with his camera to see it.

My father placed his water mark on the bottom of the moon.

It was well past midnight and I was tired, but seeing as this is such a rare occurrence, I wasn't about to stay in bed and miss it.  So I put my damp jeans and shoes on ( I had been running through the sprinklers just hours before, you see ), which made me a bit chilly in the otherwise nice night temperatures, and went out with him wrapped in my favorite denim jacket.

It was so bright out.  I really couldn't believe it.  I know that it was a full moon and all, but standing in the direct moon light, I could read the notes I had written on my hand to remind myself of things I have to do today.  It was almost entirely quiet, with the air conditioner coming on every now and then, and the sound of other people's sprinklers spraying.  Aside from that, it was just still, bright, and the sound of my daddy's camera clicking.

I loved to be out in my backyard wandering around in the dark.  My memory of the place is was kept me from tripping.  It might have been bright in the light of the Strawberry Moon, but in the shadows, it was pure blackness, a striking contrast that I was not expecting to see.  I was standing not ten feet away from my daddy at one point in the shadows, and he couldn't see me until I called to him.  It was really quite amazing.

I looked at our garden, at the plants sitting still in the moon light, I peeked through gates at the dark street outside and saw how the world around me was suspended in slumber and the cool night air, most likely entirely unaware of the rare, potentially once in a life time lunar event that was happening right above their resting heads.

I sat on the damp paving stones and watched the moon hang in the sky.  We, my daddy and I, didn't talk. There was no need to.  We both love nature so much, and that's all we had come out for.  Something about being outside refills our souls, and it was nice just sit out there with him and enjoy the site.

When a long strip of clouds came across the sky and got in the way of the moon, we went back in.  My mother, tired and resting in bed, was counting on us to get pictures and tell her about it all in the morning.  My sister, who I woke from her sleep, decided that she was too warm and comfy in her bed to move from it, and went back sleep.  So we show them pictures now, just as I show you.

Were you aware of this Strawberry Moon?  I, for one, had never heard of it before in my life.  If not for my daddy waking me up, I would have missed the whole thing and never been any the wiser.  I hope at least some of you knew better than I did, and that you were able to get outside, if only for a minuet, to see it with your very own eyes.

If, on the other hand, you were more like me and did not have someone to wake you, then I hope you enjoy one of the many pictures my daddy took ( and so kindly let me use ) as a second alternative to seeing the Strawberry Moon.

Em

P.S.  If you like his photo, then you should go look at his photography website ( this is the dream I mentioned him working toward in my last post ).  As of this very moment, he is still building it, but he's very, very close to launching it, so keep an eye on it in the near future!

Chasing the Sprinkler Sunset

I went outside yesterday afternoon to water the plants like a good littler gardener when I saw that there was a sprinkler running in the front lawn.  As you might have noticed by now, I am merely a child who's pretending to be an adult.  Every now and then I forget I'm supposed to be acting mature, and things like this happen.

Yes, that's me jumping through the sprinkler in the pink ( though it looks more red in the picture ).  It wasn't long after I began twirling around in the water sputtering when it unexpectedly hit me in the face when my little sister joined me ( yes, the same one who runs around pretending to be a dragon with me in the winter ).

I was only going to run through the water a couple of times, but once my sister was out there with me, a few times turned into over a half hour of looking like dorks ( but happy dorks ).  We were soaked, we were muddy, and we didn't make it into the glorious sunset that I was clearly trying to lead my sister into in the picture below before she realized that she forgot her bags, but, we had fun, and really, that's all that matters.

You can think I'm crazy ( and you wouldn't be wrong ), but doing spontaneous, childish things like this just makes me feel better about life.  Who said you have to grow up anyways?  Not this gal.  So if you want my advice, go run through those sprinklers!  Trust me, it'll make your heart and soul feel happy again.

( I just hope the neighbors didn't see us. )

Em

The Colors of Spring

There is nothing better than seeing our yard and garden covered in sprouts and blooms.  The smell of fresh air and rain hangs in the air as the green and color pops up from below the dirt.  Spring is at once both destructive with the lightning storms it brings and the coming of new life.  Spring is Mother Nature at her finest.

The sound of thunder is overpowering my music, and I can't wait to see the sky light up with the lightning making it.  An evening filled with color on the ground and in the sky is a rare and beautiful thing.

Em

P. S.  I may have had a little too much fun with the filters on my flower pictures, but oh well.

Beauty in the Desert

It's easy to forget with how well things are built up around here with all the suburbs and trees that where I live is actually high plains desert.  But you don't have to go far to be reminded of it.  With sand dunes and canyons just over an hours drive away, you soon find yourself looking at what your life would be without the water from the mountains there to make all the green back in the cities possible.

Life is such a fragile thing, and there isn't much of it out in the dry rocks and rolling hills we hiked through over the weekend.  Yet if you look closely, you can see that even in these barren lands it still manages to hang on and persevere.  Life is also pretty stubborn, wouldn't you say?

We blared a mix of old and new rock songs all the way there, and stepped out of the truck to face winds and cheat grass opposing us.  The rock formation we chose to hike up looked fairly small from where we parked the truck, but it was bigger than we first thought.

After wading through a sea of cheat grass stabbing us through our socks and watching to make sure we avoided rattlesnakes, we faced the rock formation itself, which proved to be steeper than we thought.  Covered with large boulders and slippery patches of smaller rocks, it was almost a challenge to get up.

But we went right to the very top.  Standing up there, the winds were around 40 miles an hour coming from the west.  I stood at the top and looked around at the farm fields to the north and the rocky hills to the south as I leaned into the wind to keep from losing my balance.  They were like two different worlds living right next to each other.

We stayed far away from the edges, because falling would have been fatal.  We were over 600 feet up from where we started out by our truck.  It was nothing more than a red dot on a dirt path far, far below us.  It was loud and cold in the wind, but just on the east side of the rocks that were up there, it was completely silent.  The winds was completely blocked, and it was like you had stepped into a completely different day, one with warm sun and no wind to blow it away.

We stayed up there for over an hour and a half, walking around the boulders, peering into the cracks in the rocks to check for rattlesnakes and scorpions, finding small patches of water that the rocks had collected and protected from the sun over time.  Little bits of sage brush stuck out here and there, lichen covered the orange and brown rocks till you couldn't even see them anymore in some places, and the elusive Canyon Wren kept singing to us every so often, though we were never able to catch a glimpse of it.

I wrote, my father took pictures of the patterns and shapes in the lichen on the rocks, my sister hunted for rocks.  We found a lizard, who you can see if you look really close in the center of the last picture.  We also found a flat piece of rock that would be perfect for pitching a tent to watch stars in the summer time.  You wouldn't be able to light a campfire, though.  The dry plants will light and burn faster than a match in those parts.

Just before we decided to go back down due to hunger, I found a pretty good sized rock covered in such pretty colors of lichen that I just to take it back with me.  Only, it was heavier than 10 pounds, and I had to go back down the steep way we came up.

I did it.  My family has this thing for rocks, you see, and I just had to have this one, even though, just like with my books, I don't really have room for anymore rocks.  I slipped backward and fell on my butt once on the way down, and I couldn't stop to get the sharp cheat grass out my shoes with it in my arms, but it was worth it when I finally heaved it into the back of the truck.  It's sitting on my floor currently.  Still not quite sure what to do with it.  But I think it's pretty.

We sat on the bumper and ate canned oysters and sardines with tabasco and crackers, chugging ginger ale and flicking out the tiny bones from the fish onto the dirt for some small critter to eat.  We rocked out all the way home where, an hour and a half later, we arrived home dusty, dirty, slightly scratched up and tired, but happy as can be.

The Mall?  Pffit, please.  What's the mall and the city compared to a giant rock in the middle of dry land where you get covered in dust and there's a chance you'll be bit by a rattlesnake with  no immediate access to medical help?  Up there on that rock you sit all day and not see or hear from another soul.  Just you, yourself, and Mother Nature.  It's dry, barren, and beautiful.

I'll take the rocks and the reptiles, thanks.

Em