While watching these birds I have been listening to a beautiful album out of Turkey, heartbroken over the election outcome last Sunday. I will never understand why women – a solid block of traditionally religious women helped Erdogan’s victory – vote against their self interest and for a society that oppresses them (and any dissenter) in nefarious ways. I will never understand why the left manages to eat its own rather than to unite (or unite too late) against a common foe.
My thoughts have been occupied with the fate of certain vultures (real ones), so it is not surprising that the term came to mind when I read about the latest Supreme Court Decision today siding with (or acting as) proverbial ones, allowing developers and land owners to build and pollute in previously protected wetlands. Overall, the Sackett vs EPA decision gutted the Clean Water Act, a key 50-year-old piece of legislation to prevent pollution seeping into rivers, streams and lakes. The ruling undermines the EPA’s authority (a long term goal of those fighting the “administrative state”) and was disastrous enough that even justice Kavanaugh dissented. This comes of course on the heels of another ruling last year which curtailed the EPA’s ability to regulate planet-heating gases from the energy sector. Any hope to force industries to minimally fight climate change was scuttled.
Of course I was looking at a vulture, when vulture thoughts emerged – the original thoughts not much happier than the ones following the SC news. As it turns out, some 90% of India’s population of vultures was wiped out across the last two decades. These birds play an enormous role in the health of that continent, because they devour rotten carcasses that otherwise spread disease to human populations. In fact, they were a means of picking corpses clean, human corpses who can’t be cremated or buried according to Zoroastrian religion. “Zoroastrians put their dead on top of a structure called The Tower of Silence where vultures devour the body in a matter of hours. It’s clean, efficient, eco-friendly. It’s how it’s been for thousands of years.” (I learned all this here.)
Scientists have been sleuthing for years and finally figured it out: the vultures died from kidney failure! But what caused that in all of these birds? Here’s the short version: it’s not a virus, bacteria or fungi, it not’s malnutrition or environmental toxins. It is the unintended consequence of human caring about – cows. They are holy to Hindus, and when they get old and suffer arthritic pain, they are given pain killers, the drug Diclofenac in particular. It’s in a class of drugs called NSAIDs, Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs. That includes, you know, drugs like Advil, Motrin, Aleve, ibuprofen (which are of course also injuring kidneys in humans, if not taken appropriately.) The vultures eat the medicated cows’ carcasses, taking the drug in that way and it absolutely destroys their organs.
Here is the good news: once scientists had established the connection, the drug was abandoned across Asia (and replaced with other pain killers for cows,) and the vulture populations are slowly recovering. Emphasis on s l o w l y: they have only one offspring per year….
The vulture I saw was likely waiting to get a taste of Heuer, not all unlikely given the company I found myself in. Then again, it might have been rabbit for lunch.
I was walking for the first time this year on the Oak Island loop on Sauvie Island, which ended up not being a loop after all, since a quarter of it was completely submerged in water, forcing me to turn back the way I had come.
But the views were restorative, as always, birds happily courting or feeding their young.
A bald eagle hanging out, let me come surprisingly close while looking me straight in the eye from a position on the ground, no less; I later saw him flying away, maybe the starlings had gotten on his nerve.
Ospreys coming and going from their nest.
Almost enough joy to forget about black robed judges potentially bought by special interests, now delivering the spoils, environmental protection be damned. I better go find some more birds….
Quail on the run.
Time to re-up one of my go-to spring albums, Simmerdim.
I came across Oliver’s poem yesterday, and it spoke to me.
I was privileged in the sense that I was early on instructed by my mother to attend to the less obvious specimens in the floral world around us – just like the poet points to the weeds or small stones, anything but the showstoppers.
Blue Flax – the plant linen is made from.
So much beauty to be found in the borders of the garden, rather than the central beds. (Well, at least in this magical garden created by a true master gardener who is always willing to experiment. Today’s blog is dedicated to you, R.C.!) So many more opportunities for pollinators, too. And that’s before we even get to the wild flowers…
Baby Blue Eyes
Lobelia
Dame’s Rocket
Even the shade of blues in spring is softer, lighter, and there is purple with a hint of pink at times. Summer, of course, gives way to the heavy saturated blues of delphiniums and salvias, but we’ll get to that in time.
Allium
Scabious (Knautia)
Wild Geranium
I have always thought of prayers that give thanks as psychological tools to focus attention( even before I read the poem,) be it to a situation or a feeling, a means of making aware, reminding oneself of the grace that surrounds us at a particular moment.
Desert Bluebell
Not that I expect (or hope for) another voice to make itself known. Acknowledging the beauty or kindness of the world around me is enough. It restores balance for all the fear I’m usually tuned into. It also points to the importance to help the world stay that way, to protect fragility. Acknowledgement, then, paving the path to action.
Borage
The climbers opt for more substantial flower heads, like the wisteria below, about to unfold,
and the clematis.
These photographs, with one exception, were taken on a single day last week. Wherever you look: reason to give thanks for evolutionary pressures to create what we consider beauty. Awareness that there is not just misery in the world. Reminders that we have to act to keep it that way, before the world becomes a hothouse. You might be partial to orchids. But the delicate, porcelain blues I cherish wouldn’t survive that.
Music today is Mozart’s ode to the violet… (below, strictly, are violas.)
You’ve probably walked by these plants during most of the year without noticing if you’ve hiked in Tryon Creek Park, or coastal areas or really anywhere in the Western United States where boggy hollows or streams can be found. Lysichiton americanus, commonly known as skunk cabbage, extends from Cook Inlet, Alaska, south through British Colombia and the Pacific Northwest states to Santa Cruz county, California, with isolated populations in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. It is part of the Arum plant family that also includes Calla lilies and Jack-in-the-Pulpit, found naturally in similar habitats.
Maybe the humongous size of the leaves caught your attention now and then – they grow to 3 feet long and 32 inches wide and are the largest of any native plant in the region. They grow from a rhizome that can reach over 12 inches long, and any individual plant can grow for some 20 years, with rhizomes believed to last for perhaps centuries, with seeds produced after the plant is 5 years old.
In February, however, you will be alerted to these plants by eyes and nose: they do smell faintly like a skunk and they have a crayon-yellow cape, called a spathe, surrounding their spadix, indeed looking like a little lantern, as suggested by nature writer Ruth Foster, from whom I learned much about today’s topic.
Turns out, they are botanical geniuses, if you will. They can produce heat, and the yellow spathe is shaped in a way that has the air inside circling around in a manner that maintains an even temperature, a warmth that attracts pollinating bugs and bees who come to warm up. Moreover that heat vaporizes the foul odor from all those tiny flowers on the fleshy center spike into the air, calling to insects with the false promise of dead animal for lunch (microbial decay rising the temperature of a carcass and it stinks!) On top of it all, different temperatures create different odors, in turn a magnet for different kinds of pollinators, giving these plants a large evolutionary advantage in early spring.
When I looked at them last week, the bloom was long over, with just a straggler or two providing a model. But the visuals were amazing none the less, with the waxy surface of the leaves reflecting light, and the interplay of back-lit appearance and shadows delighting the photographer.
It is important to remember that they are highly toxic, though, to humans and small mammals. Deer and bears seem to be able to tolerate the leaves, high in protein which they need after the winter season. But even a small taste for us would burn our mouth and cause laryngeal swelling that can lead to choking. The leaves and stems contain needle-like crystals of calcium oxalate that puncture mucous membranes like fire. (The name Arum for that plant family comes from the arabic word for fire – ar – appropriately.)
Early first-Nation people knew about this. They learned that roasting the roots of the plant, or cooking it with numerous changes of the boiling water, would make it safe as emergency food. The waxy leaves were used to wrap other cooked foods with no negative effects, or folded into cones for drinking cups. Boiled juice from the roots was also used as medicine for bad colds. The knowledge was included into the stories told from generation to generation.
“There’s an aboriginal legend about the origin of the flowering part of this plant. Long ago there were no Salmon. The People ate Skunk Cabbage leaves and roots. Finally, the Salmon came up the river and Skunk Cabbage, in human form, stood up and alerted the People to their arrival. In return, Skunk Cabbage was given an elk-skin blanket and a war club.”
From the Oregon encyclopedia:
On the lower Columbia and Willamette Rivers, the Kathlamet and Clackamas peoples had stories about skunk cabbage as an important food that kept people alive before the salmon first came to the rivers. In the Coosan Trickster cycle stories, the first Trickster learned how to cook skunk cabbage. He tried to eat it raw but spit it out. Then he put the root in hot ashes to cook. When it smelled sweet, he took it out. It tasted fine now, and so he said that is how human beings will cook it when they come into the world. Then he cut the root into many pieces and one at a time picked up a piece and put it down, each time saying, “Give this to your…” and naming a different kin name (mother, father, grandfather, and so on). In that way, he named familial relationships for the human beings to come in the world. (Ref.)
Note how multiple teachings are handed down in parallel: safety of food preparation as well as the learning of kinship structure, all wrapped in stories.
I tried to enjoy the beauty of the sight without giving in to pessimism: so much of global wetlands, marshes and bogs are of course endangered through climate change. If they are increasingly arid because of droughts, or if they are flooded by atmospheric river storms once too often, the conditions for skunk cabbage (as the rest of the indigenous flora) will be dire. Alas, I did not completely succeed in warding off catastrophic thinking. What else is new….
Clouds on the horizon, indeed. Here by Debussy, transcribed for 2 pianos…. Nuages.
Any fan of succulents and cacti will have a field day when visiting Pasadena’s Huntington Gardens. Or they might just walk through the many neighborhoods of L.A., where landscaping with those plants, uniquely able to tolerate drought conditions, can be found anywhere.
Here are some distinctions (I learned this from the Planet Desert website.) “Cacti are identified from their needle-like spines.
They have fleshy stems that store water and are capable of performing photosynthesis. A succulent plant, on the other hand, holds water and nutrients in its fleshy leaves. Most cactus plants do not have leaves but some of them do.
Both succulents and cacti bloom. However, the flowers of cactus plants are brighter, larger in size, and have complex structures as compared to flowers of succulents. Although both succulents and cacti flower, only cactus plants can grow fruits. The most commonly known cactus fruits are dragon fruit and prickly pear fruit.”
Green blossoms – find the bee!
Mathematicians and physicists have been fascinated by the plants. Authors Arthur Gibson and Park Nobel offered an excellent introduction to the geometry of the plants in a classic research summation, the Cactus Primer.The plants are masters of the helix (Fibonacci series) and other complicated mathematical sequences and equations.
Artists have long reveled in both the general appearance or the specific details of cacti.
Traditional landscape painters like José María Velasco preserved the beauty of cacti vistas already in 1877.
Detail of José María Velasco, The Valley of Mexico (Valle de México), 1877, oil on canvas, 160.5 x 229.7 cm (Museo Nacional de Arte, INBA, Mexico City), photo: Steven Zucker, CC: BY-NC-SA 2.0
There are classics, like Diego Riviera’s landscapes with cacti.
O’Keefe’s Yellow Cactus from 1935:
and Frida Kahlo in a more narrative painting from 1949.
Or even earlier, from far away Germany, someone who could have been my Opa:
Spitzweg, Carl (1808-1885) – 1856c. The Cactus Friend
Contemporary giant of the hyperrealistic painting, Lee Kwan-ho, is dedicated to the plant as well. Check out that site – his work is amazing.
Janny Baek creates ceramics that remind of cacti, some otherworldly forms that are glorious.
LA-based industrial designer Nobel Truong createsf acrylic plant objects including translucent cacti.
Bakers aren’t far behind. Leslie Vigil, merging her love of succulents and baking, uses buttercream to decorate cupcakes and cakes with collections of aloe, cacti, and echeveria.
And of course there are photographers. Here is an early one by Evelyn A. Pitshke, Cacti under Window, 1930 from the Smithsonian Collection.
Marcus Wendt is top of the heap when it comes to suprachromachy, shooting macro images of plants with infrared photography.
And then, for people like me, who manage to kill even cacti and succulents as houseplants, there is this alternative:
“Swiss/Danish art duo PUTPUT creates conceptual still life photography and sculptures, infusing humor into their minimal works. In their 2015 project Fruitless, the Copenhagen-based pair turned a greenhouse on-site at Lust and the Apple Gallery in Temple, Scotland into a florescent green paradise. The two artists subbed cacti and other succulents for everyday plastic objects found around the house, instead “planting” gloves, combs, and plastic cups in real terra cotta pots.“
All this as an entry to what this garden variety cactophilic photographer captured.
Some look like creature from water world, urchins, or sea cucumbers or some such.
Some look like brains.
Some are fuzzy, others not.
Lots of red to torch pollinators:
And of course the birds…
Music today made by cacti – quite literally; and a composition about the desert by John Luther Adams. Stick some cacti in there!
There is a size and intensity to many things California that I am only slowly comprehending from a distance. L.A. County itself is, of course, vast. Traffic exceptional. The weather is potent, not just considering droughts, or atmospheric rivers, but the changes even within a day, where you would freeze in the morning and wilt in the afternoon. Winds are blasting, coming down from the mountains, and air quality can shift from o.k. to horrendous in the time it takes to take a breath or two.
The flora is qualitatively and quantitatively massive as well. Tropical plants are not just lush but equipped either with humongous leaves, or millions of feathery branches to adapt to climate necessities. Blossoms are showy, fruit prodigious, and geometric configurations unusual –
and that is before I even report on cacti, which we will save for another day, since they were among the most interesting things I saw.
Plenty of occasion to observe all this if you visit the Los Angeles Arboretum, an old, established garden that is divided into sub zones comprised of different geographic regions.
It is a pleasant space, with lots of color, and some remarkable specimens of old growth trees,
spacious lawns, water features,
and orchid collections.
Lots of mothers or nannies with strollers promenaded about, and it dawned on me that most of the paths were asphalted and easy to navigate, no pushing through pebbles or sand required.
An added attraction, for kids and adults alike, were the peacocks – again, in colossal numbers rather than an isolated specimen or two. They did not hesitate to show off – quite a display.
Until they have had enough of you…
The fluff from the silk floss tree matched the birds’ backside…
Somehow back home everything seems to be more small scale, fit for humans, rather than giants. Everything, that is, but the buttercups. I swear they will have covered yard and house and everything else in their path one of these mornings when I wake up. Just like sleeping beauty’s castle was covered in roses – except no prince to the rescue. I will have to go weed all by myself….
Music today is some Brazilian lushness, with one of my all time favorites, Egbert Gismonti.
When you have been gone for two months the re-entry into everyday life is both wonderful and overwhelming. Being home feels like you belong, a place at once familiar and safe, a comfortable bed to fall into to shake the travel fatigue.
It also clammers for attention to deal with neglected chores – at this time of the year the yard is a sea of weeds, overgrown meadow, last year’s leaves, decks covered with mossy slime. So much to tackle, never mind that a thorough spring cleaning of the house, usually done before Passover, also gave way to more pleasant times spent with a young family, who I now miss deeply. Oh well – all this to explain that I will provide some last photographic narratives of the trip without much content depth this week before we resume the familiar rhythm of the blog next week.
The trip North began along the Pacific coast with an overnight in Cambria, CA, a small town close to a beach that is renowned for elephant seal colonies. Seeing hundreds of them spread out along stretches of rocks and sand is pretty awe inspiring. All the more so when you learn that these humongous creatures are all female and pups – at this time of year the males, larger still, are on their migration routes, as are the juveniles. Northern elephant seals spend about 9 months of the year in the ocean. Most of this time is underwater, diving to depths of about 1,000 to 2,500 feet for 20 to 30 minute intervals with only short breaks at the surface.
It is a clever system of stacked returns – two months for birthing and nursing, another stint for molting for the females, then separate beachings for the males and/or juveniles because there is simply not enough acreage to accommodate them all at once.
While on the beach they do not drink or eat, for months at a time. They do molt, though, which gives them this sickly looking appearance, but is actually a healthy thing. The renewal of a whole skin and short hair layer helps them to get rid of wounds and scars as well as UV light damaged tissue, making for a smoother surface that supports fast swimming.
On land these creatures are gregarious, happy to socialize or spar for practice. Given that there were no males we were spared the view of bloody fighting over mating issues which seems to be habitual and reportedly gory.
The pups are black until they are weaned at 6 weeks, then molt to a shiny silver.
It is close to a miracle that they are still around. In 1884 the subspecies was declared extinct, as so many were hunted for their blubber. But a tiny population of northern elephant seals was rediscovered near Mexico in 1892, a tiny population of northern elephant seals was rediscovered near Mexico, and from those the population bounced back. The animals were protected by law in America and Mexico in the early twentieth century, and now the population numbers 150,000. (Ref.) They have one of the longest migrations of any mammal; some have been recorded traveling over 13,000 miles roundtrip. dangers abound – if they get entangled in fishing gear so they can’t surface for breathing, they are toast.
If they drag the nets for a long time, they get too fatigued to be reproductively successful. An increasing danger, next to noise and plastic pollution, comes from more frequent accidents with ships. The increase in vessel traffic arising from the opening of trans-polar shipping routes (as arctic sea ice continues to decline) is increasing the risk of vessel strikes.
The ones on the beach seemed to be thoroughly in the moment, lazing in the late afternoon sun,
occasionally flipping sand over their bodies (science is speculative: might be used to protect against sun damage,) or taking a short dive.
Walk with me during this spring that has had enough rain to bring forth an abundance of wildflowers.
You’ve probably seen articles with professional pictures on this in the NYT and other media, including reports on some California communities limiting access to their natural wonders, for good reasons. People flock to the bloom and trample it in search for the perfect photo, destroying wildflower and wildlife habitat in due course. Yours’ truly no exception.
Lots of fiddlenecks. This year’s extra water has spurred growth of brome grasses and fiddlenecks, which can block out the light for the poppies.
To get to the reserve and adjacent private fields you drive through the San Gabriel Mountains if you start out from Altadena. For me, the bloom on those hills was equally if not more spectacular than the poppies, because less saturated blossoms still color the landscape. At the foothills there are patches of goldfields,
Whole swaths of mustard,
and unknown blue flowers, next to patches of lupines.
For me the most heart stopping view of the entire day was the emergence, once out of the clouds hanging over the top of the San Gabriels, of whole mountain sides covered in blooming blue ceanothus. There is a fairy tale quality to the silver sheen of the light against those blue blossoms, a softness that contrasts with the hard rocks of the canyons. Captured only through the car windows, with an iPhone since my camera, in typically timely fashion, had given up its ghost (as the last repair man had warned me – time for a replacement.)
Earlier the aromatic white ceanothus blossoms cover hillsides, sometimes called “mountain snow.” Native Americans used the blue ceanothus that is on view now, as digging tools and the harder wood as wedges to split logs for canoe planks and awls. Come closer, and you’ll detect a faint lilac smell that is suffusing the air. I was in awe. And didn’t think about politics for a whole day. Nature scored again.
Since it’s been a while, we’ll do two hikes instead of one today. Walk with me, if you are willing to brave potential flash floods or almost guaranteed heat stroke, if the warning signs of the CA governmental LA county parks website are to be trusted. We’ll do Altadena’s Eaton Canyon in the morning, and El Prieto in the afternoon. Bonus appearance by some daily wildlife sightings hopefully satisfies readers’ yearning for the obligatory nature shots…
Eaton Canyon is easily accessible, has plenty of amenities for picnic gatherings and the like at the park’s entrance and a parking lot that is so overcrowded on the weekends that everyone recommends to hike only during the week. Follow that recommendation and you’ll be rewarded by beautiful landscapes, including oak groves, a (currently) flowing stream, cacti oases, wildflowers and eventually chaparral dotted hills.
These hills are now green – a very unusual sight, I am told, related to the torrential rains coming down across the last months. The river that you have to cross to get to a longer portion of the trail could not be forded when I visited, unless willing to hop barefoot across slippery boulders and shores. I erred on the side of caution, and still had a nice walk on the southern side of the stream.
Here, and in so many other locations, birds and lizards can be found if you approach quietly.
***
An equally, if differently, beautiful walk yielded some fascinating history ( I learned much of it here.) Altadena’s “El Prieto” (meaning “the dark man”) was also known as Black Mountain for its resident, Robert Owens who had bought his own freedom from slavery and came to the free state in the early 1850s. According to the census, there were only 12 African Americans in Los Angeles at the time. Someone (eventually) more famous settled on this mountain in the late 1800s, Owen Brown, son of John Brown – yes, that John Brown – a white man whose attempt in 1859 to spark a slave rebellion at the Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia arsenal resulted in his hanging for the crime of inciting violent rejection of slavery.
Owen, the only Brown son to survive participation in the Harper’s Ferry raid, was a fugitive for 2 decades before he made it out West, where his sister had settled in Pasadena. He homesteaded on the mountain, now dedicated to his father’s name and legacy, and was buried on a plot of land that was part of the homestead, in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains, after more than 2000 people, both black and white, had paid their respects during the funeral to this staunch believer in racial equality.
Photograph from the Altadena Historical Society/
His grave site in the Altadena Meadows attracted 1000s of visitors across the years, contemplating what the concrete headstone stood for. It read, “Owen Brown son of John Brown The Liberator, Died Jan. 9, 1889, Aged 64 yrs.”
Not everyone shared the admiration, however. Private landowners hated the intrusion and tried to keep people out with No Trespassing signs, eventually losing law suits to prohibit access. Early attempts to make the site a historical monument failed as well.
The gravestone went “missing,” twice as it turns out, rolled down the ravine by vandals or opponents of the preservation society. By sheer coincidence it was found the second time around, having been missing for a decade, during a 2012 hike by artist Ian White, son of Charles White, the Los Angeles painter who had only painted two portraits of White men, Abraham Lincoln and John Brown, among his vast portraiture oeuvre.
Shown at the Charles White Elementary School, L.A.
Things have improved since then. An (independent) dispute over land rights and zoning issues for a near-by gated community of pricey homes produced unlikely allies. The developer has become a supporter of the preservation efforts, helping the community to protect the grave and access to it, getting some of his needs filled in turn. All agree that no visitor center will ever be build for the grave site or parking provided for busloads of people. You have to find neighborhood parking and hike up, which will only happen if you are really determined. The historians involved in the process, USC historian Bill Deverell and Michelle Zack are “...planning to help develop curriculum and train teachers to integrate Brown’s story into the Civil War, its aftermath and westward expansion. Charles Thomas of Outward Bound Adventure plans to develop a lesson that includes discussion of slavery and the black wilderness experience, according to the project proposal.” (Ref.)
I was hot when hiking the short but steep trail uphill. Blooming Ceanothus dotted the hills with blue clouds, the sweet smell of wild sage suffused the air. The grave marker is re-installed, and someone had spread wildflower seeds. The view over the valley was unobstructed by clouds or smog, just beautiful. You could do worse for resting places! Well deserved by a man true to justice. May his memory be a blessing.
***
Music today by Pete Seeger, appropriate for the grave site of an abolitionist.
On a day sunny last week, my son took me to a beach, El Pescador, near Malibu, where he occasionally fishes.
A beautiful spot, with the tide still out, allowing me to explore the rocks and tide pools and all that they house. Every new bird set off a quick heartbeat, from cormorants, to king fisher to whimbrels.
A beach where benevolent pirates decided to make it easy for you to find treasure… DIG HERE!
I was particularly taken by the range of colors, not those of the sea as in Mary Oliver’s poem, but those of the rocks, fauna and flora surrounding me.
Reds, greens, yellows, ochres, turquoise, purple, oranges, grey and blues filled the eyes if you looked closely. Lots of pictures, then, and few words – treading with light feet and a full heart in view of nature, once again.
Tides
Every day the sea
blue gray green lavender pulls away leaving the harbor’s dark-cobbled undercoat
slick and rutted and worm-riddled, the gulls walk there among old whalebones, the white spines of fish blink from the strandy stew as the hours tick over; and then
far out the faint, sheer line turns, rustling over the slack, the outer bars, over the green-furred flats, over the clam beds, slippery logs,
barnacle-studded stones, dragging the shining sheets forward, deepening, pushing, wreathing together wave and seaweed, their piled curvatures
spilling over themselves, lapping blue gray green lavender, never resting, not ever but fashioning shore, continent, everything.
And here you may find me on almost any morning walking along the shore so light-footed so casual.
By Mary Oliver,
From A Thousand Mornings, 2012
The stone formations and differing colors never cease to amaze.
Here is a musical offering to the oceans from around the world.
