I'll Have a Bluuuuuue Schist Christmas, Without You!

 Blue Schist is a rare beauty made from volcanic basalt. This patch at Edgewood, metamorphosed at high pressure and low temperature from deeply subducted oceanic crust.

   

California Christmas Berry (Toyon)

Please Click on the Illustration Above

To Enjoy the Full Beauty of

Heteromeles arbutifolia

California Toyon Berries

European settlers were pleased to find a familiar plant from back home, when they saw these beautiful red berries and jagged leaves all over the hills of their young settlement in Southern California. I mean, come on, everybody knows holly when they see it!

And so.... that's why the California film industry didn't take off in the community of Toyonwood.

CA Coast Range: Smack Dab in the Middle

Every time I come out of class at Cañada College,
 I get to see this marvelous view of the CA Coast Range.

Chock full of blu schist, serpentinite, and chert rocks these mountains are part of an accretionary wedge of the same ancient volcanic arc from which the Sierra Nevada batholith formed.

Go ahead and click on the illustration above
for a lovely  up close and personal view of
The CA coast range from Cañada College

Sinuous Los Trancos Creek

Click on the illustration above
for an up close and personal view
of Los Trancos Creek

The trail up Windy Hill has more than it's share of moments.

Fungus Amongus: The Pink Ones Are Toxic

Hiking Windy Hill 

Click on the toxic princess above

to really enjoy the details

But don't touch, 

if you run into  her on a post-rain hike

As was hoped for, we got a bit of those storms the Oregonians were so kind as to send down our way. Two guesses as to what quick crop the rain brings out in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

I chatted with a mushroom gathering fella close to the end of my hike at Windy Hill Open Space Preserve today. You aren't actually supposed to gather mushrooms in the Open Space, but what do you say? My husband saw another couple at the top of the hill with collecting bags as well. Hopefully enough people are concerned about the possibility of eating the wrong 'shroom that the area doesn't get stripped of it's fungus-bearing potential.

This man was gathering mushrooms under an oak tree. I asked him about this pink beauty I'd snapped on my camera phone further up the hill. He knew just the spot she grew.

"Oh those are very toxic," he said in an English thick with a mellifluous some-kinda-European accent I couldn't place. "They are so toxic that if you even touch them with your fingers, the toxins will enter your bloodstream and .... " he made a vague gesture as to where I might now be, had I had the nerve to perhaps prop up this little pink-topped native plant to enhance her photographic possibilities. The location of his casual gesture was somewhere down the side of the trail in a rather steep ravine.

Don't eat the pink ones.

Fairy Houses

Click on the image above
For a close-up view of the lands where the Fairy Folk Dwell

Fairy housing beats ours hands down. The fay folk are the green construction originals when it comes to environmentally 

conscientious

 developments.

• Pefectly permeable pavement - no challenge to the aquifer!
• Edible totally organic roofs and walls reduce the cost of transporting food to the home
• High-efficiency, non-fueled solar lighting
• Totally compostable buildings lead to no-waste, no environmental impact

Hawks Ahead - Hiking Edgewood

My Kind of Study Break

A Red-Tail Hawk, I think.

Using my low-level cell phone camera, and was I glad I had it.

I'd been focusing on learning about what triggers mass wasting. She's was focusing on finding supper.  I think she missed out on her opportunity, as I came around the corner feet away from her in the grass, wrestling with something small and ground-dwelling.


What a reward for studious effort.

Edgewood Shale Once an Ocean?

Edgewood Shale, The ultimate in Time Travel
Ancient Muds Tells Us Still Waters Once Lay Deep Here

California Summertime

Summer time is dry
Baking Edgewood wildflowers
Deep below seeds wait

Friends of Fennel

Please click on the illustration above

to fully enjoy this postcard

I always feel a little guilty when I enjoy this invasive survivor. Fennel is certainly no friend to boosters of the California Native Plant Society, but it's still a gorgeous invader in the scruffier parts of town.

By the Waterfall: Late Blooming Honeysuckle

There are a few stray blooms of honeysuckle blooming in latish June near the waterfall on the Sylvan Trail in Edgewood Park. This is one of my favorite spots for a bit of time travel. You just couldn't find a better time portal than a shady glen like this.

 It's the spot where I took a short trip back to visit with an Ohlone Rumsen family group last fall.

Remember? Here's the story

        - Indian Summer at Edgewood (No. 1) Creekside 

        - Indian Summer at Edgewood (No 2) : Oak Apples

       - Indian Summer at Edgewood (No. 3): Rose Hips

(Co-Published with ...

The Simple Romantic Travels Through Time )

Mariposa: The Time Travellin' Spud

(Co-Published with The Simple Romantic) 

Click on my Jolly Mariposa Lily Illustration Above to Get Up Close and Personal 

With This Native Darling

Mariposa, as I bet you know, is the Spanish word for "butterfly". That was what this beauty's petals, apparently, made some early botanist thing about when they first saw this late spring/early summer flower.

On my morning study break, I took a time travel jaunt back to the middle of the 18'th century. There I found that the native Lamishan (an Ohlone people) think it's equally fanciable as a taste treat.  The group I met up with were digging up the bulbs of this (as we'll as some of the  other local Calochortus). One of the women told me that her cousins up valley usually boil or roast them. Her folks, however, like them fried. The results looked, and tasted, much like what  I do with a friendly spud.

Hillside Gooseberry Setting Fruit (Hiking Edgewood)

Click on the illustration below for the full fruity details

Lizards 'n Lyme (Hiking Edgewood)

(Click on the illustration below to get up close and personal with this Californian's favorite lizard)

As an Edgewood docent I ask others, "Why do you think it's important to preserve nature, beyond beauty, mystery and all that other sensory, emotional stuff?". Of course the answers vary. I've been tempted to go off on my own ideas about increasing bee-hive health with a diverse plant offering, versus the monoculture imposed by modern agricultural methods, but that's another blog posting all together.

Turns out that the Western Fence Lizards that have been scampering around under my feet like crazy lately (I think it might just be high-hormone mating season for Sceloporus occidentals) is Ma Nature's way of curing Lyme disease. Am I the last to learn this?

Apparently in California, where these lizards abound, the deer ticks that transmit Lyme disease bacteria loose their Lyme-oomph when they bite the lizards. This article from the CA Academy of Sciences explains it all. I've been told, but cannot find a reference on the web, that the result is, that only about 1-2% of deer tick bites where Western Fence Lizards roam produce Lyme disease in humans, versus the over 80% in other parts of the country. Don't quote me on that, however, since I can't find a source for you.

Wikipedia also has an article about this Lyme-disease link.

An Edgewood Promise

California Once Upon a Time: Purple Needlegrass

Planning a little time travel jaunt, back to the days when bunch grasses like this grew all over California......

 Click on the illustration below for maximum viewing pleasure

Once upon a time the California bunch grasses, like this purple needle grass, flourished along with masses of spring wildflowers. With the invasion of Europeans and European grasses in the mid-eighteenth century most of our grasses and wildflower meadows began to look like some other continent.

This purple needle grass continues to grow in Edgewood Preserve, because it grows on serpentine soil (1% of California has serpentine soil, 10% of the entire planet) and also because of determined Weed Warriors and local research scientists who work in the park to eliminate invasive plants and improve the habitat for native wildflowers and grasses.

Yerba Santa- Holy Herb in Bloom

The Holy Herb, Yerba Santa, is bloomin' at the Edgewood Preserve

Click on the illustration above for a glorious in-depth view.

California Dreamin' Poppies and Red Maids at Edgewood Park

My top priority is hiking Edgewood Park as often as possible. 

My second priority is homework. 

Today it was CA poppies and Red Maids putting on a show.

Nature, The Original Greengrocer: Edgewood Current

To Fully Enjoy Natures Produce

...................Click on the Illustration Above 

Hawks Ahead (Marsh Hawk/Northern Harrier Hawk)

Click on the illustration to get up close and personal with this lovely   hawk.


I saw this gorgeous fellow, and his mate, yesterday at Edgewood Park. These days they are commonly referred to as Northern Harrier Hawks, but since I first saw Circus cyaneus at the Palo Alto Baylands, I prefer the good old fashioned sobriquet of Marsh Hawk.

Nature's Mardi Gras OR You won't catch me K'Vetching!

Click on the illustration above to start celebratin' a little natural Mardi Gras spirit on the Clarkia Trail at Edgewood Park, San Mateo County, California in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Leapus Forward- Jumpin' Jackrabbit Style

Click on the illustration above, to put a little Spring into your step

I knew this giant jackrabbit heading down the Edgewood Park trail in my direction today was trying to tell me something.

Turns out this coming Sunday marks our daylight savings changeover. Yup it's time to leap forward an hour. I don't think this particular Lepus californicus has any health concerns when it comes to springing forward, though many people do. According to this article early alarms puts the population at a greater risk of heart attack.

"Lepus", no kidding. This gigantic fella was leapus-ing to beat the band. 

Bloomin' Madness, Western Style

å

Click on the illustration above, for the full rich madness of 

blooming Western Leatherwood.

My perfect study break is heading over to Edgewood Park between classes.

I've been watching and waiting for these Leatherwood buds to burst out into their blooming' heyday.

Their time was brief, but lovely. I know what trail I'll be hiking next year, waiting for a little more of my kind of March Madness.

Foetid Adder's Tongue: If I was a fly...

Click on the Pulgas Ridge Foetid Adder's Tongue illustration above

For a fly's eye view 

If I was a fly
I'd think I had died,
And was on my way to heaven


'Cause what could smell more delicious to me, 
 as I'm sensing along with my micro antennae,
then the rotting aroma of Scoliopus bigelovii?


Though they say I resemble a serpent's tongue, 
That's not what brings the fellas on,
My lovely putriferous odor's the charm. 

I'm Willowin': Spring Comes Early at Edgewood

Click on the illustration above to enjoy some willow'ing nature

Gooseberry in Bloom, Edgewood (Natural Valentine)

Click on the illustration above for more glorious detail

Taking My Bloomin' Time (Natural Valentine)

Click on the illustration above for the full valentine'y effect

Bloomin' By the Bay

Click on the illustration above to enter bloom time

I know we're not supposed to brag about the weather.

But the California Bay Laurel is in bloom. Hard not to feel a little spring in the path under my feet.

Found this blooming' baby on Sawyer Camp Trail, along the Crystal Springs Reservoir.

Just A Little Deeper My Dear: Land of the Hemi-Parasite

Click on the illustration above to head deeper into the woods

Pedicularis densiflora, a particularly attractive member of the Scrophulariaceae family and commonly known hereabouts as "Indian Warrior",  is getting an early start on spring by taking advantage of a nearby Coast Live Oak, in that way that hemi-parasites have. 


I spotted this particular sweetie at my favorite hangout, Edgewood Park in San Mateo County.

Olive Another My Dear

It turns out that the public community 
Cañada College, where I take career retooling classes, was built on the site of an old olive ranch. Ain't that just so terribly historical California like? 

And it also turns out that Cañada is about a mile and a half away from Edgewood Nature Preserve, the perfect place for a study break hike!

Redwood Time

Ancient Redwoods sure put regular fussing in it's place.


How big a deal is anything going to seem to them, living as long as they do?

Checker Mallow

I'm taking the California Native Plants class this semester along with two tough programming classes. Next week I also start docent training at Edgewood County Park, where I photographed this Checker Mallow, to become a wildflower docent.

Once more let's shout Hooray! for the people who came before us and set aside green spaces in urban areas.