The Mountains Were Calling

So naturally, we had to go!*

Tom and I have always wanted to explore Lassen Volcanic National Park, so when I realized that both the kids would be home this summer and the house might start to seem a bit small with four adults knocking around, I took advantage of the long holiday weekend and booked the two of us a trip up north. We left Friday, driving up through Chico, then traveling across a butte and through Lassen National Forest to get over to Chester, a tiny town at the north tip of Lake Almanor. We stayed at a delightful inn called The Bidwell House, which was about a half hour south of the park entrance; our room came complete with a Japanese soaking tub, which was heaven for tired hiking feet.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start from the beginning.

You may not know that I totally fangirl over thru-hikers. I’ve never fulfilled my dream of going on a months-long hike - I’ve never known how to make that work, logistically - so I satisfy my adventure cravings by watching PCT/YouTubers every summer as they document their journey from the CA/Mexico border north to the WA/Canada border, a walk of 2,650 miles. When I saw that our drive would take us right through the PCT, I planned for us to stop and take our Friday hike there, giving me a little slice of what it’s like on the trail.

What I had completely forgotten was that starting July 13, 2021, and continuing for four long months into late October of 2021, the Dixie Fire (the largest single fire, not part of a complex, in California’s history, and the second largest overall) burned through nearly one million acres, across five counties (Butte, Plumas, Lassen, Shasta, and Tehama). As we drove west on highway 36, from Tehama into Plumas county and Lassen National Forest, our excited chatter turned to silence as views of lush green forest turned to blackened trunks and stumps. In our Bay Area privilege, we had totally blocked out the memory of red skies and falling ash last summer. Mile after mile we drove, heavy of heart, looking out into the destruction.

We parked the car at the turnout for the trailhead, tied on our hiking shoes, and silently started walking.

We walked quietly, without talking, except to greet passing hikers. We walked on the designated path through the burned trees. In some places, life was returning - manzanita, snowberry, and hardy grasses seemed to dominate - and along the one creek we crossed, there was a riot of wildflowers. But there was no birdsong, no butterflies, no insects. We reached a high point; as far as we could see, the forest was burned.

It was less a hike and more a prayer. We were deeply, deeply affected. How many times, in this blog, have I written about fire? How many times have I opened the Cal Fire website to be greeted with more statistics about yet another fire? How many times have I turned on the TV news and watched as a family walked back onto their property to find only soot and ash? This one hike made it all real for me. The Dixie Fire was a massive, massive event. Lassen Volcanic Park, we learned later, was 69% burned. The city of Chester, where we stayed, was mostly intact, with the lake nearby, but all around it? Burned. We were constantly faced with the real fact of the fire on our weekend; it was present every moment. And it didn’t end when we left on Monday, either - our trip was bookended by the sorrow of wildfire.

But before we get to that, let’s talk about the good stuff. Because, oh, there was some good stuff. Lassen is a magical place.

After that first sobering hike, we checked in at the hotel, took a soak to wash off the soot, and headed to Lake Almanor to find some dinner. Chester is a one-street town; there’s not a lot of dining or entertainment options available. We managed to find a serviceable dinner of sandwiches and salad at a golf-course grill next to the lake. Afterward, following our innkeeper’s directions (“just drive down the west side, and anywhere there isn’t a house, you can go down to the lake”), we found a rocky beach to explore. From there we could watch people boating and swimming, the cliff swallows catching a sunset meal, and view a snow-capped Mt. Lassen far in the distance, a possible hike for us during the coming weekend.

Saturday morning we drove past the tiny town of Mineral, where we saw a cowboy-hatted caballero leading a horse through a meadow to pasture (postcard perfect!), into the park proper. Immediately after paying the fee ($30 for a week’s access to the park; truly, the NPS is one of the best bargains of all time) we headed into the visitor’s center to talk to a ranger about conditions. This is the first thing we do in any park that is unfamiliar to us, and it is always fruitful. In this case, the ranger showed us a map of the park and explained how most of it was inaccessible due to last year’s fire. Many of the hikes I had planned for us to do were no longer an option. And it turned out that Mt. Lassen still had quite a bit of snow on it. The ranger said, in no uncertain terms, that unless we had experience hiking in snow, it would behoove us to skip it - they had airlifted two people off the mountain the day before in two separate helicopter rescues. Ok! No Mt. Lassen for us, then!

Noticing that a ranger-led talk was starting in ten minutes, we hightailed it up the road to the Sulphur Works, where we learned about the four types of volcanoes and that all four are present in Lassen Volcanic Park. We also saw a bunch of bubbling mud pits. That was way cool.

owlcation.com

The park is huge, so we decided to drive all the way through it and see everything from the road, first, and when we got to the northernmost end, we’d stop at Manzanita Lake and have a hike. We figured we’d have time afterward to stop at all the small, interpretive walks (such as the ‘devastated’ area, resulting from the 1915 eruption of Mt. Lassen) scattered along the road on the way back. But it turned out that the drive to and from Manzanita Lake took more than an hour each way, along a very curvy road with lots of congestion at the marked pull-outs, so we never did get to do all those little interpretive walks. However, we did get a wonderful hike on the backside foothills of Mt. Lassen, from Manzanita Lake up into the subalpine forest, through alpine meadows, past Chaos Crags to Manzanita Creek.

And the flowers, my goodness, the flowers. It’s like we went back in time three months, back to Spring. That was cool, but also these were flowers that I had only heard about or studied, never seen in person before. Alpine flowers! Hardy little souls, blooming in the leanest of soils, after a snowy, cold winter: scarlet gilia, longspur lupine, pine violet, Sierra penstemon… and the trees! Subalpine fir, Jeffrey pine, cedar, alder, and birch. These alpine meadows made me so happy, and I can’t even explain why. Maybe because, despite the state of the world, nature just digs in and survives, even in harsh conditions.

We spent a little time at Manzanita Lake, watching the families on vacation. Then, a long drive out of the park, a long soak in the tub, and off to a surprisingly good dinner on the peninsula in the middle of Lake Almanor. We made sure to get to bed early, since we needed plenty of rest before our biggest hike on Sunday.

Sunday’s hike: Brokeoff Mountain. A remnant of an andesitic stratovolcano within ancient Mount Tehama, part of the Cascade range of Northern California. Over the course of almost four miles, the trail to the top winds through open meadows, over creeks and tree blow-downs, through snow (often the trail is snowed in until August), through forests, then into scattered hemlocks, volcanic sand, and steep fields of volcanic scree, until you climb above the timberline and into the broken rock at the top, all while gaining an elevation of 2500 feet. For the last few months, I’ve been doing regular hikes that range between 8-10 miles with about 2200 feet of elevation, so I was confident that I could do this hike. Tom was skeptical; he works at a desk for a living, and most of his exercise consists of daily walks to and from the BART station, our weekend hikes being challenging enough, thank you. I might have heard him muttering things like “brokedown and brokeass,” however he was game - and by golly, I appreciate a man who is game.

Coffee slurped, drive to the park completed (today, the caballero was leading two haltered horses in an obvious training exercise through the misty meadow), we checked in with the rangers and got the go-ahead - there was very little snow on the trail and conditions were fine. There was nothing for it, then, but to tighten our laces, shoulder our hydration packs, strap on our poles, and get moving. I set a measured pace, resolving not to take pictures at all on the way up. This was difficult as every other step revealed some treasure; on this south-facing slope, the trail was simply overflowing with flowers.

And yes, we climbed over blow-downs. We forded a small valley lake/wide stream. We tramped through snow. We picked our way up steep volcanic slopes. We reached the craggy ledge just below the top and saw Mt. Shasta in the distance. We celebrated at the summit with a young couple from Berkeley and exclaimed over the views. Tom turned to me and said, “I’ve always thought people who climbed mountains were crazy, but now I think there’s something to it.” Frankly, it was one of the best moments of our marriage.

And then on the way down, I took picture after picture of the beautiful scenery. Mountain scenery. The kind of things I needed to store in my memory for the months at home hiking in the completely brown and dry hills near our house. The green trees, the colorful flowers, the mountain streams, the grand views.

But the very best thing happened at the very end of the hike, when we were only steps from the road. We stopped to talk to a hiker going up, and at some point I looked up the hill, and there was a bear. A black bear! Maybe 20, 25 feet off the trail, browsing through the greenery, munching away. A juvenile, probably - a young bear, but older than a cub - a teenaged bear! I could hardly believe my eyes.

Well, that made it a red-letter day for sure, and we rode that high for several hours afterward, through a pizza/salad dinner, and a dessert picnic on the bed in our pj’s.

Unfortunately, on Monday morning, we needed to head out of Chester before the neighborhood 5k fun-run and 4th of July parade began, so our journey home started early. We left the area with a promise to return (we still have more than half the park to explore!) and took off for home in a different direction, south towards Bucks Lake Wilderness, where we stopped for a hike around the lake to an inlet where we were able to dip our toes in the cold mountain water.

But our real reason for going home this direction was to drive through Berry Creek, north of Oroville, to see the aftermath of the 2020 North Complex Fire. Berry Creek was the home of our beloved Camp Okizu, a camp we have been attending as a family, and the kids on their own, for many years. Okizu is a camp for children with cancer and their families, and when Adam was diagnosed with leukemia at age 2, one of the first things our social worker shared with us was information about the camp. We went for the first time as a family when Adam was three (he was too sick that first year to attend). Thereafter, we attended family camp every year in the autumn. It was a wonderful time to share information and stories with other parents who had kids with cancer, and our children made lifelong friends at camp. When Adam was 7, he started attending for a week in the summer by himself. And the truly different and special thing about Okizu is that they run sibling camps, so Rin was able to start going by themselves at age 8 for a week every summer. So, three times a year, without fail, Tom and I made the drive up to Berry Creek; I would drop a kid off, he would go pick them up. Then the other kid a different week. Then all together as a family in the autumn. We LOVED it there. The kids with cancer could do anything anyone else did. There were doctors for those that needed medical assistance and golf carts for those with mobility issues. There was hiking, fishing in one lake, swimming and boating in another lake, a ropes course and zip line up the next hill, a campfire with s’mores and silly camp songs. The cabins were wonderful and the main lodge was the main meeting place, where we ate meals, played games, and made countless friendship bracelets. No devices were allowed. Hammocks and naps were encouraged. All of this was free to us and to every family that attended.

Okizu had many close calls with wildfire before, but in August of 2020, the North Complex fire ripped through the area north of Oroville and burned nearly 320,000 acres before being completely contained in December. Camp Okizu was totally destroyed.

We wanted to drive by, even though we knew we wouldn’t be able to go in and see the area where the camp had been. As we left Bucks Lake, and drove south towards Berry Creek, we got quieter and quieter. The scenery changed from verdant forest back to charred stumps. The North Complex fire was two years ago, so in contrast to the Dixie Fire area, the ground was beginning to recover with all kinds of bushy growth. That was good to see, but the scope of the damage was still overwhelming. The front gate of Okizu, once in the middle of dense forest, was now completely bare. Properties that had once contained houses were now empty except for a foundation, and often, a trailer. That, especially, gave me pause. After two years, families are still living in trailers. How can that be?

As if to add insult to injury, our drive out from camp took us past the Oroville Lake Reservoir, and the water level looked impossibly low. How strange, to be one day in territory where water is abundant and snow is still on the ground in July, and the next day in an area that is clearly drought stressed. The drought is never far from our minds at home, where water falling from the sky is an event limited to a month or two in winter; being at the reservoir underlined the need we feel for conservation of resources. Water management in California has a long and sordid history, and I’m not sure how we’re ever going to make it right again. Suffice it to say, between seeing the demise of Okizu with our own eyes, the results of two different enormous fires, and the low water level at Oroville, our hearts were heavy as we headed home from our vacation.

Luckily, a farmstand saved the mood. It may seem trite to say that peaches turned our world around, but the thought of peach pie for 4th of July dessert gave us a much-needed refresher, and when we saw the sign for fresh-picked fruit, you better believe we stopped to get some. The heavenly smell of ripe peaches, warm from the sun, accompanied us the rest of the way home.

A couple of final thoughts.

- We often desire to travel far from home, when something wonderful can exist just down the road. We’ve all been isolated at home for several years now, and a bit out of practice when it comes to leaving our comfort zone. A short trip to a location close to home can be the perfect bridge between that comfort zone and a more ambitious trip. I’m guessing that, no matter where we live, we all have regional, state, or national parks within a day’s drive of home. It’s worthwhile to get out and explore, even if it doesn’t seem exotic. A change of elevation, or microclimate, or even zip code, can be as refreshing and informative as a trip across the planet.

- While this trip was bookended by melancholy, and maybe that doesn’t seem like much of a vacation, the truth is that life is bittersweet. The older I get, the more I appreciate that true joy cannot be felt without a bit of sadness underneath. This is not depressing; on the contrary, it makes the joyful moments even sweeter. I am grateful to have a companion that is always up for an adventure, and likes to laugh, but also doesn’t shy away from the hard parts of life. Denial doesn’t enrich anyone, and it certainly doesn’t promote necessary change.

- Five years ago, I took one of my first classes at Merritt College with Stew Winchester, a true expert in native California plants and the communities in which they thrive. Stew would often share photos of the places he’d been and the flowers he’d seen, using slides and a vintage projector. He’d always ask, “Have any of you been to the Carrizo Plain? Antelope Valley? The Klamath River?” Most of us would shake our heads or dissent. Stew would look around with his eyebrows raised, and simply say, “You gotta go.” He was a firm believer in seeing these wonderful plants in their native environment, thriving in the perfect niche that nature had designed for them. I’ve never forgotten that. I’d like to think I’ve taken it to heart, and tried mightily to just “go,” to see, to learn, to experience, to feel. Being in Lassen checks another box for me, and encourages me to continue exploring. I hope you will, too.

*A famous quote by John Muir. “The mountains are calling, and I must go.”

East Coast Travel

We’ve been gone for the past two weeks, traveling on the East Coast. We rented a car and had ourselves a good long road trip (around 2000 miles!), visiting several states - NY, PA, MA, NH, CT - and also a bit of Canada! It is good to be home, though a little difficult to face the garden at the moment; there is so much to tackle and so much to preserve.

We started out in NYC, natch - the kids had never been there, and we spent a very brief time giving them the barest overview of this wonderful city. Unfortunately we were there during a serious heat wave. The temps were in the high 90’s, which by itself would be ok, but the humidity was simply awful, and it made traveling around the city (walking, subways) very difficult. I think the kids enjoyed it despite the heat, but I was having a hard time. I have very few pictures of our time there which tells you I was simply not as engaged as I would have liked to have been. However, we stayed in a tiny apartment on the Upper West Side, which was really ideally located - only a block to Central Park, two blocks to the train - and near to several wonderful restaurants. The very first night we were there we walked up Columbus Ave to Milk Bar, an outpost of Christina Tosi’s dessert stores (she started at Momofuko back in the 2000’s). We enjoyed both cereal milk ice cream and crack pie, two of the desserts she is most famous for. Delicious! We spent the next day walking and ‘subwaying,’ heading downtown to Chelsea Market for breakfast, then up to the High Line which was just so innovative and beautiful. If you’ve not heard of it, it’s an old rail line that has been converted to a garden, my kind of place! Then across town and up to the Met Museum, which is where we spent the entire afternoon (and could have spent days, of course). That evening we took in a Broadway show and had the best ramen of our lives at a little spot called Ippudo.

The next day, we drove to Long Island, so the kids could see the house and neighborhood where Tom grew up. His family lived in Rockville Centre, in a beautiful house. We visited the St Agnes Cathedral, where they attended church, the Front St Bakery, which had wonderful treats, and Jones Beach, about 30 minutes from their house. We drove through Queens and found the house where Tom’s mom had lived, Brooklyn where she was born, and Levittown where Tom’s parents had lived when they were first married. We had delicious pizza for lunch at a local spot. We drove back into the city and took a boat tour down the East River to the Statue of Liberty and around the site of the Twin Towers, then back up the river and under the Brooklyn Bridge. Dinner at the thriving seaport concluded this fun day.

It was time to leave the city and drive across Pennsylvania, eventually to Pittsburgh to visit Carnegie Mellon. On the way, we stopped at the Rodale Institute, the innovator of organic agriculture research and study (they are now concentrating more on regenerative organic agriculture). Luckily, we happened to be there on their annual Field Day, with tractor rides and open houses (barns) and all kinds of vendors. We were able to take a tractor tour of the property and I was really in awe of their beautiful experimental gardens. There were many conventional farmers on the tour and I enjoyed listening to them talk about the pros/cons of regenerative agriculture. I heard them talk a lot about reduced costs due to cover cropping, and reduced erosion in this summer of midwestern flooding. I spoke with one of Rodale’s guides and he said that the farmers come to learn, but also to challenge their findings, because they truly believe conventional is best. But they are slowly coming around.

We really loved Pittsburgh. It reminded us a little of San Francisco, with its hilly winding streets and happening neighborhoods, good coffee and good food and lots of culture. We enjoyed learning a little ‘Pittsburghese’ (the local dialect) and visiting the Heinz History Museum to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. (We also enjoyed their Mister Rogers exhibit.) Carnegie Mellon, the university, is very impressive and we all thought it might be a good choice for Adam. We were on the tail end of the heat wave, which made being outdoors difficult, and so it was lovely to be in a beautiful Craftsman home in the Shady Side neighborhood of the city. (When we weren’t with family or friends, we stayed exclusively in Airbnbs and we had great ones.)

From western PA we drove north to the border, stopping for lunch by Lake Erie, and crossed into Ontario. Our house was about a mile and a half away from Niagara Falls, so we were able to walk down to see them rather than trying to find $40 parking. It was hot and crowded, but the falls were spectacular nonetheless. We were interested to learn that Tesla and Westinghouse had designed the upstream hydroelectric plant in 1895, the first of its kind. We drove about 30 minutes north to have dinner in the little town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, a wine tourist destination and a much cuter town. Here we saw fireflies for the first time on our trip, hooray! We ended the night by watching the sun set over Lake Ontario, wishing we had time to explore nearby Toronto.

Then we headed back through the border into Western NY, to spend the night with Tom’s sister Emily and her family in Syracuse. Western NY is beautiful, and we decided to drive along the Finger Lakes, stopping for good coffee in a hipster warehouse in Batavia, and a delicious lunch in Geneva on Seneca Lake. We couldn’t resist stopping at a farmstand for corn and blueberries. Emily and Jim rolled out the red carpet for us and we spent a delightful supper (with a salad that I am still dreaming about) with our nieces and nephews and grand-nieces and nephews as well! Our niece Meghan makes jewelry and I had asked her to bring a selection; I picked out some simple earrings and a beautiful necklace for Kate (she has an Etsy shop if you’d like to see more). In the morning we watched bunnies on the lawn (I know they are a garden pest, but we enjoy seeing them since we don’t often), birds in the feeders, and walked around Emily’s pretty flower and herb beds. Jim identified some of the roadside trees I had been noticing (Sumac, and Butternut, a white walnut) which gave me great satisfaction.

We drove on to Troy, which is near Albany, to see Tom’s alma mater, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (another impressive program, mostly engineering), and stayed the night near there. From Troy we took the road up into Vermont, passing through Bennington (which we loved) and over the Green Mountains (taking a picture from the top), then through Brattleboro and on into New Hampshire. We stopped at a farm called Stonewall, in Keene, to eat a picnic lunch and look at the new calves, goats, sheep, and gardens. We bought tomatoes and maple syrup from the farm, too. They had a creek running through their property (the entire farm is open to the public every day) and lots of kids were playing in it, which made us feel happy.

From there we drove to Derry, NH, to visit Tom’s college friend Terrance, and his wife Trina and son Tad. They have an extensive property with a barn (!) and we had a good time exploring it. They had just completed a magnificent master ‘wing’ that they gave to us for the night, which was quite a treat! We visited a local ice cream place supplied by a local dairy, and walked around Robert Frost’s old farm, which had signs with his poetry all over, very contemplative. We so enjoyed visiting with them and getting to know Tad, who is a precocious almost-first grader.

From Derry, we drove down into SW Massachusetts, near the Berkshires. My friends Chrissy and Luke, and their two-year old daughter Naia, moved last year to Easthampton. We loved driving through Amherst, and Southampton, both really cute little towns with a very Berkeley vibe. Lots of colleges there (including Smith) insure a younger culture. The family lives in a beautiful little house with a garden that was clearly loved by the previous owners, and Chrissy has fully embraced it too - the house is decorated so lovingly and carefully and simply, and her garden is thriving with veg. We had the best lunch of our trip there, with a salad Chrissy made from her garden, and lots of local specialties including pate and pastries from a local bakery. We loved spending a few hours with them and playing with Naia and the dogs. We were very taken with this area of the world and can see ourselves living there in the future. Of course, we’d have to embrace winter.

From there, it was a quick-ish jaunt down to Connecticut, to the town of Norwich, where Tom had been stationed in the Navy 27 years ago. We stayed in a spectacular house in Groton, which is just where the Thames River meets the Long Island Sound. We spent a good deal of time sitting on the porch, watching boats go by. We saw two submarines heading out to sea, which was incredible and very poignant for Tom! We went swimming a block away at the beach which had clear, 65 degree water and very gorgeous sand. We went to nearby New London for a dinner of lobster rolls and fried clams, which brought back a very clear memory of childhoods in New England, camping with my folks. It was very hard to leave the town of Groton. We loved it there and could have stayed a week. We’ll definitely go back.

The only thing that pulled us away from the beach was the knowledge that we had the best part of our trip coming up, a Boegel family reunion at the Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz, NY (in the Hudson River valley). Mohonk is an old-fashioned resort (and I use that word very deliberately, because they pride themselves on that). They were having their 150th anniversary, and it is an amazing place. Tom’s parents used to go to Mohonk for romantic weekends, and their kids (Tom is the youngest of five) decided it was the perfect place for us to gather and remember Mom and pay tribute to her life. The resort itself is up in the mountains in the Minnewaska State Park Preserve, a beautiful area, full of interesting rocks which climbers love (The Trappes/Gunks). There is a huge lake at Mohonk which was formed by both earthquakes and glaciers and fed by precipitation only. You can see that this interesting topography allows for a lot of outdoor activities. Adam did several rock scrambles, Tom and I took a fascinating geology hike with the in-house naturalist, and we all boated and swam in the lake. There were three fabulous meals each day (with “Chef Action Stations!”) along with tea and cookies each afternoon. One night we participated in their ‘Barnival’ which was a carnival in their old barn, complete with entertainment and local beer. We had a lovely ‘service’ for Mom Boegel in their extensive gardens (and oh, the trees, beautiful copper and tricolor beeches, towering oaks and maples, basswoods and horse chestnuts) and released some Painted Lady butterflies in her honor. We saw all kinds of interesting bee-like creatures, rabbits and deer; enjoyed the horses and the stables, and loved talking with the family members and getting to know their kids (our grandnieces and nephews). We were very reluctant to leave Sunday morning, especially because we had a full day of travel to get home, but home we came.

image credit: Jake Burns

image credit: Jake Burns

We had such a wonderful trip.

A few other impressions:

• The water, oh the water. I took two very deep baths and countless pounding showers. Rivers and lakes and creeks and streams. We Californians forget what it’s like to have endless water.

• Electric cars are becoming ubiquitous in CA. On the East Coast, we saw five electric cars. All were Teslas. Gas was cheap everywhere we went, compared to over $4/gal here. Perhaps the incentive to go electric is simply not there. Also - very little infrastructure for electric.

• Good coffee was hard to find. Many places use sub-par, un-fresh beans. We don’t consider Starbucks good coffee, but that was widely available. In Canada our only choice was Tim Horton’s which was undrinkable. Dunkin’ Donuts are everywhere; we can’t understand why. Our best coffee was the cups we made ourselves with Peet’s when we could find it. We sought out local roasters - they were few and far between - when we found them we gratefully supported them.

• Good, cultural, ethnic food is now pretty much everywhere and a lot easier to find than it used to be. Still, we tried to have local specialties as much as possible. As ever, Adam is our leader in that, always finding the interesting local tidbit to eat.

• I’ve now seen Book of Mormon twice, and this time, while still really fun, it struck me as very racist. Anyone else feel that way? I mean, I know the South Park guys make fun of everything, but still….

• Plastic water bottle usage is going strong everywhere, unfortunately. Composting in other cities seems non-existent.

• I love regional accents.

• We are very happy to be in the ‘our kids are teenagers’ stage of life. It’s easy to forget how much work little ones are.

• Folks in hot and humid summer climates are hermetically sealed into their houses. It didn’t seem to matter how nice the early morning or evening was, the house stayed closed. I know there are reasons for this; as Terrence said, “We’ve worked hard to keep the humidity out of the house and we want to keep it that way.” We realized that we wouldn’t want to live in a place where we need to do that. We love being able to open the doors and windows for at least part of each day, and we live a lot of our day in the outdoors. There’s something to be said for the moderating influence of the sea.

• It’s nice to be home, where we could pick berries for breakfast, tomatoes for dinner, and have two neighbors stop by to give us pears and blackberries. I got started on tomato harvesting but have yet to pick all the blue/black/huckleberries, or the beans, or the cucumbers. I am noticing blight on our tomatoes for the first time ever (our chilly wet May?). It isn’t as good a year as I wanted it to be. Our cucumbers are suspiciously yellow and need some attention. I will pick our first delicata squash tomorrow for dinner - it is at least three times bigger than it’s supposed to be. For dessert tonight I had the first ripe apple.

• Hard to believe school starts in two weeks.

Louisiana

We spent spring break in Louisiana. My brother got married to a woman who was born and raised near Shreveport (Northern LA), so that’s where the wedding was this past weekend. First, we flew in to Southern LA to see New Orleans and the farming culture nearby. Tom and I (and the kids, of course) had never been there; my parents, who had, not only came with us but treated us to the entire trip. We had a fabulous time.

My favorite thing about New Orleans might have been the architecture. Such beautiful buildings with delicate iron work and lots of greenery. We also really appreciated the music culture. It’s hard to find all-ages shows, even on Frenchmen’s Street, but we were able to go to Preservation Hall and see the All-Stars which was really something. We ate some good food in New Orleans as well - fish, and shrimp, and crawfish, and oysters the size of my palm, sweet as butter. Grits, rice, sausage, beans, gumbo, and even some things like alligator, smoked rabbit, and goats-head cheese were also enjoyed. The kids tried beignets and liked them. Bread pudding also seemed to be a highlight.

a musician toting his stand-up bass behind his bike on Frenchmen’s Street in the Marigny

We also really enjoyed the Presbytere, a museum attached to St. Louis Cathedral in the French Quarter. They had a floor devoted to Katrina, and I think we all learned a lot. We spent a dollar to ride the ferry across the river to Algiers and get a beer. We spent $2 to ride the trolley to the Garden District and walk around Lafayette Cemetery as well as peer at the big houses. We spent our nights in an airbnb on the edge of the Garden District, and enjoyed French Truck Coffee every morning.

the beautiful Mississippi

We didn’t much like all the people drinking, and all the tourists (which, of course, we were too), or the hucksters near the river, or the smell of urine and other unknown things, so I can’t say we were 100% charmed. It’s a lot like San Francisco in that way - there are parts that are so wonderful, and parts that are so seedy. I guess it might be like that in all big cities.

Lafayette Cemetery

We left New Orleans and traveled west to the Whitney Plantation. Whitney is the only plantation dedicated to the slave experience. The ‘big house’ is original, as are the slave quarters and the outdoor kitchen. There are three specific memorial areas on the grounds with the names of slaves and some of their quotes. There are art installations all over the property; the one I found most affective was the statues of slave children dotting the plantation - sitting on the porch of a slave cabin, standing by the water, or a whole host of them inside the chapel.

The live oak trees that dotted the walks of the plantations were just extraordinary. You can image how cool it would be under this canopy on a hot summer day. Speaking of, we had cool temperatures, but a lot of humidity - more about that later.

We left the Whitney and traveled to the Nottoway Plantation, which celebrated the other side of plantation life - that of the owners of these grand old houses and the land that surrounds them. Nottoway was a sugar cane plantation, as were most of these extremely southern farms (though originally indigo; they switched to sugar cane in the mid-1700’s). It was sobering to remember that everything this family had and owned was because of slave labor. None of it would have been possible without that. And so it is a strange experience staying there and enjoying the beauty.

But - it was interesting to stay in such a historical place. Mom and Dad stayed in the mansion proper, in one of the daughter’s rooms; Tom and I stayed in the ‘Boys Wing’ which is where visiting young men would sleep; and Kate and Adam were in the Overseer’s cottage, which isn’t called that at all anymore, thank heavens. The plantation’s front door is maybe a football field away from the levee that holds the Mississippi. It wasn’t originally that close, but the Mississippi is what is called a ‘meander’ river, and has changed course many times. Everywhere we went we saw these levees. It is unnerving, to say the least. Also the river is quite full right now, dealing with the remains of what is happening upstream in the center of the plains.

While at Nottoway, we experienced our first extreme thunderstorm. Well, to us it was extreme, I don’t know if it was to the people who live here. We don’t get thunderstorms in the Bay Area, so it was delightful to sit out on the front porch (in rocking chairs, natch) and watch the show. However, this same storm changed our plans the following morning. We were to have a boat tour with a naturalist through the nearby swamp, Atchafalaya. He waited until the last possible moment to cancel. He said he could take us in rain, but not in lightening. This was a hard blow for me, because I really wanted to see the Bald Cypress trees (now protected) and all the swamp biology. But, of course, better safe than sorry. Instead of touring in a boat, we got back in our car and headed north for Shreveport.

Niki (my brother’s wife) grew up in a small town on the northern border called Springhill. We spent three days there, visiting with both our own extended family and Niki’s. We had some great meals, including a surprise 10-course dinner at a local place. We watched Stewart and Niki get married in a tiny church, the same one Niki grew up attending. And we had gumbo and rice and fried catfish at the reception, which was held in a tent in Niki’s folks’ back yard. It stormed the entire time, and despite everyone’s wet shoes, we had a glorious time. I am not going to share pictures of the occasion here because they are not mine to share!

On the way home, we were delayed in Shreveport because of storms, and again in Houston for a series of thunderstorms which were quite dramatic. All told, we were delayed about 7 hours, but we arrived home to the Bay Area late last night. As we flew over the Sierra Nevada, Adam took this picture:

No drought for us this year.

Louisiana is an interesting place. The people are super friendly and I, with my voice-over background, wanted to just sit and listen to all of them talk - they have such a lovely way of speaking. We were underdressed in nearly every restaurant we went in. Casual California does not fly in the south. We were astounded by the amount of water in the state, and by the water table that is nearly level with the top of the soil. Water was everywhere, either in swamps, or lakes, or rivers. Often the land was covered by mist - 100% humidity all the way through the air. The woods were delightful to look at, all along the roads, filled with flowering dogwood. Picturesque farms with horses dotting the unbelievably enormous lawns. Wildflowers blooming everywhere on the sides of the roads. Really lovely countryside. But also poverty - lots of economically depressed areas. Churches on every corner. Lots of fast food (and the portions everywhere we went, gargantuan). Burn piles in yards. Rust and decay. Closed businesses. It’s good to get out of our little ‘tech bubble’ and see the truth of a lot of people’s lives.

I arrived home to true spring.

apple

I vowed not to do a lick of homework. Instead I rushed through cleaning and laundry and trips to the store so that I could wander around in the garden and check out the changes.

clematis

Felicia

peas

tomato seedlings

forget-me-not

broccoli flowers

beautiful Asian pear leaves

fragrant sweet peas

The pollinator garden just about to burst. Redbud, lupine, borage, five spot, forget-me-not, and soon to be covered with phacelia.

My new asparagus crowns arrived while we were away, so before going to bed last night, I took them out of their box and soaked them in water. Today I planted them in the bed we had prepared for them. Luckily a neighbor had some extra soil leftover from a project, and I collected two wheelbarrows full to cover them. In three years, we’ll eat well.

Oh, I forgot to mention that our bees swarmed the first day we were gone. Another neighbor was nice enough to call us and let us know. Apparently they ended up super high in our pepper tree, so nobody could have reached them anyway.

It’s still not over 50 at night consistently, so I won’t be planting the tomatoes or peppers anytime soon. But there’s plenty of work to do in the meantime, getting ready for them. The great spring workload is just beginning.

August

Happy August, my friends! I'm feeling distinct twinges of summer winding down, though here in California, it's not so much that the harvest is ending, or that the temperatures are lowering; no, we're still near triple-digit heat and the garden has come into its own, pumping out fruit and veg like I planned for it to, way back in January. It's just that end-of-summer feeling with school starting again in a couple of weeks, and all that goes with that: Figuring out where the backpacks are, trying to finish that summer assignment, and finalizing calendar dates. 

However, summer ain't over yet, and I've got lots to share with you. During my self-imposed computer break, we also traveled: Last Christmas our gift from my folks was a family trip to Europe, and we spent a scant week in England and another in France, all of us together with Tim and Lois (my parents), and Stewart and Niki (my brother and his partner). Mom and Dad lived in London for a few years in the late 90's, and they wanted to show that neighborhood to Adam and Kate (our kids). So we spent time in London visiting their flat and some of their favorite haunts, exploring some tourist attractions, seeing Kinky Boots, walking a lot, eating scones, and doing some serious drinking in pubs (research for Tom's brewing projects, natch). We also took a couple of day trips to the East and South of London, visiting Chartwell (Churchill's home), Hever Castle (Anne Boleyn's childhood home), Oxford (particularly Christ Church College), and Blenheim Palace. We had a hilarious couple of hours in a local coin-op laundry and a middle-of-the-night hotel fire alarm, all of which added to the great stories of this interesting week in England. Despite some of the dire clouds you see in the photos here, we had zero rain while in Europe. Both England and France were in the middle of heat wave (near 90 in England the whole week, mid-90's in Paris, near 100 in the Loire Valley) and hadn't seen rain for months. England looked a bit like California, which was particularly sad for us. 

The White Tower, Tower of London

Windsor Castle

the Thames in Windsor

Kate striking up an artist's relationship with a local wanderer

Part of the gardens at Chartwell

Gardens at Chartwell

Kate sketching

Hever. You can see how dry it is.

Adam working out the yew maze at Hever

Blenheim through a portal

Feeling a bit like Harry Potter at the Great Hall at Christ Church (the inspiration for the Great Hall at Hogwarts)

After five terrific days in England, we hopped on the Eurostar and had a wonderful train ride through the Chunnel to Paris. Tom couldn't help comparing that experience to his daily commute, and I'm afraid BART (our metro) came up woefully short. (Though we did appreciate the air conditioning on BART after riding the Tube in a heat wave.) We had a very short two days in Paris, but we got the best overviews we possibly could; by walking, by yacht on the Seine, and in antique Citroen cars driven by four irascible Frenchmen whom we adored. Everyone but me got to tour Musee du Louvre with a Frenchwoman who had studied art history; I was sick for that afternoon and got to know my hotel bathroom quite well. That same art historian took us on a culinary tour of Paris and those that could eat enjoyed local cheese, wine, and charcuterie. We fell in love with the long summer days of France (sun rising before 5, and setting well after 10), and got to see the lights twinkling on Tour d'Eiffel while we were eating the cheese and dessert course on our yacht on the Seine. Parfait!

the view from our hotel

La Seine, Le Louvre

Tom getting in to our Citroen

Our drivers: Flo, Sebastien, Jean-Marc, and Yves

Notre-Dame de Paris

Driving down Champs-Elysees, towards L'Arc de Triomphe

Eggs in France are not refrigerated and are much fresher than in the US. On a side note, we were so pleased to see so many things bottled in glass instead of plastic: Yogurt, sodas, fizzy waters.

Tomatoes, variety names listed

Dad, Tom and Adam dans la Fromagerie

Adam in his happy place - with charcuterie

Dad, Niki, Adam, Tom, just a little hint of our blonde guide Anne-Marie, and Mom: street picnic!

on the boat

We were then picked up by our guide, Marina, who lives in Tours. She drove us south of Paris down through Chartres and into the Loire region, which is famous for its farms. We spent several days at an renovated hunting lodge in the tiny town of Onzain, and used that as our home base for traveling around the countryside. The valley is gorgeous; the farms/acreage are much smaller than most of the states, and just as in England, bordered by forests and hedgerows to keep ecosystems intact. Many of the farms advertised that they were biologique, or organic, and were very proud of that. The Loire grows most of the country's cereal grains, so we saw fields of wheat, barley, rye, corn, sorghum, sunflowers, and alfalfa. We toured a mushroom cave which was carved deep into the limestone of the region; visited a local organic winemaker specializing in the wine of the region, Sauvignon Blanc; and tasted fresh chevre at a local goat farm, where the farmer and I discovered we were kindred spirits despite our language differences. Our guide took us to an outdoor market near her apartment and we met a local chef there who purchased items that we then took back to her restaurant and prepared for lunch. We played croquet late at night on the vast green lawns of the hunting lodge and took sunset walks in their kitchen garden. We ate bread, cheese, and ham with every meal and drank wine nearly as often. By the end of our week in France, I was understanding conversations pretty well, but was only starting to gain the courage to use my high school French to join in. Both Tom and I felt that if we'd had another week there, we would have been chattering away (haltingly). 

Chartres Cathedral

stone carving on the columns inside the church

Just a pretty building in Chartres

narrow medival streets

Entering Les Caves de Roche, the mushroom cave. No sign, no gate, no safety equipment required. We were told to keep up so we didn't get lost and duck under low ceilings.

Shiitake mushroom blocks

our mushroom guide talking about growing oyster mushrooms

in the cave, the temp is 12 C with 93% humidity. No wonder my CA mushrooms aren't growing.

At Domaine de Clos Rousilly, some of the grape vines are in a field above the limestone cellar where the wine is processed

Sauvignon Blanc grapes

our 'picnic' lunch at the winery - a delicious salad of mache and frisee, cornichon, fresh bread, local chevre, and several kinds of pork and duck rillette. Plus lots and lots of wine.

Mom took this picture, but the rest of us are here, as well as our winery guide and our guide in the Loire Valley. Adam and Kate tasted all the wines and got a little tipsy, I think.

the sign greeting us at Ferme de la Cabinette, a goat farm owned by the Ragot family

picnic area in front of the farm with beautiful old apple trees

daily chevre-making

our lunch date with a local chef

Frederique, our chef, pulling up on her bike. She goes to market every other day and fills her bike basket with ingredients that she uses in her restaurant.

the market, held three days a week, is half outdoors and half indoors. 

garlic for sale

spices for sale

cooking our lunch with Frederique. Recipes below.

walking through Tours

We walked through a cobbled, narrow, low passageway that Marina said had been used in the 11th century as the path from the jail to the center of town, where folks would be hanged or beheaded. The passageway was known as the 'heart-sick' path. This door was on this path, just as we started to see other well-marked apartment doors, and made me giggle. How many drunk teenagers try to open this door in the middle of the night? And can you imagine having this kind of history as your doorstep?

the cathedral in Tours

cloisters

our hotel's kitchen gardens

sunset from the garden

It's always good to come home, especially to find that the person who lived in our house had done a good job taking care of the property and animals. Now time is filled with processing the harvest and trying to duplicate some of the things we ate and drank in Europe, as well as the pre-school busyness of last-minute appointments etc. Our days have found a new rhythm as we adjust back to our time - we go to bed early and wake up before dawn, getting garden chores done before the heat of the day. Pick an apple from the tree, eat it while harvesting green beans, turn the compost, hunt for ripe cucumbers, fill the water fountain for the bees and birds, put cardboard under the ripening pumpkins, start the dehydrator, pick tomatoes, and repeat. Repeat. Repeat. The rhythm of summer.

Here are the recipes from Tours a Table, the class we took with Frederique. You can substitute ingredients, of course, skip others, make it your own. I've written down the recipes exactly as they were given to me, so you might see some grammar differences or measurement differences. All three of these recipes were delicious.

“Tomato Bavarois with goat cheese and basil

1 can of crushed tomatoes (or fresh)
1 chopped shallot
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 stem of thyme
1 flat teaspoon of agar
salt and pepper to taste
20 cl (3/4 cup plus 1 Tbsp) of heavy cream
8 cherry tomatoes
200 g (3/4 cup) fresh goat cheese
10 basil leaves
dash olive oil

In a large pot, saute tomatoes, shallot, garlic, thyme, salt and pepper. Once it begins to boil, add agar and whisk until the mixture begins to thicken. Once thickened, take off the heat. Let cool. Reserve in refrigerator for at least one hour.

In a non-reactive bowl, add cream with salt. Whip until medium peaks. With a spatula, fold in tomato mixture.

In a bowl, add cheese, chopped basil, salt and pepper, and a dash of olive oil. Mix with a fork until smooth.

Using ramekins to dress, place some of the herbed cheese mixture at the bottom. Add some bavarois mixture on top. Place in refrigerator for two hours. Decorate with sliced cherry tomatoes and basil.

serves 4”

“French Fish Stew

12 scallops without the coral and foot removed
6 small filets of salmon, deboned and skin removed
1 small tail of monkfish, deboned and grey skin removed
1 organic lemon
12 medium sized potatoes
6 large carrots
4 stalks of celery, preferably from the heart
half a bunch of Italian parsley
15 cl (3/4 cup) creme fraiche
white pepper and salt
1.5 l (2 3/4 pints) fish fumet or pre-made fish stock

In a large pot add 1.5 l of water and the sachet of fish fumet.

To begin, start with the celery stalks. Using a paring knife cut one end of the celery stalk and peel the strings off. The cut the celery into 1 cm slices. Set aside.

Peel the potatoes, carrots, and cut in medium sized pieces.

Next, cut the lemon in a small dice. (we actually did slices)

place all the cut vegetables into the fish fumet. Let cook for 10-15 mn.

While vegetables are cooking, cut the salmon in large pieces. Cut the monkfish tail in four pieces about 4 cm each.

Once the vegetables are cooked, remove and set aside. Add the monkfish and salmon. Let the meat cook about 10 mn.

Reduce heat to simmer then add cooked vegetables.

Five minutes before serving add the scallops and the creme fraiche. Gently stir in the creme to incorporate into a smooth sauce.

Sprinkle the fresh chopped parsley as a garnish and serve immediately.

serves 6”

“Chocolate Souffle

7 ounces finely copped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus for preparing molds
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 large egg yolks
3 tablespoons warm water
1/2 cup sugar, plus two tablespoons
8 large egg whites, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
confectioners sugar for garnish

Brush 6 ramekins with soft butter, then coat with sugar. Put them in the freezer.

Set an oven rack in lower third of the oven and preheat to 400 degrees F

Put the chocolate and butter in a medium heatproof bowl. Put the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and let the chocolate and butter melt while stirring occasionally.

Combine the egg yolks and warm water in a bowl and beat until frothy. Gradually add two tablespoons of sugar and continue to beat until ribbons form, about 5 minutes. Very lightly fold the yolks into the chocolate mixture.

Remove prepared ramekins from freezer.

Put egg whites in a bowl and add lemon juice. Beat until frothy, then gradually add the remaining 1/2 cup sugar and beat until the whites hold a still but not dry peak.

Working quickly, fold about a third of the egg whites into the chocolate to lighten (our chef called this a ‘sacrifice’), then fold in remaining whites until blended. Gently ladle or spoon the souffle mixture into the ramekins, and place on baking sheet.

Immediately bake until the souffle rises about 1 1/2 inches from the tops of ramekins, and are touched with brown, about 18-20 minutes. Remove from oven, dust with confectioners sugar, and serve immediately.”

Appreciating California

Adam and I just arrived back home after a trip to the middle of the country; namely, Ames Iowa, home of Iowa State University. Adam participates in a yearly competition called Odyssey of the Mind; it's too hard to explain it here (click the link for more), but it's a great organization and he's been doing it since the 3rd grade. His team has twice gone to the international portion of the competition after acing both Regionals and State; both times the event has been held at Iowa State in Ames. Tom went with Adam last time, so it was my turn this year. The event itself was mind-opening and exciting, we saw teams from all over the world and saw incredible performances. Our team is already looking forward to next year's event and hoping to attend (it will be in Michigan in 2019).

And the university itself is quite lovely, with all the things we don't get to enjoy in California - vast mowed lawns, swathes of peonies and hostas in the woodland areas, and fireflies in summer. We saw a dramatic afternoon thunderstorm, with dark clouds racing across the big prairie sky.  We had frogs hop in front of the car on the freeway, which bordered a river. Large groups of robins fed from the lawns everywhere we looked. Bunnies hopped out of the bushes at dusk. All of that was quite charming and fun to experience.

But there were far more things that made me appreciate coming home to California. I'm not knocking the midwest, but there are just some things we Californians do better. Like carry reusable water bottles everywhere we go, rather than buying plastic. Having recycling and compost bins next to every trash bin in any public place. Reducing the use of water whenever possible (I watched a landscape-worker watering a flower bed the morning after the heavy rain. When I asked why, he said 'they pay me to do this, so I'm doing it.') Making sure fresh fruit and vegetables are available at every meal (understandable to have canned or frozen in the winter in the midwest, but why in late May, when many things are at their peak?). Don't even get me started on the university's cafeteria food (five soda stations at every cafeteria and only one with water). 

Adam and I ate twice at the cafeteria, and then we had to stop. It just made us feel horrible to eat what was available there (reheated, plastic food). We had the foresight to rent a car which allowed us to explore the nearby town of Ames. Among a million fast food places, we found a diamond:  Wheatsfield Cooperative, a tiny natural grocery store that featured locally grown, organic produce and meals. We were so happy to have a place to buy salads and sandwiches, kombucha and real lemonade. I told Tom when we got back that you really know you are from California when you read a sign on the co-op picnic area wall ("These oak tables were milled and made from the 200 year-old oak that stood next to our store and was felled in a storm") and think "THESE ARE MY PEOPLE." We make fun of ourselves for our "Portlandia" mentality but it really is true that there is a care for the artisanal that lives deeply in us. 

It made me think again about food security and food justice. There we were, in the middle of one of the greatest agricultural places on earth, and it was difficult to find real food. We are fortunate enough to have the means to search out and purchase the best we can find. But what about the people who can't? Why is the cheap, fake food so much more available than the real stuff? This is an issue that many folks are wrestling with and it's a noble battle.

Another very interesting aspect of our time in Iowa was that I saw no bees. The campus is full of flowers that are empty. We visited Reiman Gardens on campus, a lovely 14-acre property filled with gorgeous flowers and trees. I saw two native bees, one carpenter and one bumble. That was it. I asked a docent, "Do you have a native garden section? I'm very interested in the native prairie ecosystem." I was told no. They used to have one but it's being torn up to make more landscaping. I searched their 'pollinator garden' - no insects. I found it incredibly disturbing. 

Meanwhile, we arrived home last night to find a homemade dinner waiting for us, chock full of real ingredients, that Tom had lovingly prepared. This morning, I woke at 6, grateful (for a short time at least) for the dry sunshine. I went outside in my pj's and picked and ate the first blueberries from our bushes, and some strawberries from our strawberry wall. I visited the chickens and gave them some collards from the garden. I watered all the plants and had visions of soon-to-appear tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. I sat and watched the bees for a minute and appreciated their presence. I knelt down in one of our pollinator gardens, which happens to be full of poppies at the moment: there was a bee in every.single.flower.

I'm often disdainful of California and this state is in no way perfect. But there are a few things we really have gotten right here. I'm very grateful to be home.