Trees Do It

These signs are posted at the former home of ceramic artist, Beatrice Wood, and her friend, Krishnamurti in Ojai, Ventura County. The Ojai Valley shares some soulful characteristics with Lake County in that both places lie just outside the mainstream of 21st Century commerce. Ojai's relation to the Los Angeles Basin might be thought of as similar to Lake County's relation to the San Francisco Bay Area. Mountainous terrain allows both areas to stand somewhat apart. Rangelands, chaparral, groves of valley oaks, and hot summers typify both regions.

Back in Lake County we ate cherries from the tree before the birds did.

                                                
 A cottonwood leaf in the creek bottom.

Kelsey Creek cut a swathe out of the West bank this winter, felling a cottonwood.

   The newly cut bank reveals layers of sediment and bisected gopher tunnels.

 By the third week of June, this section of Kelsey Creek was bone dry and
 hopping with miniscule toadlets (Western toads) and froglets (Pacific tree frogs).

The remains of a culvert sagged in the creek bottom.

                                                  
Farm workers' latrine on the creek bed.

 A large mass of house flies hatched one day.

                                              
I looked out from under the fig tree bower.

                                                    
 A gopher pushed up fresh spoils.

  The last rose of June.

                                                                      
 Milkweed.

  I saw tiny nests of mud dauber wasps in the creek bank.

                                                                
Oak leaf hydraenga.

  Mother/father oak.

 Oaks making their own microclimate, exploited by man.

   A madrone putting on growth.

                                                          
Oleanders of pink and red.

                                                  
Cones of Digger and Sugar Pines.

                                                      
June rain drops touched down.

                                                        
Rusted bike seat in creek bed.

                                                    
Seedlings of crooked neck squash.

                                                        
Valley oaks doing their thing.

                                          
The feather might be that of a pied guinea fowl.