In the Land of Family Farms

In Big Valley, a land of agriculture, tractors share the roads.

Two dozen American white pelicans wheeled high in the sky over the ranch.

At this time of year their numbers start building on Clear Lake as harsh weather begins to close in on their nesting lakes in the interior West.

At the annual Kelseyville Pear Festival, the county chapter of the Audubon Society tried to raise awareness of the needs of our lake-nesting grebes. The numbers of Clarks and Western grebes on Clear Lake is lower than it was a few years ago. Their floating nests of matted tules are easily swamped in the wake of motorboats. 

 I walked through a meadow on the ranch. Honey bees sought nectar on the last sunflowers of the year.

 It is a bumper year for both figs and acorns.

 Mare's tails (cirrus uncinus) fanned out above Mount Konocti and the Pear Festival on Main Street.

 Among the sights at the Pear Festival were music venues and antique tractors.

Sunset from Finca Castelero. The high whine of swarms of bouncing midges sounded from six feet above our heads. Were they swarming because of the rain showers of a couple of days past?

The Garden and The Serpent

In Big Valley, I contemplated an oak tree. In 1848 this tree already towered above a slough of the creek. That was the year the first white person settled in the valley. The tree provided a living for Pomo Indians, grizzly bears, tule elk, black tail deer, acorn woodpeckers and scrub jays. The tree stands in the summer of 2013 among the remnant groves of the former forest of valley oaks. The ancient lake, the dormant volcano and the chaparral cloaked foothills are still here as are swathes of tule reeds and small schools of hitch. For all its roads, towns, orchards, packing sheds and casinos, the valley still resembles it's primordial self.

In the Nineteenth Century, tales were told on the emigrant trails of edenic valleys among the coastal ranges of California. While crossing the vast, life-threatening desolation of the Basin and Range Country, pioneers placed great faith in these tales. Survival would be staked on the effort of crossing roadless mountains to a place which offered water, fish, timber and deep soils in which crops could be planted. These storied valleys comprise a tiny percentage of Western lands, oases abutted by the vast desolation of lands hostile to human life.

Before the damming of the rivers and the development of industrial scale irrigation in California's Central Valley, these small intermountain valleys were the small farmer's Promised Land.

A raccoon, in hungry exploration of the bottom of the stock tank, left footprints in red algae.  

Coon tracks/ Crook necks.

Crossing Dry Creek at the Cutoff.

Up the fig tree.

The edenic valley produces bountifully. Deadly serpents are usually discreet enough not to venture into the orchards and gardens, preferring the rougher edges of the valley.

From Way Back in April

A committee of citizens in Lake County came up with  "The Quilt Trail", which features paintings based on traditional quilt designs. These are posted on buildings throughout the county. This poppy format design hangs on a barn on a Kelseyville black angus ranch.

 Sunlight streaked Big Valley and foothills on the far shore of Clear Lake.

 At the foot of the Mayacamas Range, a creek is at unseasonably low flow after four record breaking dry months.

 American Robin killed by a car.

 Piebald Western Gray Squirrel died inside a woodduck box of unexplained causes.

 Acorn woodpecker killed by a car.

 Mount Konocti in cool weather.

 Callery pear trees bloomed on Main Street in Kelseyville.

 I looked West from the oak zone toward the cottonwoods along the creek.

 Briefly, a peony had its season.

 In their quest for wild onions, fungi, and other foods, feral pigs furrowed large tracts of rangeland at the foot of the Mayacamas Mountains.

 California poppies bloomed in the meadow.

 A rainbow appeared West of the Mayacamas Range in late afternoon.

 California Thrasher stayed close by the new window, fascinated by his reflection.

 Wild turkeys strutted near Gold Dust Road.

 Twigs cast shadows on a galvanized metal wall.

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.