Devil's Punch Bowl | +365

Living in Los Angeles, but having spent the majority of our lives elsewhere, we often long to see real seasons. That aspect has been rough. However, the week of Christmas tide brought rains and colder weather, desperately needed for our parched lands. But the mountains taunted us as we could see snow upon their peaks so the day after the New Year, we stuffed ourselves into our station wagon (and I say stuffed because my oldest is now 6ft -182.88cm) and set out to a mountain trail that we hoped would provide a bit of a winter scene and a needed respite from the city (and also to avoid all the Los Angelenos heading to the ski resorts). 

The Devils's Punch Bowl, as it is called, did not disappoint. It was gorgeous. An hour and a half from Los Angeles, this gem of a park is within the the Angeles National Forest on the northern slopes of the San Gabriel Mountains, near Pearblossom, California. We did the whole hike, all 7.4mi. (11.91km). It was long, but our three billy-goats (a.k.a. my three boys) rocked it, despite the cold and the ice we encountered. My middle and youngest made snow angels (until they got too cold) and even my oldest,felt the tug of nature's childish ways as we spied him writing his name several times in the snow. 

Then, at the end, when we were punch drunk tired and spent, we met two beautiful owls who seemed to make everything feel blessed and perfect. They live at the park's nature center.  Both were raised by humans, so they could not be returned to the wild. It was getting dark and my fingers were close to frozen so none of my photos of this sweet barn owl, named Ruth, came out perfect, but I love her sweet majestic beauty. And one thing I have learned in the past year is that sometimes "technically" flawed photos are just as beautiful as clean crisp ones, so I have included her here as well.  

And finally, can I start (and finish) a 365 project? Or even a 52 week one? I guess I won't ever know unless I try. xoxo

outdoors in :: autumn, persimmons & regrets

Its persimmon season here. And as the days grow shorter, though no less cold, I try to reconstruct the season of Autumn for the boys here in our home. Our CSA brought us persimmons this week and I find something wonderful about them splayed out on the table next to a pomegranate and a pumpkin meant for pie.

midweek, autumn, nature

I've often written that autumn is hard to find in this southern location.
But I believe I found a bit of it in the arrival of our CSA this past week.

joining in with Lou for her Nature in the Home, Autumn Series.

clickety-clack call of the week's end (& a poem too)

It is a grey, foggy morning here, and though I know some folk don't love grey days, especially when you live in a place that is more grey than sunny; yet here in Souther California, I long for them. There is a certain amount of sameness on the day in and day out of living in such a temperate climate, that at times, the eternal sunshine can feel quite overwhelming. You really have to look for the subtle changes in the seasons to really see the seasons.

It does make one more observant I find. There is a quiet lessening of daylight here. The days have a stretched, softer golden hue to them. Some leaves do change. Many others are perennially green.  One doesn't have the same stark emptiness in winter; which sometimes in those long January and February days is marvelous! However there are times I find myself wishing for a real cold snap that would force snow from the sky.

So perhaps you can see why I am so glad to get these mornings of grey.

As most of you know, we spent last weekend in the San Diego Mountains. I keep going back over the many photos I took there as a way to find out about a life that I am not living, and perhaps, even from time to time, a life I long for: Hens clucking, morning sun skipping out across vast fields of trees, the wilderness and a deeper sense of the wild, fiefdoms of nature, pigs snorting, joyous boys running, and a deeper sense of calm and closeness to my soul. 

For now the photographs will do... and the writing. Oh the writing! I love when I am able to be fully present when I write, letting other things fall away. 

There is a poem I wrote, inspired by the weekend, over on Anchor & Plume Press. I would love for  you to check it out and let me know what you think.

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I am so glad that we carved out a little space and time to go down there and just be.

xxoo

Oh! The Tale End of Summer!

Oh Summer! The weekend before last, a friend and I picked and canned tomatoes. I met her outside her home in the early morning hours and we traveled out to the Valley to a farm where, on Labor Day weekend, you can pick your own roma tomatoes for 25 cents a pound. It was still cool when we arrived at the farm, though you could feel the hint of the day's heat steadily tugging round your neck.

There was something so striking about the long, early morning shadows stretched across the field. Children were darting in and out of the rows and the faintest drops of dew still hung on spider web's strung across the wooden posts.

what is happiness

happiness is a walk in the woods with my boys, high above the world. contentment. happy lucky me watching them build dams. running with their dad. freeing themselves, momentarily, of the chains of the day to day. stretching out, making-up stories, heralding their imagination to the moon.

mothering, a round, full circle

in a round.
in a circle.
i come back around
to my childhood,
to my home,
looping back,
to the beginning,
to the place where my mother's illness grew.
where the ALS* spread slowly,
taking her body away from her,
taking her away from us.

like the seasons that circle us,
where the cycles encircle us.
round, i spin back
and also forward,
dusting away the thick motes of memory
and the holding pool of hope in my hand.

so i come back,
back around, in a circle,
walking through my childhood
my home. circling around in my mother's thoughts.
circling around death
 and life.

and the strength of my children.
and the strength in my children,
circles, back around,
back around, from my mom to me.
a circle, round, holding me
in.

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*ALS is also known in the states as Lou Gehrig's Disease, however abroad it is know as MND (Motor Neuron Disease). There were many visits to Colorado last summer and fall as my mother was dying from ALS. She died this past November of 2012. This is my first visit to Denver since her death. So in this trip, I am very much thinking of her.  

linking in with Lou for her Nature in the Home Series. 

hope you all are well. xxoo

across the desert. into the sky.

the sky became a doorway. looming large around us.
my eyes opened to the journey ahead, across the desert.
a starting point into my heart and an opening of my soul.

and the desert. 

whispering ghosts of lives lived and lost.  

stories built up and broken down. 

battered in the sun, tempered in the rain, 

racing in time and memory.  

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joining in with bedsidesign for foliophoto.
are you traveling these days? where are you going? xxoo

midweek messiness and summertime gifts

For the record, we have dived into the laziness of summer with ease. The younger boys have been playing games and digging in earnest in the backyard, helping me with the garden.  My oldest is often found reading. We are sleeping a bit later than usual and start most of our days with nothing planned. It feels like a small gift after the hurried end of the school year. Yesterday the youngest and I went to the pool three times to swim. Yes, three times. Bliss.....

poetic droplet :: soft, the touch of a bee to her favorite flower

i wonder of the soft intimacy of the bee to her favorite flower,

the dusting of pollen across her abdomen,

sipping slow the nectar to make the hived honey. 

midweek messy:: field trip and flowers

My obsession with the mighty peony continues, and lingers on. I cannot stop taking photos of the flower and all her glory,  and I see that I am not the only one. Due to an overly exhausting weekend and an unexpected field trip to the Doctor's yesterday for my youngest (eye swollen with a skin infection. ugh) I have not been out gathering these peonies from anyone's yard nor have I been in search of sweet hedgerow as suggested over on littlegreenshed.  These are just from my local market.

midweek messiness: rearranging furniture. plotting out priorities.

my house feels ordered for once. I spent the weekend cleaning, sweeping and pushing around furniture to get at the dust clots clogging up the underneath of things. I especially appreciate that the boys pitched in, not only cleaning their rooms and their bathroom, but they helped fold the laundry as well...it may have not been perfect but it was done.  Once I started to move the furniture around to get after all the dusty furry things, I couldn't stop and ended up rearranging my living room. There is something to be said for rearranging your furniture. For me it as always been therapeutic. I find that moving around the furniture frees up clogged spirits and puts life, and my furniture, in a whole new perspective.  Even though it is a trifle annoying to my number one, I find it liberating. I feel as if things are a bit more in focus for me. I suppose part of it is that I am a very visual person, and when the house always looks the same, my eyes feel bored and uninspired.

As the house was more in order, yesterday I was able to get out into our backyard and plot out a bit more of our garden. The dogs have torn up a bit of the grass and I am debating fencing that part off to grow vegetables and squash there. Number One is not so sure as it prevents the boys having free reign to run straight across the yard; they will have to navigate a bit more....but I love the idea of having a bit more produce this fall that is grown by us. The boys love gardening so I think they may get behind the idea. We will have to put it to a vote of some sorts before the weekend. We have a bit more flexibility in planting schedules as we live in a more temperate climate, but if we want squash, we need to plant this weekend so we can take advantage of the full summer sun.

Lou over at a littlegreenshed asked for green this week for her Nature in the Home series, so I took a photo of a cutting from the jade plant in our backyard. I am glad this was the theme this week as this little cutting has been a bit ignored by me, sitting on the windowsill in the kitchen. I now see that she is ready to be potted; she has sprouted some healthy roots. It took a while but they are there! 

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What are you plotting, cleaning, and growing in your home this week? I would love to know. xxoo

midweek messy :: nature gathered

 Gathered from my neighbor and sweet friend's tree, bountiful Meyer lemons. These are a shining "pro" on my list of happy things about living in West Los Angeles.  This weekend, my friend Jennifer taught a class on preserving and canning. As it was ending she gave us a tour of her cabinets where she kept the food she preserves, then she urged us to go harvest some Meyer lemons for ourselves.  Out my friend's back door and upon first glance of her tree, I thought she was mistaken to tell so many of us to take some home. However, as I approached, I saw dappled hints of yellow though the leaves.  Next to the tree I kneeled down and parted the leaves, looking for the yellow fruit. There I saw the magic underbelly of life that was hidden from my very grownup eye. There were oh! so many lemons!  Not unlike a child who finally understands her mother's advice, I then knew why she urged us to take as many as we wished.

This old lemon tree and her heavy ripe lemons, harvest ready, hanging so plentiful down from the branches, atop the rich soil, amongst the humming of bees, were a gathering of nature's art; she pulled me below her branches just as the strong scent of citrus lulls those bees to her flowers. Under there, grasping at lemons, oh how I longed to be young again; to be small, not grown. I would make this shaded small tree my playhouse, my home in the out of the doors.  In the heat and quiet of the afternoon, I would place an old blanket there, and drag my dollies and my old stuffed Paddington bear out from the house, where all would be invited to tea: the dollies, Paddington, the bees and me. Tea time beneath the scrubbed crisp scent of those lemons. We would laze under the tree, spend hours there, out amongst the bees and the white flowers. There I would learn the language of bees, the secrets of their pollen and the honeyed home of their hive.  Never to be stung by a single one, I would watch them as they danced in and out of the flowers and the lemons, feel them humming across my baby blond hair. I would learn to hold them on my hand; and they would listen to me as they listened to their queen. Me, Rebecca, Royal Princess of Meyer Lemons and their Flowers; Heiress to the Kingdom of Bees. The scent of the flowered fruit and slow decay of the tart lemons would stain my skin, and as I became older, the scent would always linger, never allowing itself to be scrubbed out. Oh to be young again, small, not grown, sitting at the foot of nature, blessed by the yellowed gifted fruit of this tree.

So I scooped up as many as I felt right and brought them home, still slightly intoxicated by their scent, their promise, their beauty, their art. I have yet to decide what to do with them. Perhaps something like as beautiful as my friend has done. I want to preserve their beauty a little longer.

 Nature Gathered for my midweek messy.

Nature In The Home with Lou at a LittleGreenShed.
xxoo

on the first day of may :: midweek messiness, perfection and flowers

Perfection is my midweek messy. The house is actually(semi) clean as I spent a large part of yesterday afternoon folding laundry. When the eldest came home I had him clean his room and it inspired me to do a mid-week vacuum as well. The younger two boys are running track this spring so I feel like I have an extra hour to get things done on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons before the daily dance of homework and dinner making.

Oh that perfection though, it messes me up somedays; the desire to be the best, to be perfect at whatever I do. This desire doesn't always surface out from underneath my skin, but I think that the small girl in me, who never seemed to do anything quite right, so wants to be perfect at...something. This leads to quite an awkward outlook on life at times because it hinders my ability to see clearly or at least to have proper perspective on things. Perhaps my perfection is a desire to compete, a deep desire to compete with my Self. However healthy competition may be, I don't think that this internal struggle to be perfect, the lofty pedestal I place things I want to do or make, is healthy; especially because upon failure, I want to abandon ship, leave my wrecked project on a forgotten shore.

poetic pause :: the sea

i am Poseidon's daughter. 
at night, i lie on the beach and tuck the ocean in around me. my body, makes an angel footprint in the sand. my hair, long limbed strands of seaweed, spread out beneath the waves holds host to the creatures of the night and of the sea. my daughters, they weave in and out of the waves, interlocking limbs, tumbling flipped fins, sounding off rocks and crushed sea foam.

back home

back home after a hike in the heat of the afternoon, i am sitting out on my back porch, luxuriating in the cool of the coming evening air. my shoes are kicked off, and i feel a sweet breeze lasso my feet and tickle my back; the sun bounces off the leaves of our camellia bush, hinting of the setting sun, casting shadows a bit longer than just an hour ago. it is mostly quiet. one of the boys went over to a friends to spend the night, the other two are inside wiped out from a day of hiking, from working their bodies and sweating out the muck of the week. i am wiped out, from the week, from the heat, from sweating out all the muck inside my heart. but it feels good to be on the other side of an adventure, of something outside ourselves.

camping, april, creating, shorts, and thoughts

placing the cast iron pan at the bottom, then the tin plates, the scratchy stacked saucers clinking together, salt&pepper and olive oil, she slowly folded the top of the brown cardboard box; lifted it up, cradling the bottom (it was heavy now) she walked outside. A silt & sand grimed gravel echoed her steps on the driveway and she felt a certain satisfaction at placing the box into the back of the car next to the cooler, and the tent, and sleeping bags and a spare clothes filled bag to change in to. she thought of air in the quiet. and in the night. the air in the Away From Here. away from the din of cars rolling past the house, away from the chatty thunder of the constant freeway strangle.

she longed to have her soul up in the branches of a tree high above the traffic, air it out, sun starch its lines, then tuck it back inside.

mid week gratitude (instead of monday), messiness and mothering

                     grateful. grateful.

 on this mid-week messiness of life, i have been stuck at home with a nit gnawing touch of illness. it certainly isn't awful, just enough to slow me down in all the wrong ways. just enough to make life quite messy. again.

flowers for me. a silly poem for thee.

Oh these flowers are for me; 

just to share them here with thee!

and...

 I will like them in this room. 

I will like them when they bloom... 

...I will like them here or there.

 I will like them anywhere!

I will like these these tulips, oh so true.

 I will like them! thank you Lou!

grabbing on to spring

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It was cool last night, and a gentle fog rolled into the neighborhood up from the ocean. It made the earth not quite in focus, not quite clear. The younger two ran outside. G tried to capture it on the camera, but the fog was a bit elusive and being difficult. I then took some photos in our back yard before it was time for dinner and to be in for the night. 

Even though it feels like spring is oh so difficult to define out here, I know it is coming. The light lasts longer and the earth is warmer. No need for the heaviest of blankets in our bedrooms. No need to wear fleece hats on the way to school. However, coffee still steams from mugs in the early morning mists though; and there is a quiet that still exists in our house that will not be here once school is out for spring vacation. Though I love change, I love holding onto this undefined time. I love being here in this unclear boundary of a season, when the season is actually in the midst of change.  It is so like the fog from last night: heavy and cool, elusive to define. There is such a clear demarkation between summer and winter; you can hardly confuse the two -but spring and autumn, they both, are a whole different sort of game. They often lay still and quiet, not quite ready to define one from the other. Perhaps that is why I embrace them oh so much.  Both Spring & Autumn resist definition, both embrace the change and defy it at the same time. 

I add this image for the end of this little text because this IS SO clearly spring. Yellow comes alive in such a different way than in the Fall.  Life is brightened by the touch of daffodils and forsythia that deck walkways and doorsteps. I love the undefined parts, but I also adore the parts that trumpet REbirth and REnewal as well. 

what parts do you loathe and/or love about the changing of the seasons?

                                                                                                                xo

joining in with Lou, who inspires me to think about Nature, and inspires me to bring more green into my home.  What joy! xxoo