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Truffle and I spent over two hours mucking around on the river this afternoon. I guess I've forgiven the lupines. They didn't make me cry. Other things did, but not the lupines or the poppies or the other flowers. Truffle was so happy she could have written the definition for happy dog. There were squirrels to chase, and birds to stalk, and dogs to say hello to (the usual grumpy asshole with a leashed undersocialized dog who doesn't say "my dog has a problem" and also doesn't notice that his dog with the supposed problem doesn't really offer to tear my dog's throat out when she approaches and doesn't notoice that my dog walks away without offering to escalate the small growl the other dog offers her, but is sure that I've done something terrible even though nothing happens and Truffle and I go our way and he goes his way: I could understand it if I didn't control my dog when I see that something's up, or if the other dog actually tried to start a fight, but nothing happened and the crazy bystander who chided me for not having an aggressive dog on a leash shouldn't bother me because he's crazy and neither dog was aggressive, but oh well).
Really the day was lovely, lovely. The water was running fresh and clear and I went wading in it! My (Ted's) pants are too narrow at the ankles to roll them up properly -- must wear shorts next time -- so I waded in without and got wet to the knees. The riverbed looks like a pristine mountain stream (I know it really isn't, don't worry)with a nice natural array of silt, sand, gravel and cobbles, sand bars down the center and two fast-moving channels on the sides. The water is clear and sparkling (it looks brown from a distance but only because you can see clear to the bottom). The nasty invasive weeds are blooming beautifully. The broom is covered in yellow blossoms, the radish is ruffly and sweet. The clouds are ruffly and fluffy like in children's books too. Just gorgeous.
And the levee is so well used. I remember when it was just a disheartening garbage heap. Now there's a simple asphalt path at the top of the levee with paved walkways connecting it to the pedestrian bridges over the river and to the street that runs by. There's a little planting going on, largely natives and a few "near-natives" that can take the urban conditions. Every time I go there I pass (very) young mothers with strollers, street folks, day laborers with their bicycles and lunches and beer, skaters, business guys from the County building on the other side of the river or from the offices downtown across the street: this time I was most fortunate to run into a guy who was passionate about rivers and fish and soils and water tables: just an accountant, a bean counter he called himself, but he used to be a fanatic fisherman and now he works for an environmental firm that analyzes storm water down South. Nice long conversation full of history and biology and hydrology.
What else we saw: a large area of the bank was cordoned off with yellow tape. The kind that reads "Police Line Do Not Cross." There was a huge van and two smaller vehicles belonging to the police department, a gazebo-tent like people use to set up booths at craft fairs, and about twenty people, some in uniform, maybe more, and I think six dogs. I almost didn't even ask, figuring they wouldn't tell me, but the appointed spokesperson said they were looking for skeletal remains. Then he gave me a look like "I know you know there's more to it and you want to ask me more questions but that's all I'm going to tell you." I spent a half a minute trying to think of a question I could ask that he could answer and went on.
Of course I kept Truffle on the leash the whole time we were anywhere near the search dogs.
My in-laws gave me a bareroot blueberry and a bareroot boysenberry for my birthday. Jason (the son-in-law-elect) is taking me tomorrow to buy moar winebarrels and some stuff to make an arbor. I have decided that moar winebarrels is the entire solution to the water table issue and to some degree the daylight issue too. A half barrel gives more than two feet of elevation, putting the plant that much farther from the water and that much closer to the sun. Wins all around. Also wine barrels are relatively inexpensive as planters go, easy to handle, and to my eye, they look at least as good as any purpose-built raised bed and better than most pottery. And they're recycled -- I don't know why the wineries have to get rid of them. But I do know we have an awful lpot of wineries around here these days which makes me wonder a bit as wineries are pretty demanding in terms of water and so on. Anyway, wine barrels it is.
But right now, I keep getting mad again, or rather bereft to the point of going to bed and crying myself to sleep, because as of this week I will never, never,never be three years younger than the nice fellow again, and it's just something I can't wrap my mind around.
Really the day was lovely, lovely. The water was running fresh and clear and I went wading in it! My (Ted's) pants are too narrow at the ankles to roll them up properly -- must wear shorts next time -- so I waded in without and got wet to the knees. The riverbed looks like a pristine mountain stream (I know it really isn't, don't worry)with a nice natural array of silt, sand, gravel and cobbles, sand bars down the center and two fast-moving channels on the sides. The water is clear and sparkling (it looks brown from a distance but only because you can see clear to the bottom). The nasty invasive weeds are blooming beautifully. The broom is covered in yellow blossoms, the radish is ruffly and sweet. The clouds are ruffly and fluffy like in children's books too. Just gorgeous.
And the levee is so well used. I remember when it was just a disheartening garbage heap. Now there's a simple asphalt path at the top of the levee with paved walkways connecting it to the pedestrian bridges over the river and to the street that runs by. There's a little planting going on, largely natives and a few "near-natives" that can take the urban conditions. Every time I go there I pass (very) young mothers with strollers, street folks, day laborers with their bicycles and lunches and beer, skaters, business guys from the County building on the other side of the river or from the offices downtown across the street: this time I was most fortunate to run into a guy who was passionate about rivers and fish and soils and water tables: just an accountant, a bean counter he called himself, but he used to be a fanatic fisherman and now he works for an environmental firm that analyzes storm water down South. Nice long conversation full of history and biology and hydrology.
What else we saw: a large area of the bank was cordoned off with yellow tape. The kind that reads "Police Line Do Not Cross." There was a huge van and two smaller vehicles belonging to the police department, a gazebo-tent like people use to set up booths at craft fairs, and about twenty people, some in uniform, maybe more, and I think six dogs. I almost didn't even ask, figuring they wouldn't tell me, but the appointed spokesperson said they were looking for skeletal remains. Then he gave me a look like "I know you know there's more to it and you want to ask me more questions but that's all I'm going to tell you." I spent a half a minute trying to think of a question I could ask that he could answer and went on.
Of course I kept Truffle on the leash the whole time we were anywhere near the search dogs.
My in-laws gave me a bareroot blueberry and a bareroot boysenberry for my birthday. Jason (the son-in-law-elect) is taking me tomorrow to buy moar winebarrels and some stuff to make an arbor. I have decided that moar winebarrels is the entire solution to the water table issue and to some degree the daylight issue too. A half barrel gives more than two feet of elevation, putting the plant that much farther from the water and that much closer to the sun. Wins all around. Also wine barrels are relatively inexpensive as planters go, easy to handle, and to my eye, they look at least as good as any purpose-built raised bed and better than most pottery. And they're recycled -- I don't know why the wineries have to get rid of them. But I do know we have an awful lpot of wineries around here these days which makes me wonder a bit as wineries are pretty demanding in terms of water and so on. Anyway, wine barrels it is.
But right now, I keep getting mad again, or rather bereft to the point of going to bed and crying myself to sleep, because as of this week I will never, never,never be three years younger than the nice fellow again, and it's just something I can't wrap my mind around.