1/15/2003 I had a really nice couple days off this week. Monday Dory and I went hiking at the Black Diamond Mines regional preserve near Antioch. It's about a forty minute drive from our house. It's unfortunate that it was so foggy. In a way the fog was kinda beautiful, but it was also annoying. On the way up the first hill we were heading into a little wind and when we stopped at the top Dory looked at me and started laughing. My beard was totally covered in little drops of water and looked frosted. Of coure, the same thing was true of the hair that was exposed around the sides of her hat and also on her eyelashes. These regional parks are unfortunately the home of a lot of cattle. It's nice that they are there, but you would think that the regional parks district could take a little pride in the appearance of their land and keep the cows off. The trails were littered in places with cow pies and were rutted and stinking of dung.
After stumbling around like two blind mice for a little while we finally ended up on a trail that had some trees on it which were the reason that I had wanted to go there in the first place. Under the trees it was raining from the condensation of the fog on the limbs and twigs. I was glad that it wasn't raining all over because the mud underneath the trees was very slippery and got all over my shoes and pants. The odd thing that I have noticed recently about California in the winter is that all the trees are dormant but all the grass is growing and all the moss and lichen on the rocks is active. It makes for an interesting contrast. The most interesting part of the hike came after we went through a gate into an area that was closed off to the cattle. Free from the trampling locusts, the grass was untouched and there were actually trees that were less than a hundred years old. I saw a couple small Blue Oaks that I would have loved to dig up and put in a bonsai pot. Much of the downhill, return trip was through a Chapparal; an area where poor soil conditions mandate that the vegetation be dominated by hardy shrubs which can survive long drought and extremely low nutrient content in the soil.
Yesterday I went over to my friend Tim's house. He has a lot of bonsai trees and I like to go over to help him keep his collection in order. He's allergic to Pine trees, which take a lot of work to properly maintain, so I often do the work on them that he doesn't like to.
1/15/2003 I had a really nice couple days off this week. Monday Dory and I went hiking at the Black Diamond Mines regional preserve near Antioch. It's about a forty minute drive from our house. It's unfortunate that it was so foggy. In a way the fog was kinda beautiful, but it was also annoying. On the way up the first hill we were heading into a little wind and when we stopped at the top Dory looked at me and started laughing. My beard was totally covered in little drops of water and looked frosted. Of coure, the same thing was true of the hair that was exposed around the sides of her hat and also on her eyelashes. These regional parks are unfortunately the home of a lot of cattle. It's nice that they are there, but you would think that the regional parks district could take a little pride in the appearance of their land and keep the cows off. The trails were littered in places with cow pies and were rutted and stinking of dung.