Phutu...exploring we will go.

8/8/2004 Tuesday is my last day of Vacation. I have been taking it easy for the last couple of days. I went backpacking twice in the last few weeks, and I did some more work on the back yard. Backpacking is all at once a great time and really terrible. On one hand you have the experience of being out in the middle of nature without tons of tourists. There are beautiful trees and mountains and the weather was great. On the other hand, you have to carry a fourty pound bag on your back and hike up five thousand vertical feet to get to those mountains. You have to brave swarms of mosquitos, squat in the woods, go multiple days without a shower and eat food that is freeze dried. I have to say that I think I would have a better time hiking with a couple companions. I was by myself for almost a week (not all at once) and I found that it was a little too much.

I hiked into Emmigrant wilderness, which is north of Yosemite but south of Pincrest; it was a nice area apart from the fact that there were herds of domestic cattle tearing up the landscape. I find it hard to understand how it is considered a wilderness when there are cattle grazing on the meadows and trampling all the alpine plants. There were some interesting trees despite the presence of the cattle, mostly Sierra Junipers. The wind does some really cool things to them. I also hiked into The John Muir wilderness, near Bishop, CA; it was too high in elevation for cows. I hiked all the way up to 12,400 ft at a place called Italy pass. Unfortunately I had to leave my camera behind since my pack was already over 40 pounds. It was almost all Granite boulders, jagged ones near the top and more rounded ones down the mountain. One of the peaks was striped black and white granite. I know so little about geology that I am probably getting this totally wrong. The trees were cool, but not as interesting as some of the other areas that I have seen.

I also visited the Bristlecone Pine area outside of Bishop in the White Mountains. Bristlecones are the longest-lived species in the world, with some living nearly 5,000 years. The area that they grow in is extremely steep and covered in a light colored broken stone. There are a lot of tourists that visit. I found the trees to be interesting, but not as interesting as many that I find on hikes that are much less popular. Despite their age, in many ways they look more youthful than some of the sierra junipers. Still, it was a place that I had been meaning to visit for some time.

Brian and I put in some sod in the back yard. The yard isn't really done, but from this point on I consider it to be more of a garden project than landscaping. I plan to truck in some more topsoil and build a mound in the section near the stairs to the street (foreground of the photo) and plant a bunch of smaller plants. I also have to finish the fence and possibly build a couple more stands for bonsai, but the bulk of the work is definitely done. The sod is already taking off, I have mowed it twice in under two weeks. We also patched up the rough edges on the concrete that was under the deck; after I move some of the stepping stones around a little and fill in some dirt, the pathways will be complete. I've been looking into low voltage lighting and a small pump for a fountain, but haven't gotten around to those either. A few weeks ago I went collecting (plants) on a friends property in San Jose. There was a large orange tree there, too big to dig up, but I took a 5-gallon bucket full of fruit away. They were easily the best oranges that I can ever remember eating. It has inspired me to try to get the orange tree in our yard healthy, so I've been watering it and it should start getting fertilizer when I fertilize the lawn.

7/21/2004
7/2/2004
6/8/2004
5/4/2004
4/20/2004
3/28/2004
3/10/2004
2/10/2004
1/15/2004
12/26/2003
12/13/2003
11/18/2003
10/26/2003
10/13/2003
9/20/2003
9/14/2003
8/13/2003
7/29/2003
7/19/2003
7/8/2003
7/1/2003
6/3/2003
5/29/2003
4/22/2003
3/18/2003
2/27/2003
2/18/2003
2/15/2003
1/31/2003
1/21/2003
12/18/2002

The list grows ever longer.

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