News from sixdogmomma – Page 10

Trees Falling and Creeks’ Rizen’

Trees Falling, Creeks’ Rizin’

It’s been wet out there.

Nobody is complaining.

Last week I donned the rain gear and took the pack for a refreshing tromp around the canyon. The girls braved the non- stop drenching down-pour, (a real frog-strangler as my old Dad would say), and were all happy to gather around the woodstove afterwards to dry off. And a tip of the rain bonnet to little Sarah, with her 2.65 inch clearance, who tagged along gamely even though she had to be heaved across a few creek crossings to avoid being washed away downstream.

At 4000′ elevation here in the Sierra foothills the ground is not frozen, and so the soil is still able to drink up all of this free water that is falling from the sky.
Insatiably. Still not saturated. Room for more. Despite the storms the reservoirs are still far below average levels, because all the water is soaking into the soil.
It’s okay; soil comes first.

Water is also being soaked up by dry dead vegetation, especially trunks of dead
trees. Did you know an old log, laying on the ground, can hold onto many gallons of
water all summer long? Kind of a handy natural reservoir.

There’s a 200+ year old oak tree on the edge of our property, mostly dead, but still standing, mostly, at least it was until the other night. While the girls and I were in basking by the wood stove we heard a tremendous boom/crash, like a cannon firing right outside the back door. After determining that the house, deck and roof were still intact we discovered that our Grandmother oak tree had parted with her top half. Surrendered it to gravity. A rotten spot located at a split in the main trunk had soaked up so much water that it was more sponge than tree trunk, and accordingly had failed to stay connected to the several tons of solid and saturated oak comprising the remainder of the tree. It took out our back fence, blocked the old logging road behind the house, and gave us the satisfaction of knowing that we would have plenty of oak firewood to keep us warm for several winters to come. And definitely made noise. We were all thankful for the timing of the crash, which was a good two hours after the girls and I had passed along the road under the tree. Two hours is nothing to a centuries old oak tree, but to me it was the best two hours in my life!

And so because an oak tree stayed 75 feet above the earth for an extra 2 hours, today I am tromping around Jenkinson Lake to inspect the latest of Mother Nature’s handiwork, and not taking anything for granted.

Lake levels are up, but you can still go down to the east end and find the old bricks for a little while longer.

Park Creek Falls is an impressive raging torrent- the faucet set to full on wide open
and the tub is filling rapidly.

Creeks rizen’.

Sun is shining.

Seize the day: go
for a walk!

Cure for Cabin Fever

5 inches of rain in 24 hours was a gift from the Goddess but there was a small price to pay: Cabin Fever!

Clinical Signs: Dark circles under the eyes, stiff creaky joints,
vague restlessness, irritability and inability to focus. An annoying thumping sound coming from the back porch…. what the heck is that? Lyssa and Pippi are out there busily dismantling the woodpile and dropping logs on the deck which is their way of trying to get my attention to tell me that we need to go for a walk- NOW!

Sigh…Resistance, as they say, is Futile. Fortunately the cure for my condition is not far away; we’re in between storms, the sun is shining, and those dogs aren’t taking ‘no’ for an answer! Dogs know….

I’m not ready to deal with the fresh white blanket of powder that
just got dumped on the higher elevations, so I head for Jenkinson Lake
again. Dogs, leashes, camera, snacks, and boots (in case its muddy- lol!).

Now this is more like it:

Dogs Know!

Sly’s Park

sly park recreation area — Crystal Range as seen from Jenkinson Lake.

There is a place in Pollock Pines occupied, visited, and otherwise
shared by all manner of species of fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians, bugs,
mammals and um, oh yes people too. All kinds of people- fishermen, hikers,
bikers, runners, campers, horseback riders, boaters, kayakers, naturalists,
photographers, and many more that have never heard of Pollock Pines or
Jenkinson Lake but depend on its waters for their every day lives or
livelihoods. Not all that long ago there was no Jenkinson Lake. In 1952,
the year that Queen Elizabeth became Queen and Dwight Eisenhower became
President, Sly’s Park was still a meadow. Well, not just a meadow, but a
ranch, sawmill, and stopping place for cattlemen, explorers and settlers.
Shortly before that it was a gathering place for the Maidu and Miwok to hunt
and collect acorns for grinding. These days we visit Jenkinson Lake, the
centerpiece of Sly Park Recreation Area, to enjoy the water, the wildlife
and the woods. But under the lovely sparkling surface, beautifully
reflecting the surrounding hills, forest and sky, lies history!

sly park, Jenkinson Lake, Camp Creek Falls — Camp Creek Falls, Sly Park Recreation Area

My own history with Sly Park spans 15 years, which seems a long time to me.
I remember my first hike here, the first time I made it all the way around
the lake, the year when the water level was so high it seemed like the dams
might overflow, the time I saw the bald eagles and actually got close enough
to take a photograph, the time a sudden squall dropped 3 inches of snow on
me before I made it back to the car, the time I found the dog, the time I
saw the bobcat, times when Camp Creek waterfall was barely a trickle and
times when it was a raging flood, times when we could paddle kayaks all the way up
to Park Creek bridge and times when you could walk across the narrows on dry
land and bypass the whole east end of the lake. Yesterday I will remember
as the day we found the bricks, and realized that there was a lot more to
Sly Park Lake than met the eye. Or the lens of the camera.

sly park recreation area, Jenkinson Lake — South Cove

I should have suspected something because of the mist. Sly Park Lake is a
prodigious generator of mists which rise fast and furiously from the waters’
surface, especially from the little cove tucked in down along the south shore. I
used to believe that it was due to physics- something explained by warm
waters evaporating into the chilly air lurking on the shady north-facing
slopes of the south shore. But these are mystical mists, and both physicists
and mystics agree that there are many invisible layers of matter and energy
in this world and in this universe. Because the last several winters have
been so dry and the lake levels are relatively low, some of those layers are
resurfacing. Yesterday we found bricks. Colorful old bricks forged locally
from native soil and clay, imprinted with letters and names that are clues
from the past. Bricks with stories baked into them, for whoever has the
ears to hear them.

Jenkinson Lake was born in 1954, the product of 2 main creeks, 3 dams and a
half mile of underground tunnel contributing the diverted waters of a third
creek. The lake’s serene vista, which now seems to fit so naturally into
the landscape, belies the power of the geological and cultural forces that
evolved and conspired to create it. Whether you walk, run, pedal, float, or
ride horseback, whether you’re after fish, photos, relaxation or rare
plants, when you visit Sly Park Lake you are part of history, adding another
layer to the story, another link in the continuum, another footprint in the
mud.

Read more about the history of Sly’s Park and the genesis of the lake at
http://www.thepollockpinesepic.com/title/sly-park/

Then go for a walk and
enjoy the day!

(PS- Unless you are a fish or a duck it’s illegal to swim in the lake
because it is a municipal water supply; obviously fish and ducks are more
sanitary than people…)

Snow

I confess I don’t get along with snow as well as I used to. It was always a somewhat iffy relationship from the get-go, but now I have to be honest- the romance is gone. Oh, it’s still fine to look at- through the window while I’m cozied up on the sofa near the wood stove- fine feathery crystalline flakes drifting down amongst boughs of cedar- but I don’t feel the need to get out and romp around in it like I used to. While there are undeniably many wonderful things about snow, it has two qualities about it that I just can’t get past- 1) cold, and 2) wet.

When I was a kid we thought there was nothing better than playing out in the snow as much as we could. We’d slide down it on red plastic sliders, dug tunnels, built forts and snow people and snow sculptures, fling it at each other and anyone passing by, and generally wallowed in it until our toes and fingers and hands and feet were numb, and still we didn’t want to go inside. Later we learned to ski, and we always eagerly awaited the opening day at the resort. We started with lace-up boots, wooden skis and cable bindings, and a family pass for the whole season that only cost a few hundred dollars. My parents knew it was a bargain- skiing kept us active, healthy, and most importantly- out of trouble. We skied a lot.

Now I live in Northern California, where the most important thing about snow is that it is our water source for almost everything we do. Last winter we had all of about two snow storms, and the winter before that wasn’t much better. But it looks like this year maybe things are changing- we’ve already had a couple of really good wet weather systems break through that persistent high pressure ridge and deliver some big loads of H20 on us. Yep, free water, from the sky. Hooray, drought’s over! Maybe.

Just in case this too turns out to be a false alarm, a little teaser from Mother Nature, I decided to go up and do some celebratory romping while the romping was good- and there was nearly 2 feet of fresh powder blanketing the high country. Hope Valley. Where the West Fork of the Carson River meanders through an alpine meadow as lovely as its name, ringed with 360 degrees of majestic, forbidding, craggy summits. Breathtakingly beautiful, yes. Windswept, yes. Cold, yes. And snowy. I brought all of the necessary gear to stay warm and comfortable, the good snowshoes, camera of course, and all 5 dogs who insisted on coming along: “whither thou goest…”

18 inches of freshly fallen powder does not support any weight. A butterfly would sink in it. Snowshoes sink in it. So do long-legged dogs and the short-legged dogs following in the tracks of the long-legged dogs. I schlepped along laboriously and they leaped and bounded along like furry snow porpoises.

We romped and schlepped over to the river, investigated a number of interesting smells along the banks, took a lot of pictures, sat on a rock and ate a peanut butter sandwich, and pretty much wore ourselves out in about two hours.

So we schlepped, romped and porpoised back to the car, spent about 20 minutes removing snow dingleberries clinging to the feathers of my feathery little ones, and then gratefully returned to lower, warmer, greener elevations.

I like snow. I like it up in the mountains and I like it outside my window when I have the day off and the woodstove fired up. But my romping days aren’t what they used to be; or perhaps it has just been so durn long that I’m out of practice! Maybe tomorrow we’ll give it another go- after all, if we’re lucky it might be a long winter and I’ll still need to stay out of trouble!