#childhood is a stretch but i only read like. where the red fern grows. as an actual smaller child

[lavampira]

book recommendations

tysm @winedark and @rosenfey for the tag <:

passing it along to @hythlodaes @scionshtola @coldshrugs @likeabirdinflight @lesbianalicent @veeples @narrativefoiltrope @kirnet @disequilibria @jennystahl @elvves @queenofthieves @weird-ecologies @erielake @verbose-vespertine @solarisrenbeth @onceinabluemoony @queerbrujas @oldblood but ofc no pressure!!

1. the last book I read:

GOTH WESTERN by LIVALI WYLE — well. technically, it’s an indie graphic novel. but it’s a western meets magical realism about necromancy, revenge, and the power of love. and lesbians. I burned through it in a couple hours sitting because I was so gripped by it tbh.

2. a book I recommend:

THE HACIENDA by ISABEL CAÑAS — an absolute all time fave book in my heart; I would say one doesn’t even need to necessarily love horror to get invested in this one, since it also involves very interesting critique of spanish colonialism, religion, and class struggles in post-independence mexico only using hauntings as the lens to view it.

3. a book that I couldn’t put down:

THE PRIORY OF THE ORANGE TREE by SAMANTHA SHANNON — I was glued to this book for a solid two weeks despite its length. I have a lot that I would change about the pacing and certain events or qualities of some characters’ outcomes, but it was such a fun fantasy read, and I had a difficult time even moving on from the setting and protagonists once I was done.

4. a book I’ve read twice (or more):

THE SONG OF ACHILLES by MADELINE MILLER — my first time reading this myth retelling was my freshman year of college, so I reread it again ten years later to see if it would still hold up for how much I loved it, and it absolutely did. the perspective of the man standing beside and in love with the hero interwoven with the tragedy of achilles and patroclus takes me right out and the passages that tumblr enjoys to quote from it have so much more impact in the full context of the narrative.

5. a book on my TBR:

OUR WIVES UNDER THE SEA by JULIA ARMFIELD — this poor book keeps getting knocked down on my TBR but I’m determined to read it this year. I’m intrigued by the horror of the protagonist’s wife ‘coming back wrong’ in a sense, and the recommendations based on its similarity to ANNIHILATION, but also the fact it seems to be a wlw scifi horror, too.

6. a book I’ve put down:

AFFINITY by SARAH WATERS — I wanted to like this one so bad, considering how often waters has been hyped up to me as The Author for historical lesbian novels and the fact it delves into victorian spiritualism, but the pacing felt so slow at getting to the point in the plot, and when it finally did, the twist put me off on finishing the end. it’s probably more of a case of ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ but I def had to DNF it.

7. a book on my wishlist:

GHOST STATION by S.A. BARNES — space horror quickly became a fave niche genre that I got into last year, so I’ve been very excited for this release, too. I’m also a fan of how barnes writes atmospheric dread and I have high expectations for it.

8. a favorite book from my childhood:

WUTHERING HEIGHTS by EMILY BRONTË — it altered my brain chemistry as a teenager in high school and I haven’t been the same since I read it. I distinctly remember listening to ‘you said I killed you — haunt me then!’ read aloud and having to pretend like it didn’t make me feel so completely unhinged in the middle of class.

9. a book you would give to a friend:

PIRANESI by SUSANNA CLARKE — I was recommended this one by a friend to begin with, so it feels like an even more perfect book to pass forward. I think it’s one of those books that’s easy to get absorbed into even if it’s not a typical genre one would read, and it’s such a life-altering experience to go through with the protagonist, too. the underlying message that we’re all changed by our own trials and we’re never the same as we were before lingers with me.

10. a book of poetry or lyrics you own:

CRUSH by RICHARD SIKEN — it’s taken me so long to finally track down a physical copy at my bookstore but it was worth it because it remains my fave book of poetry to date. I could quote so many lines, after how hard they’ve hit me, and some of them have influenced my own writing or pairings in some ways.

11. a nonfiction book you own:

HAVANA NOCTURNE by T.J. ENGLISH — back in 2015-2016ish I went through a true crime phase in the prohibition era through the foundation of the US mafia, and this is a very informative book on how the mob became tied to cuba and how the revolution affected it.

12. what are you currently reading:

AN EDUCATION IN MALICE by S.T. GIBSON — I stumbled across this retelling of carmilla set in a late 60s massachusetts women’s college after reading gibson’s A DOWRY OF BLOOD and had to give it a try. I’m enjoying it so far; the prose is full of thick emotional yearning and electric chemistry, and the balance in the narrative of toxic mentorship, historical romantic and sensual attraction between women without shaming them for it, and vampiric elements is really fun.

13. what are you planning on reading next:

WHAT FEASTS AT NIGHT by T. KINGFISHER — I only found out the other day that the sequel to WHAT MOVES THE DEAD was even released but I’m so desperate for the next part of alex easton’s story (and how eerily kingfisher writes horror) that it shot up to my next read.

[barnesandco]

Little Hands (IV)

Series Masterlist

Communication is key.

This is an entry for @star-spangled-bingo 2021. Word count: 2248. Square filled: “Sung to Sleep”

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: More Hydra Evilness, More Sad Child, Parental Anxieties. Brief mentions of war, sickness, death, grief. 

A/N: I know 2.2k words isn’t objectively a lot but boy did this feel like it. I hope every word is worth it and that you enjoy! Lmk what you think!!! Also I won’t even lie, the idea of Steve’s kids is 100% from one of my favorite comfort fics, family means no one gets left behind or forgotten, by the genius, the wonderful cosmicocean. IT’S SO SOFT. Pls read it.

You’re stunned when Bucky tells you what’s going on. The idea that his daughter (?) was made in a lab like some kind of experiment, and that the man who led said experiment now wants her back like she is his property, his weapon, is too horrid to consider for very long. Weaponizing an innocent child. Hydra.

Bucky gave you the broad strokes of the investigation – currently running on little more than educated guesses based on the meagre intel they have – and has let you know that he has had to recuse himself from the case, due to his… personal connection. That leaves him somewhere he finds awkward, to say the least.

It's evident in the way the corners of his lips turn down, how he is constantly rubbing the pads of his fingers against the coarse scratch of denim, while he watches Ana watch Zoya, Steve’s 17-year-old daughter, working on a tablet. Zoya tucks a strand of hair behind her hijab, then continues to draw up a storyboard, narrating the events to the younger girl. Steve had apparently forgotten the lunch his kids had made him at home, so Zoya had brought it in, and decided to stay the day.

Ana’s quiet, attentive for the most part, listening with her full capabilities, but her eyes flit away from the screen every now and then to look at you and Bucky, as if to reassure herself that you’re still there.

Besides that, there aren’t all that many distractions present for an already precocious child. Most of the team has dispersed for the investigation, with the exception of Peter, who is sat at a table in the corner making intentionally fruitless efforts at teaching Morgan chess, while she giggles and tries to stack the pieces like Jenga blocks instead.

However, Bucky’s restlessness is infectious, and you think he needs to get it under check before it grows any further. That’s why you stand, saying, “Could we go for a little walk, Bucky?”

He nods, man of few words that he is, and leads the way. You’re sure he knows that you formulated it like a request for his benefit, but he doesn’t mention it. It’s just as well �� that he knows you like that, and knows when to accept the proverbial hand being offered.

Bucky takes you to a corner of the roof that you’d mistake for a community garden if you didn’t know any better. The Avengers seem to have green thumbs, or at least, a significant portion of them do. They’re good with plants, and possessive about them, too. Autumn ferns grow outside the circle they seem to have been planted in – with a sign shouting Wanda! – to invade the territory of a vegetable garden labelled Bruce (accompanied by a Hulkish, green thumbs up presumably not drawn by the man himself).  

Meticulously maintained daylilies and columbines, in vivid reds and vibrant purples, litter the edges of the path that has been carved through this little paradise, and the birdhouses between them stake the claim of the owner more effectively than a neon sign screaming Sam Wilson. Bucky’s told you about his abilities, how they veer into the decidedly supernatural but Sam insists are only the residue of a childhood with homing pigeons.

Nothing here looks like Bucky’s, though. He seems to be taking it in, perhaps thinking about his own little paradise back in the city, and how he’s chosen to keep it distant from that of his teammates. That worries you. He worries you.

And this, the situation with Anastasia, becoming a father, it’s terrifying. Hell, if it scares you this much, how is he feeling? You ask him as much.

“Bucky, are you okay?”

He laughs, softly, disbelievingly, no malice in his scoff, only fear. Only the sound of a voice saturated with consternation and total, complete anxiety. “Would you be?” He asks back.

“That’s why I’m asking.”

Bucky evades the questions, turning first one way on the path, and then the other, approaching the edge clear of shrubbery and blooms alike, resting his palms on the top of the wall.

“I can’t be a father.”

The solemnity in his tone allows no room for negotiations, but then, neither do the facts. “You are,” you reply, somewhat hesitantly, because the technicalities of how Ana came to be are still a little blurry to you. She’s far from a normal child, and not quite a clone, either. She is of Bucky, though. His, in any way that counts.

“That little girl was created in a Hydra lab as a super soldier to serve the cause,” he says, shaking his head vigorously as the cause repulses him even more than it does you. “And who knows what else she was put through before SHIELD fell and Orlov got her out, and it’s my fault.”

“You didn’t—”

“I didn’t ask for it to happen but it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t happened. They used me to make a super soldier from scratch, and now I’m supposed to raise her? It’s not that simple. I’m not Steve. I can’t…”

Being honest, you feel you’re pretty far out of your depth here. But you’ve promised him your help, and you’ll do your best.

“You don’t have to. There are other options.” You’re sure you’re overstepping. Perhaps this gentle companionship has not yet reached the point where you can give advice on parenting. But if you don’t, who will? Steve, whose answers don’t enter the gray territory Bucky’s mind is residing in right now, who parents like he was born for it?

Steve chose fatherhood. Bucky has been nailed to it like it’s a new cross to bear, heavier than all the previous ones put together.

His gaze roams the grounds that stretch as far as you can see. You’re both far away from home right now, far outside your comfort zones.

“I’m sorry for dragging you into my mess, sweetheart. It’s not right. You have things to do, and I shouldn’t have—”

“Bucky, I’ve been staring at the same four sentences of dialogue for the past month. I literally could not have been happier to get out of the house. Even if I do wish it was under better circumstances,” you say fervently. You’re here because he needs you. Because Ana needs you. It’s nice to be needed.

“That’s one way to put it,” he smiles, and you’re glad to see it.

“Not to mention, it’s not your fault. It’s not anyone’s fault except whoever your team is looking for,” you insist. “And Ana’s a sweet girl. A little quiet, but Baba says I was, too.”

This, Bucky thinks about. You wonder if he was a quiet child, too. “What’s he like?”

“Hmm?” The reverie snaps like a rubber band.

“Your father?” Bucky asks, shyly, his eyes meeting yours, letting you know exactly why he’s asking.

You look up at the clouds, think back to Boston, to time shared between the library and the park. A childhood with books, lunch breaks under a desk in an office at MIT, stealing his glasses and running away with them, rubbing at his stubbly beard like he was a housecat. Inside jokes with your father and rolled eyes with your mother. Laughter and tears, laughter with tears.

After a long while, trying and failing to summarize your father, you say, “A jokester. The most sarcastic person I know. But still kind of neurotic, to be honest. The kind of parent that makes you show up at the airport a full four hours before your flight.” It’s grossly insufficient. For a writer, you’re not very good with words. You suppose it’s not the words that are the problem; it’s the lifetime they have to encompass. “What about yours?”

Bucky sighs. “Soldier. He’s one thing I don’t feel bad for not remembering because it wasn’t Hydra that wiped those memories. He just died when I was really small. Survived the Great War only to be killed by TB a few years later at home.”

“I’m sorry.” You avert your eyes. Grief feels private, even decades later, even in the smallest doses.

He shakes his head, smiles fondly, up at the sky, too, like you did. Only, he’s smiling at it, like he’s thinking of someone beyond the clouds. “Don’t be. Was a long time ago.”

“That doesn’t mean it isn’t allowed to hurt anymore.”

“You sound like my therapist.”

“I sound like my therapist.”

At this, the two of you look at each other and burst into laughter. It feels forbidden, as though the severity of the situation condemns joy. That isn’t fair, you think. The situation is that of a child, and nobody needs laughter more than kids do. Food for the soul.

When the echo of your exhilarations falls, Bucky grows serious once more. “They have them for kids, now, too, right?” He asks, referring to therapists. “Do you think Anastasia should see one? She’s not exactly… normal, you know?”

“Maybe.” It’s a difficult question, but a good indicator of how Bucky is growing to feel about Ana. “You’d make a good dad, if you wanted to be one, Bucky,” you say, and mean it. It’s plain as day that he cares about her.

“I can’t even remember my own.”

“Parental instincts are intuitive, not genetic,” you tell him.

“You been reading handbooks?” He teases.

“You’d be surprised by how much you learn from the rabbit holes you fall down while researching books,” you deadpan.

“Can any of that research get the nightmares out of my head? I think it might scare a kid.”

The self-deprecation hurts, but your response is honest, heartfelt. “She likes you already.”

“She won’t if she thinks I’ve run away,” he answers, straightening up. He might be trying to evade the conversation, but you’ll let him, for now. He’s gotten some fresh air, had some time to clear his thoughts, or sort them, at least. And so you return, to the little girl who has a tighter grip on both of you than you even realize.

------

Ana grows unsettled as night darkens the sky. It could be the ruckus she isn’t quite used to. It could be the toy fire truck Tony has been altering with his utensils to increase its noise output, much to Morgan’s amusement. It could be the actual parrot perched on Sam’s shoulder.

Whatever the cause, she hasn’t succumbed to it enough to make a seat out of the fridge again. She’s sitting in her seat, between Bucky and yourself, eating the hummus Bruce and Wanda have made. Nat discusses sniper scopes with Clint, Peter tries to get away with eating the side of vegetables on Jordan’s plate without Steve noticing, and Bucky eats silently, eyes almost constantly on Anastasia, who takes it all in while her knee bounces up and down with an ever-increasing speed, much like her father’s.

You excuse yourselves soon after dessert, after Morgan has fallen asleep against Jordan’s arm on the couch, and Steve and Tony’s friendly debate is starting to develop the edge it tends to when they’ve been bantering for too long.

Bucky sets up on the sectional in his room, and leaves the ridiculously large double bed to you and Anastasia. It’s been a strange, strange day, and one can only hope that tomorrow brings some ease, a balm for the prickly, fiery ache that has settled over the man you care so much about.

------

When you wake, it’s because of singing. For half a moment, you think you’re in a dream, but as your eyes adjust to the blanket of dark, you see the shadow on the sofa nearby. Only, it’s bigger than just Bucky. Anastasia is sitting on his lap, her head cushioned against his chest. Scrambling for your glasses, and turning on the lamp on the bedside table, you notice that there are trails of drying tears on her little cheeks, and she’s still shaking with the aftershocks of whatever scare she must’ve had during the night.

Not for the first time, you curse your deep sleep that meant you didn’t wake with Ana, but watch in wonder as Bucky sings.

Hush, little baby, don't say a word Papa's going to buy you a mockingbird

And if that mockingbird won't sing Papa's going to buy you a diamond ring

Ana’s eyes begin to close, but she fights the sleep. Bucky doesn’t let her. He lies down, easing her down beside himself, singing all the while.

And if that diamond ring turns brass Papa's going to buy you a looking glass

And if that looking glass gets broke Papa's going to buy you a billy goat

His voice fills the room, low though it may be, and he curls himself around Ana.

And if that billy goat won't pull Papa's going to buy you a cart and bull

And if that cart and bull turn over Papa's going to buy you a dog named Rover

She succumbs to the lull of his tone, his song, his promises, sighs a little sigh, lets the last, little hiccup leave her body.

And if that dog named Rover won't bark Papa's going to buy you a horse and cart

And if that horse and cart fall down You'll still be the sweetest little baby in town

Bucky lifts his hand from where it was stroking the hair at her temple, and lays his arm over his daughter. They’re safe, for now. Together.

[checkmarch79-blog]

Those Useless Trees — The Valley Oak

A couple of days ago my friend Mike and I decided to go for a hike in Malibu Creek State Park. Having celebrated a friend’s birthday the previous night into the following morning, a good moderately strenuous ramble seemed like just the thing. We were both awed by the park’s stunning vistas as well as its many magnificent valley oak trees, the largest oak species in North America and a species found only in California.

Inside the Malibu Creek State Park

The 3,324-hectare park, although opened to the public in 1976, of course, has a much older history. The first humans to arrive in the area where likely the Chumash, who established the village of Talepop (or Ta’lopop) within what’s now the park. About 3,500 years ago — thousands of years after the Chumash settled the area — the Tongva arrived from the east and the Malibu Creek, which drains the Santa Monica Mountains, became a sort of border between the two nations. Downstream the river flows into the Pacific Ocean at an estuary the Chumash referred to as “U-mali-wu,” meaning “it makes a loud noise there.” The Spanish, who arrived in the 16th century, recorded the name as Malibu.

Languedoc?

Although neither Mike nor I had ever been to the park before, we’d both seen it in many films and television series. The striking Goat Buttes, in particular, have served as a popular setting in Hollywood fictions. Before reading a sign informing us that the outcroppings were in the series, M*A*S*H, I was reminded by the chaparral-covered prominences of a childhood summer spent in Languedoc. After learning that the semi-arid oak landscape had been used to evoke green, temperate Korea for eleven seasons of the long-running Korean War comedy, I was struck by how unlike the scenery reminded me of any I’d seen in Korea, which I visited last summer. Of course, come to think of it, the cast of that show’s hairstyles seemed suspiciously ’70s for a war which took place from 1950-1953.

Coast live oaks on a hill

The valley in which we stood was carpeted with brittle, yellow grasses and scruffy oak trees. Most of the oaks in the oak savanna were coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia), also known as California live oak, those familiar oaks which during the rainy season fleetingly give the landscape of rolling hills on which they often grow the appearance of the Shire. Elsewhere in the park, there are stately sycamores and the southernmost grove of redwoods. There are, naturally, many varieties of native fungi and fauna as well, and during our visit, we observed a small herd of mule deer, various lizards, a covey of quail, a couple of rabbits, a California tarantula, a gracefully gliding heron, a red-tailed hawk, a flock of pigeons, and several other birds which I didn’t recognize.

Some of the oaks obviously unlike the others. They were taller, their silhouettes patchier, their branches droopier than the dome-like coast live oaks, the canopies of which spread out like gauzy green umbrellas over the gently rolling hills. As a child growing up in Missouri’s Little Dixie, I roamed the forests and knew my red cedars from my red maples, my black walnuts from my bladdernuts, my corkwoods from my dogwoods, my pawpaws from my possumhaws. I don’t remember learning most of their names and characteristics, though, and because of that, I hoped — however unrealistically — that I’d over time somehow simply absorb a similar knowledge Southern California’s trees. Having now lived in Southern California longer than anywhere else, I have unfortunately found that I have to make an effort to learn them.

I observed the oaks that were not coast live oaks. Whereas the leaves of the coast live oak are small, shiny, prickly, and look a bit like those of a holly shrub, the leaves of these oaks were lobed and looked almost leathery, faintly fuzzy. The leaves were clustered rather than spread across the branches’ tips. The bark was sort of silvery brown and almost uniformly wrinkled whereas the trunks and branches of the coast live oaks appear contorted and gnarled. It was clear that these were not coast live oaks — but I was no closer to identifying them than I had been when Mike had asked me what they were and so I turned to PlantSnap, an app which has, since downloading, successfully identified about 30% of the plants I’ve used it to recognize. It also identifies fungi — but with a track record like that, I wouldn’t use it for foraging unless I was completely OK with a painful death. This time the app proved successful, however, notifying me that the tree was most likely a Quercus agrifolia, or valley oak (it was) or, perhaps, a staghorn fern or loquat (it was obviously not). Valley oaks are also known as robles, as in Paso Robles.

I was struck by the appearance of the valley oaks acorns, which were considerably longer than those I was accustomed to. They provide food for, among other animals, acorn woodpeckers, California ground squirrels, California scrub jays, and yellow-billed magpies. Historically, they were also an important food source for the Chumash, who never developed agriculture as they were able to live comfortably off of what they foraged and hunted.

Mule deer eating valley oak leaves

The woody parts of the valley oak support California gall wasp, red cone gall wasp, and Chionodes petalumensis. As we approached a beckoning oak woodland, we stopped to watch a large family of mule deer, one of whose members spent a great deal of time standing on his hind legs and helping himself to the leaves of a large tree.

The roots of the valley oak have intimate symbiotic associations with many of the region’s mycorrhizal fungi which are essential to their survival — and one of the main reasons Southern California should favor the planting of native trees over imports like the pepper trees, goldenrains, jacarandas, bottle brushes, &c which, although drought tolerant, are simply incapable of slotting into an ecosystem which evolved over millions of years without them.

The valley oak is endemic to California, where its range stretches along the valleys and foothills of San Diego County in the south to Sikiyou County in the north. They live to be up to 600 years, which means that the oldest trees were alive during the fall of Constantinople, the invention of the printing press, the domination of Central Asia by Tamerlane’s Timurid Empire, and closer to home, the rise of the Inca and Aztec empires.

Until it fell on 1 May 1977, the tallest valley oak was the so-called “Hooker Oak,” which stood until then in Chico. Because its trunk had a massive diameter of 8.8 meters, its age was at the time estimated to be over 1,000 years old. However, once dead it was determined that the tree owed its girth to the fact that it was in fact two specimens, both of roughly 325 years of age, which had long ago grown together into one. It appeared in many films where it proved a natural in its many roles as a tree.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), co-starring the Hooker Oak

The current tallest valley oak is the so-called “Henley Oak,” a specimen which towers 47 meters above the floor of the Round Valley in Covelo. It is named after Thomas J. Henley, a one-time Superintendent of Indian Affairs notable for opening the region to European-American settlers in defiance of a federal order which had promised the land to Native Americans, resulting in a great deal of regrettable bloodshed between indigenous Californians and immigrants. The tree is believed to be more than 500 years old, meaning it sprouted from an acorn and was possibly producing its own well before the first Spanish galleon, San Salvador, sailed along the coast.

The Henley Oak (source unknown)

Mike and I turned back after reaching Rock Pool, and again we crossed the valley featured in M*A*S*H. This time, surprisingly, I did find myself somewhat reminded of Korea — or at least of Korean (and Chinese) landscape painting. By this time, the sun had set and the gold hour was transitioning to blue. The oak woodland seemed to be climbing up the base of the improbably steep sandstone hillsides. Tipping the scales of perception, perhaps, was the presence of a Korean family attempting to take photos of a toddler with the scenery as a backdrop. 

Korean landscape painting? Oak woodland at the base of low mountains

I sometimes have a physical sensation of being pulled into the woods and the longer I looked at the trees, the stronger the pull seemed to grow. I had to fight the urge to enter the forest because the park had officially closed the moment the sun sank behind the horizon and currently, there is no overnight camping because in June, 35-year-old Tristan Beaudette was shot to death in the tent he was sharing with his two young daughters. Since then, rumors and other reports of gunfire in the park have emerged both following the murder and stretching back to 2016 and there’s an ongoing investigation.

Vacant campsite under a canopy of oak trees)

Hopefully, the murderous gunman will be caught and peace and campers will again return to the park. It looks like a really wonderful place to pitch a tent for a weekend, perhaps do a bit of forest bathing, or even just contemplate the scenery. As we continued toward the exit, the crescent moon (which had hung in the sky throughout our day) was now shining brightly and bats were flitting about in search of a meal. We hurried our pace and left the park without incident.

Eric Brightwell is an adventurer, writer, rambler, explorer, cartographer, and guerrilla gardener who is always seeking paid writing, speaking, traveling, and art opportunities. He is not interested in generating advertorials, cranking out clickbait, or laboring away in a listicle mill “for exposure.”

Brightwell has written for Angels Walk LA, Amoeblog, Boom: A Journal of California, diaCRITICS, Hidden Los Angeles, and KCET Departures. His art has been featured by the American Institute of Architects, the Architecture & Design Museum, the Craft & Folk Art Museum, Form Follows Function, Los Angeles County Store, the book Sidewalking, Skid Row Housing Trust, and 1650 Gallery. Brightwell has been featured as subject in The Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Magazine, LAist, CurbedLA, Eastsider LA, Boing Boing, Los Angeles, I’m Yours, and on Notebook on Cities and Culture. He has been a guest speaker on KCRW‘s Which Way, LA? and at Emerson College. Art prints of Brightwell’s maps are available from 1650 Gallery. He is currently writing a book about Los Angeles and you can follow him on Ameba, Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram, Mubi, Twitter, and Weibo.

Click here to offer financial support and thank you!

Source: https://ericbrightwell.com/2018/09/18/those-useless-trees-the-valley-oak/

[mariatramp56-blog]

Those Useless Trees — The Valley Oak

A couple of days ago my friend Mike and I decided to go for a hike in Malibu Creek State Park. Having celebrated a friend’s birthday the previous night into the following morning, a good moderately strenuous ramble seemed like just the thing. We were both awed by the park’s stunning vistas as well as its many magnificent valley oak trees, the largest oak species in North America and a species found only in California.

Inside the Malibu Creek State Park

The 3,324-hectare park, although opened to the public in 1976, of course, has a much older history. The first humans to arrive in the area where likely the Chumash, who established the village of Talepop (or Ta’lopop) within what’s now the park. About 3,500 years ago — thousands of years after the Chumash settled the area — the Tongva arrived from the east and the Malibu Creek, which drains the Santa Monica Mountains, became a sort of border between the two nations. Downstream the river flows into the Pacific Ocean at an estuary the Chumash referred to as “U-mali-wu,” meaning “it makes a loud noise there.” The Spanish, who arrived in the 16th century, recorded the name as Malibu.

Languedoc?

Although neither Mike nor I had ever been to the park before, we’d both seen it in many films and television series. The striking Goat Buttes, in particular, have served as a popular setting in Hollywood fictions. Before reading a sign informing us that the outcroppings were in the series, M*A*S*H, I was reminded by the chaparral-covered prominences of a childhood summer spent in Languedoc. After learning that the semi-arid oak landscape had been used to evoke green, temperate Korea for eleven seasons of the long-running Korean War comedy, I was struck by how unlike the scenery reminded me of any I’d seen in Korea, which I visited last summer. Of course, come to think of it, the cast of that show’s hairstyles seemed suspiciously ’70s for a war which took place from 1950-1953.

Coast live oaks on a hill

The valley in which we stood was carpeted with brittle, yellow grasses and scruffy oak trees. Most of the oaks in the oak savanna were coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia), also known as California live oak, those familiar oaks which during the rainy season fleetingly give the landscape of rolling hills on which they often grow the appearance of the Shire. Elsewhere in the park, there are stately sycamores and the southernmost grove of redwoods. There are, naturally, many varieties of native fungi and fauna as well, and during our visit, we observed a small herd of mule deer, various lizards, a covey of quail, a couple of rabbits, a California tarantula, a gracefully gliding heron, a red-tailed hawk, a flock of pigeons, and several other birds which I didn’t recognize.

Some of the oaks obviously unlike the others. They were taller, their silhouettes patchier, their branches droopier than the dome-like coast live oaks, the canopies of which spread out like gauzy green umbrellas over the gently rolling hills. As a child growing up in Missouri’s Little Dixie, I roamed the forests and knew my red cedars from my red maples, my black walnuts from my bladdernuts, my corkwoods from my dogwoods, my pawpaws from my possumhaws. I don’t remember learning most of their names and characteristics, though, and because of that, I hoped — however unrealistically — that I’d over time somehow simply absorb a similar knowledge Southern California’s trees. Having now lived in Southern California longer than anywhere else, I have unfortunately found that I have to make an effort to learn them.

I observed the oaks that were not coast live oaks. Whereas the leaves of the coast live oak are small, shiny, prickly, and look a bit like those of a holly shrub, the leaves of these oaks were lobed and looked almost leathery, faintly fuzzy. The leaves were clustered rather than spread across the branches’ tips. The bark was sort of silvery brown and almost uniformly wrinkled whereas the trunks and branches of the coast live oaks appear contorted and gnarled. It was clear that these were not coast live oaks — but I was no closer to identifying them than I had been when Mike had asked me what they were and so I turned to PlantSnap, an app which has, since downloading, successfully identified about 30% of the plants I’ve used it to recognize. It also identifies fungi — but with a track record like that, I wouldn’t use it for foraging unless I was completely OK with a painful death. This time the app proved successful, however, notifying me that the tree was most likely a Quercus agrifolia, or valley oak (it was) or, perhaps, a staghorn fern or loquat (it was obviously not). Valley oaks are also known as robles, as in Paso Robles.

I was struck by the appearance of the valley oaks acorns, which were considerably longer than those I was accustomed to. They provide food for, among other animals, acorn woodpeckers, California ground squirrels, California scrub jays, and yellow-billed magpies. Historically, they were also an important food source for the Chumash, who never developed agriculture as they were able to live comfortably off of what they foraged and hunted.

Mule deer eating valley oak leaves

The woody parts of the valley oak support California gall wasp, red cone gall wasp, and Chionodes petalumensis. As we approached a beckoning oak woodland, we stopped to watch a large family of mule deer, one of whose members spent a great deal of time standing on his hind legs and helping himself to the leaves of a large tree.

The roots of the valley oak have intimate symbiotic associations with many of the region’s mycorrhizal fungi which are essential to their survival — and one of the main reasons Southern California should favor the planting of native trees over imports like the pepper trees, goldenrains, jacarandas, bottle brushes, &c which, although drought tolerant, are simply incapable of slotting into an ecosystem which evolved over millions of years without them.

The valley oak is endemic to California, where its range stretches along the valleys and foothills of San Diego County in the south to Sikiyou County in the north. They live to be up to 600 years, which means that the oldest trees were alive during the fall of Constantinople, the invention of the printing press, the domination of Central Asia by Tamerlane’s Timurid Empire, and closer to home, the rise of the Inca and Aztec empires.

Until it fell on 1 May 1977, the tallest valley oak was the so-called “Hooker Oak,” which stood until then in Chico. Because its trunk had a massive diameter of 8.8 meters, its age was at the time estimated to be over 1,000 years old. However, once dead it was determined that the tree owed its girth to the fact that it was in fact two specimens, both of roughly 325 years of age, which had long ago grown together into one. It appeared in many films where it proved a natural in its many roles as a tree.

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), co-starring the Hooker Oak

The current tallest valley oak is the so-called “Henley Oak,” a specimen which towers 47 meters above the floor of the Round Valley in Covelo. It is named after Thomas J. Henley, a one-time Superintendent of Indian Affairs notable for opening the region to European-American settlers in defiance of a federal order which had promised the land to Native Americans, resulting in a great deal of regrettable bloodshed between indigenous Californians and immigrants. The tree is believed to be more than 500 years old, meaning it sprouted from an acorn and was possibly producing its own well before the first Spanish galleon, San Salvador, sailed along the coast.

The Henley Oak (source unknown)

Mike and I turned back after reaching Rock Pool, and again we crossed the valley featured in M*A*S*H. This time, surprisingly, I did find myself somewhat reminded of Korea — or at least of Korean (and Chinese) landscape painting. By this time, the sun had set and the gold hour was transitioning to blue. The oak woodland seemed to be climbing up the base of the improbably steep sandstone hillsides. Tipping the scales of perception, perhaps, was the presence of a Korean family attempting to take photos of a toddler with the scenery as a backdrop. 

Korean landscape painting? Oak woodland at the base of low mountains

I sometimes have a physical sensation of being pulled into the woods and the longer I looked at the trees, the stronger the pull seemed to grow. I had to fight the urge to enter the forest because the park had officially closed the moment the sun sank behind the horizon and currently, there is no overnight camping because in June, 35-year-old Tristan Beaudette was shot to death in the tent he was sharing with his two young daughters. Since then, rumors and other reports of gunfire in the park have emerged both following the murder and stretching back to 2016 and there’s an ongoing investigation.

Vacant campsite under a canopy of oak trees)

Hopefully, the murderous gunman will be caught and peace and campers will again return to the park. It looks like a really wonderful place to pitch a tent for a weekend, perhaps do a bit of forest bathing, or even just contemplate the scenery. As we continued toward the exit, the crescent moon (which had hung in the sky throughout our day) was now shining brightly and bats were flitting about in search of a meal. We hurried our pace and left the park without incident.

Eric Brightwell is an adventurer, writer, rambler, explorer, cartographer, and guerrilla gardener who is always seeking paid writing, speaking, traveling, and art opportunities. He is not interested in generating advertorials, cranking out clickbait, or laboring away in a listicle mill “for exposure.”

Brightwell has written for Angels Walk LA, Amoeblog, Boom: A Journal of California, diaCRITICS, Hidden Los Angeles, and KCET Departures. His art has been featured by the American Institute of Architects, the Architecture & Design Museum, the Craft & Folk Art Museum, Form Follows Function, Los Angeles County Store, the book Sidewalking, Skid Row Housing Trust, and 1650 Gallery. Brightwell has been featured as subject in The Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Magazine, LAist, CurbedLA, Eastsider LA, Boing Boing, Los Angeles, I’m Yours, and on Notebook on Cities and Culture. He has been a guest speaker on KCRW‘s Which Way, LA? and at Emerson College. Art prints of Brightwell’s maps are available from 1650 Gallery. He is currently writing a book about Los Angeles and you can follow him on Ameba, Facebook, Goodreads, Instagram, Mubi, Twitter, and Weibo.

Click here to offer financial support and thank you!

Source: https://ericbrightwell.com/2018/09/18/those-useless-trees-the-valley-oak/

[topfygad]

Jabarkhet: Where Ruskin Bond Tales Come Alive

A private nature reserve, away from Mussoorie’s tourist thrum, looks like something straight out of the author’s stories.

  Spread over 300 acres, Jabarkhet is Uttarakhand’s first private nature reserve. Photo Courtesy: Jabarkhet Nature Reserve

The summers of my childhood were defined by three things: books, mangoes and power cuts. Often the three would come together and I would eat through plates of raspuri and langda, while sprawled on the floor reading by the light of a kerosene lantern. I devoured entire series through the summers, graduating from Enid Blyton to Caroline Keene, but Ruskin Bond was my perennial favourite. As the mercury climbed, I would immerse myself in his stories of the hills and forests and the people who lived in them, almost feeling the cool mountain breeze against my sweaty skin.

On my first trip to Mussoorie last May, I craned my neck out of the car while driving up from Dehradun, to take in the verdant Garhwal hills I had read so much about. Summer had left the hills parched and the trees drooping, but human activity had also rendered large patches of the hillsides barren and brown. Mussoorie was as crowded as the Delhi metro during rush hour. The major attractions—Mall Road, Kempty Falls, Company Garden, Gunhill Point—were pretty, but crammed with tourists.

Looking for an escape from the madding crowds, my friend and I chanced upon a poster for Jabarkhet Nature Reserve at a café on Mall Road. It seemed relatively unknown; no taxi driver hawked it, and one even wondered why we wanted to go there. On a whim, we postponed our plans to visit Lal Tibba and took a taxi to the reserve.

Spread over 300 acres, Jabarkhet is Uttarakhand’s first private nature reserve. Until a few years ago, it was like many other forest patches in the Garhwals: subject to littering, animal grazing and felling of trees for firewood and timber. Since 2012, the owners of the reserve have worked with noted conservationist Sejal Worah to restore the area, removing nearly 500 kilograms of trash and appointing locals to assist in the conservation process.

Jabarkhet brims with flora and fauna—here, you can walk amidst rhododendron blooms (left), and listen to the Himalayan griffin vulture (right). Photos By: Orin/Shutterstock (Flowers), CSP_Mazikab/Fotosearch LBRF/Dinodia Photo Library (Vulture)

A half-hour drive up the narrow, winding Tehri Road from Library Bus Stand brought us to the entrance of Jabarkhet. Due to the impromptu nature of our plans, we did not have a guide, but the ticket collector handed us field guides, detailing the eight trails and the flora and fauna we could hope to see along each. We chose the Leopard Trail, one of the longest, which would take us through most of the reserve’s major viewpoints.

The first thing that struck me was the silence, the pin-drop silence my schoolteachers had often demanded. Slowly I realised that it wasn’t complete silence, but the absence of the city’s white noise, the commotion of vehicles and people that I was used to. Alongside the crunch of our shoes on fallen leaves, I heard the screech of a magpie, the guttural cry of Himalayan griffon vulture, the occasional tok-tok of a woodpecker, and the whistling of the wind through the trees.

As we walked, I picked out some of the plants mentioned in the field guide: pinpricks of yellow kingol (barberry) flowers, lichen coating the lyonia trees, and the orange Himalayan raspberry peeping through a copse of ferns. After half an hour of walking, we emerged from the tree-lined forest trail to a hillside clearing. The hills stretched before us, carpeted with old-growth forests of deodar, oak, pine and maple. The rhododendrons were in bloom—streaks of red interspersed with myriad shades of green. We strained our eyes to see the snow-dusted peaks of the Himalayas, but they were hidden by misty shawls.

The only charm touristy Mussoorie (top) had for the author was the proximity to Landour, Ruskin Bond’s (bottom) hometown. Photos by: Aroon Thaewchatturat/Alamy/Indiapicture (Ruskin Bond), Vivek S Maurya/Shutterstock (Mussoorie)

We took a narrow path higher into the hills to the “Lone Oak” at top of the trail, a clearing around an oak tree with some wooden benches—the sort of place where one might encounter a character from Bond’s stories. The bilberry-loving Binya from “Binya Passes By” perhaps, or any of the ghosts from A Season of Ghosts. Maybe even the writer himself on one of his mountain walks. We didn’t meet anyone, but were free to conjure up some of our own characters while we revelled in the picturesque solitude of the mountains.

On the way back, we took a detour through the Mushroom Trail. Walking through dense thickets, we kept an eye out for fungi and were rewarded with glimpses of puffball and inkcap mushrooms growing near tree roots. The trail opened out into wildflower meadows, near a small abandoned hut. A sea of daisies greeted us, spread like a white bridal veil over the grassy hillock. I sat on a log and daydreamed of being a Garhwali Heidi, of milking goats in the hut, scampering behind butterflies amidst the wildflowers, and waking up every morning to a view of the hills.

Later, back in Mussoorie, I stood in a queue to meet the man who had triggered my wanderlust with his tales of the hills. Ruskin Bond makes the trip from his cottage in Landour to Cambridge Bookstore in Mall Road every Saturday to autograph books. As he smiled at me with twinkling eyes, I was bubbling over with stories to tell him, especially of my recent walk in the Jabarkhet woods. Ultimately, I stuck to a simple thank you, for sharing his love of the hills through his stories, and a decision to write some of my own stories down instead.

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source http://cheaprtravels.com/jabarkhet-where-ruskin-bond-tales-come-alive/

[topfygad]

Jabarkhet: Where Ruskin Bond Tales Come Alive

A private nature reserve, away from Mussoorie’s tourist thrum, looks like something straight out of the author’s stories.

  Spread over 300 acres, Jabarkhet is Uttarakhand’s first private nature reserve. Photo Courtesy: Jabarkhet Nature Reserve

The summers of my childhood were defined by three things: books, mangoes and power cuts. Often the three would come together and I would eat through plates of raspuri and langda, while sprawled on the floor reading by the light of a kerosene lantern. I devoured entire series through the summers, graduating from Enid Blyton to Caroline Keene, but Ruskin Bond was my perennial favourite. As the mercury climbed, I would immerse myself in his stories of the hills and forests and the people who lived in them, almost feeling the cool mountain breeze against my sweaty skin.

On my first trip to Mussoorie last May, I craned my neck out of the car while driving up from Dehradun, to take in the verdant Garhwal hills I had read so much about. Summer had left the hills parched and the trees drooping, but human activity had also rendered large patches of the hillsides barren and brown. Mussoorie was as crowded as the Delhi metro during rush hour. The major attractions—Mall Road, Kempty Falls, Company Garden, Gunhill Point—were pretty, but crammed with tourists.

Looking for an escape from the madding crowds, my friend and I chanced upon a poster for Jabarkhet Nature Reserve at a café on Mall Road. It seemed relatively unknown; no taxi driver hawked it, and one even wondered why we wanted to go there. On a whim, we postponed our plans to visit Lal Tibba and took a taxi to the reserve.

Spread over 300 acres, Jabarkhet is Uttarakhand’s first private nature reserve. Until a few years ago, it was like many other forest patches in the Garhwals: subject to littering, animal grazing and felling of trees for firewood and timber. Since 2012, the owners of the reserve have worked with noted conservationist Sejal Worah to restore the area, removing nearly 500 kilograms of trash and appointing locals to assist in the conservation process.

Jabarkhet brims with flora and fauna—here, you can walk amidst rhododendron blooms (left), and listen to the Himalayan griffin vulture (right). Photos By: Orin/Shutterstock (Flowers), CSP_Mazikab/Fotosearch LBRF/Dinodia Photo Library (Vulture)

A half-hour drive up the narrow, winding Tehri Road from Library Bus Stand brought us to the entrance of Jabarkhet. Due to the impromptu nature of our plans, we did not have a guide, but the ticket collector handed us field guides, detailing the eight trails and the flora and fauna we could hope to see along each. We chose the Leopard Trail, one of the longest, which would take us through most of the reserve’s major viewpoints.

The first thing that struck me was the silence, the pin-drop silence my schoolteachers had often demanded. Slowly I realised that it wasn’t complete silence, but the absence of the city’s white noise, the commotion of vehicles and people that I was used to. Alongside the crunch of our shoes on fallen leaves, I heard the screech of a magpie, the guttural cry of Himalayan griffon vulture, the occasional tok-tok of a woodpecker, and the whistling of the wind through the trees.

As we walked, I picked out some of the plants mentioned in the field guide: pinpricks of yellow kingol (barberry) flowers, lichen coating the lyonia trees, and the orange Himalayan raspberry peeping through a copse of ferns. After half an hour of walking, we emerged from the tree-lined forest trail to a hillside clearing. The hills stretched before us, carpeted with old-growth forests of deodar, oak, pine and maple. The rhododendrons were in bloom—streaks of red interspersed with myriad shades of green. We strained our eyes to see the snow-dusted peaks of the Himalayas, but they were hidden by misty shawls.

The only charm touristy Mussoorie (top) had for the author was the proximity to Landour, Ruskin Bond’s (bottom) hometown. Photos by: Aroon Thaewchatturat/Alamy/Indiapicture (Ruskin Bond), Vivek S Maurya/Shutterstock (Mussoorie)

We took a narrow path higher into the hills to the “Lone Oak” at top of the trail, a clearing around an oak tree with some wooden benches—the sort of place where one might encounter a character from Bond’s stories. The bilberry-loving Binya from “Binya Passes By” perhaps, or any of the ghosts from A Season of Ghosts. Maybe even the writer himself on one of his mountain walks. We didn’t meet anyone, but were free to conjure up some of our own characters while we revelled in the picturesque solitude of the mountains.

On the way back, we took a detour through the Mushroom Trail. Walking through dense thickets, we kept an eye out for fungi and were rewarded with glimpses of puffball and inkcap mushrooms growing near tree roots. The trail opened out into wildflower meadows, near a small abandoned hut. A sea of daisies greeted us, spread like a white bridal veil over the grassy hillock. I sat on a log and daydreamed of being a Garhwali Heidi, of milking goats in the hut, scampering behind butterflies amidst the wildflowers, and waking up every morning to a view of the hills.

Later, back in Mussoorie, I stood in a queue to meet the man who had triggered my wanderlust with his tales of the hills. Ruskin Bond makes the trip from his cottage in Landour to Cambridge Bookstore in Mall Road every Saturday to autograph books. As he smiled at me with twinkling eyes, I was bubbling over with stories to tell him, especially of my recent walk in the Jabarkhet woods. Ultimately, I stuck to a simple thank you, for sharing his love of the hills through his stories, and a decision to write some of my own stories down instead.

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[topfygad]

Jabarkhet: Where Ruskin Bond Tales Come Alive

A private nature reserve, away from Mussoorie’s tourist thrum, looks like something straight out of the author’s stories.

  Spread over 300 acres, Jabarkhet is Uttarakhand’s first private nature reserve. Photo Courtesy: Jabarkhet Nature Reserve

The summers of my childhood were defined by three things: books, mangoes and power cuts. Often the three would come together and I would eat through plates of raspuri and langda, while sprawled on the floor reading by the light of a kerosene lantern. I devoured entire series through the summers, graduating from Enid Blyton to Caroline Keene, but Ruskin Bond was my perennial favourite. As the mercury climbed, I would immerse myself in his stories of the hills and forests and the people who lived in them, almost feeling the cool mountain breeze against my sweaty skin.

On my first trip to Mussoorie last May, I craned my neck out of the car while driving up from Dehradun, to take in the verdant Garhwal hills I had read so much about. Summer had left the hills parched and the trees drooping, but human activity had also rendered large patches of the hillsides barren and brown. Mussoorie was as crowded as the Delhi metro during rush hour. The major attractions—Mall Road, Kempty Falls, Company Garden, Gunhill Point—were pretty, but crammed with tourists.

Looking for an escape from the madding crowds, my friend and I chanced upon a poster for Jabarkhet Nature Reserve at a café on Mall Road. It seemed relatively unknown; no taxi driver hawked it, and one even wondered why we wanted to go there. On a whim, we postponed our plans to visit Lal Tibba and took a taxi to the reserve.

Spread over 300 acres, Jabarkhet is Uttarakhand’s first private nature reserve. Until a few years ago, it was like many other forest patches in the Garhwals: subject to littering, animal grazing and felling of trees for firewood and timber. Since 2012, the owners of the reserve have worked with noted conservationist Sejal Worah to restore the area, removing nearly 500 kilograms of trash and appointing locals to assist in the conservation process.

Jabarkhet brims with flora and fauna—here, you can walk amidst rhododendron blooms (left), and listen to the Himalayan griffin vulture (right). Photos By: Orin/Shutterstock (Flowers), CSP_Mazikab/Fotosearch LBRF/Dinodia Photo Library (Vulture)

A half-hour drive up the narrow, winding Tehri Road from Library Bus Stand brought us to the entrance of Jabarkhet. Due to the impromptu nature of our plans, we did not have a guide, but the ticket collector handed us field guides, detailing the eight trails and the flora and fauna we could hope to see along each. We chose the Leopard Trail, one of the longest, which would take us through most of the reserve’s major viewpoints.

The first thing that struck me was the silence, the pin-drop silence my schoolteachers had often demanded. Slowly I realised that it wasn’t complete silence, but the absence of the city’s white noise, the commotion of vehicles and people that I was used to. Alongside the crunch of our shoes on fallen leaves, I heard the screech of a magpie, the guttural cry of Himalayan griffon vulture, the occasional tok-tok of a woodpecker, and the whistling of the wind through the trees.

As we walked, I picked out some of the plants mentioned in the field guide: pinpricks of yellow kingol (barberry) flowers, lichen coating the lyonia trees, and the orange Himalayan raspberry peeping through a copse of ferns. After half an hour of walking, we emerged from the tree-lined forest trail to a hillside clearing. The hills stretched before us, carpeted with old-growth forests of deodar, oak, pine and maple. The rhododendrons were in bloom—streaks of red interspersed with myriad shades of green. We strained our eyes to see the snow-dusted peaks of the Himalayas, but they were hidden by misty shawls.

The only charm touristy Mussoorie (top) had for the author was the proximity to Landour, Ruskin Bond’s (bottom) hometown. Photos by: Aroon Thaewchatturat/Alamy/Indiapicture (Ruskin Bond), Vivek S Maurya/Shutterstock (Mussoorie)

We took a narrow path higher into the hills to the “Lone Oak” at top of the trail, a clearing around an oak tree with some wooden benches—the sort of place where one might encounter a character from Bond’s stories. The bilberry-loving Binya from “Binya Passes By” perhaps, or any of the ghosts from A Season of Ghosts. Maybe even the writer himself on one of his mountain walks. We didn’t meet anyone, but were free to conjure up some of our own characters while we revelled in the picturesque solitude of the mountains.

On the way back, we took a detour through the Mushroom Trail. Walking through dense thickets, we kept an eye out for fungi and were rewarded with glimpses of puffball and inkcap mushrooms growing near tree roots. The trail opened out into wildflower meadows, near a small abandoned hut. A sea of daisies greeted us, spread like a white bridal veil over the grassy hillock. I sat on a log and daydreamed of being a Garhwali Heidi, of milking goats in the hut, scampering behind butterflies amidst the wildflowers, and waking up every morning to a view of the hills.

Later, back in Mussoorie, I stood in a queue to meet the man who had triggered my wanderlust with his tales of the hills. Ruskin Bond makes the trip from his cottage in Landour to Cambridge Bookstore in Mall Road every Saturday to autograph books. As he smiled at me with twinkling eyes, I was bubbling over with stories to tell him, especially of my recent walk in the Jabarkhet woods. Ultimately, I stuck to a simple thank you, for sharing his love of the hills through his stories, and a decision to write some of my own stories down instead.

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