Spring Profusion

When we were traveling Brad and Yessi sent us a few photographs of our home's spring garden.  After considerable work last winter -- pruning, new gravel on pathways, rock edging, and mulch on the beds -- it looked quite spiffy when we departed and even better, fully leafed out and in bloom, when these photographs were taken.   

But then, alarmingly, the spring garden continued to spin onward and upward with sun, rain, sun, rain.  Growth was pushed like I've never seen before.  None of that cold drizzle, overcast stuff this year.  Nope!  By the time we got home, spiffy was no longer the operative word.   Think chaos, which reminds me of my favorite gardening book, A Gentle Plea for Chaos by Mirabel Osler.  There is a stylistic message here, don't you think?  

So, if for a moment you were wondering what I do when not traveling, this third of an acre garden keeps me wholly engaged.   Our in-town very overgrown woodland path is in the photograph below.   I've been working from west to east on cleanup and these Vine Maples (Acer circinatum) are on the eastern fence line so they still need attention.  I like trees open -- so a bird can fly through -- but that's not what we have right now.   Slowly and steadily I've been moving through the garden -- weeding, pruning, staking, deadheading, watering -- hoping before we depart for a fall trip I will have brought order to this madness.

The piles I've generated have been Herculean in size, leaving Ed-the-donkey to load and haul them off to Langley's green waste site.  Our three large compost bins were overwhelmed within minutes of arriving home.  

The gardened garden is still over-the-top-lush, but at least somewhat contained.  

Then, once I get to the east fence, it will be time to start all over again.  Like this Eucryphia, now in full bloom, pruned but not finished because before I completed the task I found a sweet bird's nest -- Bushtit, I think.  As I head back around in a month or so, this tree will be in my sights once more.  And the baby birds will be fledged

Bushtit - Google Image

Although you can't see the size of this hardy fuchsia, it is well over my head attracting the attention of humans as well as delighting the hummingbirds.  I also have a cape fuchsia (Phygetius capensis) that is even bigger.  They are usually in deer range providing a tasty treat but this year they are in giraffe range.

Does this sound like garden work grousing?  No, no, no, I love it.

~~~

"There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling."

~ Mirabel Osler

"Whatcha think Ed?"

May was our return home month, having spent much of the winter traveling in the SW.   Yet, here I am, after only two months at home, feeling my feet itch.  What is it about being on the road that is so captivating? And conversely what is it that turns me into a homing pigeon when I’ve been gone for a few months?  Back and forth goes my head and heart.  I want to be home; I want to be on the road; I want to be home; I want to be on the road, and on and on.  One might suggest the word malcontent as fitting.   I prefer, however, to think of myself as a homebody with a wandering gene.  Or am I a wanderer with a homebody gene?  Doesn’t matter.  I love both conditions and yearn for one and then the other.

Right now I might be particularly susceptible to wanting to be on the road because Brad and Ed and Benton are out and about in Thistle, as Brad hikes for GreenTrail Maps in the Wallowa Mountains in Oregon.  Both Yessi and I are home working to fulfill prior commitments.   For me this week it’s Airbnb and jury duty.  Next week's the same. Yessi is honoring  her obligations to bookkeeping and gardening jobs.   So here we are missing our guys and wishing we were traveling too.

When my feet itch I turn to my favorite travel blogs.   Just yesterday I saw this posting about a woman traveling by horseback.  She began in 2005 and has traveled 28,000 miles crisscrossing the U.S. and Canada, with no intention of stopping.  What is it about these wild schemes that captures my imagination?  “Whatcha think Ed?   We could sell Thistle and buy two horses?”   

roadslesstraveled 

Or there’s the biking thing too.  Not like we do it now, with our bikes being carried on Thistle for riding from time-to-time.  No.  I'm talking world-wide self-supported touring.  This couple has biked Colorado, Maine, New Hampshire into Nova Scotia and the Canadian Rockies putting 18,000 miles on their bikes.  They have also toured Italy, plus both the north and south islands of New Zealand.   Sixty miles a day is their commitment.  

Do I dare say it?   “Whatcha think Ed?”

roadslesstraveled 

Or backpacking way into the wilderness…with goats?  I can’t hike any more, but if I could, goats look like fun and useful companions.  

When we were on the Oregon coast this past winter we met a woman who was RVing with two goats and a dog.  She was traveling in an old and shabby vintage RV. The goats, with very long horns, had a stable in the back separated from her living quarters with a picket fence.  They had no back exit.  It was definitely a live together setup.  When she gave me a tour the odor was ripe.   Her plan was to move from one animal rescue spot to another, volunteering along the way.    I'm still kicking myself for not getting a photo and her contact information.

  

The Goat Blog  

Of course, you know how I love donkeys.  We could pack and ride into wonderfully marvelous places with donkeys.     Hum?   That would show that nasty ankle of mine!

Actually we have deep affection for Thistle, and it is challenging enough at times, but I do wish we’d begun adventuring at a younger age so we could be adding adventure-after-adventure to our Thistle Adventure.    I guess we all collect something.  I’ve been able to simplify our lives of stuff, weeding out continuously.  But my imagination, nope, not so much.  My head is jammed with a myriad of ways to experience the world.   

And this is why I love blogs!  I travel along with Leslie and Al in their Travels with HaRVy.  I follow the roadlesstraveled, Bumfuzzle, The Goat and Hiking Frogs. Other blogs come and go.  Spudnik Goes was one that ended as did the 180 Day Road Trip, but while they were active I enjoyed many an hour of armchair travel, dreaming dreams of adventure. 

Then there's boating!   

"Whatcha think Ed?"

~~~


"I bellieve that curiosity, wonder and passion are defining qualities of imaginative minds and great
teachers; that restlessness and discontent are vital things; and that intense experience and suffering
instruct us in ways that less intense emotions can never do."

~ Kay Redfield Jamison 

Mapping Our Adventure

Our first go-to-tool when we're planning a trip is a map.  A new adventure's enjoyment and inspiration begins with a map spread out on the table in front of us.  We stare at it, plotting our course, and reveling in the options.  Just like Brad is doing below…

Looking at a globe or Google Earth can take one on a magnificant adventure as well.  So it's with shear joy that I vicariously share Brad and Yessi's summer mapping adventures.  This year, as well as last, they are mapping in the Wallowa Mountains in Eastern Oregon.  But they've also mapped in the Olympics and Cascades in Washington and Big Sur in California.

It's a summer working vacation for them.   They hike for Green Trails Maps, confirming trail accuracy by noting amenities like restrooms, water availability and camping sites, as well as  tracking trail problems.  Floods, wildfires, wind-fall or even too little trail maintenance can alter a trail's course or make it no longer viable.  

Green Trails has this to say on their website:

"Get ready for some epic backpacking!  Our GPS crews are on the trails getting the very latest data and trail conditions for our new map of one of the seven wonders of Oregon."

Yessi & Brad, Green Trails Maps GPS crew

This past spring when we were in Idaho traveling on 209 North we were forced to turn around on a road closed by wind-fall.  As we backtracked Yessi and Brad's trail verification work came to mind.  Clearly the 2015 Idaho map we had recently purchased from Delorme Atlas and Gazatteer had not been checked for accuracy.  A fact that could have been quickly accomplished with a single phone call.  And given the road had been out of commission for a number of years, it was an inexcusable mistake.  This is, after all, why we turn to maps for route finding and why Green Trails Maps is so dedicated to checking their maps for accuracy.

Speaking of maps, a friend just brought to my attention a site called myscenicdrives.com.   The usual mapping apps define the best route as the shortest or fastest but this site puts those criteria aside and goes for scenic.  Windows, BlackBerry, i-phones and Androids are all able to use this free service.  Just enter a zip code or city and state and up pop scenic roads.   This is the data I got  for Whidbey Island.   You can also find hundreds of hiking trails.  The site looks promising and no doubt will become part of our planning repertoire. 

There is also a free travel app to make your travels more educational called History Here.  I have not tried it yet but intend to do so soon.   It is offered by the History Channel, alerting you via your i-phone or Android, about nearby places of interest.   Or a couple of not-for-free apps to try are Roadside America, featuring off-beat tourist attractions or Roadside Presidents, providing birthplaces, grave locations and other related data or points of interest about U.S. presidents.

And a map for seeing where we've been is fun too.  This map is on the back cabinet doors in Thistle.  The red dots mark where we've traveled in the U.S. the past couple of years.

~~~

"Anytime I feel lost, I pull out a map and stare.  I stare until I have reminded myself that life is a giant adventure, so much to do, to see."

~Angelina Jolie

Political Mayhem Rethought

I posted the blog, below (in blue), a few days ago, but then withdrew it, probably before some of you  even had a chance to read it.   I was concerned about my broad brush approach even before I posted but I was determined not to show favoritism so plowed on.   I wanted to write about behaviors -- candidates, political parties and citizens -- without letting my personal candidate preference show.  In hindsight, a mistake.  After posting, readers challenged me and rightfully so.

The first criticism was about my lumping together all three candidates.  This felt very wrong to some readers, and I had to agree.  Trump definitely is the candidate who has overwhelmingingly won the disrespect and disgust of so many of us.   He makes a mockery of our political system and insults us all with his rude and ignorant behavior.  My generalization to make a point was unfair to both Clinton and Sanders.

Secondly, bundling together the voters as one huge block was unfair as well.  Some voters (most of my friends I will confess) are well read, well prepared to vote and are not mudslingers.  Once again I was speaking in generalities, but too many toes were unfairly stepped on.  For this I apologize.

What I have found very positive about this experience is that my friends trusted me enough to believe I would hear what they had to say, and I did.   Their criticism resulted in a number of deeply rewarding political discussions about specific candidates as well as citizenship behavior.   

And all these days later, the primary season almost over, let me state my delight at the history-making opportunity before us -- Hilliary Clinton as our candidate for President of the United States, a woman of great intelligence, experience and education. We will soon have, I hope, our first woman president.

                                      

~~~

"America has hosted 56 presidential elections -- 

33 of them before women received the right to vote.

 Exactly zero of those elections featured a female nominee from one

 of the two major political parties.

Until Hillary Clinton."

~ Ezra Klein

Original Blog Posting 6/3/16

Political Mayhem

This blog is my travel journal. Along the way I also post my thoughts about life as observed from the road. Naturally political observations appear from time-to-time. How can they not? But I do not intend to engage in campaigning nor do I want to tangle up my comments about campaign behavior with political preferences.

As this primary season unfolds I've narrowed my thoughts down to two central concerns:

1).  Campaign behavior of the candidates and their parties, and

2).  Voter complicity in the madness.

The three candidate choices before us represent only what we're left with after weeding out too many others to even recall their names. That elimination process was long and arduous, leaving many of us exhausted. Nevertheless, here we are, painfully engaged in the last gasps of this endless primary.

The remaining candidates, in hugely varying degrees have spewed lies, distortions, threats and insults. Misogynist, racist and xenophobic behavior has been beyond the pale. What we're left with is a campaign, for President of the United State, for heaven's sake, that's a morass of bad behavior.

                                     

Us voters are left to sort through conflicted, twisted, ignorant, bigoted and dishonest claims.  A difficult task at best, but still it feels like we've shirked our citizenship duties by not fully embracing the job.  With mudslinging and ugly disturbances we fight among ourselves.  Too many of us have followed the current mood-of-hate and displayed our own discriminatory lapses.

Our government, our nation, is too important for this boorish behavior.

Rather than enlightened political debate we're engaged in bumper sticker idiocy.  The seriousness of good government is overwhelmed with narrow, self-serving ideologies, along with an almost prideful disrespect for knowledge, truth and polite behavior.    

I hope, with all my might, this nation finds its head and heart again.

 

~~~

"Choose a leader who will invest in building bridges, not walls.  Books, not weapons.  Morality, not corruption.  Intellectualism and wisdom, not ignorance.  Stability, not fear and terror.  Peace, not chaos. Love, not hate.  Convergence, not segregation.  Tolerance, not discrimination.  Fairness, not hypocrisy.  Substance, not superficiality.  Character, not immaturity.  Transparency, not secrecy.  Justice, not lawlessness.  Enviornmental improvement and preservation, not destruction.  Truth, not lies."

~ Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun

"Yes, We Have No Bananas"

It's early.  We spent the night in Thistle, parked at Brad and Yessi's home.   Ed's tea and my coffee are in front of us, along with our computers.  Our hotspot is feeding us internet.  The dog cuddles nearby.    But where are the bananas?  Our typical breakfast is a banana each but, Yes, we have no bananas.    We just purchased a huge bunch of lovely yellow bananas yesterday, but Thistle's fruit bowl shows only one wrinkled shrunken orange, an onion, and some stray grapes. 

                                         

                                     

Oh, right!  We were staying at home the night before and the bananas we purchased for our kitchen there needed to be removed  to prepare for our Airbnb guests.   They were shuffled to the little kitchenette in our office, but didn't make it to Thistle's kitchen.  And there you have it...no bananas.

Yep, three kitchens and as many beds and closets and coffee pots.  Enough places and options to feel like the well-heeled Americans we are, yet we're drowning in disarray.  Underwear is always in that other place, where we're not, along with the bananas.  But believe me, it's more than bananas and underwear.   The list is long and seemingly endless...socks, pajamas, Benton's leash, computer charge cords, even garden snips.

Although we're perennial simplifiers, we try to maintain key items in triplicate.  Even then we end up with two at one place, one at another and none at the third.  The organizational details of multiple dwellings challenges us.  We mumble in frustration, "where are the bananas?"

Perhaps we'll figure this out but right now having a home we rent out as an Airbnb; an office, that also serves as our prime bath and sometimes kitchen; and Thistle with kitchen, bath and bed, three miles to the west, our also home, is chaotic.  Beds, bananas, and underwear everywhere and nowhere.  

Fran - breakfast in Thistle

                                                      

~~~

“The nature of life is mess, chaotic, exquisitely beautiful, excruciatingly painful, immensely joy-filled, and unpredictable.” 

~ Debra Moffitt, Garden of Bliss: Cultivating the Inner Landscape for Self-Discovery

Smiley and Cheerful

"Are you really that happy?" queried a friend.  "Your blog photos always look so smiley and cheerful."

"Yes," I said, "I mean no, well, not always."

Living in 80 square feet, depending almost entirely on one another for almost everything can definitely be a challenge. As we roll along in Thistle stress can ooze up from the cracks in the road. We never know where we will be camped at night or what will unfold around the next bend. Maneuvering around the dog or each other in such a tiny space, just to cross or uncross our legs, is challenging.

When stress joins us I can get testy, and sometimes downright grumpy.  Stress for Ed puts him into an unresponsive mode, which can morph into grumpy too.  There you have it, one testy person running headlong into one unresponsive person, with two-speeds of grumpy nipping at their heels.

Freshly on the road, mellow seems to be on hold until we reestablish our habits. "Where the heck is my toothbrush?" "Pleeeeze, don't make route decisions without me." "Yikes, dog hairs are even in my coffee!" Then we move into the easy space of our on-the-road routine and embrace our nomad life. The miles mellow us!

So, in the name of full disclosure, yes, we can be discontent and frustrated but mostly we're not. Mostly, we love our traveling life, one another, the dog and our adventure and that puts smiles on our faces.

September we hope to hit the road again…

~~~

"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."

~Mahatma Gandhi

Posted with Blogsy

Long Into the Future...

Often we look at losses and bemoan not having done something.  Something like saving our clean water before it's polluted, not protecting an animal before it goes extinct or not saying "I love you" before a loved one dies.  We can surround ourselves in regrets and the sorrow of loss.  Or we can flip the coin.  We can create and be grateful for triumphs in our lives.  For saving something remarkable.  For preserving something that will be shared and loved and enjoyed long into the future.  Naturally, wondrous historic buildings and national parks fall into these categories and right here on Whidbey Island we have numerous examples, including Saratoga Woods Preserve.

Returning home from our winter travels is returning to the things we love and Saratoga Woods is one of those things.   But it's not just the beautiful property and fabulous trails, it is the process of living in a place, participating, and being involved in a community effort to protect what we cherish.  It's the friendships made along the way.  It's memories!

Several years ago the neighbors near 118 acres of land on Saratoga Road were alerted to a proposed planned unit development.  There were to be houses.  Lots of houses.  Activist hats were put on and Save the Woods on Saratoga was formed.  Initially we were a fierce group of three women -- Diane Kendy, Betty Azar and Fran Abel -- quickly expanding to our spouses and other community members.  We were becoming a "force".

No project to save land from development is easy.  Constant political vigilance is required.  As activists we were concerned about wildlife habitat, water overuse, bluff stability, noise,  traffic and all the many issues that can accompany a very large development in a quiet rural neighborhood.  Our  first action was to drive to Seattle and hire ourselves an attorney, David  Bricklin.  Naturally, that resulted in the need for dollars so fundraising was begun, along with brochures, meetings and very full calendars.

Beautiful glacial erratic rock.
Photo by Laughing Stump Photography

Interesting bent trees on Bent Tree Trail.

It is probably long forgotten that the very first Saratoga Chamber Orchestra was begun as a fund raiser by and for Save the Woods on Saratoga.  It was spearheaded by Diane Kendy and Michael Nutt and was performed in the home of Dick and Cynthia Tilkin.   We had a packed house!  Our group was also behind the formation of the first Whidbey Island Garden Tour, setting it up to benefit an environmental cause, and to provide a "hit" of money.  Save the Woods on Saratoga was the first beneficiary.

Many contributed in so many ways to initially blocking a housing development; then a resort; and lastly, a timber harvest.   Finally the words, "If we want to save this property into the future, we must buy it." were uttered and then acted on.   With great effort the dollars were raised, the land was purchased and the land's ownership was turned over to Island County as a preserve, protected under a Whidbey-Camano Land Trust management plan.  Saratoga Woods is now a  maze of trail delight, open for walking, biking, horseback riding and wildlife viewing.   With the generosity of neighbors granting an easement it links to Putney Woods.  The combination of Saratoga Woods and Putney Woods provides about 800 acres of trail paradise.

Trail signs denote plants or features one can see on the trails.  

As the years have passed members of our team have passed as well.  Wanting to remember them, we received permission under the property's management  plan to plant a tree for each deceased person.  Knowing a grove of Sequoias would develop and last for generations to come, that's the tree we selected for our grove.  The first tree we planted was for Dick Tilkin,  1939 - 2006.

The second tree was for Michael Nutt, 1933 - 2008.

Michael at Saratoga Woods

If you drive by Saratoga Woods, on Saratoga Road, you will see three Sequoia trees in the meadow near the pond-wetland.  One for Michael, one for Dick and the third in reserve for the last member of our group to die.  The rest of the Saratoga Woods Preserve team will have a memorial tree planted as well.  Our hope is that the grove of Sequoias, and the entire preserve, will be kindly treated, enjoyed and cherished…long into the future.

~~~

"Saving the world requires saving democracy.  That requires well-informed citizens.  Conservation, environment, poverty, community, education, family, health, economy--these combine to make one quest:  liberty and justice for all."  

~ Carl Safina