Celebrating Mothers, Volcano hike, Not Shangrila, P-80
Greetings,
Here's hoping you had a wonderful day of celebrating mothers. We had all three daughters here yesterday as well as Flip's mother. The beauty of the day was not just the weather.
And speaking of weather; the warm, nice days are ripening things up. I will be off after Salix sitchensis (Sitka willow) today. I have extra S. scouleriana and hookeriana seed stored in the freezer. They ripen a little earlier. Tomorrow I plan to do some collecting in the Columbia Gorge. By the end of this week, or soon thereafter, it will be time to harvest Oemleria cerasiformis (Indian plum). The crop is looking good but the birds and mice will end up consuming most of the harvest without any competition from me if I don't get any more orders for it. At this point I only have one request for two pounds. Last week I harvested Claytonia perfoliata (miner's lettuce) and other herbaceous species will be ready soon. Ready or not, it is time to get orders in so I can plan and prioritize.
The Claytonia plants are in a shaded barn slowly drying down on some of the racks I mentioned in the last email. In that email I also mentioned I was soon to head off for some hikes. I was glad for all the training I did in preparation for the hikes. My stories for this time are in the captioned photo albums of the hikes. The links to the three hikes are below.
The "Volcano" hike. A first-light to dusk trek, on an incredibly windy day, up onto Martinez Mountain. One of my brothers and I sat on huge boulders on the very edge of the massive Martinez Landslide before hiking down to just above sea level.
The Searching for the Elusive P-80 Shooting Star hike. A two-day hike 6 of us made two days later out to a remote plane crash from 70 years ago. The story ends with an unexpected twist. There will be another hike next year.
The Not Shangrila hike. A solo two-day hike 3 days later to a remote desert canyon with a patch of green that has been calling me for some years. The place is not what I had hoped it might be but I did find a very special Cauhilla place as part of the walk.
I did collect a good quantity of Juniperus californica (California juniper) on my travels. I will soon have it cleaned and added to my attached list. Let me know if you need anything and to those of you who haven't yet, please get your orders in.
Thankful for you and for Mothers,
Jon