Spring in the Mountains

It's been mercifully cool. The snow is thick in the lower portions of the high country. I am content to pedal my bike up roads closed to cars until their upper portions are deemed free of snow and downed trees are logged out for the summer. I survived my first busy holiday weekend, and I am pleased to say that I haven't yet settled on a singular question that gets asked too often. I think it a good sign. Perhaps it's just the questions of when roads will open, but you can hardly fault someone for asking that, it is an unusual snow year after so many easy winters. 

I went for my first hike of the season yesterday - around Pinecrest Lake, and up and down the spur trail for Cleo's Bath. Or is it Clio's? No matter. It isn't very bath-like at the moment, but I could see under the raging river how it would make a most excellent swimming hole... perhaps I'll return there in late August and see what it looks like. That trail was much more of a scramble than I anticipated and definitely tried me out. Overall, the roughly 6 miles took me 3 hours, and I felt like I was trying hard. I suppose I'm a bit more out of shape than I expected, and perhaps still adjusting to the altitude somewhat (though that should be straightened out by now). Of course, I did hit the trail after a day of work, so that may also account for some of my lackadaisical pace. Afterwards, I changed into my swimsuit and waded out into the lake. I let my knees and feet soak for at least fifteen or twenty minutes before jumping in and rinsing the sweat off the rest of my body. The water was cold, especially since it was evening and cloudy. 

The housing is so-so. A nice, modern building with few problems, but not surrounded by nature, no picnic tables to invite outdoor hangouts, and in response to my saying that I don't drink much, one of the guys turned to the other and said "I'll get her going" as if I was a windup toy that they were going to pull the string and watch me go. Disgusting. On top of that, it's a 10-mile drive to my work each day, and 10 miles back. They put us down here because we were supposed to work at the ranger station just a few more miles down the hill, but when we got here they said maybe that'll only happen sometimes, and then yesterday they said it won't happen at all. So all told I'm considering making a request to move to the housing up the mountain. Either the Pinecrest, where I will be able to walk to work, or the Strawberry, where I will be right next to the Stanislaus River and able to fish or swim as I like once the water levels go down later in the season. The only real bonus to being here, as far as I can tell, is that I have limited cell service in the parking lot, and I am only a short drive or ride down the hill to the nearest reliable wi-fi. This will be handy next week when I start school, but aside from that, and the slightly higher rent (which would be balanced out by not having to drive?), I don't see why I couldn't be happier up the hill. 

But enough musing, it's time for pictures! I apologize for the lack of quality, I apparently had adjusted my camera to low-quality for some reason awhile back and didn't think to check the settings before I got going. I only figured it out once I got on the computer, so these are all small and you can't really zoom in or they just get blurry. But I have over a dozen different wildflowers, most of which I'm fairly certain of the identity and a few which I'm questioning. If anyone else knows, feel free to clue me in.

Pinecrest Lake from the dam site

California Broom (?) Or else it looks like some sort of mallow, but I wasn't sure on this one.

Applegate's Paintbrush and Mountain Misery

Bumblebee on a Blue Dicks flower

Western Sagebrush Lizard (?) and California King Snake

Hartweg's Iris - my first time coming across one of these as far as I can remember!

This one is a mystery - I'm thinking either Lobb's Nama or Jacob's Ladder... anybody else have a guess?

Harlequin Lupine

Mountain Pride - one of my favorites

More lake views

The CCC marked this trail with arrows spray-prainted on the granite

Gooseberries!

These little guys are Whisker Brush <3 td="">

Young leaves on a California Black Oak (or some other variety... they intermingle a lot)

Cleo's Bath

Granite Gilia 

Mountain Jewelflower - this was another first! It looks like a miner's lettuce that forgot to stop growing...

Slender Cinquefoil - we had cinquefoil growing throughout our lawn in Crescent City, but I never did see it bloom

Some captured snowmelt (I'm guessing) made a nice reflecting pool above the lake

Another lake view

Sierra Currant and Common Scouring Brush

False Solomon's Seal

This was another new one, but I think it's a Golden Brodiaea, also called "Pretty Face".

I thought this was my favorite, California Hesperochiron... but now that I look closely I don't know what to make of those blue lines... perhaps it's an Alpine Gentian? or a Baby Blue Eyes? I need to look into that...

Sierra Currant flowers

Until next time!

The unmoved movers

That would be us. We've put in one application and innumerable phone calls, and still haven't gotten anything solid lined up for housing near our new jobs. It's wearing me out, and it's certainly not something I want to talk about, but it keeps getting thrown in my face that we're leaving - either by watching all my friends prep their gardens for summer or by people telling me I don't care about the community because I'm leaving. They both hurt in different ways. I mostly hole up and work on projects. I have done a little in the garden, in spite of myself, on the sunnier days.

It's finally starting to get somewhat sunny and I'm enjoying it thoroughly. I've tried to get out in it as much as possible, whether it's doing yoga on the lawn, walking on the beach, eating meals on the porch, or soaking it in while I read my homework in a lawn chair. My gym card certainly isn't getting much use, and I'm not being terribly active I'm afraid. But I am trying to get things done. I've gone through all of "my" drawers in the house, sorting what to keep/donate/throw away. I've taken multiple boxes of things to the thrift store.

I've also been working on a few projects for friends. I've got a knitting project halfway through for Jack that I ought to finish up, and a nalbinding project underway with one of the nalbinding needles that Jack made me for my birthday and the Icelandic wool yarn that he gave me too. We are talking about going to Iceland for Christmas this year. We'll see how much money we're able to save up this summer.

School is going well - my last small paper was turned in last week and now I've got the rest of the month to work on my final paper for this course. I'm debating whether to take American Revolution and Federalist Era (which I know sadly almost nothing about) or Borderlands (a sort of historical geography type course, a corner of history that I'm very interested in) over the summer. I've got until the end of the month to decide for sure.

Alright, that was a bit of a cluster of thoughts all rolled up into one, but that's kinda how I'm feeling right now. The never-ending house hunt has definitely got me down. Things would be so much less stressful if we didn't have this giant question mark looming over us all the time. We have a couple friends from South Africa on their way here. We'll be picking them up in Medford on Monday and hosting them on and off for the next couple weeks (they'll be visiting some other friends in the middle too). I knit them each a pair of slippers, which I'm excited to give them. I didn't sew up the backs on the mens slippers though because I'm not sure if they'll fit! I wanted to be able to add on if needed.

When it rains, it pours

 We got a little bit of snow at the beginning of the year - or at least that's what I'm gonna call it. :) So glad that I got to experience this rare phenomenon in Crescent City before we move.

 I FINALLY found my dream thrift store item (actually it was at an antique shop): a stoneware mini loaf pan. This one makes 4 loaves, but I'm not complaining.

 I also finally finished my bear rug pattern (designed and knit by me) for my friend Lihi. The bear now lives happily on her cabin floors.

 Because I couldn't get enough of knitting, I also knit one shy of a dozen of these "pussyhats" for my friends (and my husband). So cute to have little ears like that! I only made one pink one, I suppose that's the rebel in me.

 We went to the opening bout for the season at Humboldt Roller Derby. This chick had a funny sign so I got my picture taken with her. It was a good match, although one of the long-time players busted her shin and had to get surgery. Yikes! It happened so fast, too. Reminds me to be grateful, that's for sure.

 The month of January I did an online 31-day yoga challenge (along with my mom and some of my friends in town). By the end, I was able to do this fun arm-balancing pose. Haven't been able to do it since... :)

 I also got into candle making this winter. I've been melting down beeswax and making tapers and pillars and really enjoying it.

 I joined 9 other ladies for a retreat up the North Fork of the Smith River. Fairly easy to get to, but amazing and "untouched" country. We were blessed with relatively mild weather, although it did rain the entire weekend.

 Jack and I went on a whirlwind trip to San Francisco. We went to see my first-ever professional musical performance. It was a quirky one called "Assassins" and it was absolutely amazing. I hope it is the first of many more professional musicals I get to see in my lifetime. :)

And after that (the previous two events and this happening in the space of 9 very busy days) I went up to house-sit at Lihi's cabin, where I was blanketed in beautiful, true, snow. Wood stove fires and fluffy flakes were my companions as I alternately chopped wood and read my latest homework book.

School has been busy, and I am about halfway through the semester already. Which reminds me that I need to pick my topic and submit it in about a week... better look into that. We are anxious about our upcoming move. Jack finally got the Lassen job officially, but now we are struggling to find suitable housing for both of us and there is a lot of stress in the house right now. We are also expecting two sets of houseguests and Jack is preparing for entering the Humboldt Homebrew competition for the first time (which is forcing him to learn a lot of things he isn't familiar with about kegs and carbonation, etc.). We just hope that amidst all of this, we're making the right decisions for the present and for our future. Hopefully everything falls into place in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, the rain continues after two sunny days, and we're ready for it!

Until next time!