Before the wind blows, the morning will hang raw and sunny. There is a bare urgency that hangs in the leaves of a cottonwood looming over everything here. The trembling leaves now might tell us the waiting is nearly over. The air has a stretched stillness to it, about to break time’s pace open to its whims.
We will participate, now into this day hammering into every crevice of the bank, through every stone, and seeping into our bones. The sun still shines warm and bright, the sky can easily pull you away.
Later, thunderstorms will build over the hills ringing the valley, deepening our backdrop, focusing our will into the hope that change will happen. This will turn, and leave us again in stillness. And we move with the water’s rhythm, pushed by wind into the next bend. Here we might stop and see the first of evenings bugs pulled upward, or tumbled along the water’s steady surface. A trout might even take a grab here or there, teasing us with their sudden disappearances after we think we’ve figured them out. We lean and ponder, search water, feel wind, absorb a big sky alive with later afternoon. This is where all else falls away.
Here on the coast, Spring seems to launch itself in full force one day, hunker down the next all the while building to the next crescendo of a calm, sunny morning. Up in the hills, still soggy and chilly from yesterday’s rain, black trumpet mushrooms are scattered under the tan oaks secretly playing the songs of a passing winter. Craterellus are a bit difficult to spot, but once clued in, they can appear in scattered patches bursting through a forest floor littered with light colored tan oak leaves. Clean them up, saute’ with olive oil, butter, thyme and a wee bit of salt and pepper, add them to caramelized leeks, toss in a little creme fraiche at the end. Layer them with a bit of gruyere in a tart shell and you will be reminded that life remains solidly in the good zone. Serve with a salad of fresh spring arugula, last fall’s kabocha squash and roasted seeds and heaven can be found in every bite.
Velvetine landscapes of spring time
Black trumpet blowing it's song through the woods
A whole band blares out the tunes of spring time, good food and the coming of summer.
Mushroom-leek tart, arugula-kabocha salad and the clutter of a kitchen at work.
From across the room, the sound comes though the door, along the face of the window and down from the ceiling. Rain sings along the street out front. The calla lilies out front fill with the water beading up along their silky white bloom. Across the hills, tendrils of fog waft upward from the forest in a great cycle of the water returning skyward. Today, this place is painted all green and grey – spring on hold while winter reaches out once more to soothe us maybe one last time before it all goes away into summer.
A few photos from the past few days. With a setting like this, fickle fishing is not really a concern.
This used to be a more active floodplain. Now it has given way to a lush, grassy, semi-wooded setting.
It appears that much of the riparian forest here is undergoing a radical change in vegetation communities. The lack of regular, high flows is probably precluding the estblishment of seedlings. The result - the remaining trees are growing older with little replacement.
The first day of April and the beginning of a quarter mile long riffle through verdant oak woodlands. Who cares if the fishing is so-so this afternoon!
This was about as close to the water as I got here. Didn't feel the urge to wet a line - too many other things to be consumed in.