Let’s Go Camping Now, Everybody’s Learning How
On the trail, if not too far away
The Glorious Pumpkin Tent
Our family went camping this week. It’s been too long!
We camped close to town. I grabbed a burrito de camerones along the way, local shrimp, and that was dinner, along with s’mores.
Like most Americans, I come from agrarian immigrants who fled starvation and persecution from their country of origin. They hunted, fished, watched the weather— no “camping” required.
My mom grew up an urbanite, glad to wash her hands of the ancestral homestead terrors.
But my dad, Bill, a butcher’s son, discovered the backcountry, exploring California head to tail. He was in the Sierra Club back when the organization were considered godless communists (Could use a little more of that now!).
More importantly, he studied Indian languages up and down California, and made his own maps.
He knew what California was like “pre-contact,” and was the kind of person you could walk alongside and he’d blab away each plant’s name, in English, its regional nickname, or the Latin, and an Indian tribal name or two. —Maybe the German or Hindi name if he realized it was kismet!
I always thought I’d have his name lists forever, but after Bill died, my first walks without him were a deafening silence. I couldn’t remember anything. I couldn’t ask.
Now I’m learning names again. I won’t catch up to “Bill-level,” but I’m happy to know any at all.
My French-Canadian friend joined me on our trek this week. She’s bilingual. She mentioned that plant and bird names are the last vocabulary you tend to learn as a student, the last pieces of the puzzle. I loved learning the Quebecois for all the flowers and berries!
The swallow = l’hirondelle.
Red elderberry = le sureau rouge.
From top, left to right:
These days, when I need to shop for any item, I search, “for Seniors.” Thus, when I wanted a tent I could stand up in, which would be so easy to assemble an arthritic child could do it— I found the above-photographed “Gazelle.”
Isn’t she pretty? She pops up like an origami dream house. She has two doors.
I draped a string of solar lights around her like Christmas tinsel and she became a magic escape ship.
Inside, we slept on ExPed’s self-inflating mats. (Thank you sister Jasmin). Life-changing.
All my gear isn’t this snazzy. My 40-year-old sleeping bags for example, were mildewed when I shook them out. I’m going to wash them in white vinegar when we get home. I vow!
Plant ID, Here We Come
Red Hot Pokers
A bumblebee dozing on a Charming Centaury. He is so spent with pollen, he fell asleep on the bud.
Downed willows and creek moss.
Ripe Red Elderberry. Yes, I’m gonna try syrup from this knowing witch.
Emerging fruit on the wild pear tree.
Oakstraw. I’ve not seen it turn this color. It reminds me of what the Pea princess stuffed into her mattresses. Or her ExPed.
More red elderberry, and finally . . .
Real big coyote scat. Coyotes are aplenty in our region, but usually not this big. And guess what app I found? — “Animal Scat Identifier.” It’s really good. Not as good as Daddy, but VERY, VERY good. You photograph the feces on your path, and it identifies the shit and tells you about the species and its bowel habits.
Hammock Time, Pit Time
I want a “collapsible wagon,” like my friends Joe and Cat— but our wheelbarrow does the job, too. I like camping hardware. We took an axe and shovel and an iron mallet. “Going Pete Seeger Style,” I call it.
Friends visited our site with their camp chairs and food for supper. We found an ancient, 18”-diameter metal popcorn-popper someone left behind in the bear-bin. And yes, my Pendleton “Towel-a-bahn” fits everyone.
We’re camping in a little canyon close to the Pacific beach. The hotter Central California gets, the more it draws in the fog. We had nearby campers who’d driven hours from Sacramento to escape the tripe digits. They were in shock from the 40 degree drop.
I love my hammock. Swinging the blues away. Everyone who got in her, slept like a baby. Holds 550 pounds even though it feels like a silk scarf.
My Saturday supper friends, posing for their next album cover.
When I open the camping boxes after a year tucked away, I’m always overcome. That’s Honey Lee’s Japanese Lantern! And my grandma’s gingham apron I wear when I’m cooking on the fire.
Back to Mariquita Farm and the Lavender Labyrinth
We visited Mariquita Farm, our friend Andy and Starling’s home. Andy’s great, great grandparents homesteaded from Denmark to Watsonville.
The front of a clay oven my partner Jon built for Andy 15 years ago, out of the farm’s own clay soil and donkey dung. Andy wanted it big enough to roast a goat, although I’ve only made bread inside it! Jon noticed the crack on its face this time, but Andy said it doesn’t seem matter to the heat or the roasting.
Andy and Starr studied the maze at Chartres, France, to build their own maze with 3 varieties of lavender. It’s at its peak now, and singing, as thousands and thousands of bees buzz all day long as they collect pollen.
Crushing the dark “elegante” variety of lavender in my palm.
I’m standing in the labyrinth center. It would’ve taken me an hour to walk through its entire meditative cycle, but. . . I hopped over a few hedges.
That’s Samson, who follows me around like a happy canine. He’s a ham, he’s a petting hog, he’s all orange kitty!
A very old “Hardy” fuchsia.
Red cannas.
Andy wants to grow enough hollyhocks to resemble the Sergeant Pepper Lonely Hearts Club cover art.
Sunflower babies. I’m growing those too!
Goodbye Lazy River, and Back Home!
The Waddell Creek is lazy right now, close to its ocean mouth. I have to be patient and wait for August heat, when it’ll be barely warm enough to jump in and fool around.
Back home, we saw the pelicans come home to roost on Santa Cruz’s West Cliff rocks. Wind is UP. I’m so glad they’re still with us, albeit fewer numbers than ever.
Pelican: from the Ancient Greek "pelekan" (πελεκάν), which means the axe, the axe head that the bird’s beak resembles. It’s the same in French, in Spanish, Italian.
In the Karuk language, spoken in Northern California near where Americans call the Klamath River, a brown pelican is called a tákus.
Here’s a Karuk origin story Mamie Oldfield told my father Bill, in 1957, where “tákus” tries his best . . .
aah uum úpaanik" púra fâat vúra îin na'íshiptiheeshara."
Fire once said, "Nothing can put me out."
kári xás pirishkâarim upiip, " naa îin nu'íshiptiheesh." kári xás máruk ikuraa'ípan u'ikrîish. kári xás pá'aah ta'ítam u'iinaaheen. kári xás ukvíp pirishkâarim.
Then Grizzly Bear said, "I can put you out."
And she sat down uphill on the end of a ridge. Then Fire burned uphill toward her. And Grizzly Bear ran.
kári xás koovúra kumakeemishatunvêechas kunikyâavarihva. koovúra kuníruramva. kári xás paachvíiv kúna kunikyâavarihva. takús upiip, " naa píshiich niikrîishriheesh." kári xás ukrîish. xás vúra uum itníiv umúsaha. sárukvari pamuvúup utákararihva. kári xás pá'aah kaanvárih u'uum. kári xás ukvíp tákus.
And all the little wild animals tried. They all fled. And the birds tried in turn. Pelican said, "I'll sit down first." And he sat down. And he looked mean. His neck hung down low. Then Fire arrived close to there. And Pelican ran.
chavúra púra kára îin ishkáxishrihmathap pá'aah. púya xás káan u'uum, pathrihapihníich. kári xás upiip, " naa îin nishkáxishrihmatheesh."
Finally nothing stopped Fire. So Old Man Rain arrived there. And he said, "I'll stop him."
kári xás upiip aah, " naa vúra púra fâat îin neeshkáxishrihmatheesh." kári xás upáthrih, xás vúra upáthrih. ta'ítam umsípaheen pá'aah.
And Fire said, "Nothing can stop me." But then it rained and it rained. And Fire went out.
víri vaa kumá'ii payêem íshaha, xás vúra kumá'ii úmsiipti aah. káru vaa kumá'ii koovúra kumakeemishatunvêechas kun'áayti aah. yakún puxáy vúra mít ishkáxishrihmathat.
For that reason it's water now, that's why it puts out fire. And that's why all the little wild animals.
In Case You Missed It
Oh yes, here’s what I’ve been reading in my creekside hammock hours:
“Sad Janet,” by Lucie Britsch,
“The Bill My Father Gave Me,” by Bernard Cooper,
“Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders” by John Mortimer,
“The Unmapped Country,” Ann Quin’s last book,
“Sly and the Family Stone: An Oral History” by Joel Selvin, and,
“Tramps Like Us,” gloriously reissued, by Joe Westmoreland.
I see many of them are comic, if darkly comic. But I need it!
Cozy bags. It’s all about cozy bags!!