I’ve spent more time in Mineral King than home working in August so the subject needs Friday as well as Monday next week.
Mineral King’s wildflowers peak in July, but there are still beautiful sights in August.
This dude is too busy to notice the stellar jay feather. He is a Lodgepole chipmunk.Trail Guy on the Franklin/Farewell trail.Yo, Bucky.The flowers at the Franklin/Farewell trail junction are fading, but Bigelow Sneezeweed is still going strong.We accompanied our good friend on the first four miles of her week-long backpack trip.
This girl can step out, even wearing a backpack that probably tops 45 lbs. I had to focus to stay on her 6, carrying my 4 lb. day pack. How embarrassing. When we got to the Trail Junction (affectionately known as the “Wildflower Cafe”), we had a snack, and then I announced that I had gone as far as I wanted to go.
I came to see some Explorer’s Gentian, and they did not disappoint.
They make the Sierra Gentian look boring by contrast. (Or perhaps my photos do that.)
Crystal Creek is slow and low.
Eight was enough miles for the day. We got back to the cabin before the sky opened up, and I got more knitting done. (Our friend probably was at her destination, hunkered down in her tent.)
A wise man in my youth taught that one should have principles (which I call “policies”) in life that help you make decisions. One of my personal life policies is Never Turn Down A Chance To Go To The Beach.
You may recall that I have a friend who is waiting for new lungs. With our heat and smoke, she has been suffering greatly for the past 2 months in Three Rivers. To help you understand how much, get this: she hasn’t been upstairs in her own home for 2 months because the stairs are too much of an obstacle.
A friend of hers offered her use of a house on the Central Coast for the month of August. She needed a driver, an equipment schlepper, and a general caretaker, and yea, she asked me!! After some juggling, cancelling, rearranging, etc., I called her back. When she answered the phone, I simply said, “Yes”. She may have screamed, which took too much oxygen. But, we made it. Here is a peek into our time together. Out of respect for the privacy of the homeowner and my friend, I’ll keep specifics off the World Wide Web.
We were overwhelmed by the beauty of the location and the beauty of the house. She sat outside and breathed the cool clean air while I got all the stuff situatedWhen I got down to the beach, I saw a whole jellyfish on the sand. Usually there are only squishy parts of these creatures.This creature kept looking at me. I walked it multiple times a day, and any time we were in the house, I said to it, “Stop looking at me!”What?? More jellyfish on the sand?Really strange stuff.Previous occupants have found seaglass and shells.Stop looking at me!A big victory was getting my friend to the sand. Actually the bigger victory was getting her back up the steps. This trek will be a daily goal, with the hope that she will get strong enough to actually make it down to the water;s edge.Really??This walk, these colors, scent, feel – it is why never turning down a visit to the beach is one of my life policies.What is going on around here??Finally. Something other than a dying jellyblobfish.I love my friend and she loves me. What a pleasure and a privilege to spend time together! (I’m trying to hide the O2 tank in the picture.)
Perhaps I should only write about Mineral King because it is the most popular topic.
Nah. . . this website is expensive, so it needs to contain things about my business. But today is Friday, and Fridays are for Mineral King posts (when I have something to show and tell).
The reddish areas are not burned trees; it is borate, a fire retardant.
When I drove up the hill on Tuesday, July 24, there was a huge lit sign at the bottom of the road saying that there was a fire 15 miles up the road and that no backpacking permits would be issued. It looked like a nothing-burger, but I am very very glad that the Park was suppressing it with all their available resources, because who knows what those bad boy fires do when crawling along the ground, or smoldering in roots?
That evening, we strolled over the bridge and admired the evening light.
The plan was to visit some neighbor-friends, and if we were lucky, maybe we’d get to hear them play some music. Jazz isn’t normally my musical choice, but these guys were magical together. This is a father with his 2 sons, and I was sure they were reading one another’s minds!
This is how things looked on the stroll back home.
A day or so later, we spotted this Model A in the parking lot, and turned out it was someone’s that we know. I took a few photos for him on the bridge, a tricky business with a little bit of traffic, plus the dark shadows and bright light in the background. This was the best of the bunch.
Then, while visiting some other neighbor-friends, one of them pointed out that “Bearskin”, the patch of snow on the side of Vandever, is looking less like the skin of a bear and more like a rooster this summer.
We hiked to the lower part of White Chief with some friends. One of them is an entomologist and pointed out this beautiful bug. I said that a pair would make nice earrings, and she said that some company actually does make earrings out of their wings!
White Chief canyon, after the super steep climbing is over.Swamp onion near the little pond, its glory fading. . .Three hiking buddies, a privilege to share the trail with.I don’t know why Trail Guy is sticking his hands in the water that is flowing toward the little pond.Oh no! Another unknown yellow flower!The tail end of the summer’s peak. There is plenty of summer left, but the flowers are over their stunning best.
If I don’t keep track of learning new things during the month, I’m hard pressed to think of them at the end of the month.
There is a wildflower called “Giant Blazing Star”; it looks like its smaller cousin, “Blazing Star”. Wildflower naming is just confusing and weird to learn, but I persist in my quest, and one day there will be a book called Wildflowers of Mineral King: Common Names.
Do great books count? I read an unusual number of books that I rated with 5 stars on Goodreads. We Took To the Woods, Blackbird (and the three other books by Jennifer Lauck), Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine.
I didn’t learn an answer to this question but here it is for you:WHY DO WE HAVE SO MANY WILDFIRES IN CALIFORNIA??? It wasn’t this way until about 10 years ago, at least in my memory. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?? A friend has the theory that it has to do with a change in Park policy about suppression. Many wildfires are not in the national parks, so that doesn’t really cover it. I think the tremendous media attention causes arsonists to crawl out of the woodwork, but that is just a hairbrained theory of my own warped thinking.
The Horse Creek Fire from the Mineral King Road at night on July 21, 2018.
A cat will do what a cat will do. After 2.5 months of trying to befriend Heidi, she ran away. No amount of mentoring by Piper or acceptance by Tucker and Scout could fix whatever was broken inside her little head.
I’ve had an ongoing discussion with a friend who calls lodgepole trees “tamaracks”. Turns out that there is a tamarack tree that is not a lodgepole, but a deciduous conifer. Who knew?? I learned of this in a book called “Devotions From the Mountains” by Lisa Ham (published by Thomas Nelson). I’m not sure that was the intended lesson from that day, but it sure was interesting to me.
We heard a guy interviewed on the radio who runs an organization in Montana called Provision International. They collect excess food and things, then ship them to needy people in poor countries. Among the things that they provide are used shoes, called “Share A Pair“. Trail Guy and I went through our closets and we filled a large carton with shoes to send to Billings. If you like their philosophy and mission, you might do the same. It seems more helpful than loading up a local thrift shop or just hanging on in case you might wear them again.
Last week in Mineral King, Trail Guy, 2 friends and I took a hike to a special place that I am choosing to keep secret. (You can ask me in private, but I’m not posting any details on the World Wide Web.) On our hiking day, we experienced fabulous wildflowers, tremendous views, hail, thunder, lightning and rain.
This will be a long post – might want to refill your coffee cup.
View back down toward Mineral King about 2.5 miles up the Franklin Lakes/Farewell Gap trail.
My favorite flower was out in abundance.
Explorer’s Gentian
It was a bit of a challenge to keep marching forward while surrounded by this.
Franklin Lakes – You can see one of them here, and sort of see the shelf where the upper smaller lake is above (if you know what to look for).
We got back home to great light, rain, and news that lightning had sparked a wildfire about 14 miles down the road (but on the other side of the canyon), called the Horse Creek Fire.
Big puffy clouds made for good photos at the end of the day.
The next day we only managed an easy sort of walk. Limp. Shuffle. (Me, not Trail Guy, so that would be the “royal we”.)
The East Fork of the Kaweah, near Cold Springs Campground.Penstemon, possibly “showy penstemon”, but I haven’t learned the varieties yet. This is a close second to Explorer’s Gentian in my hierarchy of favorite wildflowers.
The annual Mineral King Preservation Society (MKPS) “Picnic in the Park” happened for the 33rd time. Our speaker was the wife of a former packer who worked for a private pack station, as a contractor, and later for Sequoia. She was outstanding!
The picnic was held by the Honeymoon Cabin, a little museum put together by the MKPS, and painted and drawn by me more times than I can remember.
The door is almost always open on the Honeymoon Cabin, AKA the “Point Cabin”, although I’ve never noticed any point, other than a museum is a nice thing.‘Splaining things to the folks.‘Splaining things to the ranger.Listening, ‘splaining, knitting, chest beating? and watching the knitter
It was a day of much weather variety, sometimes in pounding sun, ending in large raindrops.
I drove down after dark that night, a different way to experience the road.
The Horse Creek fire as seen on Saturday, July 21, around 9:30 p.m. Doesn’t look very threatening, but one never knows. The Park has chosen suppression as the best method for this fire, and I am very glad they have.
July is a busy month in Mineral King. One could just sit on the porch, knitting and reading, or one could get out and see and do. I am one of the latter types, sometimes. These photos represent the activities in about a three day stretch of time in Mineral King.
Flowers along the trail to Eagle meadow (below the Eagle/Mosquito junction)The flowers were beautiful; the biting bugs were horrible.Scary scary tree situation along the trail; I wonder how many people look up.We climbed up and up and up, including over this boulder field, “just over that rise” to White Chief.This is looking back down toward Eagle Lake, which we did not go to because it was supposed to be a pleasant walk to see some wildflowers. (fall down laughing)Weird, weird, weird (and an excuse to stand still and catch my breath)YES!! We found our slippy slopey way down to White Chief!Another scary tree situation above the trail on the way down from White Chief.
The next day, my friend and I strolled down the Nature Trail. I stood in the middle of the creek to get this photo of water with Sawtooth in the distance. If I draw or paint this, I will exaggerate the size and contrast of Sawtooth.
Next, Trail Guy worked on tightening up the railing on the bridge that he helped build in 2011. That’s a pretty strong work ethic–improving one’s work 6 years after retiring, off the clock, no supervision, just wanting his work to hold up. I’m proud to be married to this man!
We had the privilege of guiding a group of students from Western Michigan University Lee Honors College who are on a trek, following in the steps of Walt Disney. They call themselves “Waltineers”, and are a delightful group of folks who all have a great love for Uncle Wally and all things Disney.
Not a whole lot of sitting around at the cabin. Mineral King is a busy busy place in July.
I could be doing something called “affiliate marketing” on my blog by listing products I use and like and then putting the link on the site so that if you click and buy, I would earn money. It is called “passive income”, but that term fails to take into account all the work of signing up and staying current with the various companies, along with doing all the copy/paste work on a blog post.
There is a wildflower shrub, native to the west coast, and also the state flower of Idaho, called Mock Orange. It grows along the Mineral King Road, is in the hydrangea family, the genus name is Philadelphus and it is called Mock Orange because it smells good like orange blossoms.
Mock Orange, as pilfered picked from the lower end of the Mineral King Road in early June.
If you swish oil around in your mouth every day, it could repair all your damaged teeth and gums. I thought this was an internet hoax, (called “oil pulling”, often done with coconut oil) until I talked to a neighbor who had been doing this and got the best dental check up of his entire life. Weird.
There are insect repellent bracelets! Yeppers, and they look like curly old phone cords. Some company called “Gorgeous Ranch” makes them, says they are all natural (citronella, lemon grass and geraniol) and last up to 300 hours. I wore one and it might have worked! WAIT! I can try that affiliate marketing thing! See if this takes you there and makes me “rich”: They smell good, in case you are wondering. A box of twenty costs $11.99 on Amazon.
Life is funny. At the same time I am paying someone big bucks to rebuild my website (Way Too Difficult for my website building skills), I designed a website for a friend (much simpler than mine). Check this out: www.sequoiavacationrentals.net
I found a new enjoyable podcast by Gimlet Media. “Heavyweight” has a host who tries to resolve old problems or lingering questions. He chases down people, asks questions, and has a very direct but caring conversational style (but why do people cuss so much??) The description is “Jonathan Goldstein goes back to the moment everything changed”. Fun to listen and learn while painting or drawing.
Also on Gimlet is a podcast called “The Recappery” by The History Chicks. They have three 2-hour episodes talking about a PBS version of Little Women. I found it more entertaining than actually reading the book, which I’ve done many times. These two women are so fun to listen to – completely unrehearsed, just talking about a program as we eavesdrop.
Thirty-three years ago some friends and I tried rock climbing, that rappelling thing with ropes and harnesses. My friend was suspended over space and she looked up at the guy (with barely contained fear) who was supposedly teaching us and said quite calmly, “Instruct me, please!”
Today I want to instruct you a bit about subscribing to my blog, except I can’t!
News Flash: at 7:36 a.m. the Blog Subscription button reappeared! You may now subscribe (or resubscribe) to the blog!
For some reason, the dealio to subscribe to the blog has vanished. This means that you can no longer subscribe to the blog, until and unless I figure out what went wrong. You know that the word “update” is a euphemism for “complication”, yes? Well, something got “updated”, and in the process, the blog subscription dealio went away.
All I know to do is to advise you to go to the World Wide Web (might be Safari, might be Chrome–I hope you know what it is on your own computer or device), look up my website, and when you get to cabinart.net, then click on the word blog in the menu bar at the top.
All I wanted was to draw, paint, tell you about it, and sell some art. But, my life got updated.
So, to make up for my ignorance, confusion, chaos, and general ambiguity, please enjoy a picture of quiet and calm, something that I could use right about now.
No Mineral King today – I haven’t been for a couple of weeks because I went to Hume Lake.
I love to read. Do you?
Some of my favorite podcasts are about books and reading: What Should I Read Next, By the Book (the one with all the cussing), Just the Right Book, From the Front Porch. While listening to several podcasts recently, I learned of a PBS thing called The Great American Read. It is a book popularity contest, seeking America’s favorite novel. You can watch the 2 hours of the program about the books, and if you love books and reading, you will enjoy this program. Then you can vote for your favorite novel, which any reader knows is an impossible task. No problem – you get to vote once a day until the contest ends in the fall.
I didn’t vote because it requires a sign-up, either through FaceBook (not happening for this little gray duck) or via email, and I don’t want to put myself on another list. However, you might. Or maybe you want to do what I did after watching the program: read the list and count how many of the books you have read. I have read 36 of the 100, and a few of them are on my To-Be-Read list.
What does this have to do with being an artist in the Central Valley of California?
Nothing.
Will you tell me 2 things? 1. Which ones you would vote for and 2. how many you have read off the list. Inquiring minds need to know. (I am an Enneagram #5 and a Questioner in Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies – you may need to do some reading to understand this stuff.)
Here is today’s painting: Reading Rabbit, AKA “Salt & Light”, an oil painting on board. It isn’t for sale, because I like it too much to sell.
Salt & Light, or Reading Rabbit, oil on board, 11×14″, Not for sale
