Hiking Edgewood: Linanthus

Linanthus is in bloom in the meadows at Edgewood Nature Preserve

Edgewood Ghost Rider (Halloween Field Trip San Francisco Bay Area)

Next time at Edgewood

When I see that ghost rider

Gonna ask - her time.

I see a lot of things at Edgewood that aren't in the nature preserve brochure, or on the map. Time travel is always an option, both for me and for those who return from a long time gone.

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Web Resources

Time Travel Portals - http://www.pinterest.com/lrshimer/time-travel-portals/

Hiking Edgewood:Pirate's Cave Mystery - Handley Rock

Trailside, do I see

Pirate's cave across the way?

Handley Rock beckons!

You can't get there from here. 

Handley Rock is a secret treasure discovered for the first time by many, only because they hiked at Edgewood Nature Preserve. Reminiscent of Never Never Land,skull shaped Handley Rock, beckons to local rock-climbers,mystics, romantics, and pirate-loving locals.

When hiking Edgewood's Sylvan Exercise Loop, I begin to look for Handley Rock shortly after I pass the first half mile posting shortly past the Waterfall. As soon as I see gaps in the vegetation  that screens the valley that lies roughly southeast(East is towards the San Francisco Bay. South is San Jose) I begin scanning for this mysterious piratical dome that formed from Whiskey Hill sandstone. 

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Resources

Friends of Edgwood  http://www.friendsofedgewood.org

Handley Rock in 365 days of things to do in Redwood City  (includes map link)  http://redwoodcity365.com/?p=23

California Poppies Sing True (Hiking Edgewood)

Eschscholzia CA

Singing by the Edgewood trail

Trill on my darling!

Last Stop Before Oz (Hiking Edgewood)

Planning a trip to Oz?
You won't find a better way to get there, then a hike up to the top of
Inspiration Point at Edgewood Nature Preserve
Click on the illustration above for an enhanced view of this Oz portal.

New Bloom for a New Year: Dirca Occidentalis (Hiking Edgewood)

Please Click on the Illustration Above
For More Beautiful Detail

I always like to start out the year as I mean to proceed through it.

What better way than an afternoon's Bloomin' Hike at Edgewood Nature Preserve?

Can you believe the Leatherwood is already in bloom?

A good omen for 2013, if ever I saw one.

I'll Have a Bluuuuuue Schist Christmas, Without You!

 Blue Schist is a rare beauty made from volcanic basalt. This patch at Edgewood, metamorphosed at high pressure and low temperature from deeply subducted oceanic crust.

   

Hawks Ahead - Hiking Edgewood

My Kind of Study Break

A Red-Tail Hawk, I think.

Using my low-level cell phone camera, and was I glad I had it.

I'd been focusing on learning about what triggers mass wasting. She's was focusing on finding supper.  I think she missed out on her opportunity, as I came around the corner feet away from her in the grass, wrestling with something small and ground-dwelling.


What a reward for studious effort.

Adenostoma fasciculatum - Looking a little seedy ain't yah?

Please click on the illustration above to fully enjoy this beauty

Adenostoma fasciculatum
Chamise graces the chaparral at Edgewood Park

Edgewood Shale Once an Ocean?

Edgewood Shale, The ultimate in Time Travel

Ancient Muds Tells Us Still Waters Once Lay Deep Here

Co-Published with Postcard From California

California Summertime

Summer time is dry
Baking Edgewood wildflowers
Deep below seeds wait

By the Waterfall: Late Blooming Honeysuckle

There are a few stray blooms of honeysuckle blooming in latish June near the waterfall on the Sylvan Trail in Edgewood Park. This is one of my favorite spots for a bit of time travel. You just couldn't find a better time portal than a shady glen like this.

It's the spot where I took a short trip back to visit with an Ohlone Rumsen family group last fall. Remember? Here's the story

        - Indian Summer at Edgewood (No. 1) Creekside 

        - Indian Summer at Edgewood (No 2) : Oak Apples

       - Indian Summer at Edgewood (No. 3): Rose Hips

(Co-Published with my newest blog Hiking Edgewood.)

Mariposa: The Time Travellin' Spud (Hiking Edgewood)

Click on my Jolly Mariposa Lily Illustration Above to Get Up Close and Personal 

With This Native Darling

Mariposa, as I bet you know, is the Spanish word for "butterfly". That was what this beauty's petals, apparently, made some early botanist thing about when they first saw this late spring/early summer flower.

On my morning study break, I took a time travel jaunt back to the middle of the 18'th century. There I found that the native Lamishan (an Ohlone people) think it's equally fanciable as a taste treat.  The group I met up with were digging up the bulbs of this (as we'll as some of the  other local Calochortus). One of the women told me that her cousins up valley usually boil or roast them. Her folks, however, like them fried. The results looked, and tasted, much like what  I do with a friendly spud.

Hillside Gooseberry Setting Fruit (Hiking Edgewood)

Click on the illustration below for the full fruity details

Lizards 'n Lyme (Hiking Edgewood)

(Click on the illustration below to get up close and personal with this Californian's favorite lizard)

As an Edgewood docent I ask others, "Why do you think it's important to preserve nature, beyond beauty, mystery and all that other sensory, emotional stuff?". Of course the answers vary. I've been tempted to go off on my own ideas about increasing over bee-hive health with a diverse plant offering, versus the monoculture imposed by modern agricultural methods, but that's another blog posting all together.

Turns out that the Western Fence Lizards that have been scampering around under my feet like crazy lately (I think it might just be high-hormone mating season for Sceloporus occidentals) is Ma Nature's way of curing Lyme disease. Am I the last to learn this?

Apparently in California, where these lizards abound, the deer ticks that transmit Lyme disease bacteria loose their Lyme-oomph when they bite the lizards. This article from the CA Academy of Sciences explains it all. I've been told, but cannot find a reference on the web, that the result is, that only about 1-2% of deer tick bites where Western Fence Lizards roam produce Lyme disease in humans, versus the over 80% in other parts of the country. Don't quote me on that, however, since I can't find a source for you.

Wikipedia also has an article about this Lyme-disease link.

An Edgewood Promise

California Once Upon a Time: Purple Needlegrass

It's not only people we want to travel back in time to hang out with. I'm planning a little time travel jaunt, back to the days when bunch grasses like this grew all over California......


 Click on the illustration below for maximum viewing pleasure

Once upon a time the California bunch grasses, like this purple needle grass, flourished along with masses of spring wildflowers. With the invasion of Europeans and European grasses in the mid-eighteenth century most of our grasses and wildflower meadows began to look like some other continent.

This purple needle grass continues to grow in Edgewood Preserve, because it grows on serpentine soil (1% of California has serpentine soil, 10% of the entire planet) and also because of determined Weed Warriors who work in the park to eliminate invasive plants and improve the habitat for native wildflowers and grasses.

Yerba Santa- Holy Herb in Bloom

The Holy Herb, Yerba Santa, is bloomin' at the Edgewood Preserve

Click on the illustration above for a glorious in-depth view.

California Dreamin' Poppies and Red Maids at Edgewood Park

My top priority is hiking Edgewood Park as often as possible. 

My second priority is homework. 

Today it was CA poppies and Red Maids putting on a show.

Nature, The Original Greengrocer: Edgewood Current

To Fully Enjoy Natures Produce

...................Click on the Illustration Above