Grenwich Time - Walking Jefferson Market Garden (NYC Field Trip)

I went part way along with Rosalinda when she headed off to her graduate studies Friday night , then made an abrupt turn at Washington Square and headed for West Greenwich Village.  Yah, yah, I know they call it "the village" around here. I was in the mood for a walk that involved more than window shopping, and I found it when I stumbled on Jefferson Market Garden. The garden is one of those hidden gems I always hope I'll discover on a ramble.

Backed up by the gorgeous historic Jefferson Market Library building, this secret garden packs a floral wallop in a compact footprint. Even in September the roses are still blooming in the sunny spots, along with varied colorful daises.  Hydrangea, a variety of tuberous and wax begonias, and a plethora of shade-loving flowers and ferns gather close beneath a green canopy. There's an inspirational greenhouse and pond as well - complete with water plants. 

 

 Despite it's small size a number of people, pups and kids had all managed to find a bench and a place to hang out and companion each other. I could have stayed all day, but the Boheminian charms of the West Village were calling.

Road to Half Moon Bay - Sanchez Farm (field trip)

Stock blooming at Sanchez Farm

Highway 92 cuts across one of the narrower sections of the Santa Cruz Mountains, past Skyline Boulevard and then on down to Half Moon Bay. Before reaching our destination we stopped off to buy peaches and admire the in-bloom stocks.

Hiking Windy Hill: Wild Cream Colored Iris

California Native Wildflower - A Creamy Douglassi Iris 

Our California spring wildflowers are blooming like gangbusters at Windy Hill right now. The pooches and kids are enjoying themselves there too. You have to know where to go when you want to hike locally with your dog, and Windy Hill is a great place to take your best friend. Just make sure you choose the trail that's signed for dogs. There are no signs for children, so you can interpret that however you please.

Among the flowers we saw -  red columbine, brilliant blue hounds tongue, milk white hellebore, deep purple lupine, and plenty of pale rosy pink spring vetch in flower on a lovely, warm 7 mile hike yesterday.  I'd never seen the creamy version of douglassi iris I photographed above before. I double checked and found that it does occasionally occur in creamy shades and also hybridizes easily.

Another example of diversity in California!


              

California Summertime

Summer time is dry
Baking Edgewood wildflowers
Deep below seeds wait

Time Travel: A Primer, Lesson 6, Music Man- Time Out for a Field Trip,

Please click on this blossom to better enjoy it's stripey beauty.

If You Don't Mind Me Sayin' So, this peppermint striped amaryllis sent me spinning straight back to the year 1912 in River City, Iowa. Suddenly I find myself there in the middle of the train station, a looker-on to the arrival in town of The Music Man. Is it the huge striped-candy blossom that makes me think about the barbershop quartet rehearsing in their shirtsleeves ? Perhaps it's the memory of Winthrop's heartbreaking lisp when he is forced to greet his elder sister, Marian's, piano student who's named after this belladona lily, that sent me tumbling back in time.

Shortly after I was married, an elderly neighbor giggled when she told me that the amaryllis is also called a "naked lady", because of the way that the foliage dies down before it comes into bloom. Surely Mayor Shinn's wife and her righteous cohorts in River City would have been just as shocked by that, as they were when they found that Marian Paroo allowed the town youth to check out library books by Chaucer, Raelais and BaaaaaaaaalZAC! Quick, who else knows the ladies part in "Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little" to counter against the barbershop quartet's "Good Night Ladies"?

Extra credit to all students who return from the trip with a shiny new instrument delivered by the Wells Fargo Wagon. Band rehearsal on Seventy-Six Trombones (which I indeed once played in band at the age of 10) will commence on Saturday. Until then, remember to practice the professor's "Think System".

Goodnight my Someone.