Three trees and a dog

 

I park in the lot above the meadow in Bogart Park. It’s early and cool. As I step out of the truck, the quiet settles on me like the light embrace of a beloved friend.

This is how I know it’s October: The slight bite in the air. The scent of wood smoke that drifts down and hovers in the meadow. The tone of the leaves rustling; soft and lilting in mid-summer when the leaves are new and tender, it is a crisper sound now, as they dry and die and fall.

Maya alights from the truck eagerly, her nostrils twitching. She knows where we are, where the trail begins, and she heads that way at a trot before I’ve barely had time to close the door and hit the lock button.

Finding the trail, she pulls to the end of her twenty-foot leash and takes the rolling hills as if they are red-carpet flat, while I laugh, struggling to keep up as I tell her, “My, slow down, honey.” But she is thrilled to be out here, so I let her charge on, and my tempo increases as my boots kick up dust.

She slows when we reach the big hill. She doesn’t like this trail because she cannot see around the corners as we wind up and around on the climb, but she comes along beside me as I reassure her. Halfway up, she veers over to a single-track trail, a deer path that she has asked so many times to follow. Every other time, I have said no. Today I tell her, “Okay, My, let’s go your way,” and once again she is charging along. I gently slow her down; I have to watch her feet and mine for rattlesnakes, as it is still warm enough to see them out.

I know where this trail goes, and I know it will double the distance of our walk today. But it is a trail I have taken before with Sgt. Thomas Tibbs, and one I have loved—though not chosen—for several years.

We wind down to the far side of the hill, Maya surprised to find the trail opening up and skirting an expansive meadow. She glances often to our right where she can hear the penned sheep that sometimes graze here.

Then we come to the first tree.

 

A fire in the fall of 2016 burned much of this side of the hill down to rubble. Black ash is still visible in the soil along the trail. But look at these oak trees. Strong. Steadfast. Beautiful. How old is this one? How many fires have threatened it? Still it endures.

The last oak we pass before taking the steep trail back up toward the parking lot boasts a picnic table beneath it. Maya waits patiently as I snap a photo… and I imagine myself sitting down with a book or a notebook and a snack, whiling away a few hours in the shade… in the quiet… in the solitude.

 

Maya does that all-over dog shake—as Frost’s “little horse” did when the poet stopped to watch the snow fall in a similarly hushed and serene place.

I, too, have promises to keep.

So we tackle the last arduous climb, then pause briefly in the shade to catch our breath before heading back to the truck and civilization.

There is another way I mark the path into October, and that is by the shorter days, the diminishing light. At one time, October was my least favorite month. As the darkness came on, my spirits would flag, my anxiety rise, often leaving me depressed until January.

No more. The cure for darkness is light. So I will be out here as often as I can be, letting Maya charge up the trail (as long as it’s safe to do so), pushing myself to walk farther each time, to take the longer route, the steeper trail, to hear my heartbeat pounding, to know that I am still alive, still surviving, and will be when the light returns once again in spring.

Ahhh, adrenaline

For the uninitiated, let me say this: There is nothing that kicks off your sympathetic nervous system response with some high octane adrenaline like seeing three hungry adult coyotes charging down a slope toward you and your not-large dog. Boy howdy. Pro tip: Do. not. run.

If you take off running, you will not gain the experience of seeing how the lead coyote splits off from the other two so that he can head you off while the other two chase from behind. It's amazing, really. They do this without verbal commands or hand signals or walkie talkies. They simply know to hunt prey this way, and it's quite fascinating. And kind of scary.

So I stood still on the trail, Maya close beside me, but I kept my eyes moving back and forth, watching the lead guy, watching the other two. As I did this, I began talking in a voice loud enough and deep enough to make the 'yotes nervous, but I kept the lid on my urge to do some excited shouting because I didn't want to terrify my dog. She knew, though. Maya knew. She'd seen them, too, so when I started making loud growling sounds--something she's never heard me do before--she understood that I was doing this to warn off the very big creatures who had come running toward us.

Also for the uninitiated: Coyotes are damn smart.

So we watch the lead guy peal off and run parallel to us and then ahead of us, crossing the trail and abruptly stopping to hide behind a tall shrub. I know he's there because I've kept my eyes on him, and now I can see the tips of his ears above the foliage. He stands as still as I had moments ago, waiting. Watching.

What to do? We walk straight toward him.

I mean, I'm not going to turn around and go back in the direction of two coyotes, and this is the only trail out, so we're going to--I'm going to--chase him off. Which is what I do, tossing rocks into the shrub, growling, shouting (but not too loud), "Go on, 'yote!"

And he goes.

But we do not stop watching, Maya sniffing the air as we pass that shrub, all senses alert, me ready to reach down and scoop up my thirty-pound dog if I have to. But the coyote disappears into the brush.

Next item on our hiking agenda: Get the hell out of there and back to the truck. Sadly, Maya is now limping badly on her left front paw. When I find a sandy section of trail surrounded only by low foliage, I bend down to check her foot, grateful that finally, after three years, she will let me touch her feet when she picks up a thorn so I can pull it out. There is nothing in her foot pad this time, though, as I suspected. When we stopped on the trail to watch the coyotes, I realized too late we were standing near an ant's nest. I suspect she's been bitten. She licks her paw over and over, then looks up at me. I know exactly what she's thinking. It's this:

Can't you make it better? You always make it better. This hurts. Please make it better.

But I can't. Not out here. So we limp slowly down the trail, me promising to get her home as soon as possible while ever vigilant lest the coyote reappear.

We've gone fifty yards when I realize I left my hiking pole in the trail when I stopped to examine Maya's paw. We have to go back for it, back toward the coyote's hiding place. Maya limps slowly beside me, I finally pick up the pole, and we reverse direction, heading back up the trail toward the truck. It's a long slog. We were nearly to the farthest point out when we saw the coyotes. Now we've got a mile to walk back. And even though it's only 7:30a.m., it's getting hotter by the second.

We stop every time we find shade. Maya immediately crouches, turning her paw up to lick it over and over. My poor girl. We walk on.

Slowly, though, the pain in her paw starts to subside. She limps less and less, and by the time we get to the final steep uphill, she trots ahead of me. She knows the truck is on the other side. Safety assured. We've made it.

Before you ask: No, I don't carry pepper spray. The coyotes would just sneeze it off. I, however, would need to call 9-1-1 for a rescue because my lungs would immediately shut down. No, I would never carry a gun and shoot a coyote. Just no. Coyotes don't attack adult humans. It's only Maya I need to worry about. Because a coyote will hide in the bushes and leap out to steal a small dog off a leash. For this reason, I am hyper-vigilant when out in the hills with her, scanning the sides of the trail ahead for snakes or predators, scanning the ridgelines for coyotes (which is how I saw these three right at the exact moment they saw us). FYI, I often slip a pocket knife into my backpack or hiking pants if I think I may be in a dangerous situation. But we were just out for "a quick walk in the hills before it gets hot." Sigh....

Maya is fine. I am fine. The coyotes are fine but probably still very hungry. For a while. The hills are covered with rabbits and voles. They'll get breakfast, don't you worry about them. I'm just glad the menu didn't include Maya.

Losing Maya

 

*Spoiler Alert!* I found her again. But not without significant emotional trauma….

Just over a week ago, I took my darling girl, Miss Maya Angelou Murphy, pictured above, on a hike in the Cienega Canyon Preserve. It’s a wild area out in the hills southwest of where we live, and I’ve hiked there often with her. We both love it. She gets to sniff wild creatures on the wind and in the brush, and I get to watch for hawks, deer, coyotes, and other wild creatures.

On this particular morning, we’d gone less than a mile before looking up to see a very young bobcat playing in the trail about forty yards ahead of us. At the sound of my laugh, the big kitten bounded off into the sage and sunflowers, and a moment later we crept past that spot, Maya with her nostrils flaring, me with my phone out, camera app on, hoping to see it again. No such luck. We walked on.

"Mom! What was that big kitty thing?!?"

The morning was bright and already heating up at 8:00, and the trail we had traveled in the past had become extremely overgrown, so I was just making up my mind to turn around and head home when Maya began limping. She’d picked up a sticker in her left front paw.

This presented a problem. While it is no longer much of a struggle for me to touch her feet (to check them after a hike or to clip her nails) when she’s in her crate, she is still too wary to let me touch her paws or legs while we are out hiking. We obviously couldn’t go on, though, so I made her sit, and when she was calm, I reached down to check her paw. She panicked, jumped backward, and slipped right out of her collar. Then I panicked, telling her “Maya! Wait!” a bit too sharply. But she stopped. (Good girl!) Hands shaking, I grabbed her scruff, holding it tightly with one hand as I slid the collar back on with the other. I walked her forward, and in the tussle, the sticker had apparently been dislodged, as she was walking without limping. Whew. Safe. Or so I thought.

We turned to go home.

On a previous visit to the preserve, I had dropped Maya’s leash when we were about a half mile from the trailhead, and she had done beautifully, trotting ahead at times, but always stopping when I gave her the “wait” command. On this day, when we were still three quarters of a mile out, I decided to try that training again, but instead of dropping the leash in the dirt, I unhooked it. She trotted along beside me in the trail, never going ahead, just being with me. It was glorious. Until it wasn’t.

Because we’d seen the bobcat, and because the day was warm, my gaze alternated constantly between the trail up ahead (for coyotes or critters), the trail beneath our feet (in case of rattlesnakes), and checking to make sure Maya was beside me. We’d gone a quarter mile when I looked out, looked down, looked to my side—and she was gone.

I stopped and turned. She’d taken a side path, a single-track coyote trail that led toward a steep ridge, and those crazy long legs of hers were trotting as fast as she could stride. She was already thirty yards ahead of me. Panicking again, I called her loudly: “Maya! WAIT!” To no avail.

Here’s the thing about feral dogs: You can’t chase them. In Maya’s first life, the one she spent in two successive, awful rescues, they handled her by chasing her—out of her kennel, then back in. When she sees anyone behind her on our walks, she immediately becomes anxious and strains on the leash, trying to run.

In this situation, I had to pursue her, but I knew I couldn’t run. I walked as fast as I could, repeatedly calling her. She ran up a hill so steep, I questioned whether I could get up it—but I did. I had to. As I topped the ridge, I saw her, now fifty yards ahead, still trotting. She disappeared down a slope, and all I could do was follow, hoping she didn’t leave the trail.

She didn’t. As I reached the bottom of the downhill slope, I could see her topping the next hill. On we went in that fashion, with me losing, then gaining sight of her, willing myself to breathe deep, save my oxygen and strength.

I topped a hill, and there she was, exhausted, lying in the shade under some brush.

“Maya! Wait!” I snapped. And she was off and running again.

I slowed my walk, thinking, as the sun rose higher and I realized I’d brought no water with me, I might have to follow her all the way to the far end of the preserve, which was three miles along the ridgeline—and a block from Interstate 10.

“Breathe, Kay,” I told myself. “What would Cesar Millan do?”

Well, he would adjust his energy, stay calm, and not utter a word.

I did these things, as best I could, topped another ridge—and there she was again, lying in the dirt, panting. I stood in the trail, breathing and sweating and hoping, not saying a word. Slowly she rose to her feet. I didn’t move. She walked toward me. Quietly, calmly, I said, “Maya, come,” and I turned toward home. She followed, right at my heels. After a moment, she moved beside me on the trail. Ever so slowly and gently, I reached out a hand and took her collar, stopped, and snapped on the leash.

When I knew I had her, I sank to my knees in the trail and sobbed. If she’d been lost in those hills, she would not have survived. The coyotes would have made a quick meal of her.

How I found her--without the leash, of course.

The long walk back in the hot sun, descending those steep hills on shaky legs, took an agonizingly long time. Maya was overheated and kept trying to lie down in every little bit of shade she found. I would have carried her—all thirty pounds—but on those treacherous descents, it would have been too dangerous. If I’d sprained or broken an ankle, our day would have gone from bad to really quite awfully terrible.

Friends, I believe I have learned more from the mistakes I’ve made with my dogs than all the YouTube videos and episodes of The Dog Whisperer (or Cesar’s other many shows) I’ve ever watched. How did I fail Maya? By not realizing that, while I had quickly moved on after the sticker-in-the-paw episode, she had not yet shaken it off—how I’d grabbed her, speaking sharply and holding the back of her neck. The trust of a feral dog is always tenuous. With Thomas, it still is, even after nearly ten years. Yes, we have our sweet moments when I brush him or clip his nails or simply sit and rub his belly, and he is blissfully happy. But then I might do something he sees as threatening—slap a mosquito or pick up my guitar or print out a document—and suddenly he is terrified, running through the house and seeking safety somewhere away from me.

That’s what Maya was doing, seeking a safe place to hide. Eventually, she came to see that she could run forever—or she could choose to trust me again. Boy howdy, did I get lucky this time.

Training feral dogs is not for the faint of heart or for those with little patience. The journey is often two steps forward, five steps back. The Universe gave Maya back to me. I will be much, much more careful with her in the future.

Contemplating the long walk back to the car.

A Cascade of Nostalgia

 

Forest Falls, named in part for a very tall, very beautiful cascading waterfall (called "Big Falls") at the east end of town, is a small village in the foothills below Mt. San Gorgonio in Southern California. I made my first sojourn there when I was in high school when a group of “Jesus freak” young people like myself car caravanned there from Riverside. I still have photos and many fond memories from that day.

A half dozen years after that first trip, I returned to Forest Falls to attend my very first writers conference at Forest Home, the beautiful conference center there. At the age of 21, I had entered a national writing contest, won third place, and the person who called to make that announcement told me, “I see that you live in Southern California. In addition to everything else you’ve won [publication in a national magazine with a readership of six million, plus books on writing AND the entire Chronicles of Narnia series, just for fun], we’d like to send you to a writers conference.”

Did those lovely folks have any idea how attending that conference would catapult me into my dream of writing and publishing? I don’t know, but it sure did.

When my children were old enough, we returned for a day of hiking, picnicking, blackberry picking—and, at the end of it, a trip to the ER for stitches after my eldest son stepped on a piece of broken glass while wading barefoot in the stream.

I can assure you, when I returned many years later with three young grandkids in tow, I made sure all of us kept our shoes on.

At some point in my adult life, I picked up a friend who was trying to decide whether or not to leave her abusive husband. I took her up to Forest Falls in my beloved VW bug. While we rock-hopped over rough terrain to get to the falls, we also attempted to navigate the equally challenging topics of “commitment” and “self-esteem.” Good talk. Good walk. But when we returned to the car—the only one at the trailhead on a weekday—we discovered it had a flat tire. In the hours previous, I had been trying to convince my friend that she was stronger than she realized. When she saw the flat, she began to wring her hands and cry. (Mind you, this was decades before the convenience of cell phones.) She was not reassured when I told her not to worry, we would, together, fix the flat ourselves. But we did, handily. At some point, a young man with a six-pack of beer pulled into the parking area on a motorcycle. He took a seat under a tree and watched us do the work—and I was grateful that he never offered to help, just sat and downed his beer, one after another. Because when we triumphantly finished and climbed into the car to leave, my friend told me how empowered she felt. Booyah.

In the past, the trip to Forest Falls required some planning, as it was some distance from where I lived. Moving to Calimesa, however, put me much closer, so that now I can get up there in just over half an hour, traffic permitting.

So of course, I had to take Maya. Here’s what happened when I did:

As soon as we left the car and hit the trail, we saw the giant sign erected by the Forest Service: The area around the waterfall was “closed,” for all intents and purposes. Why? Because in order to get to the falls, you have to cross Mill Creek, and (as mentioned in my previous post), the water in the creek is running so high and so fast, it’s treacherous. Plus someone dies every year by trying to climb the falls, and I think USFS is simply tired of calling Search and Rescue to pack out another dead body. Seriously.

However—we could still walk along the creek, which we did. (Click here to see a bit of that.) Until she saw people. Too many people. There may have been a total of five or six at various points along the stream. But for her, one human (besides me) is too many. So she panicked. Where to escape?? Into the water. She headed straight into the stream and would have paddled to the far side had I not reeled her back in. (When we hike, she’s on a fifteen-foot lead, so she really did get pretty far before I wrangled her closer to shore.)

 

When I wouldn’t let her retreat, she did what I have taught her to do when she’s fearful, which is to sit down and take a breath. (Okay, I know you can’t really teach a dog to take a nice deep breath, but she sits, and I do the deep breathing.) Yep, she sat her little bottom right down in that ice-cold water. Silly dog.

 

We didn’t stay much longer; I had things to do at home. But I did stop to take pictures, and realized (shout out to all my Baldy friends!) from a certain point, you can see all the way from Forest Falls to Mt. Baldy. And yes, of course I waved when I realized that. You never know who might be waving back.

 

Rising Out of the Gloom

 

It’s been a very long time since I’ve been kissed, and it finally happened today! Details to follow….

If you live in Southern California, you know that we’ve been having day after day after day of first “May Gray” and then “June Gloom,” those mornings in which the marine layer from the Pacific Ocean has drifted far enough inland to cover everyone in light to heavy fog. Yesterday was no different, the damp and tangy layer so thick I had to use my windshield wipers as I drove Miss Maya Angelou Murphy up to a hiking spot that, while quite familiar to me, had been previously undiscovered by her.

Thurman Flats is located off Hwy 38, a mile or two to the east of the Hwy 38 and Bryant Street junction. There is a small brown Forest Service sign for it that indicates “Picnic Area, ¼ mile.” You can't miss it if you drive slower than the 70mph most locals want to drive on that stretch of highway.

And there is indeed a beautiful, tree-shaded picnic area there, but I wasn’t intending to have a picnic. I just needed to rise above the gray gloom that had been hovering physically outside my house but also mentally inside my head. I know, I know; we writers live inside our heads. I try to come out and play from time to time… but… a lot has been going on that I’ve had to… ruminate upon. We’ll just leave it at that.

The photo above was taken from the parking lot at Thurman Flats. Note the pretty blue sky, the low cloud cover in the valley below. Yes! I could feel my spirits lifting as I called Maya out of the car.

Challenge #1: Would Maya be willing to cross water and boulder hop with me to get to Mill Creek? We had to pick our way over places like this:

But that girl was ready and willing, as she always is when we hit the trail, and across she went, stopping only when I asked her to so I could get a picture. Then on we went.

Through the trees and blackberry brambles, keeping an eye out for both bears and snakes, we carefully, cautiously traversed the trail and found Mill Creek gushing madly with water pouring over and around boulders at a level I’ve never seen it, and I’ve been going there for decades. Hooray for snow melt!

Challenge #2: Would Maya come willingly to the edge of the roaring stream? Or would she fear it?

Challenge accepted, of course. She trotted right up. I held her back from the edge. I didn’t want her to take a dip in the icy water then have the current drag her in (and me along with her). There is a very short video of her coming through the woods to find the water, which you can view by clicking here.

We walked along the edge of the stream for a bit, but it had broadened so much, the trail was obliterated in some spots. It was early when we went, and my car had been the only one in the parking lot, so I was surprised to find a pair of men’s shoes by the shore. Did he walk back along the trail barefoot?  Did he realize when he arrived home where he’d left them? Who knows. I left them where I found them.

 

We headed back—which was when my kiss was finally bestowed. We had almost reached the narrow trail leading to the parking area when I heard a commotion and looked up through the foliage, half expecting to see a bear. Nope. It was a bounding dog, a large coonhound, followed by an even larger German shepherd. They barreled straight for us.

Challenge #3: Would Maya completely freak out? Or allow the over-excited doggos to greet her?

Turns out, she didn’t do either, really. She sat down, which is what I’ve taught her to do when she’s frightened. The dogs ran up and sniffed her, but she remained sitting quietly, not trying to run. I could hear the dogs’ person trying to call them back from yards away, shouting as loud as he could to be heard above the roaring stream. I looked up to see him moving down the trail—a man about my age, backpack on his shoulder, two smaller terrier mixes following at his heels. He called to me, something by way of apology, I assume. I laughed and shrugged because I couldn’t hear him, then turned my attention back to the dogs just as the coonhound leapt up and kissed me right on the cheek!

Wait. You didn’t think the kiss was offered by a man, did you? Nah. Just a sweet dog saying hello—and leaving huge muddy paw prints down my sleeve and all over the front of my jacket. Closer now, the man called once more to his rambunctious boys, and both galloped off, leaping over boulders and kicking up sand. I’m guessing they had a great day. Maya and I left them to return home, driving back down into the drizzle, but not minding it one bit.

 

Another Day....

 

Despite the heat, skies have been beautiful here lately, and I owed Maya (and myself) a long walk out in the hills to clear the cobwebs and to be reminded that Nature is still magnificent (even if what we see on TV isn't), so Saturday morning we left the house early for one of our favorite spots in the rolling hills just south of town. I also wanted to see how Maya would do on the fifteen-foot leash I bought for our hikes.

We hadn't gone a hundred yards when we saw this:

I think I know my sister well enough to know that if she's reading this, she's making an "Are you kidding me?!?" face if not saying that out loud. Yep. Sad. Someone had no use for Grandma's little white spinet piano, so they drove it out to the hills and pushed it out the back of a truck onto the ground. I've seen a lot of things out in these hills, but this just broke my heart. I thought of three different places it would have fit in my little house. Damn, people. You didn't have to toss it out like some kind of garbage.

Speaking of such: As I said, I've seen a lot of things out there. Our next discovery, about a half mile past the piano, was this guy:

Sad, huh? When we came upon him, his tie was askew, so I fixed it. Then, because Maya was just happy to be out in the hills, and she was willing to wait patiently, I sat him up so that instead of staring at the sky all day, he could see some sky and hills, birds and coyotes, maybe some dirt bike or mountain bike riders (I imagine the latter stopping to chuckle and take a photo), and possibly some more miscreants offloading junk they can't be bothered to drive to the dump.

Isn't he handsome? I love bears. People think I love giraffes--and I do, don't get me wrong--but my first love will always be bears. Stuffed ones, live ones. Doesn't matter. I have bears all over my house, in one form or another (mostly stuffed). And in my car. (Ask my sister, who sometimes rides shotgun. Raggedy Bear travels with me wherever I go.) I can't imagine what prompted someone to toss this dude out, especially when he was dressed so nicely.

But then, people aren't always thinking clearly when they drive out to the hills. See this big, beautiful oak, and that small yellow something at the base of its trunk?

If the device you're using to read this has the capacity to zoom in, you'll discover, as I did, that it's an empty Pacifico box. Niiiice. (For the uninitiated, that's beer.) I mean, if you're going to drive way out in the hills, sit under an oak and experience Nature, that just might be the perfect beverage to consume. From the Pacifico website:

"Pacifico is a pilsner-style lager with a crisp, refreshing flavor and a touch of grass-citrus and ocean mists."

Seriously. I want one now, and I don't even drink beer. (Well, hardly ever.) But the ad copy had me at "ocean mists."

I guess I'm glad the drinker(s) left all the empties in the box. I mean, they could have smashed them against the tree, creating a dangerous hazard for wildlife. Just to note, that box has been there a long time. Maya and I have passed it often. No, I haven't picked it up to carry it out. It's a mile in on the trail, and I have both hands full handling Maya on the way back to the car. And my phone, if I have to take a picture. Case in point, this lovely gourd and blossom:

After we saw that, we saw this. If I didn't know better, I'd say it was a bear print, but there are no bears out there. Just, apparently, tremendously huge dogs. I held my hand over it so you can see how big it really was.

It was a great walk, and Maya enjoyed having the freedom to wander a bit on her new leash. But all good things do come to an end, so we trotted back to the car for the short drive home. Just another day in paradise.

Unexpected things

 

 

Last Sunday, I needed to get out, to get away from everything demanding my attention at the house (except the furries; they never demand, they ask nicely and wait patiently), so of course, I took to the hills just west of me (and just south of Calimesa, if you live here and wonder where I roam). Since Maya has decided that the best thing about coming to this new, strange home (besides the good food, the treats, the peaceful quiet, and the opportunity to go outside to relieve herself more than once a day) is hiking, of course I took her. She is great company on a hike because she is as curious and excited about everything around her as I am.

This time, we took a side road Maya has always wanted to wander down, which brought us up to a ridge, which then took us down a slope and along a little used, mostly overgrown path. From far off, I could see a giant oak. It wasn't until we got close--until I'd decided to try and get a picture with my phone that would show how massive and old and beautiful the tree is--that I saw the mattress lying beneath it.

My first thought, of course, was "Stupid jerk." Since there are ways to access the hills if you have a 4WD vehicle and a little gumption, certain types of people will drive to some far corner out there and drop loads of crap--after a remodel, say, or after cleaning the junker car parts out of Grandpa's shed. And yeah, the occasional discarded mattress shows up. But... not usually so strategically placed. I mean, if you're just dropping it, why not push it out of the bed of the truck next to the road? Why drag the unwieldy thing all the way over to the tree? Unless....

For a moment, let your imagination run wild. (Okay, not too wild; this blog is approved for all family members.) I want to think--I choose to think--that our culprit here is a hopeless romantic who loves the outdoors, maybe hikes out into these hills frequently and sometimes packs in a sleeping bag... and/or a date. ("It's okay. I brought a blanket and bug repellent.") Maybe I think this because, once upon a time, long, long ago, these were the sorts of Romeos who would occasionally come courting around my door. There is something to be said for being out under the moon and stars with someone whose company you enjoy. Anyway, enough of that (again, family blog).

I took the picture (Maya sitting patiently and waiting on the other end of the leash, as she has been trained to do), and we walked on--but stopped in our tracks about twenty yards past the tree. Because I happened to glance to the side and see a nice, big, fluffy coyote standing in the grass, watching us walk past. You won't be able to see her in this photo:

Unless you have the means to zoom in. But she's the brown dot in the center of the green swath. Trust me, she looked very big as she stood there and stared at us. Maya did not react, other than to look, and she sat down to wait patiently again when I pulled my phone out to try to get a picture. Ms. Coyote (Wiley's wife?) didn't move a muscle until I said, "It's okay, 'yote, we won't hurt you," at which point she spun around and trotted away (which is when it became possible to detect her gender). I love seeing wild creatures looking healthy in their own habitat. It gives me hope for the world.

We walked on. (But yeah, you can bet that, since Maya is half the size of that coyote, I looked back over my shoulder a dozen times or so until we were a half mile away.)

We were headed for the trail that would lead us home when we saw a flash of white, so we stopped once more, and, oh look! A balloon!

Actually, the first photo I took was from much farther away, when the balloon was just a white dot, and I could only tell what it was by the way it bobbed in the breeze. Here's the thing about balloons way out there, though: They can be dangerous to wildlife. String or ribbon of any kind is bad as it can get wrapped around critters, and if birds use it for nesting material, the chicks can get tangled in it and, helpless to free themselves, it can lead to their death. So in most cases, I snatch the balloon (if I can reach it), pop it, put it in my backpack and carry it out to throw away. In this case, snagging the thing would prove a bit tricky.

While it was low enough to grab, the area around the tree was riddled with ground squirrel holes, which meant snakes were a possibility. Of course I had on high-top hiking boots and long pants (always!), but I also had my little terrier-wolf mix in tow, and she hikes naked. (Well, she does!) So I thought about this a while before venturing in. But given the time of year (end of January) and the weather (in the low 60's), I thought we'd be relatively safe (since rattlers are still in a state of brumation). Just as I reached it, the balloon turned in the breeze, and I could see that it had writing on it.

Ah. Someone's uncle had passed away, and at the memorial service, loved ones wrote on balloons and then released them. As much as I love the image of this--all those white balloons being released into the sky simultaneously and gracefully floating toward our perceived notion of heaven--I hate when people do it. Directly east of my little 55+ community--conveniently located--is a cemetery. So my balloon discoveries are frequent, sad to say. Which means lots of trailing ribbon that doesn't bio-degrade for a long, long time. And I can't always be out there, cleaning up the woods.

In this case, though, I made the decision to leave the balloon. The truth is, it wasn't practical; I didn't have my backpack with me this time (because I had Maya), which meant I also didn't have a knife to cut the ribbon, nor did I want to terrify my little dog by popping a balloon. And besides, the family was hoping that "Uncle" would read their message. It seemed as though it had been recently released. Maybe Uncle hadn't finished reading all the messages yet. Who am I to say?

So (borrowing a bit from Frost), I left the balloon for another day. Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.

Just kidding. I'll be back over there hiking in a few days. I'll snag it then and carry it out. 

UPDATE: I did return the following weekend to remove the balloon, but some other hiker had apparently gotten there first and taken it down. Good on them; it had served its purpose.

Back to Whitewater Preserve

 

When life gets chaotic, my therapy includes going for extra hikes. Last week I headed back to Oak Glen for a gorgeous morning hike in the mountains, and this week I took off for an oasis in the desert, so I'm doing back-to-back posts about each one. If you came to this page through a link I shared on social media, you should be able to scroll down past this post and see the Oak Glen post. I think. I hope.

Last time I went to Whitewater, the preserve was closed for the day due to the possibility of flash flooding. I did hike along the river for a bit, but I didn't stay long, and I kept a constant eye on the weather. This time the preserve was open, and oh, what a beautiful place it is! There's a ranger station, a very clean restroom, picnic areas in both sun (for the cooler months) and shade (for the warmer months), and a couple of deep, beautiful ponds connected by a nature trail.

The ponds and picnic area are a short walk from the parking lot. The trail for longer hikes heads off to the north, deeper into the canyon, but there are short connecting trails that lead to the river, with sturdy wooden bridges installed for easy stream crossings.

I took more videos than I usually do on a hike, simply because I love the sound of water pouring over rocks, and this water is so clear and lovely and unexpected here in the desert, I wanted to share it with friends on social media. I can't post it here, but if you click on this blue writing, the link will take you to YouTube and 48 seconds of tranquility.

And that was why I went back to Whitewater Preserve. For the tranquility. My mind has been greatly troubled of late, what with the earthquake in Haiti, the chaos in Afghanistan as the U.S. withdraws, and the alarming rise in COVID-19 cases due to the Delta variant (and some people's choice not to get vaccinated). Also my grands are going back to school, my kids are going back to teaching in the classroom, and all of that concerns me. We've all been vaccinated, but there is another concern with the rise of "breakthrough" cases of the virus among vaccinated folks. Yikes. And I miss my friends. We were all finally starting to climb out of our bunkers when the Delta variant began jumping from victim to victim. Ugh. But...walking along the river, listening to the water or just the crunch of my boots in the sand along the shore gave me some space and time away from the madness. I'm grateful as always for these beautiful places. Shout out to the Wildlands Conservancy for making sure these beautiful places remain wild but accessible. (The conservancy is, by the way, the largest provider of free outdoor education for kids in California).

Back to Oak Glen

 I've been meaning to share a post about going back to Oak Glen to hike, but life has gotten in the way a bit. There were friends who needed help and dogs that needed training and some other pieces of writing to work on. This will be the first of two pictorials. Because two weeks ago I hiked in Oak Glen but a week later I hiked in Whitewater again. I have nothing profound to say about these hikes. I just feel so blessed to have been outside in Nature, with all its wonder.

This hike began with a small miracle. I started down the trail at the Oak Glen Preserve, which is maintained by the Wildlands Conservancy, and I'd only gone as far as the public restroom before I was stopped in my tracks. There before my eyes was my nephew, Kevin. I hadn't seen him in many, many months, not since he'd brought his young sons to my senior community to feed the ducks in our pond. Before that, during the height of the pandemic, I hadn't seen him in over a year. And there he was, standing outside the restroom, waiting for a friend to emerge. We had a hug and a quick catch-up and another hug, and if you know the good science around hugging, you'll understand how happy I was to start my hike on a high of oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine.

Kevin went off to hike with his friend, and I headed down the "boardwalk" trail looking for blackberries. And lordy, did I find them.

 Ripe, juicy, sweet, delicious blackberries, growing alongside the trail. Okay, you're really not supposed to pick them. But...heck, are they gonna begrudge me two or three (or a dozen) ripe blackberries? Along that path, I encountered two women who were also sampling. I asked if they were finding any ripe (as I hadn't yet), and they gave me the advice to pick from the top (which was spot on). They also engaged me in conversation about when blackberries are in season in Connecticut (July, as compared with late August in California), and we went on to exchange stories about blackberry pie and other delights, standing in the warm morning sun and waxing nostalgic about our childhoods. Then they moved on, and so did I, following the boardwalk trail down into the shady canyon.

 Usually on this trail I see something fun--quail, deer, bear tracks (or scat). On this day, though, the family directly ahead of me on the trail was traveling in a large pack (hooray for parents who take their young children hiking!) and also had their dog with them--a large male Doberman Pinscher--so I knew I wouldn't be seeing much wildlife. Still, I snacked on blackberries, took photos, enjoyed the aroma of fresh pine, and rejoiced in my ability to amble cheerfully along.

Of course the ambling stopped when I had descended to the bottom of the canyon and had to walk back out again. To complete the loop, back up to the picnic area and across to the parking lot, it is necessary to ascend these stairs:

That's just a small portion of the trail. It continues upward at that incline for a third of a mile. If you have compromised lungs, I suggest frequent stops. Okay, I don't know why I even wrote that; you don't need me to tell you to stop because you'll stop on your own when you can no longer breathe. (If you don't have compromised lungs, you may not fully understand. But yeah, you can have all the leg strength in the world, but no air means no up. Or at least a very slow ascent.)

I did finally reach the top and, of course, did a celebratory jog in place, Rocky style--not really, but I wanted to. I just didn't have any air left. The happy thing is, every time I've done this hike in recent years, I've done it in less time. Not that I'm hurrying--I'm still sauntering and ambling--but I am so much stronger now than I was five years ago when I first hiked this loop. Yay me! And next time I'll go on a weekday when there are few people. Maybe I'll actually see a bear!

Whitewater

 

It rained last Monday. Steady rain for hours. Unusual for us here in Southern California in July. I sat down to work on a writing project, but did a quick scroll through Twitter first while I finished a cup of tea, and I came across a tweet by some baby-man lamenting the fact that he had just turned 49 and was "sad" because now he is "old." Are you kidding me?? This was my reply to his tweet:

But as I shot it off, I thought, "Well, K Murphy, when was the last time you went hiking?" And I realized I hadn't gone since John and Lisa, my hiking buddies, left town on vacation. And so (as they say in Ireland). As soon as the rain stopped, I threw on my hiking boots, kissed two dogs and two cats good-bye, and took off for Whitewater Preserve. Normally, I wouldn't go there in the summer at all, as it is far too hot, but since it rained, and temps were lower-than-normal (still in the 80's though, sheesh), I thought I'd be fine up in the preserve where there is plenty of shade and cool running water. Except the preserve was closed.

So I did what I always tell other hikers NOT to do: I hiked on a closed trail. The thing is, I knew that the preserve was closed because there'd been flash flood warnings, and the rangers didn't want to be hanging out in the intense heat and humidity, dragging dead bodies out of the stream. I get that. So I didn't drive all the way into the preserve (because the gate would have been closed anyway). I followed the road to the first big stream crossing, parked in a turnout, and headed downstream, all the while watching the clouds and the weather and never going so far that I couldn't beat it back to the car if the water began to rise. Still a bit dangerous, I know, but I was feeling spunky. And it was so beautiful.

Whitewater Preserve is in a deep canyon you would never suspect was there (unless you're a curious person like me and you decided to exit I-10 to see why this seemingly isolated place is called "Whitewater"). Like the sign says, it's only 4.5 miles from the freeway. These photos show the area outside the preserve. It's way, way prettier (eventual blog post to come when the weather cools the hell down) inside the preserve itself.

Anyway, there was water in the stream, flowing enough that the videos I took had a water-over-rocks soundtrack.

 

And since I was the only human around (at least at that time)

...it was quiet. So very, very quiet...peaceful...lovely...and soul restoring (because that morning, while I waited for the rain to stop, a friend had called with a serious issue that would impact his life going forward due to his age).

Getting old is not for babies, whiners or wimps. The older I get, the more my independence will be challenged. I realize and accept that. But as long as I can still climb (carefully) over rocks or walk (slowly) along a streambed or place my feet (cautiously) in wild, running water, I will still feel strong and capable and joyful.