Mt Pisgah in May

 Wednesday evening we herded The Child into the car for a forced march hike around Mt. Pisgah Arboretum. 











I'm trying to think when we went there last, but all I can come up with is that it must have been before The Big Snow, because there were a few more freshly downed trees and limbs (at the time, the arboretum was closed for two weeks while crews went around making sure the trails were safe).








The sun slowly set as we walked various trails.  The Child said that he wanted a mostly flat hike, so we went to the swamp bridge, and the wetlands art installation, and the river banks.










I like the swamp bridge, because there's often dragonflies or fish to see.  Tonight there were ducks hiding in the lillies.  In the grass beneath the bridge a bunny was foraging.







Afterward, we went up (hah! a trick!  we had to climb up!) to the incense cedars, which smelled the most wonderful I've ever smelled them. 







We ended up in a meadow about a fifth of the way up the slope of Mt. Pisgah; I remember one Winter-solstice-like time about ten years ago, taking a picture of one particular oak while it was shrouded in fog with a wan sun casting beams through its branches.   Today it was high white clouds with raptors in a blue sky.






Cow parsnip.  Related to the carrot.

The Willamette River.  There were raptors of some sort flying up above, but they were too far away to photograph.  The swifts over the river flew too fast.  Oh well.

Mark said these felt like scritching a cat's ear, and I've forgotten their name.

Um... a pretty purple flower!

Wild Mountain Rose.  It looked like something out of a fairy tale.

Irises

The iris are blooming this week.  I was looking through old pictures and the first week of May is usually when the swords send up their flags.  Our irises are mostly purple, which I like.  Sometimes, I wish we had the Great Bearded Irises that I grew up with and which came from a stock from my Mother's Mother's farm -- but they died out or were eaten decades ago.  Oh well.

I think this will be a good iris year, there's been an (over?) abundance of rain, it's been pleasantly cool, and the irises have many buds waiting for the sun to come out, which it's supposed to do in a few days.  I'm thinking with the increased light and heat, the iris will put out a much stronger scent.  I love the earthy, not quite licorice, not quite patchouli, sugary, potent, warm, and dark fragrance -- like the purple hearts of the iris were transforming sunlight into incense for the night.

Journal: Pollen

Pollen season has officially arrived.  Mark will be extra-sneezy and stuff for the next six to eight weeks.   I think it's making me extra sleeeepy or something -- at any rate, that's one reason why I think I was having difficulty writing the other day.  It was one of those days when I would type and either stream-of-consciousness stuff would leak out or else I would type the same phrases over again.

The last irises were blooming, so I cut them and brought them into the house.  Mark added some lilac and verbena.  I think there will be about two more days of being able to smell their earthy perfume.  I'll have to look them up in some of my books to see if the ancient sages would use them to gain visions or something, because -- as I've written before -- the smell reminds me of a sweeter version of myrrh.  

Working Out:  I went to the gym Sunday.  I tried out one of the elliptical machines as a warm-up.  My arm was doing okay until Saturday when I aggressively yanked my hiking boots while I was tying them:  which my elbow did not like.  I can tell when I don't go to the gym, because my beach-ball/bicycle-tire expands.  

Writing:  I did some line editing, critiquing, and attempted to write over the weekend.  Monday I managed to get up at 5:30 and got a good hour's worth of new work done  on the fairy tale story.  

May Pollen

This morning as I was waking up, I somehow managed to splice "Let a Woman In Your Life" from My Fair Lady with another song from the musical and a third one from "Annie Get Your Gun." Something like, "I'm a very gentle man / I can drink my liquor faster than a flicker / with the milk of human kindness by the quart in every vein." Only it was more back-and-forth.

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Pollen season is here. The car has a light yellow dusting on it from the pine trees. It affects Mark more strongly than it does me. May and June are the months when Mark is "taken by the faeries" and I say things like, "oh, it's the pollen talking." The pollen season may be shorter this year--we're getting our summer weather earlier than usual. I'm hoping we get more rain soon, because the ground and some of the plants are already looking dry.

On the plus side, I unrolled the outdoor carpet for Café John. This makes pretending I'm in a French Tea Salon much easier as it covers up the growing cracks in the patio. I'm sure there's a metaphor in there somewhere....