up a creek

is it as beautiful where you are as it is here?! is there anything more gorgeous than the angle of the sun at this time of year?! i went wandering again yesterday. this time i took more pics... probably too many! but if you'd like to come along, please do.

i'll skip over the first mile because i was walking through a stand of trees that had been marked for thinning. i spent half of my time wondering why they'd marked the trees they marked, and the other half telling myself not to try and figure out why they marked the trees they marked.



finally, no more marked trees. i'm at a dry creek bed, and i decide to walk upstream and look for two magnificent old pines that i discovered last fall. off i go. no wait,



i go back and make a rock pile so i know where to turn on my way back.



i quickly realize that i'm in creek pebble paradise. i walk very slowly, looking for 'energetic' pebbles as i go. i'm walking on what will be a rushing torrent in the spring...



i finally find them after going too far, turning around and walking uphill from the creek, carefully looking. these two pines sit by themselves -- remnants of a time when big trees grew everywhere. i put my bag in front of one to try and create some perspective, but still they look so much smaller than in person.



i wander off looking for this lichen covered juniper that i also remember from last year. ahhh, the smell of lichen on juniper... this smell, combined with the early autumn light is delicious beyond words in my world.



i walk back to the pines to sit and savor the afternoon, but what's this at the base of the tree on the left?! oh. my. goodness. little, tiny bones... an owl's eaten his meal overhead and left these treasures...



i carefully uncover them and dismantle the owl pellet. the bones of more than one creature are here-- there are some tiny femur-like bones that are barely a quarter of an inch long -- perfect and whole. wow.



i leave some corn. every year around halloween, grocery stores put out 'indian corn' -- i always stock up.



before i spead out the sarong at the base of the tree on the right, i can't resist a pic of these pieces of bark... like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.



eventually i get out my crayons and paint what i call a 'tree flag'. this is my woodland guerrilla art, a sort of 'antiflagging flagging'. there's a lot of plastic flagging in the woods, and evidently people can't see it well because there are often two or three strips of the same color hanging from one tree! i want to take it down, but i don't... i put up my own version, which i hope the birds and animals will rip up for nest making (it's muslin). in the meantime it's a sort of love letter to the trees from me .



this flag is hanging not far from the lichen tree above. i put it there last fall -- a little faded, but not bad. those caran d'ache crayons are something...



i pack up and hang the day's flag...



here i am, not far from home now, and what's this? obviously a bird met his or her end here, but where are the bigger feathers? they're on the other side of the tree. lots and lots of flicker feathers.



here are most of the day's finds... i'm wondering how i can use these jewels in what i make...