Here’s a list of what’s blooming in my city block: bright yellow dandelions, white candytuft, the pink/purple bells of bergenia (Labrador tea), speaking of bells, the delicate white clusters of white bells of pieris japonica, spicy white viburnum flowers, the redolently scented daphne odora, the tiny white flowers of peppergrass, swaying tulips, still the bright yellow trumpets of daffodils and pale white narcissus, lots of purple grape hyacinths, still a few forysthia on the bushes but we’re reaching one of my favorite times of the year: the blooming of quince, with its exquisite coral and peach blossoms. Also lots of flowering trees: cherry, plum, and magnolia.

What’s blooming where you live?

Icicle chandelier, Brooklyn, 1/13/2011 Photo by Diane Saarinen

Photo by Terry Musgrove

I haven’t yet adjusted to the early darkness.  It’s only five-thirty but my house feels like a towel-wrapped birdcage.  No, it feels more enclosed than that:  these walls are solid and they seem to be wrapped in a thick comforter.  Or, to put it another way, my house feels like an isolated burrow deep in the solid earth.  I mean that these walls feel oppressive and that my living room seems dense with yellow lamplight.  Cream soup steams up my windows.  Smoke from a buttered pan hovers, finding no broad space where it might dissipate. These rich warm foods seem too substantial now, and I crave air.

Photo by Mikko Karttunen

Early darkness itself does not oppress me;  it’s only when I stay indoors all the long evening that I feel cramped.  Going about my business inside my lit house, I can’t see the skunk wobbling down my driveway or the raccoons splashing in the water saucer.  And on a cold night like this, my husband asks me to close the windows early, so I can’t hear the wind in the elms or the coyotes yipping from the drainage basin.  My house is part of a vast and lively night, but I can’t sense that.  These lights and these closed windows wall me off from the space beyond my house.

So I try to spend time outside every winter night.  Winter nights are gentle here in Los Angeles, but I spent most of my life in Minneapolis, and still I went out most nights – I just dressed for the season and kept moving.  In Minneapolis, I liked shoveling my driveway after dark, hearing the occasional car push through the new snow and, after it passed, only the scrape of my neighbors’ shovels.  When I lived in Calgary, I walked beside the Bow River every winter night.   I treasured those snow-crunching walks, the long blue shadows of poplar skeletons, a lone jackrabbit watching me from atop the snow crust, one owl inviting another to cross the moonlit river.

Photo by Terry Musgrove

If this early darkness threatens to suffocate you, go outside.  When you first step out, the darkness might seem to be a substance crowding up against your chest.  But as your eyes adjust, you will find that you can breathe, that you can see, that the darkness is as thin as color.  Go see how night has changed your neighborhood.  Whatever you find, you’ll return home knowing that you live in a space much vaster than your cluster of lamplit rooms.

It’s time for me to go see what space my house inhabits.  The sky looks still and cold.  Its stars twinkle like pure water.  My neighbor drags her heavy garbage can to the end of her driveway.  Its wheels scratch the gravel and even seem to spurt trapped twigs.  Electrical wires stream across the infinite sky, side-swiping the Pleiades.  I hear a hose ease on.  Water flows out to the soil and air and night.  The fat shadow of a parked car spills down the street to me.  Two people are clomping down a steep road near mine, but all I can hear of their conversation is its melody.  A few blocks away, a siren passes, and all the outdoor dogs sing along.  The closest dog bays low, and his hot happy breath spreads into the night air.  The L.A. skyline shouldn’t be visible from here, but there it is, winking at me.  The night that holds the stars has descended from the sky to claim my street.  How can I sit whining in my house?

Kelly Fine writes from the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains near Los Angeles.

The photos are used by permission from the photographers. To see more of Terry Musgrove’s work, visit his Flickr page.

Photo by Jim Bradley

by Kelly Fine

Plants have been waiting all summer for what we Angelenos call the “winter rains.” I’m not sure why we refer to rain in the plural, but this does clarify the fact that we’re referring to these showers as events. Every shower in Los Angeles is an event worth celebrating. A typical summer brings no rain, and even during the so-called rainy season, rain is rare. The wild shrubs and perennials have their ways of surviving the summer drought, but they need the rain to resume growing. Every fall we start fretting about whether this season will bring enough rain.

This year the first winter rains came early. A light rain snuck in overnight on September 8. The thirsty earth drank it down, but there was no mistaking its fragrance. A home weather station in my neighborhood reported that .04 inches had fallen that night, breaking the summer stretch of 112 dry days. It was so early for winter rain that at first I considered it a rare summer shower. But on more than one morning after that, I found moist spots on the driveway and beads of water on the car, the fence, the roses. It wasn’t enough rain for the weather station to catch, and maybe it was just dew. But that too would have been a sign of fall: our dry summer air rarely hits the dewpoint.

In the last week of September, we were visited by a wave of humid heat unlike any weather I’ve seen in my four years here. It felt like July in Georgia. On the afternoon of September 29, the second day of the humid spell, the sky clouded up, and over the course of an hour I heard a good deal of thunder — rumbling, rambling, ambling thunder, thunder in no hurry to make its point. The sky flashed a few times, but I couldn’t see any lightning bolts. Finally some fat drops of rain fell to the ground, but after a minute they stopped coming. Despite the humidity, the water evaporated so quickly from my porch that I watched it vanish.

On October 1, thunder woke me. I lay in bed listening. The thunder was loud but dull, as if it was buried in the clouds. Once or twice it seemed to crack their surface. Soon I noticed another sound, and I left my bed to confirm it: yes, it was pouring. An hour later the clouds cleared, but a fair amount of rain had fallen: .28 inches. I’m sure I wasn’t the only person who felt a strange pride that day, as if I’d had some part in calling down the first substantial rain.

In the next few days, the strange weather brought a few more minute-long showers. Each one was followed by mist and hot sun that heated the mist until it felt like steam. The subtropical air moved on, but just after it left, we were blessed with more rainfall. On October 4, we had our first day of typical fall rain: not a dramatic storm, just plain rain falling from layer clouds that shrouded the earth all day. In fact the clouds stayed for three days, and the rain came and went. As of October 6, my neighborhood had received 1.34 inches of rain this fall, plenty for this early date.

Let me show you my rainy yard. It’s not easy to write on wet paper, so I’m watching the world from my porch, which is covered by an awning. The day looks as grey and wet as it would if this rain were falling in January. The air smells the way it does in winter rain: like the rosemary bush near my porch, like smoke from somebody’s fireplace. But by midwinter, rain willing, my yard will be lush with long grasses and leafy green weeds. Now its ground is bare, covered by little more than a few tatters of long-dead grass. I don’t water the lawn, and grass can’t survive L.A.’s dry summer unless it’s watered.

Photo by Kelly Fine

The rain eases off, and I go out to look more closely at my yard. The big bougainvillea against my fence has thrived through the dry summer, offering swallowtails and fritillaries its flowers every month. When any of its seeds ripen, the bracts surrounding them – those magenta petal-like structures that draw your attention more than its actual flowers – detach with the seeds and go tumbling off across the yard. In time they lose their color and stiffen until they resemble thin veined paper.

Here are some old bracts that the fence stopped from tumbling on. Most of them have faded to the color of dead grass, and now they’re soaked. I squat down to look at one. It’s translucent in the rain, and I can look right through it to a filigree of impossibly tiny droplets that cling to its underside. Each droplet is rimmed with gold, the rain’s interpretation of the bract’s tan shade. Layered over this filigree is a fluid silver gloss: here the bract’s upper surface reflects the grey sky.

Photo by Kelly Fine

It would make an exquisitely detailed pendant. But only this rain glossed it, only this rain evaporated and recondensed on its underside, and only these clouds gleam forth from it. Its iridescent lights will fade as the rain dries. If this land is lucky, though, if this winter brings all the rain it needs, enough to slake every plant’s thirst, enough to replenish all the streams, I might get the chance to glimpse more of these jewels. Maybe this bare ground will even sprout a new bougainvillea.

Kelly Fine writes from the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains near Los Angeles.

This morning I opened my bedroom door to find two baby alligator lizards (Elgaria multicarinata webbii) sitting a few feet apart in the hall. I eyeballed their length. They were a little too long for the cup and piece of stiff paper I use to carry spiders outside, but they were both sitting with their tails looped forward. I fetched the cup and easily scooped up the first lizard. Its only prominent marking was a tan stripe running down its spine. I carried it outside and let it go under the passionfruit vine where I most often see alligator lizards. (The passionfruits are ripe, but last spring the vine climbed a tree, so I can’t reach many of them. I’m leaving them for the birds and squirrels. They aren’t particularly tasty anyway.) When I returned to the hall, the second lizard was gone. I searched my house for twenty minutes, then gave up.

Lizards enter my house two or three times a year, always between May and September. Only a few are alligator lizards; most are fence lizards (Sceloporus occidentalis longipes). I rent a ramshackle house, and they slip through the gap under the front door. I suppose they come seeking shade or coolness or both. The lizards that hatch every August are particularly fond of entering my house during their first weeks of life. I’m not sure why they come more often than adults do, but from what I’ve seen, both young fence lizards and young alligator lizards are more curious than cautious. Last weekend a baby fence lizard watched me come and go as I filled pitchers of water for my bird bath. It sat on an open sunny stump a foot from the faucet, almost in my path. I finally reached out to pet the lizard just to test its tolerance, but I hesitated a little and it scooted a few inches away, then settled in to continue watching me. Do lizards develop suspicion as they grow or do only the cautious ones survive to adulthood?

I live in Altadena, a suburb of Los Angeles pressed up against the nearly vertical San Gabriel Mountains. Summer in this town is a season of drought. For several months, no rain whatsoever falls here. In the natural areas, most annuals die over the summer, and many shrubs and perennials go dormant. (Most of the wild lands within walking distance of my house are covered with shrubs, not trees.) Leaves dry up and lose their color as they might in autumn elsewhere. More plants fade with every passing month until December or so, when the first substantial rains yield new growth.

The Angeles National Forest is a few blocks from my house. When I go there in September, I find many plants withered. But some of the plants that have lost their leaves and others that have continued to flourish are quietly fruiting.

Most clusters of laurel sumac berries (Malosma laurina) have been ripe for a few months. When the berries are big and green or newly burnt-brown they taste like pink peppercorns and stay cold on my tongue after I swallow. Some berries (technically drupes, stone fruits) are still green now, some are brown and ready, and some are shriveling to dots. The dried fruits taste mildly nutty and they squeak my mouth clean.

Ripening coffeeberries. Photo by Gabi McLean

Sumac and other large native bushes sink their roots deep into the water table and stay green all summer long. Coffeeberry (Rhamnus californica), a big green shrub, is full of berries now. Most of the berries are still green, but that’s because birds are checking the bush every day and eating the few coffee-dark berries. Over the course of five minutes, I watch five birds of three species land in a single coffeeberry bush. A band-tailed pigeon (Patagioenas fasciata) lands with a great thwump and searches the bush for the ripest fruits. It finds a particularly attractive berry and actually hangs upside-down to pick it. Leaves obscure the bird so I can’t see just how it’s holding on, but I can see its tail pointed skyward. It’s bigger than a city pigeon, and it looks ridiculous upside-down.

Most buckwheat flowers (Eriogonum fasciculatum) dried and turned red-brown in July. Their rust has warmed the mountains ever since. Some clusters of fresh white flowers are still scattered among them, but every month more flowers dry and more seeds mature. I notice more buckwheat rust now that so many surrounding plants have dulled to tans and grays.

Photo by Gabi McLean

Mountain mahogany bushes (Cercocarpus betuloides) are covered with thousands of feathers, each one ready to carry its attached seed away in the first warm Santa Ana wind. I call these odd attachments feathers because they’re long and haired and their spines are prominent, but in fact they don’t look much like feathers — their short fur fluffs out from flexible spines that curl now that the seeds are ready to go. It’s hard to believe that these flourishes serve a purpose.

The flower stalks of common phacelia (Phacelia distans) were tightly coiled last spring. Each one straightened gradually to display its flowers as they bloomed first near its base, then farther along its length. People call these and several similar plants “caterpillar phacelia” because their hairy stalks look like caterpillars. Now the caterpillars are stalks of bristly brown seeds, and they’ve unrolled completely. They appear to be balanced precariously on their butts or hindmost legs, trying to climb into the air.

I found the second lizard the next day. It was sitting on an open stretch of the living room floor. Its tail was stretched out behind it, so it looked too long for my cup. I fetched the long Tupperware container I’ve dedicated to moving lizards. My usual method is to set the container over the lizard, slide it forward as the lizard runs, and finally slide the lizard out the front door. This was the first youngster I’ve transported this way. Despite the afternoon heat it was less energetic than the adults I’ve moved – even after it was enclosed, it just wanted to sit still. But I prodded it out the door, and now my house is lizard-free. At least I think so.

Kelly Fine writes from the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains near Los Angeles.

The photos of native plants were taken by Gabi McLean and are reproduced with permission from Plants of the San Gabriel Mountains: Foothills and Canyons by Cliff and Gabi McLean. For more photos or to order this excellent CD, visit their web site.

The first cutting of hay is in and the second underway, tree fruits are in or waiting, fields and vegetable gardens are bursting with ripening crops.  Even if crops aren’t ready yet, a practiced eye can see what the yield will be, and there’s no more time for adjustments: we’ll get what we get, and any changes will have to be made next year.  Stores are full of canning supplies; man and beast alike are stashing away the bounty.

Looking down over the swamp (we prefer the term “wetlands”), where a month ago it was pink and blue with wild phlox, cornflowers and mallows, now it’s the deep rose of Joe Pye Weed and milkweed, with fluffy white Queen Anne’s Lace and touches of early goldenrod.

The flower beds have hit a lull, with only echinacea (thank goodness for all the new varieties!), Phlox “David” and “Bright Eyes” and a few lingering daylilies still in bloom.  Mums haven’t cracked color yet.  The summer annuals are still in bloom, but are starting to look a little tired – time to gather seeds for next year and make notes in the garden journal.

The birds aren’t as full of conversation as a month ago, now that the babies are fledged, but crickets, grasshoppers, humming bees and a few cicadas are heard during the day, and the full chorus of katydids at night.  Still a few frog voices, but not as many.  I haven’t seen any monarch caterpillars on the milkweed yet, but they should be along any day now.

The skies darken earlier, of course, and are more likely to be free of haze.  We’ll be watching for shooting stars around the 15th!

Karen Albeck is an amateur naturalist and natural journal-keeper who watches for Signs of the Season in central New York state.

Photos were provided by Karen Albeck.

Posting a message and a photo from Melanie Schmidt sent on July 1, 2010 (no blackberries yet in Seattle but I had the first raspberries from my garden on Sunday, July 4):

Blackberry bushes are almost ready for picking.  Blackberry preserves, pies, cobblers and anything else blackberry that you can think of.  We have about an acre of blackberry vines.  What a wonderful welcome to our new home in Tennessee.

Melanie

Throughout we were loudly serenaded by our resident Song Thrush. When it eventually became cooler we watched the film of Midsummer Night’s Dream. All immensely lovely

From Ginny Lang, Bellingham, WA
Last week I was walking Coco, our enthusiastic German Shorthair Pointer, and she was enjoying the smells in our neighborhood, wagging and wiggling as she nosed the ferns and ground cover and watched, very carefully, the fat robins in the yards. I’m never quite sure who is the walker and who is the walkee, but I’m pretty sure Coco knows. We live in the hills above Bellingham, WA and Lake Whatcom so it’s about 8 to 10 degrees cooler up here than in town down by the Bay. There, we’re seeing daffodils and forsythia in full bloom – earlier than usual – and the cherry blossoms are glorious already. Up here, the forsythia is just beginning to show yellow flowers and I’ve noticed little red buds on the salmon berry trees. The tulips are showing their tips above the ground and it looks like they will bloom well before their usual April arrival.

As we walked, I began to hear a racket. This wasn’t a scolding squirrel, circling crow or an airplane over the lake…it sounded like metal on metal, and it was close. Coco heard it too, and we headed back toward our house and the unusual sound.

There on the dead end sign was a woodpecker, pecking for all he was worth on the bottom corner of the sign. Trying to attract the ladies, I’d suspect. I laughed and got out the camera. Coco pointed. All sorts of puns, practically limericks, come to mind about this fellow’s effort to attract a mate: his big….sound…. ringing through the woods, the age old woodpecker equivalent to a dating site. He’s been back, so I guess he’s checking to see if there have been any responses to his posting.

From Jane Grant in Baltimore, Maryland.

A photo from a hike in the woods along the Gunpowder River in central Maryland on January 18, 2010. In my zone, Skunk Cabbage is due to appear in February, but I found these a bit earlier, poking up through the leaf litter in the otherwise brown, bare woods. A beautiful sign of Spring!