Plus, an iconic Park Service building destroyed, the best water shoes for the trail, superblooms and native bees, blissed out redwoods, and a brand new charismatic megafauna for L.A.
Thank you. As too often the case, human ideas about a place, a natural phenomenon - and events over which they have no control - are unguided missiles.
Please avoid any mention of "superblooms." Between the huge reach of the internet and the human tendency to want to have everything, writing about superblooms endangers irreplaceable natural areas. We no longer live in a world in which one person tells one other person. Now, one person can spread information to thousands or hundreds of thousands. Love your writing. Thanks.
haha! Yes plants are really our friends. My husband is so used to me having conversations on the trails now with a tree or a flower that it doesn't even phase him anymore. Oh man I miss SoCal so much. Had to move to Pennsylvania in early 2020. I can just smell the sage scrub when I read your articles. Went back there in November and drove straight to Griffith from LAX. I could not have been more excited to see that haunted picnic table and even the (non-native) eucalyptus trees. Spent the next few days hiking the San Gabriels (the smell of those Jeffrey pines!) and had a moment where I literally threw my arms around one of those trees and just cried I was so happy to be with them again. Then out to Joshua tree to reunite with pinyon pine and juniper. It was a great trip. I can 100% relate to plants as friends! I think I discovered Theodore Payne because of you. My whole garden went native after that. Pennsylvania is much different, of course, but I am making new "friends" here too as I learn the landscape.
Hi! What is the white-bloomed (native) plant behind you in the selfie? The flowers are so fabulous!
Thank you. As too often the case, human ideas about a place, a natural phenomenon - and events over which they have no control - are unguided missiles.
Please avoid any mention of "superblooms." Between the huge reach of the internet and the human tendency to want to have everything, writing about superblooms endangers irreplaceable natural areas. We no longer live in a world in which one person tells one other person. Now, one person can spread information to thousands or hundreds of thousands. Love your writing. Thanks.
haha! Yes plants are really our friends. My husband is so used to me having conversations on the trails now with a tree or a flower that it doesn't even phase him anymore. Oh man I miss SoCal so much. Had to move to Pennsylvania in early 2020. I can just smell the sage scrub when I read your articles. Went back there in November and drove straight to Griffith from LAX. I could not have been more excited to see that haunted picnic table and even the (non-native) eucalyptus trees. Spent the next few days hiking the San Gabriels (the smell of those Jeffrey pines!) and had a moment where I literally threw my arms around one of those trees and just cried I was so happy to be with them again. Then out to Joshua tree to reunite with pinyon pine and juniper. It was a great trip. I can 100% relate to plants as friends! I think I discovered Theodore Payne because of you. My whole garden went native after that. Pennsylvania is much different, of course, but I am making new "friends" here too as I learn the landscape.