A new walking trail opened up in the city of San Marcos.
It’s inland and a bit of a drive, so it’s best to get there in the early morning or late afternoon because the temps are going up.
The trail is only a mile or so, not at all strenuous, but the views are magnificent with California lilacs and mature ceanothus surrounding the South Lake Reservoir — built in 1959, although it hasn’t been used as a source of drinking water since 1984.
I doubled back instead of completing the easier loop and that added an extra mile to the hike.
There’s a lot of coastal scrub, coots, ducks, redwing blackbirds, deer, bobcats, and coyotes. I wish I had seen deer; maybe next time! South Lake is also home to a rare native turtle; the Western Pond Turtle, and I’m sorry to say that I didn’t see them, either.
Definitely remember to bring water and a wide-brimmed hat as it gets super toasty in the sun!
All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream. — Edgar Allen Poe
So far, the world seems to have survived the solar eclipse, but on a personal level, my dream state have gone on a path of complete totality — into the BIZARRE.
First, as I was drifting off to sleep in that precarious and precious few moments called hypnagogia, the transitional state of consciousness between wakefulness and sleep, I felt my kitty daughter Bandit jump on the bed right next to me. I mean, I literally and truly FELT her body. This has happened during several lucid dreams, but NEVER as I’m stuck in limbo between two worlds. I know I’ve said it before…my Bandit died many years ago, so whatever/whoever jumped on my bed wasn’t actually Bandit, but her spirit.
Just like before, it totally freaked me out because it felt so REAL. Anyway, to rule out it wasn’t some other sort of creature (ick), I turned on the lamp next to my bed and there was nothing.
The light broke the spell of reconnection, but as Bandit jumped on me, I remember she asked a question, the same one she asked the last time I had a nocturnal visit. I responded exactly the same way I had during the lucid dream, “I don’t know, baby girl. I don’t know.”
I went to sleep after that –no more dreams about Bandit — BUT the last dream I recall is pretty unsettling. I dreamed that my nose was stuffed up. When I found a tissue to blow my nose, a bunch of snakes emerged, but only from the left side. (Gross, right?) They were quite small, mostly black with a white line running down the length of their bodies. Details, yuck! I continued to blow my nose and more snakes emerged, until I forced myself to wake up because OMG, I couldn’t let my subconscious continue on this strange path (of reptile totality).
My heart was RACING and you can be sure I doublechecked the comforter and sheets to make sure that I wasn’t lying in a nest of snakes. EWWW.
After a cup of coffee, I started researching snakes coming out of nose and to my complete surprise, it’s not at all uncommon. EWWW again.
There are way too many interpretations of snakes coming out one’s nose to determine whether my dream was good or bad, so I choose to believe the more positive explanations:
“Sometimes it can symbolize transformation, rebirth, and renewal. Dreaming about a snake crawling out of your body could be a sign that something hidden, or something that has been repressed, is coming out into the open. It could also be a sign of a transformation or a new beginning.”
“It might symbolize personal empowerment. You are striving for goals that seem beyond your reach. You are receptive to change. It also points at the moon, intuition, and the feminine aspects of yourself. You will play an integral role in an important upcoming project. Your dream is a metaphor for great harmony and heightened awareness toward some situation.”
Thank you very much, SOLAR ECLIPSE, for the strange ramblings of my subconscious. As much as I love to feel the poignant presence of my kitty daughter, it breaks my heart that she’s no longer alive. With regard to the snakes dream, I’m shaking my head. I have no earthly idea where that scenario came from. I’m not afraid of snakes (except rattlers) so it’s not like I have an ingrained snake phobia or anything like that.
Oh well…it’s a bright new day, and much too beautiful to dwell in the shadowy recesses of my submerged mind.
Dream info curated from Dreams Directory and Dreamopedia.
There won’t be another total solar eclipse for about two decades, so it’s generated an incredible amount of excitement.
Here in California, while we’re not in the path of totality, we’ll see a partial eclipse of about fifty percent. It’s predicted to commence at 10:03, peaking at 11:11, with the entire event ending by 12:23. It looks like we’ll have clear skies, which is so cool.
The total solar eclipse starts in Texas and ends in Maine, and will last approximately from 11:27 a.m. to 12:35 p.m. Pacific time.
It’s also a new moon. If you’re like me and wonder why every new moon day isn’t an eclipse, Exploratorium Senior Scientist Paul Doherty explains —the orbit of the moon is tilted relative to the orbit of the Earth around the sun, so the moon often passes below or above Earth. At those times, it does not cross the line between the sun and the Earth, and therefore does not create a solar eclipse.
For those of us who aren’t in the path of totality, I can’t think of anything better to demonstrate it than Oreo cookies, right?
Friends are traveling to locations where the total eclipse will be seen, others have booked very expensive tickets on the flight of totality, some are hosting or attending viewing parties, but I will stay close to home.
I really really like the concept of “path of totality” and might (probably will for sure) incorporate that phrase into my daily chat. It’s a destination, a manifestation, and inspiration all at the same time. PATH OF TOTALITY.
I’m ready for the eclipse and a personal path of totality — are you?
P.S. Back up your phones and computers, just in case…
I know this is a cliche and SOOO predictable, but I bet we hear this song a million times tomorrow.
It’s time to prepare the garden for spring vegetables. Every year I attempt to win the battle with rodents and bugs and lack of sky water; sometimes I win, sometimes they do…
I have a couple new ideas. I purchased coconut coir bricks to rehydrate and mix with the existing soil in my raised bed and I thought I’d try cardboard box planters, too, inside the raised bed.
Maybe one day I’ll be able to build my own Hügelkultur.
“Hügelkultur” (pronounced hyoo-gul-kulture) is a German word that means mound culture or hill culture. A hügelkultur is a sloped and raised planting bed filled with topsoil, wood, and organic materials. Germans and Europeans have practiced it as a gardening method for hundreds of years.
Instead of gathering branches, leaves and grass clippings for yard waste trash pickup or to toss in the compost, build a hugel bed. Mound logs, branches, leaves, grass clippings, straw, cardboard, petroleum-free newspaper, manure, compost, or whatever other biomass you have available, top with soil and plant your veggies.
The advantages of a hugel bed are many, including:
The gradual decay of wood is a consistent source of long-term nutrients for the plants. A large bed might give out a constant supply of nutrients for decades. The composting wood also generates heat which might extend the growing season.
Logs and branches act like a sponge. Rainwater is stored and then released during drier times. Actually you may never need to water your hugel bed again after the first year (except during long term droughts).
We had a bit of rain yesterday which is a perfect opportunity to prep the coconut coir and plant seeds. I’ll start with my favorites: mixed greens, tomatoes, beets, chard and kale, cucumbers, snap peas, beans, peppers, and zucchini (of course).
There’s nothing more adorable than watching the first little sprouts emerge, right? I can’t wait!
As we’re gearing up for the total solar eclipse on April 8, there’s a lot going on in the sky, like today, April 4, a rare celestial event occurs as four planets align: Venus, Saturn, and Mars will be visible to the naked eye, while Neptune can be seen with a telescope or binoculars.
These alignments carry profound spiritual significance. They represent moments when celestial energies merge, heightening awareness and opening doors to deeper insights and experiences.
There will be no sighting for me, I’m sad to report, because the skies are becoming overcast and cloudy due to an approaching storm, but I hope someone is lucky enough to see the planets align.
Even so, simply knowing that’s happening in the skies above, despite not being able to personally view the magic — is enough. I can still feel the energies.
This isn’t the greatest photo; the sun kind of distorted the sharp lines and colors, but I was lucky enough to capture my lizard friend sunning himself on an orange tennis ball
This other guy visits every day; I can always tell who it is by his sort of mutilated tail. He seems to know when I’m in the garden and runs over to greet me.
Hello, handsome! They might be referred to as cold-blooded, but still have their own distinctive personalities.
Lizards like to snack on mealworms, but I never seem to remember to buy them at the pet store. I know they have enough to eat because they’re doing a great job cleaning the garden of unwanted grasshoppers, crickets, and beetles.
Up at dawn, the dewy freshness of the hour, the morning rapture of the birds, the daily miracle of sunrise, set her heart in tune, and gave her Nature’s most healing balm. ~ Louisa May Alcott
Because of all the rain we’ve had, spring blossoms in the garden are exceptionally lush. My Cup of Gold vine (Solandra guttata/Solandra maxima) is bursting with flowers and this gigantic dinner-plate sized golden chalice looked right at me as if to say “good morning.”
This is NOT about that giving tree, Shel Silverstein’s sad apple tree who was abused and abandoned after she gave all that she had for years in her attempts to please a narcissistic little boy.
Taking a bit of a detour and as an aside to that, Angel Girl read The Giving Tree to me — well, not really READ it, but she had memorized every single word and wanted to “read” to me, just like her big brother reads to me. Too adorable, right?
Angel Boy, sitting on my other side, was quick to report in a loud whisper, “She’s not really reading like ME, Grandma, you know that, don’t you?”
I replied, “I know, T, but she wants you and I to be proud of her, so we’re just going to go along with it and praise her efforts, aren’t we?”
After she finished “reading”, we chatted a bit about what the story was all about and Angel Boy said how much he didn’t like it because it was too sad for him to think about the poor tree and Angel Girl chimed in with the same sort of commentary, “He took it all, Grandma, and all she had left was a trunk for him to sleep on when he was old. That wasn’t very nice.”
I was impressed by their empathy and compassion.
And then, because these children NEVER miss an opportunity to point things out to me, she said, “And the man in the book is WAY OLDER than you are, Grandma.”
Ha Ha Ha. Thanks for that, my angel.
Back to my rant, but before I begin, I need to make sure everyone is completely aware about how much I love trees. I don’t even hate eucalyptus trees, but they’re a menace and never should have been planted as a residential street tree, especially so close to houses. I mean, it’s not like I have a colony of koalas in my backyard that need a regular source of food, don’t you agree?
What I’m going on a tirade about is a gigantic eucalyptus tree lives in the space between my house and my next door neighbor’s driveway. It’s a city-owned tree so we can’t do anything about it. No birds nest here; even THEY don’t like it.
The California Invasive Plant Council (CAL-IPC) classifies certain eucalyptus as a “moderate” invasive.
They’re a real fire hazard and can disrupt ecological relationships among species that co-evolved over millennia, which is why many groups work to remove eucalyptus and restore coast live oaks. If that’s not bad enough, limbs fall during storms, and the euc’s shallow root system contributes to the whole tree falling, both of which have killed people.
Volatile oils in eucalyptus trees fuel more intense fires which is enough of a reason to permanently remove this tree.
They are a hazard in every sense of the word. Back in the 1900s, these trees were imported from Australia and planted with the hope that they could be harvested and sold as railroad ties. Unfortunately, eucalyptus is a brittle wood and cracks easily, therefore was unsuitable.
Eucalyptus limbs, branches, and trees regularly fall with potential catastrophic injuries. Recently, one eucalyptus as large as mine fell near our elementary school and was removed.
Last January in San Diego at Balboa Park, a eucalyptus tree was uprooted and fell on top of a woman, obviously causing injuries.
In 2017, A man in his seventies was killed by a branch that fell from a eucalyptus tree at Holiday Park in Carlsbad.
This tree continually drops leaves and other litter on the street, our yards, the sidewalk, and rain gutters. Roots are invasive. The leaves and other tree litter can damage vehicle paint.
I’m really sick and tired of cleaning up this kind of tree debris every week or so.
A few neighbors and I wrote letters to the city expressing all of that and requested the tree be removed. That request was denied. This isn’t the first time we’ve made an effort to get the city to do something about it, and you would think they would be intelligent enough to remove a potentially dangerous hazard, but all they suggested was that If we wanted to spend more than one hundred dollars, we could appeal the decision, but so far, we have not done that.
I met with our councilmember and to no one’s surprise, received no help at all. I’m working on a little show-and-tell with exhibits for a future city council meeting to prove my point and will update you to share all the details about well my plan was or was NOT received. Heehee.
This tree doesn’t give apples; it gives me angst and frustration.
The full moon and lunar eclipse again wreaked havoc with my sleep – I woke up several times seemingly for no reason, but I looked out the window and said “goodnight, moon“, as if I were in Margaret Wise Brown’s classic book where the bunny says goodnight to various objects and creatures before drifting off to sleep.
I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees. All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing around me, the insects, and the birds who do their work in the darkness. All night I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling with a luminous doom. By morning I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better. –Mary Oliver
Enchanted Seashells | Princess Rosebud 