Lake Cachuma/Santa Ynez River Photo Shoot

 I've been lusting after this graceful curve of the lake with or without lake water for years. One day I'll stop and photograph this at sunrise. So I did, sunrise 12/9/12

It helped my motivation that the deep red color was at its fullest saturation and seemed so lovely the evening before.

Everyone asks, just what is that plant? Perhaps you can supply the answer. I think it's not buckwheat though the color for the fruit is right.

On the river there is finally water  following rains of the past week and a grand number of germinating green plants that all look rather like grass at first. As I stooped to inspect them it became clear there are grasses but many, perhaps more that are not. At the size of many of the mature valley oak, the coastal live oak below has that grand architecture that must take 250 years to approach.

Thinking of the tears in two of my favorite pairs of pants, I decided to forgo the adventure of crossing the 5 strand, barbed wire fence. A short ramble past the fence would improve my angle on the lake. Instead, I headed for the river. A week later and I'm sitting in the fog after chasing a roof leak in our house. Drips are down to one every eight seconds, is that decreased rain or repaired roof?

Adventure in Santa Barbara Garden

I shoot lots of garden shots in order to see where I want to put new plants or even what to take out. As for blooming I figure a couple weeks out of the year things will peak, but the rest the year I have to live with the stuff that is always there, shape, leaf color, size and location. This silvery guy is not native, but I like the color and shape.

We started laying out this area near the house 5 years ago. We wanted mostly natives, but we didn't ask enough questions or gave into a pretty face and some are Mediterranean, from other continents. Others are from right here or cultivars of natives. 

The manazanita--right-- came up after the big Gap Fire. One theory is these guys germinate due to all the smoke. I transplanted one which doesn't usually work, but it's huge already. Must be happy!

The photo below left is more of the five-year old yard with plants we added to a really sterile area. On the right is a path through large plants that were here (35 plus years) and survived my chainsaw. Ground cover is mostly non-native that was here and still growing. 

Left are non-natives from before we started moving more that way. The salvia "hot lips" --lower left-- is maybe a cultivar of our local salvias. Can't find anything like it around the area, but butterflies love 'em. That big rock is loaded with oyster fossils from when my yard was 2000 feet lower. The rusty plant below is the seed heads of common buckwheat, a plant I abused with the mower for about 30 years until I decided to let it grow again. Nice all year, it has great flower clusters and now these contrasty seeds that are beginning to fall off.

I am plugging natives especially in cities and suburbs. Next time you want to live it up a little, put in a native to your area. You'll learn about the local flora and make the butterflies and birds happier. Even though the nectar of the non-natives attracts it doesn't provide the protein birds need when nesting because many fewer tasty insects are able to live on those exotic plants plus the natives need less water and survive our frequent drought years. If you're replacing just one exotic, make the new one a native for your own edification. There's nothing that will teach you about a plant like watching it carefully through the seasons and over the years. Who knows, you might take up phenology as a citizen scientist.

For those of you looking for other adventures try looking at my buddy Luigi's blog on his loooong hike 3000Km through New Zealand!

If you're looking for stylish wilderness photos for your new digs or to replace boring old art, drop by Lumnos Gallery, at the Santa Barbara Frame Shop1324 State St. for photos by Jeff Jones and friends. Lumnos.com

Shifting Gears Arizona

StsStill making the transition from TT to TC (travel trailer to truck camper). We took off in our first real camping trip over the Thanksgiving holiday with the TC. This is a much easier combination to handle on the road and especially when it comes time to stop for fuel, shopping or for restaurants. Only 21 feet vs 48 to park! Getting it home again is a breeze coming in our primitive little road. 

Camping in small National Park sites (as here at Joshua Tree) put a smile on my face compared to the hour it took me to turn around one of the last times I pulled into a similar site last year with the TT.Here is the main difference, inside there is much more room in the TT when we dine and entertain. This photo from inside the TT is part of my RV Trader ad since it is on the block.

We missed getting to JTNP before sundown, so the ranger pointed us to the BLM overflow camping down near town. We were among a few scattered RVs out there in the dark and fairly quiet, a better choice than going to the local RV park. At Belle Camp Ground we parked and went out on the desert for a hike on the California Riding and Hiking trail that courses through the park and ends not far from Haldane's Hole in the Rock. That's what I've been calling it since last year he bet me it was just a shadow. I since found the park calls it the target rock. The balance rock is one of many in the west that eroded out of the old world basement and look as though placed in improbably high ledges when in truth they sit where they have for eons while everything around them eroded off to one ocean or another.

We moved on to Quartzsite, AZ where my parents wintered and we scheduled a solar upgrade for the TC. If you're looking for the unique in Americana culture, I think this might be the place to find it. Maybe there's still some charm there somewhere.  We moved on to Buckskin Mountain north on the Colorado River for a few nights and Thanksgiving Dinner at Tommy's Paradise just up the road. Probably the best turkey dinner in AZ served outside the home. I thanked Tommy for his good work that day as I enjoyed the 8 side dishes along with my turkey, ham and multiple deserts!

While at lunch at Lake Havasu, we learned Steve and Debbie Roberts were on their way from Lompoc to stay at the Inn right in our view, surprise! We spent the next morning with them on the lake seeing the sights from their boat before heading out over the sundown-desert on the way home. 

Our last night out was a stop at Newberry Mountain RV & Motel. In the morning we stopped at the famous Bagdad Cafe on Route 66! Don't remember? I vaguely did recall a movie of that name and thought I had probably seen it. Once home I put the movie on and was certain I had never seen it, but enjoyed it more than the cafe! Save your fuel and watch the movie!

Write On!

Early warning, this is about writing, indie publishing and marketing, not my usual travel-photo stuff.  If you are thinking of writing and publishing and would like to know more, this is for you. If you don't care about any of this, sign off right here! See ya next time.

This year I had the great good fortune to see three publications come to completion at roughly the same time, late spring 2012. It wasn't a coincidence. I held off publishing the first two as I wanted their release to coincide with  The Adventures of Frieda being published by my friend Kaan in Turkey. I hoped for some marketing synergy from the three coming out close together.

First I completed Santa Barbara Fire Song, a series of 3 short stories. From Fire Song I learned how to prepare a manuscript as an ebook. I chose Smashwords.com because of their support for indie (independent) authors and their comprehensive free manual. They also send your ebook to most of the ebook retailers in the proper format if you meet their format requirements.

I knew I wanted to make this little book available free and I didn't want to pay to give it away. I thought what I wrote might be helpful to kids who were in firestorm situations and it would give people a sample of how I write and therefore interest them in other projects. This collection has three stories, each about different characters. The first is Black Belly who also appears in The Adventures of Frieda, next comes Gel who is the main character in Dungeon Dreams and the third is Rose who has made a few appearances in other short stories I wrote but haven't published. Doing a short project worked as shaping the manuscript to publish went quickly. I did several iterations before release of Fire Song as an ebook. The hardest technical part for me was the cover. I used a photo from the "Tea" fire in Santa Barbara. I think the cover is marginal and it took several attempts learning to get it ready to use. I just (10/13) popped in a new cover that will appear on Smashwords ebooks from now on. I think it looks much better. I will next attempt to spooge it over to Kindle. This will give you an idea of how flexible ebooks are. You can revise over and over, from tiny edits of commas up to a complete re-write if you like!

The great part is that it took off with more people down loading than I expected. It's still free and I intend it always will be. I couldn't afford to give away print copies and sending it as an email attachment was limited and not very appealing. So far there have been nearly 400 downloads. I was expecting maybe 30 friends and family would take a look. One clarification. A download doesn't mean a person read the material! It means they asked to have it loaded to their reader or computer. Maybe there's just one demented person who downloaded Fire Song 400 times! Good on ya! I also heard from some real people that they read it with their kids, so I know there's more than one reader out there.

That was the introductory piece in my market strategy. The Adventures of Frieda  was published in Turkey and some of you came to the book launch where I had a splendid time and got to introduce Kaan to some new folks and reacquaint him with old friends. This is the piece I wanted most to promote after Kaan went to all the trouble of finding a translater, an illustrator, an editor and a printer to bring this together out of stories I wrote for my grand kids.  So I was intending Fire Song to introduce the idea of me as a children's author and people would consider Frieda  as a serious (that can't be the right word for a book featuring a frog with red pigtails and her buddy who's eyebrows are never on his face) children's book. Frieda is a real hard copy book and even though our first customer suggested 25 cents was a good price, it sells for more.

One thing we learned from Frieda is that it is difficult to distribute books from another country in the US. We're still working on it. So far I am the distributor and the only US online outlet is through NatureTrack.com where you can order a copy. That's kept distribution down to less than 100 so far. The good part is that profits from Frieda go to NatureTrack to support outdoor field trips in nature for kids. When you see me, ask me, I often have copies in the car.

My third book started as a short story and grew one short story after another until it was a novel.  I promised my granddaughters I would publish Dungeon Dreams, some day. After the first completed version I gave them several years ago, we sat down and discussed what was needed to finish the book for publication. I made them editors, Kori and Taylor Gibson. They didn't know how much detail and work goes into completing a manuscript for publication. Neither did I. I learned about e-publishing, and it seemed a way I could complete my promise to them. I also aimed at using DD  to promote Frieda. My neighbor, Karen May, painted the image that became the cover.

Dungeon Dreams was announced when Frieda came out and was offered free as a promotion. Now it sells on most of the ebook retail stores (Amazon, Sony, Barnes & Noble, etc.)  along with Fire Song.  Dungeon Dreams has been downloaded about 200 times. In the back of both ebooks is a blurb about buying a copy of Frieda. I donate all the profit from DD to NatureTrack.

After I moved Fire Song to also sell at Amazon's Kindle Store (yes, you can list at Amazon & Smashwords at the same time) I discovered that the cost of creating a paper copy of your own work was...free. When I first considered publishing Dungeon Dreams it looked like it would cost $300-500 to create a paper version and to have some copies to distribute. Reading carefully I discovered it was possible if I did all the setup work that I could have a paper version available for sale for nothing! You might consider the sweat equity in this project before jumping in, it takes some time and some digital fussiness that isn't appealing to all writers. When I finished Dungeon Dreams I went through what looked like an easy conversion of the Kindle ebook to Amazon's subsidiary company, Create Space for a paper copy. It wasn't as easy as I hoped. Most of that had to do with learning to size pages down to a trade paperback. It is easy to create an 8.5 X 11 inch edition, but I didn't find that attractive. Getting the cover with the words to the right size took many tries, but I did it. If you plan to do this, it might be faster to start with Create Space and then move to Amazon/Kindle ebook format.

The paperback version of Dungeon Dreams is available through Create Space (use: createspace.com/3899301, I get more money to donate when you buy it here!) and through Amazon/Kindle. The main point of doing all that work isn't to sell tons of paperbacks. It is to have a physical copy for my grandkids after all these years. If a few copies sell too, that is a good thing. If you do this, you can buy copies of your own book for a few bucks without having to pay someone hundreds of dollars. I stand in dark alleys and sell them from secret pockets in my rain coat.

What's next? I have a non-fiction book about a family dog that is about to come out. I still need a cover to go on the front! My Dog Ate My House is now available at Amazon's Kindle Store and Smashwords.com under my name. My nephew Andrew Crenshaw did the art work for the cover and Laurie Hoyle did the editing. Hope you enjoy!

Early & Post Fire + New RV

These are a couple of photos for comparison. The 3-smokes shot was soon after the fire started and next one is today after the smoke cleared so you can see how the area burned off. With the fire retardant and burned areas it looks a little like a southwest hillside with red rock.  

 Earlier this month we went to a family wedding (grandnephew Justin and bride Kristin) near Portland and then up to Sequim, WA to buy a truck camper for the next phase of our travels. The travel trailer is really nice once it arrives at camp and the truck is unhooked. If you've been to our house you can imagine the difficulty inserting it here. It would be much better if no one else were on the road while I negotiate into the property, but that doesn't happen. So we downsized. A lot!

The two photos with water are the Hood Canal not far from Dosewallips State Park, WA.  I saw two bald eagles that morning on the river in front of our campsite. Carole, standing in the back, is at our campsite after we spent our first night.

 This is after I knocked most the bugs off the truck and camper. This makes a good emergency home in case of more wildfires and other home threatening events! We're not planning any, but then we didn't plan the last one either.

Just a reminder, you can click any photo in the blog to see the images made large. At least that works on my computer, maybe it will on yours.

Close Fire as Summer Steams Through October

   Fire was always a part of life here since the first Americans were in Santa Barbara thousands of years ago.  The Chumash encouraged valued annuals through small fires after harvesting seeds. Recently large, wildfire has become more prevalent. Much too prevalent. This is the bigger of two fires in our mountain area in the past week. The first started with and burned up our mail carrier's truck. Some of our mail survived with a smokey essence. A mere acre burned with the vehicle.

This one started early in the morning and threatened those on the other side of San Marcos Pass at Painted Cave coming right to the edge of their properties.

The aerial precision of the air drops was stunning. The theater of this fire is a narrow wedge between two steep drainages that flow together above Highway 154. The choreography of 6 choppers and 7 planes in this reduced air space was high drama on wing and proceeded without incident. The result came early and was highly effective. Keeping this potentially huge fire storm between the ridges and below the houses was an education in concentrated air attack on fire close up. Forty-four acres burned to the rocks and all houses still stand unharmed!

 

Traffic flowed all day on 154 and power was restored to our neighborhood soon after it went out. The Sheriff patrolled neighborhoods and made reverse 911 calls to get our attention.

While this may not be global weirding at work, it's hard not to look at the total pattern of the increasing frequency of Southern Cal. big fires and not wonder about the cause. Fire suppression? Sure, it's been over zealous. Encroaching on the rural habitat with the urban interface? Of course we have and are increasing this menace. And I still suspect the climate change as well.

At the least we had a hot fall with summer  unwilling to loosen its talons. Today, a much needed respite is on hand with a cooler, on-shore flow complete with clouds and humidity. Maybe fall at last?

Mountains of Summer

Fall is rumored to be lurking on the edge of these 90+ degree days following the American tradition of laboring back to work and school in the shadow of the first Monday of September. I am still in the thrall of the Mountains of Summer and cooling my days with those memories as the hot winds blow. The other day hardly broke 70 and it rained in shear apostasy to the Santa Barbara tradition of no rain until November. But tomorrow the heat returns to our low pretender of a mountain and I, well I seek to recall the cool breezes of higher ground.
   This started when I noticed this evening my first photo of the June Lakes blog is an image of Falling Leaf Lake! You didn't notice? Well, it took me awhile, but we never saw June Lake through the trees like that. Brett Stearns and I hiked a high trail.

   Below is a photo of Jen and her cousin, Todd, down from Portland area with his family, sister Tanya and her family and their parents Bill and Carol. Somehow I missed most the most of the action with the camera, but this photo from the east end of Inspiration Point (SB) delivers the sense of fun and sharing we enjoyed for most of a week. I also missed the trip to the Mouse, when they all took in Disney Land. This opportunity for our families to be together needs to happen much more often!

  I don't know who the lady is, but she watched our every move on the street going up to the cafes and general store at June Lake. She needs a life.
   Mono lake has had a tough time over the years being guzzled by the metropolis to the south, but it's looking better than last we left it, a little bluer and a lot fuller.

All over the world Mark Twain was there before me, truly the Kilroy of an earlier era. While reporting from Virginia City, he ventured out to visit the tufa towers with the remarkable flies and shrimp of Mono Lake and for once he didn't have a better view than I. The lake was fuller and the towers were mostly still underwater and are now more exposed. They grow closer to flooding again and below another Sam expresses enthusiasm for how large the lake should grow and I agree.

  A view of the east escarpement from our stop in Lone Pine while we consider the hiking/climbing achievement of super mom (Jen) last summer.  This water valve gives tribute to water theft via the construction of water aqua ducts beginning with Rome and marching through history all the way through Owens Valley to Los Angeles. As Mark T. said, "Whiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting!" Some people don't realize there is a fight until the water is gone. My quote check finds that Mark Twain might not have uttered the whiskey quote, but we're pretty certain he drank a little of it in his day and we're not so sure about water.

  Just for fun, here's another view from June Lake to show how paddling always provides another perspective. Life on the water is a little bit better. Yes, there was a little thunder timpani to punctuate the night with echoes among the peaks.