8/8/14

Vichy Springs

We went to Ukiah... a few weeks ago. Here are some pictures? It was hot.

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The poison oak has turned red in all my usual hiking haunts.

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People on Instagram (@chuck_b) thought that log was a hole. Ridiculous! It's a log.

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To beat the heat, there was evening hiking and morning hiking. This is all from evening hiking.

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I did not really beat the heat by hiking in the evening. I was a sweaty mess.

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Now, it's morning hiking, and this was much more civilized.

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The cattails indicate the creek.

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I don't know if you know this, but we're having a terrible drought.

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I mean, it does not really seem that terrible to me. The one we had in the 1970s, when I was a wee one, seemed much worse. But then I was wee, and so impressionable.

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For whatever reason, I'm just not feeling this drought. Ukiah is geo-hydro-thermally active. That's probably not a word. Anyway, mineral springs abound.

Poison oak, so pretty.

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The buckeyes, doing their drought avoidance thing by dropping leaves in mid-summer.

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I neglected to show you pictures of the buckeye flowers in my backyard. I am a terrible blogger. Next year? Right now, I can only go forward.

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I fret a lot about the animals who don't have much water this year.

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I'm sure the drought is real to them.

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Do you fret about the animals?

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I fret emotionally. Intellectually, I'm okay with it.

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The normally deep creek that previously I have never been able to cross (well, we mostly come here in winter) was shallow and spotty.

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Any given segment was full of fish, frogs, and lots of bugs.

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The waterfall at the end was a trickle (why was there any water at all), and the pond beneath looked rather stagnant.

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'Tis the season.

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We soldier on.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's nice to see water there . . . and scarlet monkeyflowers, and other water-loving plants.

I tend not to fret specifically about the animals or about this particular drought, but more about the future of the planet in general and the climate change that seems to have contributed to causing this drought.

It's frustrating to be unable to do very much, as one individual, beyond planting a garden and feeding a few birds and insects and trying not to add too much more pollution and garbage to the world than is already in it.

Brent said...

I love the buckeye in the final photo.

CiNdEe's GaRdEn said...

It is very dry here in Northern CA. In fact our creek dried up completely and I have never seen that happen before. It is so sad and with all the fires I do worry about all the animals. I wish it would rain and rain a lot. I am looking forward to the fall. I hope it hurries up and gets here(-:

LostRoses said...

Nice walk. Poison oak looks very decorative and I've never seen that but I don't go on any hikes either so no wonder. The animals comment - lol!