We Saw A Bear, But Here's A Squirrel

Squirrels are just easier to photograph, and the bear was running so fast, I wasn't even sure it was a bear until my brain registered BEAR! We really did see bear on Tuesday (my very first one!), while we were hiking the Banner Cascade ditch trail. It came bounding down off the hillside, splashed into the irrigation ditch, crossed the trail about 25 yards in front of us and then thrashed down the very steep ravine on the other side.

When we see a squirrel, our brains don't shout SQUIRREL, but when we see a BEAR, the shout is unmistakable.

Photo is of a Western Gray Squirrel. We have a very rambunctious family living in our yard. They are really cute rodents, and incredibly industrious.

Life in the New Country

This is post #998.
Here is our little yearling photographed in mid-October. Her small loneliness made us want to run out and learn how to be her comfort.
Here she is on Saturday. We have grown very fond of her and look forward to every one of her tentative visits. She's tiny and has the most beautiful soulful eyes. She is always alone.
On Sunday I stuffed my pockets full of apples from a tree that grows along one of the ditch trails. I scattered them about the yard for the little one to find. I don't feel guilty about it.
Last Sunday we walked to the little falls at Rush Creek. Every place we explore opens our eyes to the nuance of local color and light.
Even just looking out the window across the road, the light is beautiful especially in the late afternoon.

local stuff

the red things in the foreground meter irrigation water in miner's inches drawn out to paying customers.

along the banner cascade trail

my beginning look into the history and development of the canals in nevada county, sometimes called miner's ditches, confirmed how little i know and how fascinating are the canals and the larger story of gold mining on the western slope of the sierra nevada mountains.

nevada is a spanish word meaning snow covered. sierra (literally saw, as in handsaw with teeth, related to serrated) translates as jagged mountain range. kind of stuns me that i grew up in california and didn't know that. from the superb history section of a very nice book titled "Yuba Trails" by Susan Lamela and Hank Meals (here is the updated edition by Hank Meals. Susan Lamela died in 2000) i learned that in 1873 60% of the miners in california were chinese. also that the gold found in the modern rivers was washed out of a 50 million year old river system that ran on a north-south axis and is now located mostly on the ridge tops. hence hydraulic mining to recover the gold still on the ridges. mmmmmm geology.

from the county website

"By 1867, the total length of ditches in the county had reached 850 miles at a cost of construction of $4,250,000. The two leading systems were the Eureka Lake and Yuba Canal Company and the South Yuba Canal Company. By 1880 there were more than 1000 miles of ditches, and construction costs had reached $7,000,000. It was the elaborate ditch systems that made hydraulic mining possible. This form of mining dominated all other methods of obtaining gold until it was stopped by court order in 1884. Today that network of ditches have been absorbed by the Nevada Irrigation District, with some of the old ditches still in use."

see what i mean about fascinating. i need to spend some time in the library and local bookstores. meanwhile we continue exploring the actual local area. we walked on the banner/cascade trail along a canal that supplies water to two treatment plants which produce potable water for grass valley and nevada (snow covered!) city.

Where The Sun Don't Shine

I have finally come to the conclusion that Roger and I are hopelessly and irrevocably insane. Why else would we consider making an offer on a house that we have rejected at least six times in the past five months? On the other hand, we've gone back to look at this place six times in five months, so something keeps calling us back. Oh right, isn't that some twisted definition of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome?
We have this thing about light and southern exposure. We especially think about it now, in our rental in the dark woods (see above photo ). We think a house should be built with an architectural consideration of the four directions and the four seasons. We have driven our real estate agents crazy with this obsession. We say, "The house really doesn't matter. It's all about the land." They show us houses that really don't matter, but we still reject them one by one. Oh, we tell them, orientation does matter. It may not in sexual preferences, but it sure as heck does when the winter light is only something to be seen in the sun-drenched meadows across the canyon or street. We don't want to be staring longingly out some window at mesmerizing golden light, while shivering in a moody dark room. We talked to an architect the other day. He agreed that most houses are simply not built with any notion of the sun. The underlying assumption is that it's oriented correctly if the front door faces the street. What ever direction that might be.

So, why do we keep going back to this house? Because the 10 acres of land it's on provide a great buffer to the rest of the crazy world. It's completely livable with plenty of space and big windows. There is a fantastic and huge garden space that has already been used to do organic biodynamic gardening. It has two 1500 gallon cement holding tanks underground for water. But there are issues: The main part of the house is an older manufactured home. The stick built addition cuts out all sunlight to that part of the house. The trees that block much of the morning winter sunlight are on the neighbor's property.
I added a compass to the roof of the house to give you an idea of where things are happening, and labeled each section. But we keep coming back here to check the light. We go in the morning. We go later in the day. We've gone in summer. We've gone back in fall. We've walked around and listened to the birds in the trees. We've had toast there (oh yes, we brought tea and toast one morning) while sitting on the back steps. It is utterly serene and peaceful.

So we finally finally finally decided to make an offer. Guess what? Someone else had the same idea, a day before we did. We'll keep you posted.


Roger sez:

we have looked at a lot of houses and properties. some with our agent, many more just doing a drive-by on our own. nothing on the market now intrigues us anything like this place does. it is in an area of high end houses, not that that is important to us in itself, but in the real world it means that roads are plowed in the winter, and electricity and phone are fixed rapidly if interrupted. it is fairly close to town. it is ten acres, mostly of forest, to insulate us from (ugh) other people. we like neighbors and count ourselves to be good neighbors. we don't want fences to be the separation that works, we want trees and distance.

Okay, So I Lied

Roger isn't doing Wednesday's post. He got sidetracked by a surfeit of information on the history of gold and the irrigation ditches. It's pretty interesting stuff. In the meantime, my back is mending slowly. For each day I do something stupid, I extend my recovery period. Today we hiked over three miles on one of the ditch trails. It's just too hard not to head outside. The fall weather is so beautiful, and the hummingbirds are making quiet clicking sounds in the manzanitas. How would we know, if we didn't head out and take a look and listen?

Ditch

I thought Roger was going to do this post for Monday. It was supposed to be all about the Nevada Irrigation District. But he got sidetracked by making me some dinner. I hurt my back pretty bad last Tuesday and have been down on the couch since with my ice pack and my blues. We've ventured out twice to hike the irrigation ditch, because I am a lousy and impatient patient. The ditch is an amazing thing, with miles and miles of trails and water.
So here's a sneak preview of what we saw, and what is truly more precious than gold. If all goes well, Roger will tell you more about it on Wednesday.