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Point Reyes Schoolhouse Homework Report
by Karen Gray
February, 2007 - An early spring is here. The buds on the plum branches have burst at the Schoolhouse. The falling petals are like snow flurries settling on the lawn. Yellow acacia trees are in bright bloom weighting the air with their sweet fragrance. Songbirds are perched in the compound hedgerows trilling in competition for females and nesting sites. The apple tree is humming with honeybees working to make up for the losses caused by the severe frosts of January. As the shadows darken in early evening a din of new frog song carries up from the pools of rainwater left standing after the last heavy storm. The hummingbirds are crazed as they wage their mating battles in the sky. The male hooded merganzers on Tomales Bay are skittering back and forth on the water in impressive fashion while the females look on. Horses in the pasture across the road are skittish, too. Not to be outdone, my silky rooster is getting pretty shrill in his claims on the young pullets that his hen hatched over the winter. I wonder if ten hens might just be too much for him. I worry for his health. Does he ever rest? He's not alone, of course. The whole neighborhood seems to be caught up in a frenzy of courting.
The air is never so crystalline as it is after a heavy rain in winter. Some of our most beautiful weather for exploring outdoors comes at this time--sparkling clear skies, no wind, hot sun at midday. Days are noticeably longer now with the sun riding higher above the horizon. On a day like today, the hot sun bearing down on the new shoots in the garden, the winter solstice seems a distant memory.
Early wildflowers are beginning to show their faces: milkmaids, forget-me-nots, blue and purple Douglas iris. Local rangers have begun their guided wildflower walks at Chimney Rock in the Point Reyes National Seashore. Soon the bluffs above Kehoe Beach will be a tapestry of color. The California Buckeye, our native chestnut, has large swelled leaf buds on the tips of its branches. Over the green hills to the east the fields of mustard in Sonoma are bright with bloom; the vineyards will show signs of green leaf buds on the bare vines soon.
Last weekend my family headed out to Kehoe Beach to fish the surf and walk. A birthday party was in full swing: a dozen young girls were flying kites over the water from the sand. A bright orange octopus, butterflies with flapping wings, birds and box kites all dipped and rose in the breeze. It was like watching a silent movie because of the way sounds don't carry over the din of the waves. The warning signs were up for the snowy plover nesting area -- a real indicator of spring in Point Reyes. With the heavy rains the creek was running across the beach down to the surf attracting shore birds who came in to bathe in the fresh water.
Next up are the California poppies on the roadsides, a brilliant orange-g fringe that runs for thousands of miles along the coast. Their lacy gray fringe is up all over my pasture with the flowers to follow in a few days, splats of bright color trembling in the coastal breeze. They start at sea level at the edge of the Pacific and climb through the state all the way across the gen foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Our beautiful state flower. The real g of California.
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