Review: In Search of the Old Ones

 In Search of the Old Ones

An Odyssey Among Ancient Trees

By Anthony D Fredericks

What a lovely, lovely book!  One of the best natural history books I’ve ever read. He travels around to visit the old trees of the U.S. and writes about each. He did the coastal redwoods, bristlecone pines, and sequoia, of course, but also bald cypress and some oaks and juniper. Most surprising to me is that one of the oldest is a Quaking Aspen called Pando. Not what you’d think of as a single tree but rather a grove of clones that all share the same root system. Dating of this trees is not possible by modern technology (his words) because there is no single piece of step from several thousand years ago, or any ancient remnants. Where would you look—the current expanse of Pando is 106 acres, so somewhere in there might be the oldest part. Or not.

But the best guess based on how fast an aspen clone spreads outward in a year, is between 8000 and 12,000 years. It cannot be older because the geologic record indicates that glaciers covered the ground until about 12,000 years ago.

 So I loved this book and would recommend it highly…with one issue. He begins each tree with a short description of what was happening to some unknown person of human history at about the same time as the tree was born. This humans used always seems to be halfway around the planet, in Tigris or China or Greece or some place totally irrelevant to the tree’s birth. It’s educational, a little, but it got old really fast.  (I started skipping the random people’s stories.)

Review: What My Bones Know

 What My Bones Know

A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma

By Stephanie Foo

Wow, pretty fascinating. I don’t think I ever fully understood the title (what did her bones know?), but it was an amazing and honest depiction of the prolonged recovery of a woman from the years of abuse—mostly mental but sometimes physical as well—by her parents. She also explores her family history, trying to understand why no one intervened to help her. The answer seemed to be simple—what good would it do? Standing up for her would only make her Mother beat her harder. But there were a number of historical reasons for it, too. She goes into them, and it’s awfully depressing. 

She also went to her teachers to see why they didn’t intervene. I won’t spoil the story by telling it here, but remember, she was a very intelligent little girl who coped with nutcase parents as well as she could.

When she finally got a diagnosis to what she was suffering – Complex PTSD – that explained a lot. But simply knowing it didn’t help her heal. This book is about what DID help.

Review: If You Can't Take the Heat

If You Can’t Take the Heat:

Tales of Food, Feminism, and Fury

By Geraldine Deruiter

I loved her. I could read a thousand memoirs just like this. She was funny and biting and satirical and deeply honest at times, and I just couldn’t get enough of her little stories. Especially her writing on the toxic masculinity expected in celebrity chefs. Oh, and her horribly awful experience that a restaurant run by one. How in the world did she ever survive?

Review: Heartwood

Heartwood by Amity Gaige

I don’t know why this book only got 3.9 stars on Goodreads, because I’m giving it ***** (five!)

Maybe because people didn’t like the way the story jumped around from person to person:

 (1)   the first person POV of the head ranger directing the search

 (2)   the subject of the search, a nurse who disappeared on the Appalachian Trail

 (3)   the woman in the retirement community who thought the subject was her daughter at first but then realized not, but she got obsessed with an online pen-pal discussing the subject

 (4)   the fellow hiker who’d had to leave the trail due to family issues, and who blamed himself for not being with her when she got lost.

I was surprised at all the people, too. But I absolutely could not put the book down no matter who was talking. And I never, never wanted to skip forward because I thought all four of them were equally interesting.

 So clearly, I loved it!  It was very surprising, too, and had a lot of deep ideas. Very much concerned with mothers and daughters and the bonds between then.

Magnus Takes a Short Sea Rim Break, Day 8

 Thursday July 16

 Written at the time:
Why are there so few people camping? At Sea Rim there were only five or so other people who came and went. The two women across from us left the day we did.

Here, there is one other group of two campers plus a little truck camper that came in last night. And that's it. What is the deal?

We are being pestered by a feral cat. It wants to be friends but Molly is a no-go on that.

Review Mission Tejas
Quiet retreat in the big pines.

Our pull-thru site 7 was long enough for us, but very unlevel.  50-amp electricity and water; no sewer but the dump station was nice.

The trees made for nice shade but challenged our Starlink.  But it worked well enough, on the ground between our motorhome and the electric box. Sites 8, 9 or 10 would be better for Starlink. Orher sites on this loop are really shady except the just across from the bathroom. But it looks like a site that should be left for wheelchair users.

It's a very peaceful park with all the big pines. Quiet...but that's because there's no one here. When we were there--midweek in July--there was only one other small group of campers in the loop. The park has lots of little trails to walk. And it's all very clean.

But of course, since this is East Texas, you can hear guns firing and dogs barking in the distance.

- -
I tried to jog but since I can’t jog on a rough trail, I ended up walking mostly. We took the trail to the CCC bathtubs, an interesting couple of pits lined with big stones just downhill from a small spring, which was also lined with stones. Not mortared. No one knows why they were built.

To get there we went up Steep Stairs Trail. It was seriously steep and had a lot of stairs.

On the way back we took Cemetery Hill Trail, which did indeed go to a cemetary but it was outside of the park and appeared to be still in use. So we didn't explore it. Then to Chimney Trail which did indeed go to a chimney. It was also not super old--the bricks had unreadable numbers on them but they looked exactly like modern bricks.  It was probably from the 1930s or 40s. Then we tried to walk the whole of El Camino Real from the marker into the park, but the road disappeared in a creek crossing that was really washed out. So sad.

Later (after lunch and a nap) we tried again, going from the marker away from the park.  It went a ways and then stopped at a fence marking the park boundary.

So, still having time on our hands, Molly and I went to find the Old Pine. It turned out to be right by a trail we’d already taken. Long before!  But it was a cool big old tree. I forgot to see what kind of pine it was, but since it was supposed to be pretty old, I assume it was a Shortleaf Pine.

It sprinkled a little after supper. But we got our bedtime walk.

 

 

Magnus Takes a Short Sea Rim Break, Day 9

Friday, July 17

Leaving day. This is a very nice place. Not a lot of birds--Summer Tanager, Titmice, Robin, Mourning Dove...the usual. I heard Wood Thrushes yesterday evening.

And home it is!

I don’t think I have any “lessons learned” from the trip. Except maybe that it can indeed rain every day of a four-day stay at the beach. Sigh. 

Magnus Takes a Short Sea Rim Break, Day 7

Wednesday July 15

Amazing. I got up thinking I would finally see the sun again, and there were huge thunderous clouds to the south. Looming. We are probably in for it again. I just hope it passes through before time to unhook and dump.

I wonder what the beach looked like before stupid men started pumping up oil in distant lands and spilling it in the ocean?

The storm did pass. It was a hard-ish drive up to Mission Tejas SP, but we had a nice stop at the Big Thicket Visitor Center for a pee and dog walk. It was a good place to stop--just off the road and with pull-thru spaces for busses and RVs. We didn't go inside but we should some day.
Then on to Love’s in Lufkin, where I paid eleven dollars for three candy bars. Remind me never to do that again.

After driving all that way in nice weather, we arrived to a very annoying sprinkle. Note about the campground: the site 7 I chose was very unlevel and right beside a tree. There are other sites in the loop that are almost wide open to the sides and the sky. Starlink worked--barely.

Site 8 is very nice but Starlink might hit trees.  Site 10 is shadier but has northen exposure at the front so it would be better.

But it's a nice place. When the rain stopped I walked El Camino Real for a little way then went to the building that the CCC built memorializing the Mission Tejas that used to be here. In the 1690s. The sign said that the exact mission site was unknown but they suspect it was a little west of the park boundary.

Then Molly and I walked to the bird blind and the fire tower hill (towers are gone now), and that was a serious uphill slog. But it was only half a mile. We came back by the playground and a pretty little pond there. The whole walk only took an hour.

Magnus Takes a Short Sea Rim Break, Day 6

Tuesday July 14

Last day at the ocean. A tremendous thunderstorm came through in the night. At one point I got up thinking that the power was off but happily I was wrong. When morning came, there was still no sunshine but the storms were supposed to move out around noon. I'll was glad to have my chair dry out so my butt wouldn’t keep getting wet.

LATER:
It's almost noon and I'm still waiting for the rain to stop. I'd give up except I want to take my camera this time and it's not water resistant.

Green-winged Teal. Great excitement...until Ed noticed it was just a very realistic decoy someone left floating in the pond. Blah.

Two dowitcher in the puddles. All the rain left puddles on the roads all over, deep ones, and mostly full of fish. Birds most excited. I even saw stilts out on the roads.

Dowitcher, species unknown 

 

Black-necked Stilt 

 

Plover, species unknown 

Tern, species unknown 

 

Other than walking around looking for birds and a short jog on the highway, we didn't do anything. It was that kind of day.

Ghost crab on the beach