Visitors 48
Modified 19-Mar-21
Created 10-Dec-20
0 photos
Helen writes:
"When first I walked in the oak woodlands of California I noticed only what was missing -- no crisp scent of eucalyptus, no tiny orchid plants that I knew, nothing I knew. I felt out of place. All my woodland knowledge lost, gone, meaningless. Today, these same woods are my home, my place, a place I love as once I loved the Victorian bush. The scent of bay trees, or oaks in the sun, the beauty of sun and shadows in the lace-lichen-festooned branches, the spring that comes when it should be winter, the fall with its golden leaves --black oak, big leaf maple and creek dogwood. The joy I feel when I see the morning sunlight in the branches of the valley oaks in Mader Valley is not different from that inspired by the chortling magpie in the Cootamundra wattle beside the path to my school. I learned to love the bushland of my childhood. That readied me to learn and love another, wholly different and yet in so many ways the same."
Valley Oaks in Mader Valley, Portola Valley Ranch, spread their branches wide, giving shelter to deer, rabbit, ground squirrel, and turkey -- and changing as the seasons change.