Explorations in Our New Back Woods
As I unpacked yet another box this week, I found a postcard of a duckling about to take a plunge into a pond. The caption reads “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.”—Helen Keller. Since arriving in Nevada County, CA just over a month ago, each drive to our local towns has been an adventure in new territory. Initially, we kept our cell phones charged so Siri could guide our way when to our destinations and back home. Happily, we are now venturing out without her, feeling like kids on a bicycle without training wheels.
Brunswick Road in nearby Grass Valley is now familiar territory. Walgreens, CA DMV, B&C Ace Hardware, our new bank, Staples, Hills Flat Lumber, UPS, Verizon, and swell grocery stores—SPD Market, Briar Patch Food Co-op, Save Mart, Safeway, Grocery Outlet—are in or near Nevada City. Their employees have welcomed us, and more than a couple of locals have mentioned that their mother was born in Missouri. Apparently, we are not the first Missourians to migrate to this part of the Sierra Foothills.
I am eager to write about our walks in town and our new acquaintances, but this week, my explorations will be about discoveries in our own back woods. Literally, we live in a forest that we look out at from a 1,200 square foot, 3-tiered deck that extends out from our east facing single-story house. From historic Nevada City’s Broad Street downtown, we drive east a short distance on Boulder Street that becomes Red Dog Road. Just under four miles up that narrow canyon road, we exit at Crystal Wells Road—our new neighborhood.
The house that we’ve painted sage green has an aubergine (eggplant) colored garage door. Our immediate neighbors have dropped by with cookies, tulips, and their contact information should we need anything. Signs hang in several yards with a message of universal welcome that we are happy to become a part of: “In this house, we believe black lives matter, women’s rights are human rights, no human is illegal, science is real, love is love, kindness is everything.”
Monday through Saturday, Kit and I walk Crystal Wells Road from Red Dog to Quaker Hill Crossing three times, and we are literally the only ones on the blacktop except for an occasional gray squirrel. About the time we are done with our walk, a copy of The Union is tossed onto the driveway from a passing Honda. Most days are sky-blue and sunny with highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s. But last week after waking up to 38 degrees, we had a snow/rain shower in the afternoon and chilly temperatures for the rest of the week. For a few days, we turned on the heat and had our morning cardamom chai latte tea in front of our forest green cast iron gas fireplace. According to our neighbor Len, our house is above the snow line, and he’s seen snow fall on our road as late as June. Boy howdy!
This morning, I did a walkabout along the boundaries of our 0.8-acre lot. With my iPhone and a handy App called “Picture This,” I took pictures of trees, shrubs, ground cover, and flowers in bloom. After years of living along the edges of Missouri woodland trees, I am dwarfed by the scale of the massive trees overhead. This amazing App tells me we are surrounded by a rich variety of trees that thrive in the Sierra Nevada foothills—Douglas Firs, Incense Cedars, Ponderosa Pine, White and Black Firs, Black Ash, Norway Spruce, Red Bud, Flowering Dogwood, Japanese Maple, and Canyon Live Oak. Shrubs include Pacific Madrone, Pacific Rhododendron, Southern Indian Azalea, Alpenrose, Winter Daphne and Chinese Peony. Ground cover varieties include dwarf Fernand’s Iris, creeping St. John’s Wort, tiny wild strawberries, perennial peas (wild sweet peas), Tanoak, Turkey Tangle, wavy-leafed Soap Wort, white Lupin, Rosemary, and California fescue.
I love the names and am eager to learn to identify each towering tree from its distinctive signature bark and its leaves or needles. To our evolving deck garden potager, I’ve added herbs—lemon and English thyme, oregano, rosemary, basil, and Spanish lavender—as well as a small Chicago hardy fig, golden CA poppies, and a Stella d’Oro daylily still to be planted. I also surprised two prehistoric-looking Alligator lizards snoozing on the warm pavement in front of our potting shed.
After driving through Nevada City past yards lined with the largest rose bushes I’ve ever seen anywhere, I couldn’t resist buying a floribunda, butter-yellow Julia Child rose and a pink Passionate Kiss variety that are perfect container roses for the deck. There are self-guided tree and garden walking tours of Nevada City and Grass Valley, mapped in lovely brochures available at the local Chamber of Commerce. And restaurants, bookshops gift shops and two renovated and recently reopened historic hotels to visit. But that is for next Friday, my reader friends. Stay tuned! Our explorations here have only just begun.