Yesterday was a glorious day for a hike, and what better companion than Nick to share it with.
Our destination was Zim Zim Falls, in the northeast corner of Napa County, a BLM area that is a wildlife corridor between Lake Berryessa and Clear Lake.
There was this one tree with these yellow fist sized fruit on the ground that we could not identify. We tried Googling "Alien cornball fruit", etc. but had no luck. Anyone know what this is? (That means you, Andria).
The first couple miles is a nice, flat, amble up the creek.
A Pacific Tree Frog at water's edge.
There was a tug 'o war going on between the brown of last summer, and the green of winter.
We had to cross the creek mumerous times, but thanks to Gortex, our feet stayed dry.
Let's play "guess the object". This is a ____________ ...
... bottom of an old enameled kettle. You can see the little holes where the spout went.
Spring has sprung for these two buckeye butterflies.
Nick, sniffing out fungi like a beagle.
After a steep climb in elevation, we spotted the falls.
We scrambled to the base of the falls like moths to flame, or ticks to blood.
Nick leaning at a precarious angle. At the bottom was a nice sized pool, maybe ten feet deep. This would be a good swimming hole later in the year.
We climbed well above the top of the falls, found a perch, and finished our lunch. This is the view looking back the way we came.
A few lupine were beginning to bloom.
Hawkeye Nick spotted this geo-cache, filled with little mementos.
Hamming it up for a self-timer shot.
Nick sees art in nature all the time. This oak and shadow didn't go unnoticed.
One of many rocks we examined and marveled at.
Nick stopped to make a call.
All aboard!
Party time!
Oaks and shadows.
Hi, Newt. Goodbye Zim Zim. Hello civilization.
The first couple miles is a nice, flat, amble up the creek.
A Pacific Tree Frog at water's edge.
There was a tug 'o war going on between the brown of last summer, and the green of winter.
We had to cross the creek mumerous times, but thanks to Gortex, our feet stayed dry.
Let's play "guess the object". This is a ____________ ...
... bottom of an old enameled kettle. You can see the little holes where the spout went.
Spring has sprung for these two buckeye butterflies.
Nick, sniffing out fungi like a beagle.
After a steep climb in elevation, we spotted the falls.
We scrambled to the base of the falls like moths to flame, or ticks to blood.
Nick leaning at a precarious angle. At the bottom was a nice sized pool, maybe ten feet deep. This would be a good swimming hole later in the year.
We climbed well above the top of the falls, found a perch, and finished our lunch. This is the view looking back the way we came.
A few lupine were beginning to bloom.
Hawkeye Nick spotted this geo-cache, filled with little mementos.
Hamming it up for a self-timer shot.
Nick sees art in nature all the time. This oak and shadow didn't go unnoticed.
One of many rocks we examined and marveled at.
Nick stopped to make a call.
All aboard!
Party time!
Oaks and shadows.
Hi, Newt. Goodbye Zim Zim. Hello civilization.
6 comments:
Oh I wish I could have been along!!!!! Looks like a beautiful day. I enjoy you guys' eye for art/ sense of humor.
Hi Dad,
Forgot to add....that fruit is a "hedge ball." Surprised to see it in CA because they grow in back yards here. I wonder if it's actually native where you are, or where we are?....people say they repel insects and snakes, though I doubt they actually repel either. One house we looked at when we were house-hunting had a HUGE hedgeball tree in the back yard -- those things covered the grass, and I could just imagine sitting back there having a picnic and one konking your kid right on the head. I'll look them up and see if I can find any more infor about them.
From Wikipedia:
The hedge tree has several names, Osage Orange (most popular) and Bodark (French) and Maclura pomifera (scientific name). Not all of the Osage Orange trees will have fruit because hedge trees are either male or female. Osage Orange is a cousin to the mulberry tree.
The Osage Orange was one of the primary trees used in President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Great Plains Shelterbelt” WPA project, which was launched in 1934 as an ambitious plan to modify weather and prevent soil erosion in the Great Plains states, and by 1942 resulted in the planting of 30,233 shelterbelts containing 220 million trees that stretched for 18,600 miles. The sharp-thorned trees were also planted as cattle-deterring hedges before the introduction of barbed wire and afterward became an important source of fence posts.
OK, sorry, but this was interesting : -- also from Wikipedia:
The fruit has a pleasant and mild odor, but is inedible for the most part. Although it is not strongly poisonous, eating it may cause vomiting. However, the seeds of the fruit are edible. The fruit is sometimes torn apart by squirrels to get at the seeds, but few other native animals make use of it as a food source. This is unusual, as most large fleshy fruit serves the function of seed dispersal by means of its consumption by large animals. One recent hypothesis is that the Osage-orange fruit was eaten by a giant ground sloth that became extinct shortly after the first human settlement of North America. Other extinct Pleistocene megafauna, such as the mammoth, mastodon and gomphothere, may have fed on the fruit and aided in seed dispersal.[6] An equine species that went extinct at the same time also has been suggested as the plant's original dispersal agent because modern horses and other livestock will sometimes eat the fruit.[7]
Wow! Thanks so much, that's very interesting. The tree was bare of leaves, and had very nasty thorns. It was at least 20 feet tall, and was the only one we saw. It wasn't too far from the paved road going up the main canyon.
I know I'm late to this blog post, but what a great recap of a beautiful northern California day. Looks like it was a blast to be up there with Nick. Hopefully we can squeeze one or two of those in after we move out there.
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