RenoVous

  Tamarisk at home. Desert peach. Trees at the park. I'll be off tomorrow so Hubby and I can go camp and enjoy this beautiful warm up!

  Partly a celebration of finding a Christmas tree, and partly to appreciate the forests around us. Above is Tahoe National Forest, from Yuba Pass. The Douglas Fir is most popular for Christmas, but this year at Rockefeller Center they chose a Norway Spruce.  White Pine is considered most traditional.  Balsam Fir is said to be the most fragrant. Also in the spirit of Christmas, holly is an evergreen, and previously associated with Saturnalia. More from the Sierra Nevadas: Sequoia Evergreens have played an important role in many societies throughout the ages, selected for "their seemingly eternal nature even in a season of death." I've long loved that contrast of cold and white, life and green.

  Real name, John Chapman.  Born on this day in 1774. He became an American legend while he was still alive, as a nurseryman and conservationist. Johnny started an apprenticeship as an orchardist, inspiring his love of apples.  By 1800, he had his own orchard in Licking River, Ohio.  Once he decided to spread out, he started planting nurseries instead of orchards.  He would build fences around them and leave them in the care of neighbors, returning every year or two to tend the trees. In 1817, the Church of New Jerusalem spoke of a missionary who traveled around sowing apple seeds. He introduced apple trees to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Ontario - as well as some northern counties of West Virginia. A last remnant in Savannah, Ohio. We were recently gifted some homemade apple sauce from a friend's tree. Yum.

 April showers bring May flowers! Let us gather them along with green branches and weave a floral garland.  ^_^ The Met Gala is tonight, so fashion will be tomorrow.

 Boab trees grow large and live long.  The oldest in Australia is about 1500. So it's no surprise that dendroglyphs have been found in the Tanami Desert, belonging to the Jaru people. Brenda Garstone is Jaru, and she teamed up with archaeologists to find and document these carvings.  So far, they have found 12. The above is a snake, as were most of the findings, but others were of emu and kangaroo tracks.  The team also spotted grinding stones and tools around the trees. Boabs disintegrate after death, which leaves little behind.  Preservation and documentation is all the more important in order to maintain these ancestral connections to the land. There is mention of how these carvings link to "King Brown Snake Dreaming."  I found two Indigenous renderings. From 1986, Billy Japaljarri Hogan From 2009, Darryl Bellotti  Science News

  The marina side of the island became one of our favorite places to walk and wander. My favorite tree. The ocean side is pretty nice too though. San Francisco there in the distance.

In northeastern India, the tribes in Meghalaya have learned how to manipulate the root systems of the Ficus elastica, otherwise known as the Rubber Tree plant, to create bridges. They pull and twist and encourage by hand the growth across the rivers.  Sometimes they use bamboo scaffolding while the roots are still young. They also use betel nut trunks to prevent the rubber tree roots from fanning out, thus guiding them into the bridges.   It can take many years for a bridge to become strong enough for use, but once ready, they are incredibly sturdy.  They can support the weight of 50 or more people and are used daily.  Some bridges in Cherrapunji may well be over 500 years old. Unfortunately, this practice is fading and the knowledge is becoming memory.  Tourism has helped keep the bridges from being torn down and replaced with steel, and has become a focus for the towns (and surrounding area) of Mawsynram and Dawki AtlasO...