Locomotoring

I wouldn’t recognize a Blueschist or Franciscan greenstone or Greywacke or Serpentinite, but Edgewood has them. I can only see colors and shapes in a rock pile. The blues and greens and sparkles of minerals do look beautiful, don’t they?

In an attempt to continue hiking through the winter, we finally bought hiking shoes! While they hadn’t seemed necessary at first, fog can make the vegetation along the trails wet enough and the wetness eventually makes its way into normal shoes. Some of our favorite hikes, takes us to the ridge of Santa Cruz mountains where fog is plentiful. Even with modern tech, hiking shoes tend to feel (in my imagination) like astronaut boots and need breaking in. So, we have been breaking in our shoes this October and November, walking the trails of Edgewood, our neighborhood park.

There are 10 miles of Edgewood trails, and breaking in new shoes while walking a different path through the park has been a fun exercise. My personal favorite is the Sunset trail. Although Sunset trail skirts 280, and is therefore noisy, it also provides expansive views of park’s restoration work. Even now, in autumn, the hayfield tarweed flowers fill the air with smell of lilac and lavender. The Ridgeview, Live Oak and Serpentine, all circumvent the hill and are part of our repertoire. Live Oak trail offers the most unusual native flowers during spring. Ridgeview trails offers lovely views of the fog laden Santa Cruz mountains. The Edgewood trail meanders through the tributaries that join Cordilleras creek. Last weekend found us on Baywood Glen Trail, one we hadn’t taken before.

It is also fun seeking out the uncommon valley oak and blue oak amidst the more common coastal live oaks (link to the various oaks of Edgewood). Right at the top of Edgewood, next to the bench is a valley oak.

Talking of oaks, the oak at the main parking entrance on Old Stage Coach road was masting. One of the docents from the Friends of Edgewood brought it to our notice. The tree floor was littered with thousands of acorns. In the woods, such bounty would be hard to see amidst dried foliage, but here on the parking lot tarmac, the masting was a lot more obvious even to novices like us. The tree in mast reminded me of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan singing “Duma Dum Mast Kalander“, a Sufi Qawwali. Literally translated, a “Mast Oak” would be an “Oak in Ecstasy”.

And talking of acorns, I am reminded of the couple we noticed who had gone walking on a closed trail. Instead of my usual, “Habitat restoration signs everywhere, what is wrong with you? Assholes.”, I said out aloud to my partner “Look at those two squirrels, they are hunting for acorns they had hidden along this trail a few years ago”. Maybe, all of the recent exploration of positive psychology is making a desired impact on my neural wirings.

I am also searching for acorn flour to try some Native American recipes.