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Foothill or Grey Pine

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next to the driveway road.   This one is easy to see and easy to see how one of its branches has splayed out,  arching over.  Sparce, multibranched crowns.  Many even more so than this one and the branches at all angles.  These are old trees.  The 3 that fell so far with Wind this winter.  Last winter none fell.  I walked up to the most recent and sat.  Feeling my initial dismay at how it is so huge,  almost 4 ft in diameter, the trunk, and  to be very conservative,  at least 80 ft tall.  Tree has been here a very long time.    I sat near where it blocks the most Beauty Full Goat path that we all used.  I tried to get clear and understand some of what this really is.  Didn't make much headway,  i will keep trying.


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in the Laws Field Guide To The Sierra Nevada…John Muir Laws …"large heavy cones with savage spines"

Alyssia pointed out today that the Minnie Mouse slippers are coming apart.  Things have lifetimes.  They are Emrie's favorite footwear.  She can put them off and on herself.  But aside from that,  she just loves them.  Things we love have lifetimes.

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11 responses to “Foothill or Grey Pine”

  1. Tina Avatar
    Tina

    Things we love have lifetimes .. those words so abundantly true .. sadly true but also a Blessing. Emrie .. she is just so darn cute .. I remember holding my first pine cone that size visiting my sister in Grass Valley .. I believe I had much the same look as Emrie.

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  2. Mo Crow Avatar
    Mo Crow

    found this lovely ode to the Sabine Pine-
    “John Muir, as always, waxed poetic when he described this tree in the first chapter of My First Summer in the Sierra: “This day has been as hot and dusty as the first, leading over gently sloping brown hills, with mostly the same vegetation, excepting the strange-looking Sabine pine (Pinus Sabiniana), which here forms small groves or is scattered among the blue oaks. The trunk divides at a height of fifteen or twenty feet into two or more stems, outleaning or nearly upright, with many straggling branches and long gray needles, casting but little shade. In general appearance this tree looks more like a palm than a pine. The cones are about six or seven inches long, about five in diameter, very heavy, and last long after they fall, so that the ground beneath the trees is covered with them. They make fine resiny, light-giving camp-fires, next to ears of Indian corn the most beautiful fuel I’ve ever seen. The nuts, the Don tells me, are gathered in large quantities by the Digger Indians for food. They are about as large and hard-shelled as hazelnuts, –food and fire fit for the gods from the same fruit.”
    https://www.conifers.org/pi/Pinus_sabiniana.php

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  3. joanne Avatar
    joanne

    Mo has the right words–the tree lives, grows, provides and then returns to the Earth.
    I, also, returned to Maine with a very large pine cone from Grass Valley. More than one.
    Our friends said so many plants were resiny and burned hot.

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  4. cynthia Avatar
    cynthia

    ..I spent my summers growing up in Grass Valley..and diligently collected those pine cones when i was a brownie..our troop sold them to our neighbors every christmas..from a dime to a dollar depending on the size…
    oh the way your hands smelled for ages after an afternoon’s gathering..and how the resin never came out of your clothes..gentle day grace

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  5. Liz A Avatar
    Liz A

    Mo – I’m so glad you shared this … such beautifully evocative words

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  6. Michelle Slater Avatar
    Michelle Slater

    A constant reminder, a wisdom to keep: “Things we love have lifetimes.”
    My your sky is blue and Oh, Emrie is beauty-FULL.

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  7. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    if we could sell them…we’d be
    RICH
    i tried dying with some partial cones….the resin on the cloth…eeeee
    and gentle day back to you, dear and best You

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  8. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    yes. burn hot.

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  9. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    there are SOOOOOO MANY

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  10. grace Forrest Avatar
    grace Forrest

    so many people have memories in Grass Valley

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  11. Laura R Avatar
    Laura R

    Try to visit Grass Valley.

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