The Hills Are Alive...

Okay, why would I choose to go to The Right Stuff (local gym) when instead I can get clean (it rained yesterday) air and bright sunshine?  As I've mentioned before... it's a no brainer for me. Nearly every walk in the hills near home fulfills me in some way. Plenty of beauty, song and scent to make the senses awaken today ~

Acacia trees are in bloom here. Happens in the late winter and early spring. The blooms on this tree are the color of sunshine. So vividly yellow - nearly like a neon hi-liter pen of nature. The scent from these babies wafted along beside me for the full hour that I walked.  The more I huffed and puffed up the hills the more inhaling had to be done... and the more perfume I took in. Truly intoxicating!

Yellow in nature seems to rule in the spring. Also in bloom along the roots of our local plants are mustard weed. We have fields and fields of this pretty yellow, edible flower/weed. There is a festival in the Napa Valley that is centered on this carpet plant. Another yellow I spied while walking was sour grass. When I was a child we would pick this weed and chew on the stem. It really is sour! Used to be we would claim that dogs would pee on the grassy areas where sour weed grows and that would cause the flavor!  eewwww... why then did we chew it?



grape vines with sour grass at their root

When I first saw this small plot of vines I imagined this was mustard weed. Just like the fields in Napa that I mention above. It's that same ol' doggy weed though.....