Queer hiking report-back

[breathedout]

I went on my scheduled wildflower hike this morning/early afternoon, and it was—undeniably work, but. Rewarding. It's hard to spend five hours with strangers, constantly chatting because you want to form connections!

However, pluses:

• Very diverse group, racially, gender-wise, and with ages from early-20s to early-70s represented
• Carpooled with a lovely young female scientist who brought cookies and offered me gas money despite the fact that we live like 10 minutes apart, what a doll
• Learned a ton about native NorCal wildflowers, thanks to friendly & knowledgeable older gay dude guide
• Got to socialize with a plethora of older San Francisco Lesbians (a particular breed), ALL OF WHOM were extremely excited and full of advice upon learning that my partner and I just bought a house which we are planning to renovate
• Wow did they have home renovation stories
• They were also reading a selection of interesting-sounding books
• And then one of them spoiled Anna Karenina for another of them, which was pretty funny given it is extremely famous and was published in 1878 (there is a subtle detail with a train?)
• One of those women in particular reminded me, to a spooky degree, of one of my BFFs another 25 years down the line. She seems like she's doing well; I hope my buddy will be, too.
• Hike started slow, but featured a satisfying push to the mountain-top above the treeline
• There was also a section of forest full of gnarled old oak trees creaking and squeaking in the breeze; it seemed so much like a language.

Wildflowers I can currently remember having seen, six hours, three episodes of The Good Place, and a bottle of wine later: Violas, larkspur, Indian paintbrush, blue dick, lupin, blue-eyed grass, California poppies, miner's lettuce, hummingbird sage, chamomile, California lilac, Douglas iris, buttercup, cow parsnip, hemlock, nightshade, yarrow, scarlet pimpernel, goldenfield, honesty (money plant), mission bells, coffee berry, owl clover, juncas grass, baby's breath, and a lot of invasive French broom which I must admit is pretty despite being, you know, problematic (tm). Also a LOT of poison oak, but luckily I seem to have avoided touching it.

Comments

[teaforlupin]

That all sounds pretty amazing, and I'm SO jealous of all the flowers you got to see growing... I know what quite a few of them look like but most of them don't grow as wildflowers around here--I mean, you wouldn't expect them to, and the ones that do grow wild are usually invasive nuisances (viz. nightshades), but still!

[breathedout]

It was fun! And ha, yes, very different flora in our two environments... though some of the flowers I listed are actually non-native invasives here too. Lots of them are native, though. Apparently the mountain ("mountain," it's only about 1400 feet) where we were hiking is home to lots of plants that don't grow anywhere else, which is pretty wild because it's right in the middle of South San Francisco?? Not exactly the Galapagos. But I guess habitat isolation can happen anywhere.

[shadaras]

That sounds fantastic :D

also wow, reading that list of wildflowers makes me miss the bay very much. (I grew up in Silicon Valley, see.) I don't know all of them, but I know enough to put together what it must've looked like -- especially since it's a superbloom season right now.

[breathedout]

I didn't know that you grew up in this neck of the woods! And yes, it was super pretty. It wasn't quite superbloom levels of flower carpeting, but in recompense there were a ton of different varieties, which were fun to learn about.

[shadaras]

Yeah! I don't think it comes up much, or at least hasn't really come up since I started being on DW. I grew up in Silicon Valley and only left when I went to college, and I've been in western Massachusetts ever since. :) I miss the Bay, and someday I'll find my way back, I think.

[signoftea]

Oooh, wildflowers! That must have been so much fun. And you can remember more of the plant names than I usually can after one of my botany courses. I always have to take photos and label them to remember anything at all.

[breathedout]

I'm actually really surprised how many I remembered! I didn't expect that I would. I think it helped that with most of them, there were many different specimens that the guide pointed out, so you got to the point where you started recognizing them.

Ironically, although I did take pictures, I've forgotten what several of them are of. /o\

[starshipfox]

I'm glad you had such a pleasant walk with a nice bunch of home renovators. ;) It sounds like a really great way to interact with people, and lovely that it was such a diverse group. I love old oak tress -- an oak forest is so precious, and feels so strange and so ancient, like it's from another time entirely. I also love your list of flower names: wildflower words are always so evocative.

[breathedout]

"Strange and ancient" is it exactly. That grove felt very magical. And yeah I totally agree about common names for wildflowers: super evocative. And sometimes hilarious, or puzzling. Our guide said that it's a mystery to him how "cow parsnip" came into its name, since cows apparently avoid it, and it bears no resemblance whatsoever to a parsnip.

(And thanks!)

[unreconstructedfangirl]

Man. That sounds like an awesome day.

[breathedout]

It was really fun! I'm glad I went.

[nyctanthes]

Sounds like you had a lovely day, and what a great list of wildflowers. My favorites: coffee berry and miner's lettuce.

Just reading about poison oak makes me itchy.

[breathedout]

Haha, I like those two as well! The miner's lettuce is also really cute: it's like a very tiny satellite dish with a little flower growing out of a single stalk coming from the middle of it. I gather the miners in the gold rush ate it in salads, hence the name.

[virtual_particle]

Got to socialize with a plethora of older San Francisco Lesbians (a particular breed), ALL OF WHOM were extremely excited and full of advice upon learning that my partner and I just bought a house which we are planning to renovate

I got a mental image of this instantly, ahaha. Yes, good.

Glad the hike was entertaining and useful :D even if it demanded a lot of initial-meeting interactions. Those do take a lot of energy.

[breathedout]

It was 100% exactly as you are envisioning, hahaha.

And thank you! I definitely feel like it ended up being worth the effort of the logistics and initial-meeting interactions.

[eccentric_hat]

Well that sounds great! I enjoy that list of flowers very much. We're too early in the spring here in Minnesota to have anything but violets. Even those are just barely getting started, but after a particularly long winter I'm awfully happy to see them.

[breathedout]

Aw, yeah, those midwestern winters sound so brutal, and this year more than most. My buddy in Wisconsin was snowed in with her four foster-kids for almost a week; not a fate I envied. Yay for a few harbingers of spring, if only the early ones!

[fennishjournal]

Aw, hiking with older lesbians is THE BEST way to spend a day. <3

[breathedout]

It was pretty good! \o/

[achray]

I am catching up: in the midst of all this awfulness over the Magicians this post was a joy. I am a total wildflower nerd and I love these names, especially the ones I don't know - hummingbird sage! miner's breath!

[breathedout]

Aw, I'm glad it provided some respite! I too love wildflower names. If you're interested there's a picture of the hummingbird sage over on my Instagram (it's the fourth pic if you scroll through). I didn't get a shot of the miner's lettuce but it is super cute; it's like a tiny green satellite dish with a single skinny stalk growing out of the middle of it, at the top of which is a single flower. Apparently the miners in the California Gold Rush made them into salads. *themoreyouknow.gif*

[verymorstan]

*_*

sounds wonderful. what a beautiful time.

[breathedout]

It was very nice!