Staycation Part 2

The next leg of my staycation took me far from the reaches of the city, north and westward to a place called Point Reyes. It's a national park in Marin, and I think it's one of the most beautiful places on earth. The San Andreas Fault basically broke off this giant chunk of land and its gentle rolling hills are dotted with farms, surrounded by water and covered here and there in forest. You've got your pick of what sort of beach you like, everything from jagged, rocky, rugged coastline, to miles of sandy big-waved beaches, to gentle, lapping coves with hardly any sort of ripple in the water. I wanted to visit Point Reyes for my staycation, but didn't have anything in mind, and when I went to the website, I saw that they had volunteer activities. The one that caught my eye was their Native Plant Seed Collection Volunteer day. I love plants, and one of my fantasies has always been to go out into the field to gather seeds. Never thought I'd be able to do that for real, but here it was, staring at me in the face. I signed up right away.

The volunteer leader was a young guy named Jamus (sp?) and after a brief orientation he took us out into the field (how awesome is it to be able to say that?), which was a grassy hillside beside an estero, which I later learned are fingers of ocean that reach inland, kind of like the polar opposite of what a peninsula is.

Our job was to identify and collect seeds for DeChampsey grass (I have no idea how that is spelled). Apparently it's one of the native grasses in the area and they use the seeds to restore areas that have been returned by man to nature--places like old farms. He showed us what to look for, and how another grass--I forget what it's called--closely resembled the native stuff we were looking for. Our only gear was a humble paper bag, reused so much it was practically fuzzy. Here is what we were looking for:

Here is me finding some, and looking gosh-darn, geeky-happy about it.To harvest the seed, you just had to run your fingers over the seed stalk and take what came off and put it in your paper bag. I used to do this for fun as a kid. Here is a video:

I think this is one of the funnest things I've ever done on vacation. I could have stayed on that hill all day with my paper bag. Jamus was extremely knowledgeable, throwing around all sorts of botanical terms and explaining the flora and fauna. I totally envied his job. He was actually an intern, finishing up his degree at Chico. Can you imagine a more amazing internship?

At the end of our few hours there, I wound up with about a handful of seed, wet, poison-oaked jeans, and a happy heart. If only I had more Wednesday mornings available for this!

Afterward there was still time in the day to do a little exploring at Point Reyes. Wound up at Heart's Desire Beach. It's the calmest little cove with pretty sand. I had to strip the shoes off my aching pigs and dip them into the sea:

The cockles and mussels (and whatever these things are) were alive-alive-O there:

Ok, well maybe not these guys, but you get the picture.

Point Reyes was yesterday. Today was yet another day of staycation. Today I had nothing in particular I wanted to do, and instead did a bunch of things I'd been putting off, meaning to do, never getting around to it. Don't know where I got all the energy from, but from the moment I awoke I was knocking things off the to-do list left and right. The first thing I did was sew on the patches from places I've been with my Mom's backpack:

Someday it's gonna be covered in patches!

Then I framed a picture I got in Japan. It's an original woodblock print that I thought would look nice in my living room. I knew that professional framing would be $100+ dollars, and I didn't want to pay that. Since it's original art, and maybe because it's Japanese, there was no way I'd find a pre-made mat and frame that would fit it. When I was in LA, my Dad gave me a mat cutter, and before I'd left on vacation, someone was cleaning out their office and left out an old frame that was up for grabs. It was ugly brown and chipped and scuffed. I sanded that thing down and gave it its first coat of some black paint left over from taiko stand projects. The first coat is always kind of streaky and uneven, but my god, it really worked! It turned out to be that pretty brown-black color that Ikea has. The only thing I needed was a mat, so off to the art store I went, and after some experimentation with the mat cutter, I created a mat for the picture. A little windex on the glass and a couple nails in the wall and presto! Seven bucks for the mat, two dollars to park near the mat store (ugh!), and voila--framing for under ten bucks!

Then it was outside for a little garden time. Did some watering and tidying up and also picked some of my precious dahlias. There's lots more where these came from:

Then took advantage of the fact that most people were at work so went to the laundromat and washed my clothes. And since I was on a roll, I ironed a whole closet full, which will hopefully get me through the next week or two:You may ask why I'd do laundry on my vacation. And the simple answer I have is: I love doing laundry, and I especially love ironing, and nothing gives me quite the satisfaction of a closet full of cleaned and ironed clothes. Ironing relaxes me. Oh come on, everyone has their weird thing that gives them their kicks.

And since I was knocking out the to do list, there were those 3 pairs of pants that I love but were all too long. Been meaning to hem them for the longest time, and actually had to resort to rolling them up, or--ack!!--stapling them up so they wouldn't drag. Pulled out the trusty sewing machine and stitched away. Presto!! Three pairs of custom tailored pants!

I'm no seamstress, but it beats staples any day.

And phew! This is on top of dealing with kitty litter, vacuuming the whole house, changing the sheets, doing the dishes, visit with friend, and coffee-and-quiet-time on the beach. And whoa, the day is almost over. Thinking about a hot bath and reading and then bed. I'm sure there's more stuff I could do, but I can sleep soundly knowing how much I got done today. Not sure what's in store for tomorrow (massage maybe? Self-indulgence?), but I like it that way!!