The Station Fire has turned much of our beloved San Gabriel mountainside into a black and white moonscape. I need color to bring me back down to earth. Here, an impossibly pink bougainvillea flirts with a row of green cactus against an old red brick wall.When I took this picture, I kept marveling at the fact that almost everything grows here with little effort. This region is a botanical wonderland. I'm not just talking about landscaping or tended gardens. On every hillside you'll find sprawling native grasses, chaparral, blooms and reeds. You can't walk past a crack in the sidewalk without stumbling over a patch of clover or collection of wildflowers. It's fertile here. Things grow.
The ravaged mountains will grow back, too.
UPDATE: 11:40AM An upper hand: fire 51% contained as of today. Battle continues: blaze jumped firebreak over Angeles Crest Highway and is moving toward Juniper Hills and Littlerock. Fire has burned a quarter of our national forest.
14 comments:
That is a lovely picture, Laurie.
I know this place well. It gives me cactus envy.
I love how our eyes trained to read left to right, immediately start with that POP of hot pink from the bougainvillea and then scoot to the right with the undulating heights of the cactus. You're right - everything does grow there. I'm always amazed at what you see in January and February when the rest of the world is either under snow, or brown and dead (and this year here in Texas, due to the drought). I like the angle of the shot with the stair-step wall.
HAHA - altadena - cactus envy. I'm sure with the shape of those guys, Freud would have something to say about that. :~P
Altadena Hiker: One of my favorite art prints hangs in the master bathroom. It is an enormous, primary blue cactus, viewed through a red window frame. Everyone who sees it gets a bad case of... cactus envy!
Laurie: Beauty, Hope and Humor... the three best fertilizers for regrowth!
Thanks for sharing the colors. It is a needed distraction!
I am wondering how the extent of this fire compares to the 3 that extended from San Bernardino up 6000 feet, jumped hwy.18 in places and took out an entire town.
The lovely resort town of Lake Arrowhead where I used to own a cabin, was saved thank goodness. And their observatory was covered with that foam stuff which protected it.
Think GREEN...and pink too.
Thanks for the splash of color.
Thank you for bringing a little color to our world. This picture made me smile.
You mean the land of Texas isn't as fertile for putting down roots for planting, for growing?
Cactus envy?? Oh, I shoulda known with KB! I gotta get wise to her little black code book. I get it now, LA.
It's gorgeous! I imagine that all the effort of gardening there would be focused on controlling the lush growth.
I once read that forest fires are actually necessary for the forests' health. But I suppose that only meant fires that occur spontaneously. Still praying…
"Fire has burned a quarter of our national forest."
As someone who, in the early 90's, was a regular visitor to Angeles Crest, that is simply an incredible amount of land.
Hi everyone,
K, I'm still reeling over that number, too.
Thanks for all of the comments today, people. Til tomorrow...
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