Highway Five (haiku)

Central Valley Way

Fruit, Nuts, Cotton, and Chavez.

Vital world food source.

 ~ ~ ~

Resources

Cesar Chavez Short Bio of an Important Labor Leader http://www.biography.com/people/cesar-chavez-9245781

History of CA Agriculture : http://harvest.mannlib.cornell.edu/node/11

Why is the Central Valley in California so Important?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Valley_(California)#National_Farmworkers_Association_.28NFWA.29

Major Languages Spoken: English, Spanish, Hmong, and 27 other languages as well

English-Spanish Dictionary Links for Agriculture: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/eesc/how-to/english-spanish-agricultural-dictionaries

National Hmong American Farmers http://www.nhaf.org

About Rich Language Mix in Central Valley http://scholarship.law.berkeley.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1104&context=bjalp

Aqui Tiene Café - Linguistics Lesson Mid-Stream

Click on the illustration above, por favor,
To enjoy more of the beautiful details

We do fine together. in English- the two men who are adding on 250 square feet to our house. They are totally bilingual. 

But they also share a special lingo. It's one that reminds them they are both comrades and cousins. I feel honored to share it, just un poco, with them, when I fill their water jug with  agua y hielo or bring out café in the morning. I've learned a new idiomatic phrase over the last few weeks - Aqui tiene cafe  (Here you have coffee). 

I provide the drinks, and they provide impromptu Spanish lessons. 

Gracias professores!

Indian Summer at Edgewood (No. 3): Rose Hips

Indian Summer Rose Hips

Edgewood County Park, San Mateo County, CA

Previous Segments in this Mini Story Series

Indian Summer at Edgewood

1.  Creekside 

2. Indian Summer: Oak Apples

After the Ohlone folks had finished their dye-making, fishing, and berry gathering projects we all settled down to a spot of relaxation and recreation in the late afternoon sun. A big-eyed girl I took to be about twelve years old marshaled three younger children into a sort of impromptu performance of different kinds of animals. 

The littlest girl, probably three or four, was adept at bouncing of her haunches and wiggling her nose like a rabbit. Of course she got got the loudest murmurs of appreciation. The two other kids, both boys, switched back and forth between pouncing like a cougar, or maybe a bobcat- onto the rabbit, swiping down fall berries - that was obviously a bear, and yipping and howling like a coyote. The also put on quite a very credible show involving a Western fence lizard (I recognized those push-up motions), and what was obviously a rattlesnake surprised in the act of devouring what I thought might be a gopher. The gopher, in this case, won. It had to win since it was the tiny girl doing her best. Nobody in her clan was going to sit idly by and watch her be turned into rattlesnake fodder. Even the rattlesnake seemed relieved when she got away.

Then the older girl began to emit a kind of buzzing noise and began to flap her arms about a cleared section of the creek. She did a lot of dipping and diving in on the older of the two boys who sat in mock stoic silence, giving every impression of an animal at his wit's end, unwilling to give in to persecution. At this point, I was starting to have a little trouble following the story line, as dictated in a sing-song voice by grandmother. 

I suppose my confusion was obvious because the small band took pity on me and the director stopped her humming to give a direction to the older boy. I'm pretty sure she told him something along the lines of, "Let's move it along, Bud." 

The boy came to life and began to snap, yip and growl at the irritating creature who was clearly making his life a misery. Before she'd had a chance to respond another buzz, pitched much higher than the big-eyed thespian, began to sound just above our heads. 

When the jewel-toned throat of the Anna's hummingbird came into view everybody began laughing, pointing back and forth between the tiny bird and the oldest girl, who had resumed her darting, buzzing dance.

By the time coyote had consumed the pesky hummingbird, who of course didn't let that stop her fun, dusk was beginning to settle creekside.

It was time for me to hop into the closest time portal and head home.

* * *

Here's a link to an English version of some Ohlone stories, like the ones I heard down by the creek. There's one about Coyote and Hummingbird, which might be something similar to the one I heard that day. I still think the Rumsien version, and the acting talent I witnessed in past times Edgewood Park was the best version!

Indian Summer at Edgewood (No. 2): Oak Apple

 

Edgewood Oak Apple
Please click on the illustration above to get the full picture 

Yesterday I wrote a journal entry about the beginning of a trip back 300 years in time,  to visit with a small group of Ohlone people in, what is today called, Edgewood Park. (Indian Summer at Edgewood (No. 1): Creekside.


Having slid through the time portal on the seat of my pants, I dusted the leaves off and greeted the small group working along the edge of the creek. Though busy fishing, foraging for late berries, and cutting sedge, they still seemed glad to have a visitor drop by.


Unfortunately, I'd forgotten my iPad with it's Rumsien dictionary pdf download at home. Luckily, I remembered how to say i (yes). We smiled a lot too.  


Though the creek is low it had produced a few steelhead trout. Have you  noticed that fish tastes better when somebody else cooks it? Somehow the berries tasted sweeter than the modern ones too. I'm pretty sure that if you add a beer that would be a nutritionally complete meal. 


Some of the women were gathering up oak apples( which you maybe call oak galls) and smashing them with pestles, using a big flat rock to pound them against. About the only thing I've ever seen anybody use oak apples for, was the time my friend Suzanne painted a bunch of them as ornaments for her holiday craft booth. She never made those again, after she hung the leftovers on her warmly lit Christmas tree and the gall wasps started hatching out of the little manager scenes. I don't think she ever went back to that particular craft fair to hear what happened to the ones she sold either.


Turns out the people by the creek weren't making manager scenes. They cooked the busted up oak galls in a very tightly woven basket of water and rocks made intensely hot from their fire. When I saw the clan grandmother begin to stuff dried sheaves of sedge into the deep black liquid that emerged from the galls, I finally understood how they were using the galls.


Grandmother saw me looking, smiled back, and pointed at the dark design on the container holding the last of the blackberries. She said something in Rumsien that was as clear to me now as English, even if I didn't understand the actual words she spoke. 


Did I think the gall dyed sedge make pretty baskets?


I grinned back.


I, absolutely i.

Indian Summer at Edgewood

Part 1: Creekside

Part 3: Rose Hips

* * *

How to make black dye from oak apples 

Ethnographic Records of Ohlone, Chumash and other California Native Languages

A bit about the Rumsen/Rumsien Language

There were other Ohlone langues in addition to Rumsien. They include Mutsun, and Chochenyo. There are people speaking these languages today.

A bit about the Ohlone People

Spain, Pensamientos finales

Is this Segovian Cupid waving Hasta Luego,

or simply thumbing his nose at me?

It’s time to bring my illustrated journal about my trip to Spain to a close, and return my blog to it’s regular form, as an art-journal of my daily life here in California.

The pieces I wrote about my trip are short themed entries, and are not intended as a blow-by-blow description of my trip. I've listed them below, with links for each entry. Or you can locate them by clicking on particular calendar days above the "About Me" section on this web page.

Each short piece I’ve written since I returned, includes one to four photos that I took there early in July and than brought home to alter in Photoshop. The details in these altered photos show up much better when you CLICK ON each individual PICTURE (try it with the cupids above).

It was hot and I learned to deal with that like a Spaniard. I increased my Spanish speaking confidence and reminded myself that there’s always some way to communicate what I need to – even if that means using ten words instead of the one I don’t know. The colors reminded me that I wasn't at home. When you find a good park, stick with it, and go back as often as you can. I’ll always remember visiting with a group of Madrillenos at the turtle pond at the Palacio Cristal. I gained a new appreciation of sola, when I traveled to Segovia.

Sincerely yours,

The Simple Romantic

• De Colores, On the Colors of Segovia

• Patrónes y formas, Patterns and Forms in Segovia

• Modern Edificios y Negocios of Madrid - Buildings and Businesses

• A Bit of Beauty from the Alcazar Palace(A printable luggage tag I created from an altered photo)

• The Mystery of Trenta

• Historic Edificios of Madrid

• Hace Calor, One Woman's Survival Strategy

• Enjoying the Frutas y Verduras of Madrid

• Getting Neighborly at El Palacio Cristal

• The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly in the Plain, Language Survival

Modern Edificios y Negocios (Madrid)

PLEASE CLICK on these pictures to see the lively detail.

Modern buildings and city businesses in an unfamiliar country, are just as intriguing as the historical ones. They look so similar to the ones I know at home but, then again, something tells me that I'm not in Kansas any more.

Hace Calor! One Woman's Survival Strategy (Madrid)

Please Click on these Pictures to See More Lovely DetailMadrillenos have their own techniques for dealing with the heat of the city in July.

Those who don't have a long commute back home may still have a big midday meal and an afternoon siesta before returning to work until evening. But many do commute. I imagine they take advantage of air-conditioned offices as much as possible.

A tourist wants to see things, but when it gets to be over 100 degrees, she gets more than hot.

After I more-or-less got over my jet-lag I had forced myself to stay out all day. I was just miserable. After I came close to passing out on the metro, I came up with my strategy for beating the heat. I developed a modified Spanish plan. I set my alarm and got up at 6:00 in the morning to got out walking different neighborhoods, and taking photographs. In the late morning I visited any museums or other tourist attractions. Once it got good and hot in the early afternoon, I went back to my hotel room, showered off the heat, ate my yogur y frutas and whatever I had scrounged from the mercado. Then I had a REALLY LONG nap, really the second part of my nights sleep. I got up really late in the afternoon and went out walking again. This always included hanging out in El Parque el Buen Retiro. That's where the locals were anyway. Once I got tired of walking in the park, I sat on various benches and read or sketched. I also hung out at the turtle pond and chatted to people. (See my previous entry, Getting Neighborly).

Madrid stayed light until after 10:00 at night in July. Several times I stayed out until past 11:00. The Plazas are well-lit and, since I saw other home-bound women walking home at that time of night. From the style of dress of the people I saw, I guessed that the walk back to the hotel was relatively safe. A casual supper in my hotel room, a little English language news on t.v. and I got in another 5 hours or so of sleep.

Early evening at El Lago in El Parque de Buen Retiro

Getting neighborly at El Palacio Cristal, El Parque de Buen Retiro, Madrid

Click on these images to see more pretty detail.

My favorite activity in Madrid was walking in the wonderful big city park, El Parque de Buen Retiro. I walked there every day. I chose the hotel I went to, Hotel Agumar on Calle de Reina Cristina, because I saw that park on the map nearby. I have really enjoyed locating near parks in other big cities, with which I was unfamiliar. I’m used to walking a lot at home. Not only is it nice to have a great big swath of shady green, I like getting to see people out strolling, biking, skating and enjoying the company of their pets and children. At home I have a lot of casual interactions with pets and people in my own neighborhood park and this was a similarly comfortable way to interact with people in Espagna.

The spot I returned to most often in the park was the turtle pond by El Palacio Cristal - a beautiful building if ever there was. It was fun going and sitting on the steps there in the evening, to watch the turtles and have low-key chats with children and adults. That's when I really felt a part of the community. And, unlike in the restaurants, when people started to smoke, I could move!

The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly in the Plain, Thoughts on Surging Over a Language Barrier

Please CLICK ON THE ABOVE IMAGE to better enjoy the details

One Wet Terrier

El Parque de Buen Retiro

Madrid, Espagna

Photo altered using Photoshop CS4,

Original work is the copyright of, L. Shimer, 2010

Dogs can usually figure me out - humans - not always.

Spanish dogs seemed to understand me easily, no matter in which language I spoke to them. Madrillenos seem to like dogs as much as Californianos do. It seemed like every third person in Madrid, had a dog on a leash during the paseo.

I was very glad that I am comfortable using Spanish on my recent trip to Spain. I think it would be difficult to visit Madrid and the environs, without some proficiency in the language. My most challenging encounters with Spanish came when I was working through the process of buying train tickets within the Atoche Renfe metro/train station. When I became uncertain about where the train left from (turned out I had to get a train to another station - Chamartin- first!) , broke down and asked for help in English, it simply was not available. I just had to figure out how to come up with other words to use, to ask my questions.

Next day in Chamartin, confused by the displayed departure information, I again asked for help in English. My request was met with a shrug and a referral to another clerk who didn't understand my question. As I've learned when visiting other countries, these situations force me to figure out how to communicate my needs. And, Y hola !, did I feel proud of myself when I navigated two trains and a bus on my day trip from Madrid to Segovia. Particularly when an older woman bus driver praised me for traveling sola.

I found the Harper Collins "Language Survival Guide, SPAIN" book in my library and took that along as my travel dictionary. Not only does it have word lookup, but also sections such as transportation phrases and ticket layouts. It was really useful, and I liked it better than other dictionaries I've used.