Melanie Patton Renfrew's 'Blog'

Between the sidewalk and street are strips of land where L.A. County planted Brazilian pepper trees, for shade. People like to park under them, but they do shed. For homeowners, they can be nasty because they’re aggressive and send out peppery chemicals and shoots out of the roots, to outcompete whatever is growing within 20-40′.

These sprouts are always popping up all over my yard, even close to my house, and I need to hack into the root with a shovel: you can’t just yank them.

I tried to landscape and grow lawn here even though it’s not ‘my land,’ but any watering aided and abetted the aggressive growth of the tree, which can send thousands of seeds into my yard. It was a waste so I gave up; but this winter brought too many weeds, that need digging from the roots.

I don’t usually have “keeping up with the Joneses” feelings about neighbors and my house. Lately I felt sheepish because others are beautifying their ‘county strips’ (without pepper trees), but bare soil or weeds look like “neglect.” So I started digging up some of that infertile, L.A. Basin clay-with-pepper-chemicals, stuck some hardy succulents in, but then came to what looked like a knee cap in a bent-leg skeleton.

I’m not sure if you’ve been to museums or seen shows with mummies or archeological finds, but it seems like bony skeletons have bent knees, like this one in the Smithsonian.

I tried hard to dig it out, but needed my hacking earthquake tools.

The pepper juice came out.

I had to tap on the window of a car parked in front to let the lady inside know ahead that I’d be coming out of my house with an axe.

On the way to Rainbow Point, 9115′, are my favorite stands of aspen at Bryce. I was happy to see babes & teens growing nearby, all the same height in clusters, reproduced from roots, “cloning themselves.”

Competing for light, tall and strong, deciduous hardwoods near the softwood evergreens, symbiosis in the ecosystem in adjacent niches. True dads know moms glue families together: we’re wired to love in an overflowing way, extending God’s love out and in.

Luke 6:38

This spring when I considered where to go for a ‘road trip’ 🏞️, I thought, ‘I want to go where deciduous trees are just turning green.’ Southern California Mediterranean leaves are leathery, shiny, darkish olive or sage greens, except when new growth ‘frosts’ plants with that refreshing yellow-green color (like icing on a cake). ‘The grass is always greener’ as we daydream about other places, because try as we do daily to appreciate and thank God for all we have, it’s re-fresh-ing to see ‘scenery’ God designed for us to enjoy, and ponder!

My friend said when they were in Zion, rocks were above the water. My sister was a whitewater rapids raft guide (South Fork of the American from Auburn, CA), so I was noticing where the rapids here surged, creating that lovely sound of water on rocks!

“… sorrow and love flow mingled down,

Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,

or thorns compose so rich a crown?”

From “When I survey the wondrous cross,” Isaac Watts.

Image from the movie, Son of God, and the History Channel’s series, The Bible.

I like the precision of Japanese maple leaves, which have many pigments even in spring.

Like people, bonsai oak leaves don’t want to be constrained:

This pink was my mom’s favorite color, and reminds me of her cheerfulness:

Yellow is one of my favorite colors, but insects like it so I don’t wear it much. I feel happy when I see it.

Branch scars add to the designs.

Zoom.earth shows us today, until you zoom in closer when it shows previous views.

We’ve had a lot of rain, but it’s still so beautiful.

The Mediterranean is mostly brown in summer, and Europe often has a big haze layer on sunny days. Winter is rainy season here, and it’s great to see Spain green. Gracias a Dios.

$3 T-shirts from Hobby Lobby (or Michael’s, JoAnn) are my traveling and home clothes, cotton. On a trip, as I near the end, I wash and give away; and people in other countries all like colorful Adult medium T-shirts ‘from California!’

I like colorful handicrafts & quilted things (being a duct-taper & farmer myself), ethnic art, and to support creators who make them. I can’t shop much on trips because the suitcase needs to be carry-able up & down many stairs, and lifted over the roughest cobblestones, which are tough on wheels.

I like Europe. I love Africa & Asia & Mexico, too (haven’t been to South America), Australia & NZ, but I prefer cold-to- warm weather, not hot & tropical. Loose cotton is breathable and good for the base layer everywhere, and even shy people like color.

I’ve studied beginning Norwegian since 2016, but not all the years. In Oslo, I was thrilled to find East Africans who understand Swahili, Luganda, Kikuyu, Kikamba. 😃 France and the Mediterranean mostly have West & North Africans from colonial days.

I decided to skip France because of their relentless strikes and piles of garbage, but am still reviewing French to converse in Morocco. “God loved Hagar” (Genesis 16, 21).

NASA images, I didn’t take these last 3.

Hot air rises, convection, like people who erupt when they can’t get their own way.

Have wisdom: ‘Make no friends with an angry man,’ as they may erupt and burn you (Proverbs 22:24).

If you can keep some distance, it can be fun to watch.

This is easy to make: I squeezed 3 lemons from a neighbor’s tree, little onion and cilantro, ground black pepper. Voila!

I read this last week and am still thinking how love conquers all, the ‘golden rule;’ and how universally, that’s the human quest: what good are money, power, achievements if we love not?

When I go to Scotland, my cells reverberate joyfully.

Both Ancestry.com and 23andMe results came in today: I love seeing the Scottish from both parents. It’s also interesting to see I have close genetic similarities with Greater London, Glasgow, Belfast, and the English rural locations where I’ve loved seeing green countryside in movies and on trains.

It’s geography; “it’s science.”

I’ve heard that DNA matches beyond 10 generations back may not show; I’ve also heard 1000 years. Romans and Vikings went a lot of places, including these homes of more recent generations!

They compete for light and grow tall or out, some get burned or chopped and grow right back in new ways; in tropical rainforests, aerial roots grab moisture from the air and then become new buttress roots for support.

All at Huntington 11/6/22.

Gold, peach, pink is the sequence, as the world turns.🌈