Living at Park Sierra

 Each season has its own beauty and special delights.  Here are just a few, random photos from this spring. Spring is a wildflower display.  Early summer means the creek is quiet, peaceful and ducks, turtles, fish, and flora enjoy the worn, granite boulders and holes.   

Another joy is the manzanita\madrone trees as they shed their bark.  But that is another post.

The Peeling Trees

 I am fascinated by the peeling bark of the Madrone trees.  Frequently called Manzanita, and in the same family, but the Madrones are generally bigger and more tree-like while Manzanita is more shrub like.  Each late spring, the bark begins to curl and fall off.  I find myself photographing it each year, intrigued

by the patterns, the colors, and the contrast between the thin, curling bark and the very dense, and colorful tree underneath.

It is believed that the peeling is a defense for the tree.  It has provided the conduit for nutrients for the tree growth earlier, and now sheds the bark to protect against beetles, fungus, and disease.   

Besides the bark, I also love the shape of the older branches, dead and living intertwined, the textures of grey dead wood and shiny mahogany color of living, holes providing storage space for the common acorn woodpeckers of my home, and holes for other birds to nest in.

So, here is a photo essay of these beautiful trees.  Several are on my site.  Others are next door or on the hill below me.  

Hope you find them as fascinating as I do.  And as worthy of photographing.  

Here Comes the Sun

 Park Sierra is going solar.  The project, financed by a company called Sunwealth, will provide power for the park and all its members.  Sunwealth is footing the almost $4 million dollars and getting all kinds of tax write offs and carbon credits.  Park Sierra is providing the land, our not-for profit status, and users.  

Site clearance is complete and we are awaiting grading.  A fence will enclose the site, some native plants will shade the view, but not the panels, from the few sites that can see down that hill.  It is an exciting chapter in this co-ops history and will cap our kilowatt costs at about a third of current PG&E rates.  We won't be totally independent as a battery backup, which the park would have to pay for, isn't in the cards just yet.  But as PG&E is hardening their fire defenses, we are having less power outages and most of us have generators (mine is solar) as part of our RV lifestyle

A lot of people worked thousands of  volunteer hours for this project to happen.  My part is small.  I've written an article for Escapees Magazine, to be published in July\August on the project.  And proceeds of the article will be donated to the landscape committee for the native plants.   Here are a few photos of the site where sloping arrays will be erected.  Sunwealth will maintain this area for 25 years, then sell it to the park for $1.00.   The solar panels should still have 85% efficiency and who knows what new technology will be available by then.  A group of visionaries built this beautiful park 40 plus years ago. This is the legacy of the current members to the future.

Just after the survey stakes were placed, I took this photo of the site where the solar array would be placed.  This is late winter.  The photos, below,  taken after clearing began show the spring green of the site.

 

Clearing shows beyond the trees.