Sanctuary stands at the end of a one-mile long dead end private road in
the Sierra Nevada foothills. It is bounded on the west by what our neighbor
calls the ‘hundred acre wood.’ Madrone Forest Drive has no streetlights. And,
since it is heavily wooded, it gets really dark, really fast, once the sun goes
down. Living up here feels like being out in the wild. We love it.
But truth be told, we aren’t really
out in the wild. It is true, the hundred acre wood is home to deer and fox
and skunks and wonderfully varied species of birds. A mama bear and her cub
also consider it part of their territory. We know this not because we’ve
actually seen them, but because they were captured on Ron’s webcam (at least
the round rear portion of the mama) and because they stripped our apple tree of
virtually all its apples last fall. The
deer love apples, too, so how do we know it was the bears who ate them, you may
ask? The trunk of said tree bears (no pun intended) permanent, deep claw marks;
many of the branches were broken by the weight of the climber; and we found,
how shall I say this politely, big scat and little scat from someone big and
someone small who enjoyed a meal of many, many fresh apples.
So you see, it has many of the makings of living in the wild. But, as we
like to say, it is only 10 minutes to Panda Express. We had the good sense to
consider the pitfalls of living out in the toolies as we age. We figure we’ve
got the best of both worlds: the hundred acre wood and Panda Express.
Our first drive down Madrone Forest was following a heavy late spring
snowfall. It had been plowed. The banks were quite high on each side of the
serpentine road. The actual driving lane was down to one car at a time. Our
realtor was confident she could get us down it with her four-wheel drive. I
figured when the snow melted it would look like any other road. Imagine my
surprise when we returned a month or so later after snow melt to find that it
was still a narrow, one-lane road.
The etiquette of navigating this skinny strip of blacktop when meeting a
car head on, we soon learned, is to ascertain who is closest to a spot that
looks wide enough to sort of be a turn out and, if it is you, use it. Since
there are abundant curves and trees right up to the edge of the asphalt
blocking your view, this can actually be quite exhilarating at times. Nighttime
only adds to the adventure. You actually get to use your brights (when does
that ever happen living in San Diego, I ask you?) and it is common to have them
catch the reflective tapetum lucidum[1]
of various nocturnal creatures. How fun is that?
One of our humble road’s outstanding features is its quantity of road
signs. In spite of the fact that the only people who drive on it are residents,
guests of residents, and the occasional UPS or FedEx truck, the speed limit
(15mph) is posted about 4 times both coming and going. We also have numerous
‘slow downs’ and speed bumps. (I’m telling you, those are a thrill when you hit
them at 15 mph. Not.)
But my favorite sign hands down is the one that clearly states road narrows. I ask you: it’s already a
one-lane road, how can it possibly get any narrower? We’d all have to drive
Smart Cars.
As you may have figured out, Madrone Forest Drive is named because it
works its way through the Madone forest. There are many other evergreen and
deciduous trees as well. But the Madrones only grow at this elevation. Picture
giant Manzanita, and you’ll have it just about right. Their bark is a gorgeous red color which sheds in the summer,
looking kind of like they got too much sun and their skin is peeling. Their
wood burns very hot, so we use it sparingly along with other wood in the
stoves. Our neighbor to the east told us a story about loading up his large
woodstove with Madrone to last them through the night and coming downstairs
later to find it glowing red-hot. It actually warped that sturdy stove, so much
so that they could no longer use the water reservoir.
These same neighbors had bees at one time. At least until a bear just
couldn’t leave the honey alone and plundered their bee boxes. He (the neighbor,
not the bear) said you haven’t tasted honey until you’ve had Madrone honey. He told us the woods used
to be full of Madrone. But then a fungus or something came and they mostly got
sick and had to be cut down. We have a circle of large Madrone stumps down by
our back fence. They tend to grow in a cluster, their huge branches reaching
up, up into the forest canopy to find the sun. We have some young ones growing
on our place. But I wish there were more of the giants left.
Our neighbors to the south built a tree house in just such a stand of
giant Madrone. Their property borders the Nevada County airport and, being
airplane lovers and flyers, their tree house stands near the edge of the runway
where they can enjoy the comings and goings of fellow pilots.
She invited me up last summer. An octogenarian herself, Bobsie cautioned me
repeatedly as I climbed the steep ladder into her room-sized tree house, the
way I would have done to one of my grandchildren. (Perhaps I wasn’t looking
very sure-footed that day. Who knows.) It no longer has the magnificent canopy
that used to provide a roof for her outdoor dinner parties, a victim of that
deadly Madrone disease. But it is still an amazingly lovely place.
So we sat up there in the cool of the afternoon (she had hauled a whole
set of freshly painted patio furniture up there using ropes), lazily watching
planes land and take off, chatting about this and that, including the history
of the building of their home here on Madrone Forest Drive more than 30 years
ago. When she told her co-workers that she wanted to build an adult tree house,
they did a double take and cried you want
to build an ADULTERY HOUSE?? Bobsie whooped with laughter with the memory
of it and I joined in, too. I tried the words adult tree house out loud, and sure enough, they rolled off my
tongue sounding just like what her co-workers heard. Go ahead, try it. I dare you.
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