Past Notes

From the desk of Marianne Wallace --

Summertime means family camping. And that means a trip to Rock Creek
Lake in the Eastern Sierra. High mountain bliss with cool, clean air, hiking along Rock Creek and panting up high elevation trails to lakes at treeline. Oh, and eating fresh-baked pie on the outdoor deck of Rock Creek Lodge after an Ortega burger or a cup of mountain chili. Mmmm....good food and good times.

My husband, Gary, and I have been going up to Rock Creek since the road to the upper campgrounds was dirt. Our family has been going every summer since our kids were just a few months old. We pitch our tent at about 9,000 ft in one of two small campgrounds.

This year, campground visitors included two Douglas squirrels that chased each other up and down the lodgepole pine trunks and a resident chipmunk checking for dropped food under the picnic table. Steller's jays and chickadees and Clark's nutcrackers (typical western mountain birds) were also there, as usual. And, although we knew deer lived in the area because we've seen their tracks, this year was the first sighting. On an early morning family walk past a slow, wide, meandering part of Rock Creek, a mule deer stood in the shallow water at the far grassy bank.

At home, mule deer are very common. Does, young bucks, and fawns often roam the foothill neighborhoods eating leaves, flowers and fruit. Once in awhile, an adult buck will be spotted. Yesterday, I was watering down our back hill and saw a gray fox walk by. And two nights ago, Gary woke up to a family of raccoons: mom and her four kids climbing down the tree outside our bedroom window. (I slept through that.)

Our seed feeders have lately been attracting finches of all kinds, grosbeaks, acorn woodpeckers, nuthatches, mourning doves, and an occasional sparrow. With this variety of wildlife, it's hard to believe we are only 25 miles away from downtown Los Angeles.

From my desk, as I watch the rufous hummingbird chase all the other hummingbirds away from the feeder, I wish you a great summer.

Spring Notes, 2007

From late spring to early fall of last year, I took a hiatus from my writing and illustrating to manage a gift shop and book store at a native plant botanic garden near my home. Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden is known throughout Southern California as one of the best places to view native California plants in a natural setting. I enjoyed walking from my car to the gift shop each day beneath huge oak trees while listening to the calls of resident hawks and watching cottontail rabbits and western fence lizards scurry for cover as I passed.

I redrew the covers of my books, America's Deserts and America's Mountains, last autumn after I left the Garden. Slight changes were needed to bring their style in line with the latest titles of the America's Ecosystem's series. Working on the art for those books got me thinking about desert and mountain species again. Since I drive the 100 miles or so from the Los Angeles area to visit my mom at her home in the Colorado Desert at least once a month, I see the desert regularly. But most of my drive is along highways. So, occasionally, I get off the main road to get closer to the bushes, cactus, rocks, and sand. I never get tired of seeing the olive-green creosote bushes abloom with yellow flowers. Or the many-armed shape of the cholla cactus. And if I'm lucky, I'll be in the desert when the pink Sand verbena carpets the desert floor or I'll spot a road runner running (what else?) along the side of the road. But mostly I just love being in the desert silence and open space where I can hear my feet crunch the coarse sand as I walk and hear a lizard (or could it be a mouse?) moving among the dry, fallen leaves of a mesquite or other desert shrub.

Working on the art for the mountain book cover brought to mind the smell of pine trees and the call of Steller's jays. I also thought of the western gray squirrels and black oaks around my grandmother's cabin and a young western skink I saw only once. I've never seen a lizard with so much bright blue. The western fence lizards around my home have blue underneath their heads and on their bellies but you don't see it most of the time. And it's not as bright.

Ah...these mountain memories remind me that it'll soon be time for our annual family camping trip in the Eastern Sierra Nevadas. We camp at about 9,000 ft and hike past juniper and pine to alpine meadows and lakes. So while I dream of mountain vistas and trails lined with aspen trees, I'll bid you adieu 'till next time.
 

Winter Notes, 2006

I almost feel guilty writing about winter news and events when the temperature outside my office is in the mid 70’s (that’s ˚F. ˚C would be around 25). But warm winter days are often part of living in southern California. Besides, since I’m in the midst of researching and writing the “Tropical Rain Forest” section of my new book, America’s Forests, I figure the warm weather helps me better imagine being in a warm, tropical forest.

If you’re new to writing and are attending conferences, reading articles in writer’s magazines, etc., you will often hear (or read), “Write what you know.” I think that’s good advice and it sure makes research for books easier to tackle. Most of my writing and illustrating reflect places, plants, and animals I’ve seen or have studied. So when I research a new project, reading about animal and plant species is almost like visiting old friends.

However, I was never interested enough in the tropical forests to visit them or study them and now I find myself researching something I know almost nothing about. It is taking me a lot longer than usual to figure out which plants and animals to include in the book but, wow! I’m discovering what an incredible place these tropical rain forests can be.

For example, there are places so thick with leaves overhead that even at noon on a sunny day, the forest floor is dark. Transparent butterflies, neon-bright birds, and monkeys whose calls sound like foghorns flutter, fly, or swing through the vines and trees. Some of my favorite rain forest residents are the glass frogs. These frogs are so transparent that you can see their organs beneath the bright green skin.

Among forests, the tropical rain forest is a special world unlike any other. I’m glad I’ve gotten to know it better.
 

Spring Notes, 2006

The view from my office window faces north, toward the San Gabriel Mountains near Los Angeles . However, most of my view is blocked, in a nice way, by oak trees. Here in Southern California , many of our oak species - like the scrub oak, Engelmann oak, and coast live oak - keep most of their small, oblong leaves year-round. But some new leaves always grow in the spring and I have been watching these trees go from dark, almost olive green to the brighter green of spring as the new leaves develop and grow.

Besides the green of new leaves in the spring, I have been enjoying the birds that use the oaks. The past few weeks I’ve watched a rufous hummingbird sit on a branch tip, guarding a nearby hummingbird feeder. On a sunny day, his cinnamon brown feathers flash like polished copper in the sun. This small hummingbird spends so much time chasing other hummingbirds away from the feeder, it’s a wonder there’s time for it to feed itself.

When the outer branches of the oak trees shake, I know to look for a fox squirrel running and jumping among the trees. Fox squirrels are introduced here and are taking over areas that were once the home of our native gray squirrels. But nature has a way of creating balance and the fox squirrels may be food for another animal I sometimes see from my window, the Cooper’s hawk. Smaller than the commonly seen red-tailed hawk, Cooper’s hawks sit on tree branches and often make loud, one-note calls that are easily heard, even through my closed window.

I hope you can also enjoy the green leaves, the birds, and all the other signs of spring from your window, wherever you are.

Fall Notes, 2005

Welcome to this new feature on my website: a quarterly report on news and events relating to my work.

I had a wonderful opportunity in late September/early October. Anchorage , Alaska , was host to the 8^th World Wilderness Congress and I was asked to participate on two writer’s panels. Delegates from all over the world were there to discuss the earth’s wildlands and share success stories as well as draw attention to the many areas still at risk environmentally.

The cooperative work being done across cultures and borders was very inspiring. And hopeful. I had a unique opportunity to share my work as a writer and illustrator of children’s natural science material with a delegate audience whose work and direction dealt mainly with adult readers, adult nature enthusiasts, and government officials. I enjoyed sharing my passion about educating young people and my belief that an early connection with nature is vital to a life-long appreciation of wildlands and the plants and animals that live there.

Writing-wise, I have begun work on the 6^th and last book in the America ’s Ecosystems’ series (Fulcrum Publishing). America’s Forests, Guide to Plants and Animals is scheduled for publication in spring, 2007. While in Anchorage , I took some time off from the Congress to visit a boreal forest area and meet with naturalists. A highlight of that visit was watching a red squirrel with a mushroom in its mouth run up a small tree, stick the mushroom into a junction of the trunk and a branch, then run back down the tree chasing the mushroom after it fell out and bounced from branch to branch back to the ground. Experiences like this are why I love my job.