Harajuku Now in Portguese

The most popular item in our Etsy shop is the Harajuku printables package (birthday party invitations, place cards and other party ephemera that users can download and print themselves). A buyer wanted to know if we could modify the "Happy Birthday" banner to a "Feliz Aniversario" banner, and a new printables package was born: Harajuku in Portuguese.

In addition to the banner, the customizable invitation and the place cards have also been translated into Portuguese. The package can be purchased through Etsy for $12.00.

... Lovelier Than a Tree

With Easter looming and so many things to do this weekend, we opted for a short hike partway up the Windy Gap Trail and back down the fire road to the still-closed Deer Flats campground around Crystal Lake.

One of the things that caught our attention was the many ways that trees die and rot in the forest. Part of the natural order of things, as they live, die and then carry on their part of nature by disintegrating. In the top photo, you can see how the outer portion of a tree can slowly disappear until its core is exposed and it too begins to break down. Certainly the breakdown is accelerated by termites and other insects, until the pulp covers the ground and feeds the soil below.

In the second photo, a massive tree lies in pieces, neatly cut in half to move it out of the way. The number of holes indicate how useful it was in life to so many woodpeckers, who hammer away to attract a mate, feed on insects, or defend their territory.

What killed these trees? Fire, lightening, insects, disease, drought, road-building? Hard to say. But there is something comforting in the knowledge that they are still an important part of the forest.

The Easter Parade

One of the best things about spring is the happy return of cheerful colors in everything--flowers, clothes, and even store displays to push spring merchandise. We are very big on color.

Target has long been one of our favorite stores for any number of consumer-centric reasons. One of the things it does best is in-store displays, such as the winsome and emotionally compelling pet section complete with wordless lifestyle images of people and pets. (Yes, if we had a dog, our lives would be just as happy and carefree.) In fact, we may go back and do a whole series on Target signage.

Recently, the store has had its "Hop Shop" boutique with Easter goods and candy that was highlighted by a sensational use of color across the aisles. The images of large-scale Peeps, dyed eggs in grass, the prism-like bars or color that appear against the back wall and are echoed in the egg mobiles, blend in with the yellows, lavenders, greens and pinks of all that Easter merchandise to make a colorphile's day. Add to that the vaguely retro font for "hop," "basket" and "Happy Easter" that invokes the nostalgia that spurs buying. Well done.

Upper Bear Creek Trail

For some time we've been concentrating our hikes in the Angeles National Forest above Azusa near Crystal Lake, most notably around Windy Gap and Big Cienega. The winter has been relatively mild, but some weeks have seen a warm-cold-warm trend where cold rain brings snow in the mountains and then sun and wind melt it seemingly overnight.

During the weeks when snow lingers in the weekend, we opt for hikes at lower elevation, when it's possible to hike in shirt sleeves and to leave the packs free of heavy-duty clothes and gloves. One such trail is the Upper Bear Creek Trail, which at 3280 feet is some 1900 feet below Crystal Lake.

This trail starts out with the steepest part first, and then levels out for a gradual and mostly easy climb up toward Smith Mountain. The trail is almost entirely uncovered and sunsoaked; today it started sunny and then became enmeshed in a solid fog (which you can see rolling in, at top). There are some good wildflowers with many more plants in bud just waiting to open.

Big Cienega Trail from Crystal Lake

We've done this trail in one direction or another many times. Today we started from Crystal Lake and worked our way up to the ridge toward Mt. Islip.  The last time we came this way, the start of the trail was quite difficult to follow, but newly clipped vegetation points to some recent handiwork by our friends over at the San Gabriel Mountains Trailbuilders.

Once, on the way down the ridge, we happened upon more than a dozen big horn sheep, when of course we had no camera. They were more surprised to see us than we were to see them, and their calm, slow gait erupted into a run. Every time we hike this trail we pause near the same spot in the hopes of seeing them again. Today there's nothing but a last little bit of snow.