What’s hue opinion?
Tuesday, 11 March 2025
Blue-purple? Purple-blue? Or perhaps just a shade of blue?
Musings
Precip on petals
Wednesday, 5 March 2025
During my post-rain walk, I discovered many dewy blooms, not all as elegant as this deciduous magnolia.
Relocated by wind
Tuesday, 4 March 2025
We’re supposed to have a front come through overnight, so windy storms, perhaps (hopefully?) weaker than the other weekend that caused us to need four large trees removed. Whew. Still, before the winds, somehow a fading camellia blossom found its way to our front steps this afternoon.
Relatives
Saturday, 1 March 2025
These plants, decorative in this area, mystified me (with my northern mental database) until I found them labelled somewhere. Now, I know them to be relatives of artichokes…sporting rather elegant dagger-leaves-of-green.
Ahhh-chooo
Monday, 24 February 2025
We’re coming out of a run of cold days, and we’re headed for some lovely warm days before cold rolls in again. The warmth is enough to get the pollen going, in a bit of an ironic twist.
Chainsaw ballet
Friday, 21 February 2025
At 9:30 this morning, the leaner was still rooted to the ground—ish.
By early afternoon, the top was removed and both the leaner and the one that fell away from our house were mostly removed.
Shortly before the guys closed down for the day, the leaner’s stump was removed, and the one that fell was merely a stub of a sump.
The elegance and carefulness of the work crew was something to behold (pardon the passive voice).
Removal underway
Thursday, 20 February 2025
Despite today’s gustiness…
…the tree guys climbed high, tied off this direction and that, fired up chainsaws, and took down two trees. I was surprised to see how much core rot one of them had…. Happily, they have a plan to remove the tricky, leaning, good-sized tree tomorrow
Sun…wheee
Thursday, 13 February 2025
The “possible five inches” of rain turned out to be about two-and-a-half, which is far less…dangerous. Even more exciting: the sun came out almost all afternoon.
Best for last?
Wednesday, 5 February 2025
Our departure…leaving from beneath the looming, snow-dusted Sierra de Ayllón, amid ice-crystals…mostly melted when we got going (lots of sun exposure).
We came upon these round structures in/near several towns, but I couldn’t figure them out. They seem clearly for storage, and the roof is vented, yet there’s only one door, and it’s small. My guess is they’re something to do with grain production…mystified.
Our first stop was Tiermes, which was a large CeltIberian fort that allied with Numancia (and others), and held out against the Romans for longer than other places (probably routed about 133 BC). The Romans remade the settlement, adding homes, a large aqueduct, a forum, temples, and more. The sandstone hill also had earlier Neolithic and Bronze Age occupations. Here’s the southeast gate; all the gates to Tiermes that I saw had a bend like this…I assume offering an additional level of security.
The southern face of the hill is mostly a wall of sandstone. The horizontal rows of holes held beams that made ceilings and floors of multi-story structures.
Here’s a look along the aquaduct from where it (presently) goes into the hill. This is just to the left and above the last photo.
This is the west gate, surely more eroded than when Romans and their CeltIberian predecessors used it…or maybe this was just a Roman gate.
The wheels of carts dug into the soft sandstone, and later eroded into deep trenches.
That vegetated (grassy?) area is the Roman forum. These photos do not do justice to the huge area of this settlement, and I mean huge in pre-Roman CeltIberian times especially. My walking track was almost two miles, and I missed some highlights. Of course, I have not seen the excavation reports, which may describe many unused (often trash-collecting) rooms, as often happens for Puebloan settlements in southwest North America.
Our last stop on the present Tiermes property was to step inside this Romanesque chapel/church, probably built in the late 12th C. I don’t know the date of the interior. There’s no longer any town nearby and I don’t know if there are scheduled services any longer.
Our next place of interest was the Cerros volcánicos de La Miñosa, a very small area that constitutes an unusual micro-environment.
One species typically mentioned is Erodium paularense, or the Paular geranium. This might be it. Interestingly, a few hundred meters away archaeologists have recorded six Paleolithic (meaning early) sites…perhaps because the ancients obtained something important to them from the volcanic zone. Dunno, just hypothesizing.
The pointy hill has a Castro atop, and the other is a Castillo. Off to the right on the slope below the Castillo is the Medieval (as in: most of the central buildings date to…) town of Atienza.
That’s enough for today. Tiermes remains among the most amazing pre-Roman/Roman sites I’ve yet seen.