The Land
Eighty acres, and most of it has a name.
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.
William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II Scene 1
A dead pine in the last light of the day.
Chaparral at 2,300 feet, USDA hardiness zone 9a, a Mediterranean climate with hot dry summers and cool wet winters. Zone 9a means the coldest night of a typical year lands between 20 and 25F. It has been colder than that here: the zone is an average of thirty years of coldest nights, not a promise about the worst one. Eighty acres, half a mile of gravel road, and a creek at the bottom that the neighbors run through a carbon filter and drink.
Most of these names are Norse, because our ancestors were Vikings.
Water
Big Falls and Buckeye Falls run all year, not only after the rain. The swimming is in Jesus Maria Creek, which is further away.
Mimir's Creek is named for the well of wisdom. Urd's Spring is named for the Norn who keeps fate. The Three Sisters are redwoods down by the water, on their own sprinkler line. Frosty Meadows sits where the cold air pools.
Trails
Bifrost, the rainbow bridge. Elverhoj, the elves' hill. Fair Haired Baldr's Crossing. Lupine Way. The Fountain of Youth. Land's End, where the property stops.
And Bianca's Cutoff, Phoenix Path, Fringe Trail, Old Motocross Run, Hell Gully, Tired Gully, and Water Run, which has a corner on it called Tony's Dilemma.
Places to be
Midgaard is the middle world, which in the myth is the one that is lived in.
The Garden of Idunn is the orchard. Maria's Garden, Blue Acorns, Hobbit Homestead, Plaza de la Luna, Bear Ridge, and Sunset Overlook, which is where the day ends.
A dead black oak, photographed April 2, 2023. The man at its base, in the blue shirt and the straw hat, is about a twelfth of its height.
The majestic dead oak trees are Sentinels to the spirit world, bridging the gap between the living and those who have passed.
The world tree
Yggdrasil is the tree of life, and in the myth its roots reach down into sacred water. One root into Urd's spring. One into Mimir's well.
Both of them are here. Urd's Spring runs in the ravine, and Mimir's Creek runs at the bottom of the land. The naming was not decoration: the water was already in the right places.
The tree we call Yggdrasil grows where two creeks come together and make a third.
Calaveras is the home of the original Giant Sequoia grove. If a world tree had to take root anywhere, this is a fitting place for it, and that is the tree in our logo.
The Yggdrasil tree, February 27, 2021. Bianca is in the grass at the foot of it.
The orchard that never stops
The Sacramento Valley below us is a monoculture: one crop, one harvest, one week when everything happens at once and fifty-one when nothing does.
The Garden of Idunn was planted the other way. Methley plum comes in very early. Then Black Tartarian cherry, Santa Rosa plum and Honeycrisp apple. Then Harko nectarine, then Bing and Utah Giant cherries and Mericrest nectarine, then the Late Santa Rosa, and finally Stella and Lapins cherries and Granny Smith at the end of the season.
Also here: Parfianka pomegranate, pineapple guava, Owari mandarin, Meyer lemon, Pettingill apple, and two native black oaks that were standing long before any of it.
Idunn is the goddess whose apples keep the gods young and healthy. It seemed like the right name.