“Noxious weeds and the search for Granite”

“Noxious weeds and the search for Granite”
A motion study of 50-year-old knee’s in the Sierra’s
A short story by S. Redenbaugh


Up at 7, packed and out the door by the grace of God we exited the city and drove into the Stanislaus National Forest, home to the lake Pinecrest. We arrived 2 hours early so we could honor our friend and employee Mike by hiking the perimeter of the lake. A memorial for him was scheduled for 2 at this lake he loved so much, so we set off and put the 4 miles of beauty filled alpine lake scenery into the memory banks. A man made lake that laps against the granite mountain range that holds in her waters, surrounded by pines of every type and size that fill the air with their scent. A sweet walk in the woods.

A fitting service was held, and over seventy-five friends and family were on hand to honor him. As the young crowd broke to began an additional honoring of their friend through the drinking and smoking of mind-altering substances we split.

Down the road a bit we turned from the hi-way and found ourselves heading deeper into a canyon on a one lane, rutted dirt logging road. Miles into the name unknown canyon we spotted some beautiful Hornspar, which is a type of granite that was either heated to much or to little during the formation of the Sierras. It littered the hillside and we pulled over to collect the slabs. In minutes we had the Jeep half filled with the soon to be patio material. Further down the road we found what I truly sought, flat, white square-ish black-specked granite. Slabs about an inch thick lay where gravity placed it after so many cycles of expansion and contraction. Scooped up we layered them in the rear of the jeep, tossing everything else into the back seat. Into the sunset we went and into our rear patio that borders the new waterfall the slabs now set. Oh yeah, it was in that canyon we found all these weeds with yellow “noxious weed” tape wrapped around them, which was weird.