Chico: City of Trees

Transitioning home to Chico has been good but not without some amount of sadness about what we left in Warrnambool. Andy and I both have realized how much bigger Chico is than what we remember or what we’ve been used to for the last year. Lots of people would laugh at that because it's often described as small but it's not as "small town" as Warrnambool.

I think I am still doing well with my practice of slowing down and as a result I have rediscovered the trees. In addition to being one of the top ten small art towns, Chico is known as the “city of trees.” I've decided it should also be known as "city of squirrels."

Our friend Susie hosted a welcome home party in her backyard that just happens to have a tree house shaped like a ship! Very cool.

Notice the pics from our blog on that great poster!

The trees in our own backyard aren’t too shabby either. 

The first day of my summer class I had students walk silently around our building and take notice of our surroundings. I took some pictures of beautiful hydrangeas and tiger lilies, and some ferns I had not remembered. These Dr. Seussish trees are right outside our building.

This land extends from the Bidwell Mansion behind us, to the side of our building. On the second day of class we did a community building activity on this lawn.

There are a number of redwood trees on our campus. This redwood was long favored by woodpeckers and eventually they got the better of the tree. Although all the branches were cut off, the arborist opted to leave the majority of the trunk standing for future feathered friends.

Chico is probably the most beautiful of all of the 24 California State University campuses, in no small part because it is built around Big Chico Creek. The seven footbridges on campus provide amazing views of grand sycamore and oak trees.

I rarely cross a bridge without pausing to appreciate the gift of a fern-flanked creek that flows through our work place.