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Home, Sunday Afternoon

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Sunday afternoon activity: Sitting here wondering if it will really rain over the next couple of days, as the forecasts have suggested for a few days, or not. So far, we’ve had clouds and some drizzle. While I ponder the relatively unusual prospect of a late June rainfall in the Bay Area, I was looking at weather satellite pictures, and then at loops of satellite pictures made over the last few hours. I started to wonder whether I could find a full day’s worth of those looped images, or maybe a week’s or a month’s. I still haven’t found anything like that. But I did find plenty of versions of the the stock views from NOAA’s GOES West (GOES stands for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite). No matter how many times I see it, the view of the full disk of the Earth (above, taken this morning; click for a larger image) evokes wonder. Below (click for much larger image) is the West Coast in beautiful enhanced infrared color, complete with the weather systems that could bring us rain.

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West Oakland Roadside Attraction

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Here’s a set of pictures that’s been sitting on my hard drive for a while. Last fall, some creative folks–artists and performers and super-capable do-it-yourselfers–created a sort of carnival on a vacant lot in West Oakland. I had heard about it from a reporter of ours who did a little story on it, then Kate spotted a piece about it in one of the local papers. So late one afternoon in November, we drove over there–10 or 15 minutes from home–to see what was up.

The attraction was called Peralta Junction, and involved a sideshow, a calliope, a life-size version of the game Mouse Trap (a performance that happened well after sunset, and my pictures didn’t turn out well), and local artisans selling a range of old-timey clothing and other modern-antique wares. It was really fun.

Here’s the slideshow, below, mostly featuring the guy who did the sideshow act. He hammered a butter knife into one of his nostrils. He passed his body through a tennis racket. He lay on a bed of nails while a second bed of nails was placed on his chest and someone from the crowd stood on it. I don’t know the performer’s name and wish I did–it was a funny and thoroughly engaging show.

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Doing Our Part

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The backyard sprinkler is on this morning. Not on any planned basis; I just thought “why not?” while making the journey back into the house after dumping our weekly bag of trash in the garbage can. This little patch of lawn does not get a lot of water–we’re in the middle of our no-rain season, and that follows a very dry rain season, and it never seems responsible somehow to let the water just spray into the air like this when you know that somewhere far upstream, all our reservoirs are being drawn down while the suspense builds through the summer about whether next winter will bring rain. But still, you have grass, you like to see it green. So this morning, the lawn gets a little moisture. We’re doing our part to keep our local unnatural landscape verdant and to use up whatever water we’ve got stored.

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A Long Walk

Last Saturday, the 1st of June, I skipped my usual weekend sleep-in and got up at dawn to go on a walk. OK, nothing terribly unusual there. But this wasn’t just going to be a stroll out for morning coffee, or even a hike in the hills. I needed to be over at Candlestick Point in San Francisco–yes, where the stadium is–to start an all-day hike around the San Francisco shoreline. The entire San Francisco shoreline, all the way up the eastern bayside, past landmarks like the old Hunters Point naval base, Phone Company Park, the Bay Bridge, and Fisherman’s Wharf, then across the northern shore past Fort Mason and the Marina and the Golden Gate Bridge, then south past Land’s End and Cliff House and along the beaches all the way to Fort Funston.

That’s 23 or 24 miles, depending on detours along the way. Molly Samuel, a colleague and friend at the Public Radio Station where I work, dreamed up the project and scouted out the route and then walked it last June with about 15 people. (Another Public Ratio Station in town actually did a cool little feature on the event afterward.)

I think the best reason to take a hike like this is no reason at all–because it’s there, because you can. But for me, there was something else: There are big slices of the city I’ve never really seen, especially its southeast corner, where we started–Bayview and Hunters Point–and this was a way of starting to stitch together pieces I know with new pieces I don’t really have a sense of. I’m pretty confident we may have walked adjacent to one of the poorest census tracts in the city–the Double Rock housing project, out by Candlestick Park–and through the wealthiest–the Seacliff neighborhood between Baker Beach and Land’s End. And walking along Ocean Beach is always a little bit of a surprise: a magnificent strand that seems to stretch forever into the mist fronted by a diverse collection of neighborhoods, some blocks looking pretty affluent, some looking pretty hard-scrabble. It was a trip I wanted to record; the result: lots of pictures.

The biggest surprise of the walk for me: Although it took eleven and a half hours to complete, including stops for lunch and snacks and regrouping along the way, I never felt fatigued and the day never dragged. I don’t really think I looked at the clock once except out of curiosity. I think one reason, maybe the main one, was that the group was so sociable and comfortable and there was interesting conversation every step of the way, or engaged silence if that was what you wanted.

Molly said she noticed last year that you see certain landmarks ahead of you for a long time and they sort of work their way into your consciousness as a way to mark your progress. And that was true: the Bay Bridge was out there in front of us for a long time. Then the Ferry Building. Then the Palace of Fine Arts and the Golden Gate Bridge, until you arrive at the top of the bluff at the northern end of Ocean Beach with those miles of sand spread out forever. You’d see those sights, gain slowly on them, then be slightly amazed that you’d already arrived at them and then surprised again to take a glance back to see them disappear.

That’s it, except to say thanks to Molly and everyone else for a fun day out of doors.

Here’s the slideshow.

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Guest Observation: Colum McCann

The other morning, the soon to be late and already lamented “Talk of the Nation” featured the Irish novelist Colum McCann. He was talking about a new work, “Transatlantic,” which features fictional stories of historical figures who made the crossing, one way or the other, between Ireland and the New World. (One story involves a historic adventure I’d never heard of before, the first aviators to fly nonstop across the Atlantic: Alcock and Brown, eight years before Lindbergh (who made the first solo nonstop flight).

Former Maine Senator George Mitchell and his role in negotiating peace in Northern Ireland is one of the other “Transatlantic” subjects. McCann read a brief, poetic passage of the Mitchell section of the book:

“This is a section where I just wanted to create a myth for the idea of what he was doing, which was receiving all the words.

“It is as if, in a myth, he has visited an empty grain silo. In the beginning, he stood at the bottom in the resounding dark. Several figures gathered at the top of the silo. They peered down, shaded their eyes, began to drop their pieces of grain upon him. Words. A small rain at first, full of vanity, and history, and rancor, clattering in the emptiness.

“He stood and let it sound, metallic, around him, till it began to pour, and the grain took on a different sound, and he had to reach up and keep knocking the words aside just to get a little space to breathe, dust and chaff in the air all around him. From their very own fields, they were pouring down their winnowed bitterness, and in his silence, he just kept thrashing, spluttering, pushing the words away, a refusal to drown.

“What nobody noticed, not even himself, was that the grain kept rising, and the silo filled, but he kept rising with it, and the sounds grew different, word upon word falling around him, building beneath him, and now, at the top of the silo, he has clawed himself up and dusted himself off, and he stands there, equal with the pourers, who are astounded by the language that lies below them.

“They glance at each other. There are three ways down from the silo. They can fall into the grain and drown. They can jump off the edge and abandon it. Or they can learn to sow it very slowly at their feet.”

Neil Conan’s interview with McCann, embedded below, is a good one. His reading of the passage above takes place after the 12:00 mark in the audio.

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Bird vs. Reptiles, the Sequel

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Last week, I wrote of the tragic disappearance of one of our three small red-eared slider turtles in the beak of a local scrub jay. However, I did wonder if I was justified in blaming the jay. I mean, there was a chance another bird could have grabbed the hapless turtle or that the reptile might have self-levitated and escaped the box we set up .

A couple days after the presumed turtle-napping, we put the turtles back out on the patio again so they could get some sun. This time, we put some light netting over the box to foil any nearby predators. Less than an hour after we put the box the out, I looked out the kitchen window and saw a jay–the same one, I’m pretty sure, that I had seen the day of the turtle disappearance–standing on the edge of the box and trying to peck its way through the netting. (That’s him–why do I think it’s a him?–or her or it up above.)

That settled it for me–that bird is guilty as charged. Also, we need to figure out something more discouraging than some butterfly netting if the turtles are going to get to hang out there.

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Backyard Journal: Bird vs. Reptile

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Two of our backyard turtles (Pickle, left, and Shelby) in happier days. Shelby went missing after visit by local scrub jay.

Earlier this week, I posted what might well be construed as a fond reflection on our local scrub jays. They’re interesting, they’re beautiful, yadda yadda yadda.

Now listen to what the little bastards have done.

A few weeks ago, Kate the Science Teacher brought home three little turtles, red-eared sliders, given to her by a student who was moving away. Turtles–I remember having some as pets when we were kids, how one tragically escaped our house and fell victim to ants.

But these little reptiles (Trachemys scripta elegants) are actually really fun to watch insofar as they are clearly observant and social and react to what’s going on around them. Kate read up a little on their habits and and how to keep them and we instituted some improvements in the condition of their captivity. We gave them names–Pickle, Shelby, and Serena. One of the things Kate discovered was that they like to sun themselves and that basking is an important way for them to get their needed dose of Vitamin D (it helps build strong shells). So we have taken to carrying the turtles’ “tank” (a 7.5-gallon translucent blue plastic filing box) out back to let them soak up some rays.

That’s what I did yesterday morning. I could see from the kitchen that all three turtles, each just a few inches in diameter, had pulled themselves up onto the flagstone at the center of their container.

Then I went away. When I came back, I heard one of the local jays squawking. I looked out back, and saw it fumbling around with something on the back part of our patio. Huh, I thought. Then I went back to whatever I’d been doing. Getting ready to go to my afternoon shift at the Public Radio Station, I went out to bring the turtles back inside. Weird–I could only see two of them. I looked again. Yes, only two.

Then I noticed the cuttlebone (a calcium supplement) from the tank had been pulled out and pecked. Who or what had done that? My conclusion was that it was the scrub jay I’d seen hopping around before, and that that bird or accomplices unknown had managed to spear the missing turtle and make a meal of it.

Conclusion: I am saddened and chagrined to report we’ve got charming predators in our midst, and we’ll need to screen the top of that tank when we put it out back again.

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Red-eared slider as rendered by 19th century artist Karl Bodmer.

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May Rain

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It rained last night in our part of the Bay Area. Not a lot–just enough to sort of wet everything down and leave water beaded everywhere on foliage this morning (like the neighbor’s parking-strip apple tree). In most of the country, rain in May would not be news. Here it’s rare, but not unheard of. As Jan Null, a local meteorologist who has pored over San Francisco’s precipitation history, told his email list over the weekend:

Rain in San Francisco at some point during the Memorial Day* weekend has occured on 34 occasions (21% of the the time) in the 163 years since rainfall records began in San Francisco in 1850. Rain has fallen on Saturday 15 times (9%), Sunday 23 times (14%) and on Monday 16 times (10%).

The last time there was rain at any point on a Memorial Day weekend was Sat., May 28, 2011, when 0.28 inches fell. The last time rain fall on the Monday of Memorial Day weekend was in 1993 when 0.01 inches fell. And the last time there was rain on all three days of the weekend was in 1932 with 0,26, 0.18 and 0.10 for a total of 0,54 inches.

The rainiest Memorial Day weekend was 1906 with a total of 1.64 inches, and the rainiest single day of a Memorial Day weekend was Sunday, May 27, 1990 with 1.42 inches.

* Formerly known as Decoration Day dating back to the Civil War.

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Quoth the Blue Jay: ‘I Want Some More’

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I think I know every way that blue jays are objectionable birds. They’re raucous. They’re aggressive. They prey on those weaker than themselves, and the young of those weaker than themselves. We had a towhee nest in a trellis on our back porch, and the towhees went about their business and laid their eggs, and in no time a scrub jay, maybe a couple of them, found about about it, and before we could stop nature from happening, the jays were having a scrambled towhee egg brunch.

Still. In the eye of this beholder they are beautiful. The blue plumage, for one thing. And their apparent intelligence. They just look like they’re sizing things up when you watch them. They give the impression that they’re watching you, too. Some California researchers believe our western scrub jays hold a form of funeral (more like a group alarm) when one of their jay buddies flies on to the next life (here’s a BBC story: Birds hold ‘funerals’ for dead; and a video of one of these gatherings).

The last couple of days, I’ve been trying to reclaim the North Forty (a.k.a., the backyard). A scrub jay showed up yesterday as I cleared weeds, and followed along behind me to pick over whatever I uncovered. This afternoon, same routine. This bird appeared entirely unafraid; I can’t decide if it’s a young one who hasn’t learned how untrustworthy the Wingless Two-Leggers are, or an older bird that has figured out that Berkeley is full of Bird Huggers.

Anyway. The bird hung around as long as I was clearing the ground. As soon as I stopped, it moved on, probably to the next easy meal.

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California Road Trip: Yolano Wandering

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As earlier recounted, Kate and I went up the Delta on Friday, the beginning of the Memorial Day weekend, in search of ferries. After riding back and forth on the Real McCoy II (just outside Rio Vista) and the J-Mack (at a non-place called Howard’s Landing, across Steamboat Slough between Ryer and Grand islands), we started thinking about getting something to eat. We both had the same thought: a hamburger. One place to procure a decent one–OK, everyone’s got their own idea of decent–In N Out Burger in Davis.

So we set out north from Rio Vista, ignored signs that we were trespassing as we crossed onto Hastings Island, then hit state Highway 113 somewhere south of Dixon. My knowledge of the farms roads in that part of the world, earned from cycling on some of them day and night, told me we ought to head east off 113, in the general direction of Davis, which still lay to the north. I turned on Midway Road and at every crossroads looked for names that looked familiar. Pedrick Road–I knew that would take us up to Interstate 80 a few miles southwest of downtown Davis; I kept heading east on Midway. At one corner, I saw a sign for Yolano–my favorite kind of name, a hybrid of two places (Yolo and Solano counties, in this case) and probably right on their border. I headed east thinking there might be a town out there I had never seen. We got to Midway and Yolano roads–farms in every direction (looking at the map now, the hamlet is south and west of this intersection).

Eventually I started to get the feeling I’d driven too far east. Way off in the lowering sunlight to the northeast, I could see some tall buildings that had to be downtown Sacramento. I kept east but decided to turn north at the next opportunity, no matter what road I came across. It was Levee Road, and it was gravel.

I turned, and just north of the intersection with Midway, on the lefthand side of the road, the west side, just at the edge of the right of way, there was a big stand of eucalyptus, maybe a shelter belt for a nearby farm. And there were dozens of turkey vultures in the trees, getting ready to roost for the night. We stopped to take a look. The birds stirred. Then Kate pointed up to a tree that had a pair of big white egrets, right in among the vultures. I grabbed my camera and opened the door to climb out and take pictures. And doing only that much prompted a mass takeoff of the vultures–50, maybe 100 of them, along with the egrets and maybe a stray hawk or two. Some turkeys that were roosting nearby started to gobble. It was a full on big-bird party.

Here’s a snippet of the sound, and after that, a couple more pictures:

Picture above: Vultures (and maybe others) above eucalyptus grove in Yolo County, south of Davis. Below left: turkey vulture at same location. Below right: turkey vulture at same location and airliner far above (I’m having trouble identifying the plane, though: It looks like a four-engine jet, and the colors look like a United scheme; as it turns out, there was a United 747 to Frankfurt passing over the area right about this time, so maybe that’s it.)

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