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Busy Saturday: July 11, 2015

We started the day at the Pack Rat Sale, a benefit for the Mendocino Botanical Garden. This annual event really brought out the shoppers. We arrived at 8:10 am and people had obviously been waiting for the 8 am opening because there were cars everywhere and the place was mobbed.

Despite the fact that I have to pare my belongings down to two suitcases, I couldn’t resist some vintage jewelry from Mexico that I will wear to the Mendocino Music Festival concert on Monday (the California Honeydrops). We also got a second hummingbird feeder so that the hummers don’t have to fight over the feeder in August when we return to Eckhart’s house with the wonderful deck and birds. We’ll give each species their own feeder.

Judging by people buying everything from power tools to lawn furniture, the sale will be a success for the garden.

We decided to continue our investigation of all the roads leading to the coast, this time taking notes. We went to the main entrance of McKerricher state park and realized that on our previous visit we entered somewhere else and had never made it there. The sun was out and surprisingly warm–it is July, though it has only been really warm for a few days. I was ready to try out my new camera that Jonathan got me for my birthday. My new Nikon Coolpix is waterproof AND has an optical zoom, which is a clever design for an underwater camera.

Walking around Cleone lake, we kidded each other about being out at the worst possible time for bird watching, and then we began to see birds. A blue heron, a great egret, a duck and duckling, hummingbirds. After a break for lunch, we explored an extension of the park further south toward Ft. Bragg. There is a pullout and trail head just south of Lyndon Lane. We saw some birds along the trail, and then walked on the sandy beach, where we saw what turned out to be a flock of sanderlings.

Making lemonade from a lemon of a day July 10, 2015

Getting an injection in your eye is not as bad as it sounds–I have started getting Eyelea in my right eye as a treatment for the wet form of macular degeneration. It’s not the shot that was a pain, but the insurance authorization.

It was a big hassle to get my insurance coverage shifted from my doctor in Illinois to a doctor in California, and it took long enough that I had to make a second trip to Santa Rosa, about a two-hour drive each way from our base in Ft. Bragg. On this second trip today, I was finally able to get the injection, and I don’t have to go in again for 6 weeks.

After my appointment, we looked for an interesting place to have lunch in Santa Rosa, and we found Spinster Sisters via Yelp. It sounded interesting, so off we went.

Great mural!

It was a delicious lunch, it almost makes me look forward to my next appointment. Next time I’m going to save room for dessert.

We headed back toward Ft. Bragg, but made a stop to taste some wine at the Parducci vineyard. When i was a graduate student working on a research project in Costa Rica, I met an Italian family that had emigrated there to start the wine industry. There were two sons, Pepe and Virgilio. Pepe married another archaeology grad student and they eventually moved to California, where he worked for Parducci. That was a long time ago, but it was a pleasure to think about all the fun we had in Costa Rica–their wine was great–and the visit I had with them in their early days at Parducci and in Ukiah.

Wildlife

We’ve seen some wonderful creatures. Beautiful ones like a pale swallowtail butterfly:

On 7.11.15 we added an anise swallowtail butterfly:

Some are not so lovely but just as interesting. We had seen harbor seals at Russian Gulch:

and just recently we saw California sea lions at Caspar Headlands. They are even bigger than harbor seals, dark brown, and often swim with one big black flipper sticking out of the water. We heard them barking in the water and couldn’t entirely figure out what they were. When we went back to fish again on 7/9 we saw what we think are the same pair hauled out on the rocks. OK, they do look better through binoculars.

On 7.11.15 we also added to the difficult to see, curious animals with a young elephant seal that is molting on the beach at McKerricher state park. The rangers warn visitors to stay back, and the smell is an inducement to keeping your distance. This young seal is pretty miserable, but presumably will be back in the water and good to go soon.

Can you tell which of these is the elephant seal? Both seem to be molting.

More unrequited fishing and Abalone, July 7, 2015

We decided to try fishing again, this time at Caspar Headlands, a place we’ve driven past. Reading about this area we found that a temporary pass is required, so we stopped by the Headquarters Building on the East side of Route 1 at Russian Gulch and were able to collect the required paper. Caspar Headlands is a relatively small area, state lands with access to the shore through a residential neighborhood. There are good places to fish and a lot to look at.

While Jonathan fished, Paula and I looked around.

When I caught up to Jonathan and Paula back by the fishing spot, they had found a LIVE ABALONE! It was in a tide pool and the tide was just coming back in, so we got a good look at it and took a photo.

That pale green circle is a sea anemone, the reddish oval below it is a red abalone. An aquarium docent I know said that if you brush the little feelers that stick out of the holes of an abalone, it will sometimes try to touch you with its foot. I got down as close to the water as I could and tiptoed my fingers across the abalone’s shell, trying to make contact with the feelers, but I didn’t feel them and then I felt a weird squishy thing and I jumped away from it. That was good for two reasons. The squishy thing was the abalone’s foot and according to Paula and Jonathan who were watching, as soon as it felt my finger it squeezed itself to the rock and pulled all its foot underneath the shell. By jumping up and stepping back up the rock to where the others were standing (slightly creeped out by the abalone’s touch) I just missed being completely swamped by a wave. The tide was coming in, so it was time to leave the abalone to its business.

Paula and I took a picture for mom (no hats, no sunglasses, make sure your face shows):

Only a tiny bit smarmy–don’t tell mom.

PS. We didn’t catch any fish. We had a delicious birthday dinner at Mendo Bistro, right in the same building as our current apartment. We retreated back to the apartment, creme brulee and a super duper Sauterne Chateau Guiraud 2011 that Paula brought. We declared it a joint birthday treat.

Low Tide follies, Sunday July 6-Monday July 7 (and an abalone bandit)

The lowest tides between July 1 and Sept 1 were on July 6 and 7. We decided to take advantage of the very lowest tide on Sunday to visit the beaches to the south of the Glass Beach in Ft. Bragg. This was .9 ft lower than the usual low tide.

These are the beaches that acted as the landfill for Ft. Bragg until around 1960. Since then the organic material has all washed away or degraded, and what remains are glass fragments that have been rolling along the rocky bottom.The beach is covered with sea glass.

Glass Beach is now a tourist attraction, but management of the site is inconsistent. Guide books say that collecting glass from the beach is not permitted, and access to several sections of beach is blocked by a low wire strung parallel to the blufftop bike path. A sign says that the bluffs are crumbly, which they are, but if you look down at the beaches, you see local people and visitors walking around, and some are collecting glass. Often, the collectors are artists looking for material for jewelry that they sell locally and on line, while others are visitors looking for souvenirs.

This photo shows you how far the layer of beach glass extends.

It was great to see the extent of the glass, and though different people say there are other beaches that have similar beds of tumbled glass. I find that hard to believe. When we visited the Beach Glass Museum & Gallery locally, we found small bags of raw glass for sale that visitors are encouraged to purchase and deposit at their favorite beach so that the beach glass doesn’t disappear. Local stores feature lots of beach glass jewelry, much of it labeled as locally collected material. In fact, however, much less expensive than a trip to Mendocino to collect beach glass would be to make it yourself in a rock tumbler.

ABALONE ALERT:

The abalone hunting season closed on June 30 and reopens on August 1. When we were leaving Glass Beach, we saw a park ranger speaking to two men, one wearing a wet suit, the other in street clothes and carrying a dog-carrier-sized duffel. We watched for a few minutes out of curiosity and found that the ranger was arresting them for poaching abalone. Go park ranger!

MONDAY JULY 6, 2015–Low tide again

Today’s low tide was not quite as low as Sunday (-.4 ft) but still unusually low, so Paula (visiting this week) and I went to Van Damme State Beach to beach comb for abalone shell fragments. Van Damme is a gravelly, rocky beach, and for some reason abalone shell fragments wash up there more frequently than on other beaches we’ve visited.

From Van Damme beach we moved up the hill to park on Peterson Lane and walk down to the Little River Point/Spring Ranch area, near where we stayed in June.

I wanted to show Paula the beautiful rocky coast, and to check out a tiny beach accessible by a short scramble through the trees. Sure enough, we found a few nice abalone bits there, thanks to the low tide.

Entrance to the path. Do you see me?

Tiny cave and beach.

By the time we did all this is was barely 10:30 am and Paula’s fitbit guaranteed us that we were as tired as we felt, so we retreated to Mendocino for a stroll and coffee and a pastry at the Goodlife Cafe and Bakery (delicious).

Happy July 4, 2015

The July 4th parade in Mendocino was truly eclectic. There were fire trucks from many jurisdictions in Mendocino county.

We missed the presence of a high school marching band, but there was live music provided by people who looked to be about our age.

The California state parks were represented.

There were also political floats, again all manned by um, “mature” persons.

The “No Hack and Squirt” float refers to a logging practice where “lower value” species are killed by hacking into the bark and spraying a dose of herbicide. The problem with this approach is that the herbicide can spread to other “desirable” trees relatively easily, if there is rain, if the cuts in the bark are not properly made. The forest industry views hack and squirt as a highly effective management method. Local people view hack and squirt as the poisoning of hundreds of acres of trees for no reason.

This float consisted of a single table. It was the display of a local custom furniture maker.

This seems to be a parody of old time logging, with a female lumberjack, and a goat hauling a small load of miniature redwood logs.

Parents for Peace had banners with every current social problem–they’re tackling all of them.

Last but not least, this bird walked down the parade route, stopping every 30 feet or so to deposit a shaving cream “poop”. There was also a float of a “llama” that “peed” on the crowd, and a banana slug, but it had run out of slime. Who organized this parade, the 5th grade boys?

We did go on to see the fireworks shot over the mouth of the Noyo River. The pizza was good (Piaci’s in Ft. Bragg) but the fog was pretty thick. The fireworks showed through, they just had an added aura, courtesy of the fog.

Moving Day, July 1, 2015

We moved from Little River to Ft. Bragg, CA for the month of July, though we plan to move back to the Little River house in August. It was a bit of a trial to pack up, though probably a good exercise. There are somewhat fewer canned goods, but the car still ended up filled to the doors. We left right at 9 am with the tourist’s dilemma of how to pass the time until we could move into our next abode at 3 pm.

After a delicious coffee at Moody’s Organic Coffee Shop in Mendocino, we stopped in to visit the Mendocino Botanical Garden in Ft. Bragg. It’s a wonderful place. We looked at birds, but mostly the flowers.

We moved into our new apartment in downtown Ft. Bragg and found that it is very well located, but has a peculiar layout. There are two bedrooms and two baths, but you can only get from one bedroom to the bathroom by walking through the other bedroom. The living/dining area is spacious and comfortable and the kitchen is well-outfitted.

The view out the window is also peculiar. We can see the ocean to the west, but between us and the water is an area that is being subject to cleanup of toxic metals left from the earlier Union Pacific Lumber Co. mill that was the main industry of the town for many years. The cleanup is under way, but won’t be completed for an uncertain period of time. Sooooo, ocean view, yes, but don’t look down.

Summer Stories

If you ever had a small child, you understand this scene. I’m sure the family that this shoe belonged to passed us on the trail just a few minutes earlier. Whenever this happened with one of our girls, I always wondered what could possibly have happened to that shoe.

Unlike this photo (above), most of my stories these days are related to nature. We have birds all around us and lots of deer.

Near the house, a pair of deer and twin fawns visit regularly:

We have two pairs of hummingbirds, as well, Anna’s and Allen’s (no really, they’re both species of hummingbirds).

These are the male (above) and female (below) Allen’s hummingbirds.

This is the male Anna’s hummingbird out of the sun (black throat and head) and in the sun (cherry red throat and head). Can you believe that the angle of the sun lights him up like this?

Further from the house, I came across this pair of deer grazing in the field near the cliff edge about half way between our house and Chapman Point on a misty afternoon. The stag seems to be checking that I’m not disturbing his doe. His antlers are still new and velvety.

If that’s not enough, how about plants from outer space?

I’m sure Dr. Suess drew these.

A drive through the Redwoods, 6/25/15

We turned inland, driving into the woods. There are a series of state parks that extend inland from the coast road (Rte. 101) for ten miles or more if you can find the road. We twisted and turned up and down through the forest, winding down Caspar Orchard Road for almost 8 miles until it met Little Lake Rd. that would around another 10 miles back into Mendocino.

Stump of an old growth redwood.

Some of the hillsides were so steep that I couldn’t see to the bottom.

There’s still logging gong on in some areas:

Is that how they fund some of the park costs?

It’s the part of the forest furthest from the highway, least frequently visited, and the area is all secondary forest already.

It was a great afternoon’s adventure.

Another gorgeous day on the coast

There has been much less mist and much more sun the past three days (6/22-6/24), and we have continued to explore the coast between our house in Little River and Ft. Bragg, our next stop.We walked a trail along the headlands just south of Mendocino Bay, near Chapman Point:

That’s the town of Mendocino in the background.

We’ve found fishing spots, and watched the tide come in.

The afternoon that we watched the waves crash here, south of Chapman Point, I saw the afternoon sun glinting in a pool of water and saw empty abalone shells, though they were too deep to reach. Since it was just about high tide, we decided to return the next morning at low tide and see whether we could fish them out.

At low tide the next day, I was able to fish out these shells with the fishing pole.

This is what I pulled out:

The largest of these shells, on the right, is just about 7 inches long, the minimum size for taking abalone if you have a permit. Unfortunately, since these five shells were all together and don’t show much evidence of tumbling in the waves, they may be what’s left of an abalone poacher’s activity. The poacher would remove the abalone from the shell and hide the meat, discarding the shell. The legal limit is 3 abalone per day and each has to be a minimum of 7 inches long–only one of these would have been legal. Legally taken abalone must be tagged through the animal and one of the holes in the shell until the abalone is processed for consumption. Not much chance of that here. I am hoping that there will be less poaching during July when the abalone season is closed. During that month, anyone in the water with a float will be suspect, so I believe people will avoid diving. That may keep the abalone going a bit longer.

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