Drying Days

It reached 95° F today with 26% relative humidity. These are good drying days. But if you are neither a) drying your clothes on a line outside or b) a watercolorist this may be an unfamiliar concept. How rapidly do wet materials dry given the present combination of relative humidity and wind speed? It doesn’t seem to feature in weather websites in the United States, though I did a Kagi search on “drying days” and came up with a laundry drying guide for London. Today’s weather there was rated “Superb”.

I am now trying sketching experiments with layers where I am painting first with loose watercolors, and then drawing over the watercolor with my Derwent drawing pencils. This calls for good drying days, since the paper needs to be perfectly dry before drawing on it. Here is a sketch I did earlier today in this manner of our laundry on the drying rack.

Overnight Visitor(s)

When I went outside this morning, I saw that this table, which was clear last night, was now covered in large bird droppings.

I didn’t sleep well (back spasm) and I got up well before dawn. I heard a great-horned owl calling outside. (This isn’t unusual; we have barn and great-horned owls nesting in the neighborhood.) But this is a lot of droppings for one owl in one night. My guess is that there were young owls sitting in the persimmon tree, getting fed by an adult. The fact that there was no evidence of food indicates that it was probably regurgitated for the young.

I’m glad there are enough mature trees where we live to host these species along with nesting Swainson’s hawks.

Redemption In A Walnut Orchard

Last weekend I watched the Errol Morris documentary from 2003 on Robert McNamara, The Fog of War. I followed this up with listening to a podcast interview from 2022 with his son Craig McNamara, which was produced not too long after Craig’s memoir of his difficult relationship with his father came out, entitled Because Our Fathers Lied after a line in a poem by Kipling.

Craig’s journey landed him not very far from here. In fact his interviewer, Michael Dimock, is somebody I have worked with: Michael is a regenerative food system activist who leads a group called Roots of Change. Craig became an organic farmer who has a walnut orchard near Winters, about 25 km west of Davis. Craig’s response to the Vietnam War as a young adult was in 1969 to wander south: he spent several years traveling through Latin America, working on subsistence farms, eventually ending up staying for a while on Easter Island. Agriculture got into his bones, and he returned to California and enrolled in UC Davis to get formal training in the agricultural sciences. He later bought the land and orchard near Winters with his father coming in as a financial partner.

This is one of these stories whose arc is multigenerational. After Robert left (or was fired from) his position as US Secretary of Defense he becomes president of the World Bank for 13 years, and meets with many heads of state all over the globe. Such travel does not make for a grounded life, but his son discovered such grounding on a bit of land near Putah Creek. The generations continue on there: Craig’s children Emily and Sean are both partners in the organic farm.

Whole Earth Day Three

I returned to the Whole Earth Festival today to do another sketch. This is of the main stage at the south end of the campus quadrangle. Performing on the stage when I was sketching was a singer named Dakota Dry.

Whole Earth Day One

Today was the first day of the Whole Earth Festival, a hippie fest that has been happening at UC Davis almost every year since 1969. The festival runs three days over Mother’s Day weekend. I walked down there late this afternoon to scope the event and perhaps do a sketch. I ended up sketching the outside of this booth displaying wares from the Harmony Tie-Dyes Company.

Worm Comics

During a walk this morning I saw a worm, struggling on the sidewalk. I couldn’t stop myself; I picked it up and threw it into the grass. I’ve done this for years (during the big El Niño year in 1997-98 I had an article published in the Santa Barbara News Press about being a worm rescuer).

This evening during the SAW Friday Night Comics Workshop Sarah Maloney had us making dialog between two worms; the above is my effort.

Neighborhood Iris

There is an alleyway east of our house that runs for a block and has lots of good plants growing on its edges. Today I sketched this iris using Derwent drawing pencils, watercolor wash, and black ink linework.

By The Railroad Tracks

For my urban sketch today I went over towards the Davis Food Coop and admired the railroad cars along the tracks just east of the coop. I think railroad cars are interesting both to photograph and to draw. This was sketched with Derwent drawing pencils, fineliner black pens, and watercolor wash.

European Birds

I was able to take a pair of Numenius’ binoculars (Pentax Papilio) with me on my trip. This was very much not a birding trip, though my friends Jennifer and Harald organized a day of birding in a large wetland south of Copenhagen, where I actually saw my life Barnacle Goose (a whole field of them, actually).

When your birding is done mostly from train or bus windows, your list is going to skew very much to the larger birds. I did see some old friends, including Black Redstart, Wheatear and Dunnock. I am almost certain I saw a Lesser Spotted Eagle growing up in Spain but I did confirm it on the bus ride to Freiburg.

For not being a birding trip, I think I got a pretty respectable list.

Earth Day At 56

Pica had a catch-up conversation with her sister this morning, who mentioned that both she and her son separately went out to pick up trash at a couple of events for Earth Day. This brings to mind my memory of the very first Earth Day in 1970. I was 7 at the time. The event drew the attention of our elementary school teachers, and at a break in the schoolday we went out and picked up trash on the wooded slope between the upper and lower playgrounds of the school. I’m glad this is still a tradition.