21 March 06
Walking On The River
While reading World Changing, I learned there’s a neat art installation at the Sacramento Airport, entitled Flying Carpet. On the second floor bridge that goes from the parking garage to the terminal, artist Seyed Alavi has carpeted the floor with a woven aerial image of a 50-mile stretch of the Sacramento River, running from Colusa to Chico. I’ll have to check it out on my next trip to the airport!
16 March 06
In The Long Run
I’ve been reading up on global warming lately, having just finished Thin Ice, by Mark Bowen, and The Discovery of Global Warming, by Spencer Weart (the latter author has an excellent website covering the same ground as the book, but with three times the content). For those of you who encounter climate change denialists, Coby Beck has been blogging a series on how to talk to a global warming skeptic.
12 March 06
Tracking Sea Critters
The OBIS-SEAMAP site is a repository for observation and tracking data for marine mammals, sea turtles, and seabirds. What is neat is that the site lets anyone go in and look at maps of the observation data, so if you want to see where a short-tailed albatross can cruise to, you can.
4 March 06
Looking Up
Another winter storm is coming through—Putah Creek is flooded east of the bridge, and should slosh up again to the levee soon. And far above, Jupiter has a new red spot. It’s a storm that’s been around since 2000, is now half the size of the Great Red Spot, and has just started turning red itself.
3 March 06
Disparates
This word is truly a faux ami, a false friend, English/Spanish. In Spanish it means crazy, outlandish things, while in English it just means things slightly off kilter.
I’m ready for a week of disparates, in either language, as I head off to New York on Sunday. Three days of this will be on my own, satisfying a tiny part of me that is unequivocally urban. I want to walk in crowded streets, smell the New York subway, be hustled and bustled and totally anonymous. Then I will meet up with my sister, who similarly has a tiny urban kernel though she’s a mommy in a small Maine town. We will walk miles and look at 19th century interiors and talk and catch up and be sisters.
There are so many things to do in New York. I will not be taking a camera, mine having disappeared in early January: but I finished binding a journal last night for my trip, a sketchbook in Sundance Felt and Canson Mi-Teintes. I might be looking for disparates (Spanish) to do in order to get some interesting sketching opportunties…
2 March 06
Fogbow
We saw what we think was our first fogbow yesterday morning. We were out walking the cats on the field, and there was a thin tule fog, as there often is after a winter rain. Blue sky overhead, and the sun was rising in the east. The fogbow appeared as a white dome fairly low to the ground, like a rainbow but without any color. The absence of color is because fog droplets are much smaller than raindrops.
27 February 06
Swainson's in the Gale
As I was walking home tonight in the storm, two Swainson’s hawks—the first of the spring—were trying, in vain, to fly south over the creek.
I just got back from picking Numenius up from the airport; he was in Portland for the day. It was a VERY bumpy plane ride. Good to have him home safe and sound…
26 February 06
Leafing Out
The blossoms are almost done with the almond tree in our front yard, and its leaves are just emerging.
25 February 06
No Ducks Up Cold Canyon
We were asked at the last minute to help out on a bird walk for California Duck Days. Since it was up Cold Canyon, where the redbud is just emerging, and since this might be the last chance we get before it starts pouring here, we leapt at the chance.
Jeff Falyn is a docent at Cold Canyon and is recovering from an illness, but had us all do an exercise of finding plants named in a list and then renaming them. I came up with Floating Fern for Maidenhair Fern.
At left is a Henderson’s Shooting Star which someone renamed Purple Comet.
Singing California thrashers and Hutton’s vireos, T-shirts, sunscreen: California in February.
Postscript: Don Gallo met a bad end. He ventured into the yard with the dogs. By the time the commotion was heard, it was too late…
20 February 06
Mount Diablo
Well, we’re back from a day hiking on Mount Diablo and I have NO BLISTERS.
!
This is amazing. I can’t even remember the last time I did a hike of this length without them.
There was snow on the top, and the kids were throwing snowballs.
We drove down the mountain and there, by the side of the road, was a guy playing the bagpipes. Frightening all the wildlife in a 3-mile radius.
Dinner was tortilla soup at the excellent Mariachi. Bed’s a calling me…