25 April 04
Sunday Potterings
We had a mellow day today following yesterday’s jaunt up to Shasta County. There was not a cloud in the sky and it’s gotten very warm — it reached 90 today — so we decided it was time for the solar cooker. This is a contraption that we got from Solar Cookers International where you place a black-painted aluminum cooking pot inside a oven roasting bag, and rest this outside in the sun on top of an aluminized cardboard half-box. A picture of the setup is at right. We cooked beans and rice today, ready by the time we got home after an excursion into town on our bikes this afternoon.
I also went through my bike basket, in the spirit of Pica’s archeology of the car. Items therein:
- 1 clear plastic bag
- 1 bike lock
- a scrunched up paper napkin
- a paper on the economic geography of talent, author Richard Florida
- the roster and program for the UC Davis vs. Cal State San Bernardino baseball game on Picnic Day
- the Picnic Day program from the Cal Aggie paper
- a clothes label saying “I am reversible”
- a printout from March 8 of books on loan from the Davis Public Library, namely The Boy’s Crusade, by Paul Fussell, Monsoon Diary, by Shoba Narayan, The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Worms, by Amy Stewart, The Book of Wi-Fi, by John Ross, and Voices from the Pagan Census, by Helen Berger
- a couple of printouts of local geocaches
- 5 pencils in various states of unsharpenedness
- 1 Pilot pen
- 1 empty fountain pen ink cartridge
- and a type specimen sheet for the typeface Gentium
24 April 04
Blue Grouse Day
We went north to Trinity Mountain via Redding, which is about a 2.5 hour drive from Davis. Our friend Dennis said there were grouse booming out beyond French Gulch. I’ve never seen a blue grouse, and it’s been ages and ages since we’ve seen Dennis, and he back so fresh and sprightly after running the killer Boston Marathon on Monday…
We got up into the grouse area just in time to see a very loud chainsaw, aka motorcycle, barrelling down the logging road. Oh well. No grouse is likely to be within a 3-mile radius of that racket, we thought. We split up, enjoying singing Nashville and hermit warblers and almost resolved to return to Davis with no grouse sightings but at least a wonderful new spot to bird in!
Well, Dennis and Numenius soon heard the grouse booming further uphill. Sprightly Dennis came racing down the mountain to get me and I struggled up, winded, eager to hear it but still not expecting to see it. We looked for the bird for about an hour—the booming never wavered, but it’s so ventriloqual that we were disoriented. We all forgot, though, to look up: we expected this grouse to be on a favorite log.
The bird was about 80 feet up in a Douglas fir and just peeping out.
It’s really hard to write about seeing a bird without it being a variation of the classic “I rounded the corner and there, on a branch, was a __.” The thrill is recognized by other birders and it’s possible to experience it vicariously, which is why so many of us enjoy showing new birds to other people. Birding is, after all, a collector’s activity-you collect names rather than stamps or coins-but sometimes a combination of circumstances makes the experience stand out. I had waited a long time to see this bird; we got faked out by its strange sound; and it had no problem with our thrashing around in the pine needles and poison oak 80 feet below. But mostly, I enjoy sharing birds with good friends. Thanks for this one, Dennis.
23 April 04
Night At The River Cats
We just came back from a baseball game, going to watch the Sacramento River Cats, the Triple-A team for the Oakland A’s, play the Salt Lake Stingers. The River Cats played well and won 5-1 in a game that was over quickly. It was UC Davis group night and we ended up sitting near one of Pica’s coworkers. The Cal Aggie Marching Band-Uh came and performed too, a few of them still wearing their customary sunglasses.
At left we see Dinger, the River Cats’ mascot, known for getting into lots of mischief.
22 April 04
Wind Change
We awoke this morning to a strong north wind. Around here that means it’s going to get hot, and, sure enough, it was about twenty degrees warmer than yesterday.
The field in front of our house has been irrigated for the past 36 hours. They have dug deep furrows to allow the water to spread from where they’re pumping it out of the ground right along to the road. I’m not sure what they’re planting this year: possibly sorghum?
There are lots of reasons why irrigating like this is a bad idea in this part of the world but now there’s a new one: West Nile virus. There are puddles of water everywhere, providing the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes.
But the poppies are blooming bright orange and the kingbirds are nesting…
21 April 04
Lunchtime Interlude
It’s nice to find familiar music in unexpected places. I went into the eatery at the Memorial Union on campus at noon today, my usual lunch stop, and heard somebody playing Beethoven on the old and usually ignored upright piano there. This was the Waldstein sonata (Op. 53, in C major) — my brother used to practice it when I was growing up. The pianist was a good bit better than the piano he was playing on: perhaps in his life as UCD student he doesn’t have much access to an instrument to practice on, but still needed his fix of Beethoven. He didn’t stay too long, picking up his score and leaving after the first movement.
20 April 04
Out There
I’ve been seething again. This time it’s because our local rag is angry about the Spanish pullout from Iraq, “leaving us in the lurch.” Lurch? What lurch? The lurch created exactly by WHOM? And how are the few departing Spanish troops—1% of the total foreign forces in Iraq—going to constitute leaving anyone in any lurch?
Anyway, part of what has been getting me all fired up is that I’ve just finished reading Jon Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven.
Talk about the connection between religion and violence. I know, the Mormons are now almost mainstream America, almost lost in the welter of ordinary fundamentalism; they are pleasant, agreeable, and orderly, they officially ditched their less palatable doctrines a long time ago. And… they are spawning numerous ultra-fundamentalist offspring, many of whom are polygamists, all of whom regard the general state of affairs in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (let alone the United States) as rank evil, and most of whom are prepared to die for their faith if not kill for it. Instructed by their faith to listen to God, many of them have, and God seems to tell them all different things.
What EXACTLY is the Department of Homeland Security doing about homegrown terrorism? Is there anyone monitoring the likes of Timothy McVeigh? It’s so easy to blame everything on the outside. On the others. I wonder how history will judge this time: will we be seen to have been as blind as all this?
19 April 04
Clouds In April
It’s been an overcast day today with a bit of precipitation: not much however (0.02” today). The weather forecast indicates that it’s going to turn partly cloudy and then sunny later in the week, and we wonder if 90-degree days are soon to come.
Favorite critters these days on the way to work: Swainson’s hawks, perched or calling overhead. The rough-winged swallows that build nests in the circular openings under the freeway, and go foraging with low “peent” calls over the nearby field. The donkey in the glade next to the Arboretum. And the western kingbirds with their lemon-yellowy bellies perched up on fenceposts and wires.
18 April 04
Bulls and Briars
It’s been a rainy Sunday, which at this time of year might mean the last rain we’ll see till November. Numenius got soaked while out on a levee walk. I, meanwhile, was in Sacramento learning how to do acrylic transfers. I’m not sure what I’d ever use this technique for but doesn’t hurt to learn it.
Armed with this new knowledge and Numenius with a pair of dry trousers we headed out to hear a concert by the American Recorder Orchestra of the West. An eclectic collection of Medieval and early Renaissance pieces, it seemed perfect for the drizzle. My favorite piece was “Byrd one brere” (Bird in the Briar), written by an anonymous 13th century English monk who was obviously bored with the papal bull he was reading—he turned it over and wrote this instead.
Birds in the briars: I have still not seen a blue grosbeak or an ash-throated flycatcher here this season, but they’re the last in. Should be soon.
17 April 04
UC Davis Dog Day
Actually it was the 90th edition of Picnic Day today at UC Davis, but don’t tell Hooper that. My sister Judy, her boyfriend Brian, and Hooper their dog all came up for this event, reputedly the largest student-run event in the country, and from Hooper’s perspective, the largest gathering of canines he’s been with.
After watching the parade, the highlight of it being the passage of the visiting Budweiser Clydesdales — the most massive horses I recall seeing, and followed by three big eighteen-wheeler trucks to hold two Clydesdales each — we wandered west towards the dog events. Halfway there, a sheep ran across a parking lot and crossed the street, with four folks in pursuit — an escapee from the sheepdog trials down the way. Brian and Hooper decided to help, so they crossed the street and joined in the chase. The sheep was corralled after a bit, but not before it knocked down a woman in its way. Hooper followed his introduction to sheep-herding with observational studies of the experts, the border collies doing the trials.
We watched a bit of baseball — the UCD Aggies were playing the Cal State San Bernardino Coyotes — and did some sketching at the game, discovering that baseball is a great sport for practicing sketching since the players hold great poses repeatedly. We then saw some of the frisbee dogs chase and leap, and went to the field where the various dog adoption groups were set up. Pica was quite tempted by a soft and cuddly black lab puppy. Alas, no dogs allowed where we live.
And Hooper left with some new career possibilities. He still needs a bit of practice before he masters the border collie stoop-and-glare technique, but then fame is his.
16 April 04
Dabbling in Illustrator
I’ve never really taken the time to learn Adobe Illustrator properly. It’s a very powerful piece of software but I’ve always managed to get things done other ways.
Yesterday, however, I was asked to do a schematic diagram of an orca with markings showing where to measure in case one washed up on the beach. Doing this in Illustrator was surprisingly easy and very satisfying. I’ve attempted a rose in the same way this evening; I’m sure you have to do this for a while to realize what your “style” is but I’m certainly up for playing a bit more!