Winter Walk

We wandered along the Los Gatos Creek trail this afternoon, under gray skies and past feral cats who were chowing down on the food that some well-meaning but misdirected soul had placed trailside within spitting distance of the sign warning people against this particular activity.

One of the cats looked like Dexter.

The Cats

Willow and I decided to go to downtown Los Gatos today (okay, I decided and Willow reluctantly agreed) to do some aimless wandering. After finally finding parking, we meandered down to the Forbes Mill Museum (Los Gatos used to be called Forbestown, way back when), where we found that, despite the posted hours which claimed otherwise, it was closed.

Then, we ventured down a short stretch of the creek trail (really just passing under the road we'd just been on), so
Willow could complain that her shoes were getting muddy. She's practicing for when she becomes a teenager in shortly over a month.

Our next stop was the pizza place where her brothers work. Neither of them were there, but the cashier recognized me from camp because she'd volunteered there six years ago. She wrote "Crow" (my camp name) on the order slip. We wolfed down some pizza and headed up the street to Powell's Sweet Shop, only to find it closed for remodeling. Damn.

Our next stop was a coffee shop. The cashier recognized me from camp because she'd volunteered there four years ago. She wrote "Crow" on the order slip. Willow decided that she didn't want anything, not even the yummy looking vegan chocolate cupcakes. I think she is an alien.

Uncharted Territory

After the campers had gone home and the Friday meeting was filed in the dustbin of history, I went on a brief adventure with Otter, Jellyfish, and Kestrel. Otter had this idea that if we followed the remnants of an old logging road westward, we'd meet up with Todd Creek downstream from where we always take the campers. We quickly discovered that the logging road (if that's what it was) eventually eroded away to nothing, so we slid downhill through spongy logs and sodden duff to find the creek. It was beautiful, and other than the occasional piece of human generated detritus, pristine.

I ended up dropping one of my cameras in the water. Right now, it's in a bag of rice to draw out the moisture. Hopefully, it will survive the brief submersion it suffered due to my lack of diligence.

Back at camp, a work crew was installing a new gate across our front entrance. In life, the only constant is change.

Fungi Fun

I took the kids on a six and a half mile hike today. At least that's what my Fitbit tells me. The expected newts were not out on the trails. Maybe it was too cold for them. Toward the middle of the hike, the temperature seemed to drop (maybe because we'd stopped hiking uphill for awhile), and toward the end, it started raining. By the time I left work, it was pelting the ground pretty hard.

There is a lot of Witch's Butter out at the moment. It's edible, but everybody I know who has tried it says it's completely tasteless. It's quite pretty though. Poking around on Wikipedia, I notice that Witch's Butter is sometimes confused with a fungus called Golden Ear. That's the thing about fungi. There is often confusion, so picking and eating them can (and sometimes does) lead to death. I don't know if Golden Ear is edible or not. The fungi in the picture below might actually be Golden Ear. Golden Ear parasitises a pathogenic plant fungus called Stereum hirsutum. I'm not sure if the other fungus in the picture is S. hirsutum or not. More research is needed. I really don't know a whole lot about fungi.

Todd Creek

It has been a few months since I last hiked up Todd Creek, and as expected, it now boasts enough water to actually resemble a creek. The recent storms are to be thanked.

Between the afternoon hike and the night hike, I stopped by a coffee shop on the way to get Willow. As I approached the door, an older gentleman sitting at one of the outside tables was looking at me like I'd just made his day. As I got closer, he said, "Do you know who you look like? You look just like Michael Bolton! Do you have the Youtube? Look him up!"

I'm doing that right now, and I look absolutely nothing like him. I think this is the video the man mentioned. Whatever. Still, it seemed to make him happy.

Where Ladybugs Gather

The ladybugs are clustering together for warmth in a couple of locations near camp. This is the meadow contingent. When I showed her the picture, Jeanine asked if I'd ever put my hands in them to feel the warmth at the center of the cluster. I've never tried that. When I'm with kids, I try to model respect by keeping the hassling of wildlife to a minimum, but I might have to try sticking my hand in anyway.

Either way, finding large clusters of wintering insects is always a treat.

Coyote

I took better photos today than the one below, but it's not every day that I see a coyote marching up the middle of the road. It's a smallish, rather starved looking specimen, and it was in the road investigating some roadkill. When I drove up, it languidly walked up the road ahead of me before finally disappearing into the Redwoods to my left.

I rarely get good photos of coyotes or bobcats, usually because they don't stick around long enough for me to aim my camera. In this case, I just clicked off some quick shots while inching along in my car, which isn't the wisest way to take pictures and unsurprisingly doesn't result in the best photos.

Diurnal

It appears that I'm working a daytime shift this week. The powers that be have decreed that all work-related e-mails be sent to our official work e-mail addresses, but for some reason, my password doesn't work, so I'm not privy to any information sent to that inbox. It's a good think that I went to the Primitive Skills workshop yesterday, during which my coworker, Kestrel, informed me that I was working as a field instructor this week. I'd better see about getting my password reset. Of course, I'm operating on the assumption that e-mail was sent to that account. For all I know, I was supposed to get the information by osmosis.

Sometime yesterday, the door to the chicken coop blew closed, so when I went out to shut it for the night, I found that it was already shut and the chickens weren't inside. After a little sleuthing, I discovered them all crammed into the old coop, which is big enough to fit 2 or 3 chickens, not 6. It was like a chicken clown car when they came out, although I had to reach in and grab about half of them because chickens aren't good at navigating after dark.

Today's photo is another view of the local "creek", taken from a different overpass. The buildings on the left are part of a new local housing development. The developers are really cramming them in these days. There is space for shops on the ground floor at the front, but I'm sure that the undoubtedly high rent will prevent anything interesting from appearing there.

At least last week's rain left a few puddles.

Primitive Skills

Today, I went to a Primitive Skills Workshop held at the Bowhunters Unlimited archery range in Cupertino. One of our regular summer volunteers, Falcon, was on hand to teach arrow and bow making, and the workshop also included lessons on flintknapping, fun with atlatls and bows, fire making, and a presentation on general survival skills. A couple of my other coworkers showed up too, but not, surprisingly, the coworker who informed me of the event.

I continue to be amazed at Falcon's general woodworking knowledge. When I got there, he was carving a bowl, and hours later, when I left, he was in the middle of an arrow making demonstration.

In between, I wandered from station to station, taking several turns hucking atlatl darts at targets. Here's my coworker, Kestrel, doing the same:

The guy running the flintknapping station patiently showed his audience how to properly work with obsidian, chert, and glass (and maybe others). At one point, he pulled out a beaver jawbone with a gold tooth, and told a tall tale about how it got that way. I'm thinking of asking him to come up and share his knowledge with the Trailblazers campers this summer. That would be fun. He's associated with this website, which I will explore in greater depth later.

I also met a guy named Douglas, who is an organizer for a group called Middle Earth Rangers of the Bay Area. Given my recent obsessive plow through S.M. Stirling's Emberverse series, which featured a similar group of Tolkien-obsessed young people, I'm giving some thought to checking out what they do.

Mornings

As I was coming home from work this morning, the atmosphere and clouds conspired with the sun to beautify my commute. It's a nice way to end the week. Seemingly oblivious, other drivers inched their way forward. I always enjoy seeing the long lines of people caught in traffic on their way to work, because I'm not one of them. I'm on my way home to go to bed while they're still rubbing the sleep out of their eyes as they gear themselves up for a work day.

Even though I've probably taken hundreds of pictures of colorful skyscapes, I somehow can't resist.

Early Morning Sky

This is what the sky looked like this morning, shortly before I woke up the 130 sleeping campers with some well-timed but poorly executed trombone blasts.

It has been a relatively uneventful week. The rain has stopped for now, leaving water droplets trembling on bare branches and puddles waiting for the unwary.

Fruit

The rain is still falling. Somebody left a bowl of fruit out overnight. If I'd noticed it earlier, I would have brought it in. This is what the bowl looked like this morning. Anybody want to bob for apples?

The Second of the Storms

On my first shift back at work after the holidays, it rained all night. It was a cold, steady rain with occasional gusts of wind rattling the vents and doors. We have around 130 kids at camp this week, all from the same school. For the most part, they slept through the deluge. I killed the time through the small hours by reading and listening to music.

I took my Canon to work and snapped a few photos of glistening cement. Raindrops on the lens left some interesting visual artifacts.

I still have a persistent cough which is accompanied by the usual runny nose and slight headache, but this too shall pass.

Outside, as I type, crows sit on the power lines, probably working out how to power their handheld devices. Crows don't miss a trick.

Evening Light

A little rain has fallen, with more on the horizon. Jeanine and I went for an early evening walk today, watching some promising clouds rolling across the sky. Despite the fact that it wasn't even 5:00 yet, the streetlights were blinking on.

At home, Brian meowed up in the rafters until Eva got tired of listening to him and got him down.

Water, Water Nowhere

I walked with Willow down the street to the creek, although I guess "creek" isn't really the right word. "Drainage ditch" is a better description. Some life manages to exist in the cracks and crevices, but it's still a concrete channel created to control water flow. Right now, there is no water. Perhaps the three storms looming in the forecast will change that over the course of week. One can hope.

On the way there and back, we passed a few abandoned Christmas trees, placed haphazardly in the gutter. Tomorrow, the kids are back in school, and I go back to work. Jeanine gets to take it easy for awhile, since January is a slow month in the birthday party world.

Winter

I've decided that the pictures that I post here this month must somehow tie with the season. I might have to get creative to take 31 Winter-themed photos, but the one below would work even if it didn't have the word "Winter" on it. Winter is, after all, the season of death and dormancy.

After getting chicken feed today, Jeanine and I wandered through one of the local cemeteries under gray skies. Rain is in the forecast.

2016

I spent the morning and afternoon hanging out at camp, supervising the meditation group as they packed up and checked out. Sometime in the afternoon, the temperature dropped and the clouds moved in.

As I left, I noticed that despite the signs, somebody had parked along our driveway inside the gate . As I'm supposed to do, I closed the gate behind me as I left. It's not locked, but I'm sure it will give the owner of the SUV a bad moment. People should read the damned signs.

Oh, Happy New Year.

This month, I'm going to continue posting a daily photo, although now it has to be taken somewhere besides home. This one was taken inside our nature lab at camp. It's a cow.

Music

I mentioned that I was going to take a "moderation in all things" approach to life this coming year. One of the reasons for this decision is the fact that the amount of money I spend on music isn't sustainable. I keep very good track of how much money I spend online, but I rarely add it up because I really don't want to know what the totals are. I just added up the amount spent on items I'm still waiting for (meaning they were either preorders or things I've recently ordered), and the total money involved in just these is $750.00. I'm a little afraid to add up the rest.

It's not just the money spent either, although that's a big part of it. It's also the fact that I don't really have time to listen to all of this music properly. Sure, I listen to everything I buy, and I enjoy it all to one degree or another, but sometimes months or years will pass before I re-listen to some of them. Gone are the days where something lives on my turntable (or CD player, etc.) for weeks while I listen to it again and again. I want to bring those days back. This means I have to get a lot more selective about what I buy this coming year.

I'm getting to the age where there is most likely less time in my future than there was in my past. Now that's a thought to give one pause... It's time to focus more on what I have, and less on what I want. I do enjoy supporting all of the musicians who are making great music, but damn, there sure are a lot of them.

Miles

One of my accomplishments this year was finally completing the "Walk to Mordor" challenge of walking 1,779 miles like the Hobbits supposedly did. That was months ago, of course, and I started it years ago.

This year alone, I walked 812 miles. Those are the miles I logged, anyway. I probably walked more. A while back, Jeanine got me a Fitbit that worked for awhile, and then ceased functioning. For Christmas, she got me another, better one, so I'm back in business. It really does inspire movement of all kinds. I haven't set any specific exercise goals for 2016, but I will.

My basic all-encompassing goal for 2016 is "moderation in all things". There will be multiple subsections.

Arbitrary Endings, Arbitrary Beginnings...

Weirdly, I sometimes feel like I'm playing catch-up with books and music. I buy so many that sometimes I'm surrounded by piles of one or the other that I haven't had time to enjoy. One of my goals for the forthcoming year is to consume at a more sedate pace, and produce more (when have I heard that before?, you ask). There are more musical notes and written words out there than I'll ever be able to process. Maybe I need to be more selective. I want to write more, and maybe even record some music. I've done a lot of the former already, but precious little of the latter.

Here, on the last day of 2015, is a picture of Willow, recently arisen from bed and expressing a desire not to be photographed. She is surrounded by the comforting clutter of our home environment.