Bug's Eyes

This does my heart good!

2011-10-17T22:53:00.001-07:00

Need to laugh!

2011-09-26T13:27:00.001-07:00

So, I watched a few videos.... I hope they make you laugh, too.

What I see...

2011-09-25T10:19:00.000-07:00

I never thought anything about it. My early life with my grandparents, who were artists, and my mother who painted beautiful water colors, I believed everyone thought like I did. That was how I saw the world. Ideas and thoughts were always in pictures. I saw the image in my head, and I understood how to build, paint, draw and to a limited degree, talk about it. My vocabulary increased by listening to my grandmother, but words were in chunks of images wrapped up in place and time. Now, after reading about Autism and about how many who have this condition, think in pictures, could that have been a component of my life? Perhaps. Why not! I didn't read very well (that would be an overstatement) when I graduated from High School. But I read my first book after I had taught myself how to play my grandparents' piano - I visualized the staff as up and down in space, the keys as numbers (not letters A - G) and memorized music by its "shape." Music and reading were connected, somehow. What has this to do with what I am about to talk about? Well, I am welcoming you to my brain.... for just a moment. I am disturbed by the current events....

So, as the crappy world around us goes further into the stinking abyss, and Republican and their Tea Party lapdogs stand up to titillate their constituency (their corporate funding machines) to elect them to high lucrative positions. I have to say, I am not impressed, either, by the Democrats. But, it has been the rest of the world who has mentioned the monstrosities of our politics and policies, our corporate effluent machines, and the laws that only incarcerate

those without funds....

I imagine... what if one of the Repugs became our president... ? This image was made from a mock image of the Korean Leader

but I think they have some things in common.

The Republican talking points to eliminate "entitlement" programs that workers invested in throughout their working lives but with the same taxes on those working people, that money would go to Corporations (executives) ... is a horror....

They want to eliminate Medicare when Medical Insurance companies run our medical system into the ground. This would be devastating!

They speak of letting people die from easily cured diseases and mock those who serve in the horrible wars our system creates.

This is a monstrous travesty! I wish I had the words to really say what I feel! ... and our country is building drones to ... what? fight wars where???

Here, I say!

But who would lead the wars into our urban communities? Who would drop the bombs on our children coming home from school?

Not this guy....

I don't think any of the Republican, Tea Party people (with the helping hand of the Democrats) would LEAD the charge but they sure do sound familiar.... I see someone with lots of money... maybe a group of people with lots of money...

But this is how I see the contenders for the top position of our country, which perhaps is only a symbol of power. The contenders have to act and speak their parts.

And speaking of bees....

2011-09-19T17:22:00.000-07:00

In May last year and this year, I had to remove the bees in my mother's house.... Two hives were over 20 years old. One was in the glass house (which my grandfather built for my grandmother to start cuttings but then decided it would be a great place for a work shop filled with slicing, cutting, drilling giant metal machines). The bees in the glass house needed to be removed first. The other huge hive was in the garage and that was the last one to be removed. Several happy beekeepers went home with bees, comb and honey. Another smaller one developed in some furniture from the main house. The man in the bee suit said that he had found a new queen and the old one had probably flown away in a swarm. He was correct. About a few months before the entire garden was filled with mad flying bees. Oh. I am so tired.

The people who removed the bees were the Backwards Beekeepers. The people who video taped, and commented behind the glass doors were new-bees (haha...) learning how to extract a hive carefully and take care of the animals. They got to take home the hive and try to keep them going. Taking home a twenty year hive is pretty unusual these days.

Then there were the bees in the furniture that were set out to clean up inside the house. The beeping you hear is the alarm system that needed fixing.

Then of course, there were the bees that lived in the garage for more then 20 years. The roof caved in afterwards. You can see the roof on other side had already discovered gravity.

Bombus-A-Thon

2011-06-26T15:17:00.000-07:00

Whittier Narrows will be holding an event to find the Bumble Bee in the Natural Area, find the closet trail marker or GPS the place where the Bumble Bee was sighted, and then to take a picture of it, if possible. After the nice walk and exploration, take the information back to the Nature Center where, at the end of the event all data will be sent to the Xerces Society.

Some background...

Discovery Center Board gets Signatures Against Building in Natural area

2011-03-28T18:04:00.000-07:00

Buffy Sainte-Marie

2010-11-16T13:33:00.000-08:00

My sentiments exactly!

FOUND STUFF!

2010-09-04T19:58:00.000-07:00

Or more like... oops! Rummaging through all of my mother's grandmother's and grandfather's stuff.... which means that I am looking at their great-great-great stuff. What is remarkable is that I had an opportunity to ask questions of three generations who was THAT? and why... but rarely did that conversation materialize. There are daguerreotypes of Civil War members on both sides. Or at least I am guessing.... Who were they?

THEN, I found a newspaper clipping of someone my grandmother used to talk about, Maytor McKinley. They were good friends. My grandmother made friends from on high to the little person on the corner with shards for shoes. If you left my grandmother somewhere to do something you would find her in a conversation most likely, with the least of us having a wonderful time.

Maytor H. McKinley was very rich. He owned a huge mortuary. The painting that I found that I thought was Pat Brown was McKinley. I did find Pat Brown's photos, though not of my grandfather's oil portrait of him. Sinatra supported Pat Brown and my grandfather was Sinatra's personal photographer for almost 10 years, so, of course there would be shots of Pat Brown.

Paul Conrad, 1970

But I found what was on the back of the clipping interesting, too. It is of a Conrad political cartoon of Reagan shouting with the ' hippies' "SHUT IT DOWN! SHUT IT DOWN! SHUT IT DOWN!" How amazing. So the hipsters wanted the gov to shut down because of all of the corruption and Reagan wanted it shut down so that the rich could do what ever they wanted.... Isn't it amazing how two groups so different can have the same goal for different reasons? Which is more productive?

Flying to Oklahoma

2010-08-28T11:49:00.001-07:00

It's really not the flying that's bad - it's the business of flying, or the flying business, that messes with the enjoyment and the convenience and even the safety of flying.

So, I bought my ticket and then bought a two way ride on the airport shuttle via the internet. The shuttle was to come about 2 hours before take off. And as the time when the shuttle should have come, passed, I decided to call the company to find out where they were. The lady answered and asked my name and then, rattled off my address confirming I had paid for my trip to the airport.

I asked when the shuttle would arrive, she said that it was about a mile from my door and then walked away for 15 minutes. Then, I hung up and the called again but the man that answered, said I did not have a confirmed pick up... I said I did and to please find my name. He did, and said the driver said I was a no show and drove away. There went 27 dollars. After some time with a rush of high blood pressure, I found that the confirmation had my address wrong - instead of 71 they had a 17.... He said to get a taxi .... so, I did. That was an extra 60 dollars to get to the nearby airport. When I got there, the flight was delayed by two hours because of weather. This was a connecter route. Oklahoma has very few direct flights. SO I sat there.

Finally, the plane came in, and then, some folks got off and they started to load the cargo bay with luggage. They called us up and we dutifully stood in line while they called over the PA for folks to volunteer to not get on the flight. A few folks did, but if I did, I would miss my connector to Oklahoma and would be stranded in Denver.... where all the weather was.

When I finally got on board someone behind me said they needed folks to get off because ... wait for it... THE PLANE WAS TOO HEAVY!!! The decision... fuel vs passengers... usually is done while making the plane and then before booking the plane.... This is what airlines must do all of the time, but this four seat across bird was maybe half full. What in hell was wrong? Then as we pulled away from the building, the stewardess said that the air conditioner was broken but not to worry.... "at 2500 feet it's really cool up there!" WHAT!?? Just as we pointed our noses toward the runway under the intense heat of 100+ outside, the pilot said the tower said all of Denver was closed and we would not be allowed up for at least another 1/2 to and hour. I got my things, and walked up to the cockpit and said, "I need to get off." When I looked behind me a number of other passengers were doing the same thing.

The United Airlines gal at the counter gave me a ticket for a one way shot to OK if I could get to LAX from where I was, BUR. I walked to the Economy Rent a car and that would have cost 50 bucks. So, I crossed the street to the shuttle and they got me someone who would take me to LAX for.... 26 dollars.

I got to LAX and on the plane to Oklahoma, but the seats were TINY! and TWISTED! You could not site straight because the seat by the window was leaning in toward the cabin because it was not attached horizontally. It hurt my back just to sit.

While I was writhing, I saw the weather pass by. Lots of lightening.

I prefer the train. It's much more civilized.

Ahhhhh! The plastic Bag Journey!

2010-08-17T12:30:00.000-07:00

Back at Petropavlovsk from Uzon

2010-08-11T07:28:00.000-07:00

Russ is back at the town of Petropavlosk downloading pictures of his trip and sampling. He has not been able to shower for two days because the hot water is broken. So, he says, he has the table at the coffee shop all to himself.

Go to his photo stream and blog to read and see where he went and what he did...

http://vort.org

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rneches/

Water comes and goes in a wetland in California

2010-08-06T19:29:00.001-07:00

Putting out traps for an insect study at Mugu can be a challenge if the area is inundated with the tides. One site this year I will only set sticky traps while the other sites I set drop traps (85% water, 14 +% ethanol, a couple of squeezes of Dawn dish soap). Diptera is the group that is found in most abundance. Hemitera in some places is second, but Hymenoptera is usually the second most abundant insect Family with Chalcids, Halictidae sometimes Apidae making the second group very challenging to identify. I have been looking at the insects of Mugu since 2001 and somehow I collect something that stumps and surprises me - which is wonderful!

Every time I walk out in the marsh I feel great peace. The birds, like this little Plover which was running around the clumps of algae in the collecting pools, mostly try to ignore me if I am not too close. As the algae dies and dries it turns white. All of the little horn snails, Cerithidea, and the crabs make clicking noises in the mud. The soft breezes and the distant waves are sweet.

As the water evaporates in low tide, the smallest particles at the top of the mud bank dry faster then the heavier sediment, and start shrink and crack. The water in the mud below is exposed to the air and starts to dry too puling away and cracking along the same lines. There are fungal rings that grow as the water recedes - though not in this picture - like the flower rings in vernal or ephemeral pools.

When I walk in these area I sink sometimes up to my knees. But the little birds, like the plover above, leave tracks on top. But if you look at the bottom picture, a stilt left its footprints and its middle long toe continued to crack beyond the impression. For just a second, when I saw the tracks, 'reptile' jumped to my mind... until I looked closer.... Mugu does not have reptiles THAT big....

Back at Mugu!

2010-08-01T21:30:00.001-07:00

Cicindela gabbi! So, pretty! It has taken up residence in the Central Basin of the Estuary of Mugu. There were many larvae burrows so next year the place will be jumpin'... that is unless the plovers feast on them!

There is something magical about the wetland. The birds, so many of them, call to each other and at each other. Some places I get yelled at because I am too close to nests or feeding grounds. As the sun sets the seed pods glow with the back light.

Fungus in concert with algae produce incredible colors. The blacks are really black and the green puts your eyes in a twitch!

It's almost like going to the moon - no, Mars.

Russ in Vladivostok on his way to the Volcanoes in Kamchatka!

2010-07-30T09:46:00.000-07:00

This is the view from his room in Vladivostok...

You can follow his exploits on his blog and twitter....

http://vort.org/

http://twitter.com/ryneches

Internet and phone service is poor in Russia, and what is there is very expensive.

Russell in Seoul skipping across River!

2010-07-30T09:42:00.000-07:00

You can get a feeling for the size and scope of the water body. Russ was impressed with Seoul. He said it was like China but cleaner and kept up. He said he would definitely return to explore more.

Here is the mid town River.

Who was my grandfather?

2010-07-19T21:15:00.000-07:00

Over on the right side of my blog is a link to my grandfather's work presented by a Hollywood television and movie archive. Since my mom's death, I have been going over mountains of photos and letters and notes and drawings from my family. My immediate family was not very big - I was an only child and so were my mother and grandmother. My grandfather had two brothers and only the oldest had children (2) that lived to have children.

I had on an earlier occasion, posted an image and a post of my grandfather's studio - which was 'stolen' by an unscrupulous partner who changed and altered documents putting himself as owner and removing my grandfather. We nearly lost everything but somehow kept our house and car. My parents and I lived with my grandparents and who knows, under the stress of it all may have contributed to my parents divorce. We were hungry, and if not for a wonderful Greek man, Nick, who had a hamburger stand around the corner from my grandfather's studio, and who fed us just about everyday, we would have really suffered. At this point in time, my mom was 22 - 23 my father was 24 - 25 my grandfather was 41 - 42 and my grandmother was 42 - 43..... and I was 2 - 3.

My father helped my grandfather rebuild the building on Argyle. That's he with the jack hammer.

My grandfather is hoisting the block of cement into trailer.

And in the end, my grandfather taught my father how to really work with his hands and that was my father's trade from then on - construction. He was a black jack dealer in Vegas for a number of years. It was easy to do if you had a photographic memory. However, before he died, we was a forman for Los Angeles Airport's retro-fit in the 1980's.

But here is my grandfather who was younger then my father in the last image (Ted was a father at 19), trying to make a living as an artist. He had quite a sense of humor. And, I think I have spotted a theme in much of his work ....

The overriding passion of my grandfather was his art - photography and painting. Though, he created more photographs then paintings, he had the opportunity to paint portraits of some very famous people... idealizing them. His photographs were carefully lit and retouched creating an image of perfection or just plain better then life. Here is California's 31 Attorney General, Jerry Brown's father, Edmund G. (Pat) Brown. This portrait was started before he had become Governor. (Edit: this is not Pat Brown, but rather....)

My grandfather bought the best example of a 'fixer-upper.' His studio was truly a disaster. My grandfather and my father re-built the building from below the ground and up. My mom used to take me to the studio and one memory exists. One tantrum my mom took me into the bathroom ("silence on the set") and I cried so loud my mother was beside herself stuffing what ever food in my mouth. I don't recall crying. I just remember being very scared of the flushing toilets in that building.

So this is the before shot (above) and below is the after.

Ted did television programs and radio and stills. The photo on the bottom was probably shot of Ted when he was at CBS just as television was beginning.

This final shot for this story was of Ted testing taking pictures of himself on a trampoline before asking Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. to jump up and down. Crazy! Perhaps I will publish the 'Boys' jumping in Sergeants 3.

As I said there was a theme to his life.

Must find happy, or at least, interesting things

2010-07-13T23:27:00.000-07:00

So, I am writing a grant to do a study. I am putting together my family's lives in museum grade folders and boxes... sorting through their photographs and personal letters. I am finishing my paintings left for too long on the easels. I am taking care of two more cats (my mother's) and another set of houses (thank you Eddie, for all your help). And I miss my mother and her parents terribly.

I sort of feel like the fly (Drosophila sp.) in the video. - I have been swallowed up by a ton of stuff. I mean, I was just minding my own business when ...... WUMPH! I am gone! This is the larvae of a Cicindela trifasciata sigmoidea.

Holly is gone

2010-05-27T07:15:00.001-07:00

They called me yesterday saying that she was breathing heavily and that she had pneumonia. This was her fourth time in one and three-quarters months that she had developed this condition - usually from aspiration. At the nursing home, her first day last Saturday, she started pulling at her oxygen tube, "... don't care don't care..." I could not see myself doing anything like that to her. I put it back on and she acquiesced. She had pulled her feeding tube out at least four times in the hospital. The first week of her hospitalization, she looked at her arm with the two vein 'pic' lines (tubes going up the inside of her arm and into her deep large vein) she said, to me, "take these off, help me up and take me out of here." Then, the second week she started going downhill. She had been in the hospital for so many weeks.

This last Tuesday afternoon, early, before I set out to go to the nursing home, the doctor called to tell me that he was shocked to see her in such a condition. So thin. So weak. "Do you understand her condition?" he asked me. I could rattle off what she was like before April 4, when she had this devastating stroke. And I could tell him all of the moments and doctor decisions that lead her to atrophied muscles lying in bed until that day... "No. Do you understand how she is. Do you understand palliative care?" "I know of hospice type care," I said. "No. Palliative care is a subset of Hospice care. In your mother's condition we are talking about quality of life. ... We can take the tubes out and give her some pain medication." "I would like for her to not have pain and to not have fear" I said, "but I have trouble taking out her tube feeding. She may look like she is not there but, some times she is..."

I was troubled by the doctor's jump to tell me this without meeting me. This was a Kaiser facility. I could not see myself giving the orders to essentially kill my mother. I knew she hated the tubes and being in these beds, having people wash her, and poking needles in her. But she was my mother.

SO, yesterday they called me and I came down to look at her breathing hard. She was heaving hard, trying to breath. Even with the tank oxygen going in her lungs she was gurgling and her eyes were slits staring no where in particular. I called the doctor and said "ok" And then he said, "You made the humane decision..." I had to go outside and look at the mountains, the sky, some tree somewhere. But the nursing facility was a horrid place - depressing. Cinder block and beige. The parking lot faced a Ukrainian Church and the rest of the community were of parked cars and dumpy little houses and lots of trash in the gutter - this was Hollywood.

I went back in and just held her hand and looked into her eyes and asked, "Can you see me?" The doctor was late and I listened and watched her. "I love you, Little Girl." Many times in my life my mother seemed like my little sister. I stayed there and holding her hand, smoothing her hair, watching her chest heave until she got too tired to breath. She had a pain in her chest, she winced, and then lost the color in her face. The nurse came in and I said, "She is gone."

I was thankful I did not make her decision for her.

Little fragile people

2010-04-21T11:09:00.001-07:00

My little mom had a stroke on Easter Sunday. She had been weak and not taking good care of herself for a few years. In November, 2009, when I was preparing to go to Cuba, she finally agreed to have someone come and cook for her and take care of her for a few hours and days a week. That was a hard bargain to make with her!

In 2006 - the last time I had to put her in the hospital, after her hospital stay, she did not want to live closer to me. She did not want help. She wanted to be alone. And she did not want to do much of anything except to watch TV. In 2006, I called her (I call her everyday) and when she spoke, she slurred her words. I asked her if she had been drinking enough water and she said, no. I thought she sounded so bad was because dehydration is very serious for older people in hot summer days... But, maybe, she had a stroke then. She never really recovered her strength to walk well.

This time, April 4, she called me in the morning to say she thought she was having a stroke. I drove to her house and called the paramedics to meet me at her house. They carried her down the 43 steps so that I could take her to the hospital... My mom's car has been sitting with dust and leaves since 2006 - I turn it over now and then - even drive it a bit. I suggested that she not drive in 2006 because her reflexes were so slow... I thought maybe I could take my mom to an open parking lot somewhere, like parents do to teach their kids to drive... to see if she could drive it... but that never happened. "Nice car" said one of the paramedics. "It only has 9k miles" my mom said, "but my daughter won't let me drive it!" They looked at me and smiled.

When we got to hospital she could still move her arm and leg and could talk. But, the next morning, she had a full blown stroke and lost the function of her right side. She now has a hard time speaking. And she hates the feeding tube (she aspirated her food and developed pneumonia the first week) and has pulled it out several times.

Last week she has asked me to take her home... "Let's get out of here!" "I am going to get up!" "Take these (the tubes and sensors on and in her arm) OUT!" Then last Monday she looked at her right arm that was swollen from edema "Oh my!...." I think something dawned on her that something was wrong. I noticed that she used her left arm exclusively but never looked at her right arm. Then, yesterday the nurse asked her if she could lift or move her right arm. "YES!" The arm did not move. She did not realize it did not move. Then the nurse pinched her arm and she said "OUCH!" That is a good sign that she might get function back. Her right leg did move when the nurse asked her to move it. that, too, is a good sign.

My mom has spent the time from 2006 to now basically watching TV. When I visit her, her eyes do no meet mine when we... no, when I talk. TV captures her time.

Yesterday, the TV was on to a regular program rather then the pretty nature photos offered by the hospital. The nurse asked her to look at her when she spoke to her.... "What year is it?" "2010" "Good!" "What month is it?" "..uh..." eyes back to the TV "...uh.." The nurse said, "Look at me. It is April." "Where are you?" "...uh...' eyes wandered toward the TV.... "I don't know" "You are in the hospital. Do you know why?" asked the nurse. "No!" She looked at me. "You had a stroke." said the nurse.

The pretty pictures allowed my mom to converse with the nursing staff and me. The programs took her attention away and she did not talk or look at people. Talking and connecting is important for her recovery.

Poor little people....

Herding Cats - That is what it is like pulling folks together

2010-04-02T12:19:00.000-07:00

.... Pullin' folks together to do something like cleaning a River....

This is one of my favorite spots....

Enjoy

What the San Gabriel Mountains Look like w/out Buildings

2010-03-22T15:09:00.000-07:00

This image was stitched and smoothed (sky only) from 6 photos taken on the top of the ridge of the Whittier Narrows Dam. The sky was breathtaking. Most of the buildings and the cities that fill the Valley from the Natural Area to the Foothills were obscured by the vegetation in the Natural Area and in the Flood Zone (Liquefaction Zone) of the Whittier Narrows.

This is where I was standing... on top of the dam which has been paved for bicycles....

See that Edison tower in the middle of the picture? .... I was to the right of it... The street is Rosemeade Boulevard (19).

This is what it looks like after a rain INSIDE of the dam..... (sure is a good thing there is a Dam there.... because... well, I will show you in a bit...)

There is a whole community RIGHT UNDERNEATH THE DAM!

If anything should compromise the Dam these people would be in danger.

Route 19 is where I was standing when I took the panorama shot. The Whittier Narrows Dam is what is between a lot of people and their homes and their families AND a lot of water.

Better, that the Flood Plain not be tampered with, don't ya think?

Whittier Narrows Trash Bolus - the Dam of the Forgotten River

2010-03-15T22:31:00.000-07:00

Ed Barajas is the 'birder' who has documented the Federally Endangered birds in the Whittier Narrows. He has been documenting when the birds come in and when they nest and when they leave, for 10 years. The Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation which is part of the Los Angeles County Public Works collects Ed's work for their records of the Endangered animals in their jurisdiction. It is also the County's job to clean up the trash.

This years rain brought more then the usual trash - it brought tons of plastic and balls. It has filled the area behind the Whittier Narrows Dam - as usual, but his year it has spilled over the dam and into San Gabriel River where people boat and fish.

The Whittier Narrows Dam next to the Whittier Narrows Nature Center is halfway down the San Gabriel River - between the mountains and the ocean.

Trash in the San Gabriel River

2010-03-10T21:12:00.001-08:00

Go here for Whittier Narrows Dam trash photos...

Visited Russ last week... They loves my shoes.

2010-02-24T16:44:00.001-08:00

We drove up to Davis in Russ's car. Going over the 5 Freeway in the Tahachapis Grapevine there was lots of fog.... no, water vapor coming up from the ground. The last few weeks of rain turns to mists and low clouds when the sun warms the soil. The brown hints are from the suspended dirt from the Valley below.

At Russ's apartment I met his cats. Very cute. They loved my shoes and found that my toes without socks had the same flavor. To each their own, I say.

They wanted to show how much fun it was to play in the new boxes and tubes Russ puts in the living room....

They do love Russ very much and they have such sweet temperaments. But, they do want to sleep in all of the places he wants to sit.

When I went home on the train I did some work and then fell asleep.... only to be awakened by something.... seemed like... it was someone saying how beautiful the scenery was...

After all the "oooooos" and "aahhhhhs" and the train rounded the corner... we had a wonderful view of the San Luis Obispo Men's Colony or, Federal Prison. And right next door was the sanitation treatment plant. We could view them both from above.

Don't get me wrong. The prison offers many things to help the men get back to normal after they finish their time. And, the treatment plant is very important. It was just such a contrast. However, about an hour or so before, we went past an area I did find depressing... Housing developments crushed together on plots of once fertile farmland. The homes were on sale for 150K but were first going for 350K over two years ago. There was a TargetCoscoHomeDespotChickenThing monster retail mess and parking lot about 10 miles away. No trains. No busses could be seen. Just lonesome highways connecting the islands of houses perched in an area without real services....

CSPAN.... ???? I can't believe my eyes!

2010-02-24T15:07:00.000-08:00

Watch........

Snow makes ALL the difference!

2010-02-11T08:58:00.000-08:00

After the hard rain storm two week ago, I drove down to Whittier Narrows to see how things were doing at the Dam. There was water up to the Dam and much was diverted. But, as I was inspecting things, I noticed what surrounded me to the north - mountains of snow.

I love snow. However, I love it somewhere I can look at a distance and where I do not have to wear snow shoes. And I know that that snow is melting into the aquifer for me, my neighbors, and mostly the wild outdoors.

So this is what it looked like. I pieced the images together and did not try to make it look like I shot it with my grandfather's Widelux

Sometimes, things take longer to finish

2010-01-30T13:18:00.000-08:00

Okokokokokok! YES! Some things just take longer then I expect them to take. But then again... I think they are better for the extra time. And, I started another painting - it's on the floor beneath the burned trees....

I can hear my grandfather tell me that I should not over work a painting... something he confessed was his 'issue'. He used to ask me whether I thought what I did was an illustration or a 'painting'? There is a difference.

An illustration does NOT hold the same exalted position as a painting. Illustrations contain mostly a singular purpose - to illustrate something that someone has said or written or, to sell something. A painting is more because it must capture more then a photograph ever can, and should have meaning beyond what you first see. And most importantly, a painting must be something that you would like to wake up to in the morning - every morning - and perhaps see something new each day. Can you imagine?

To paint is to do something - as far as my grandfather was concerned - special. And, that not only should it last, visually, but it should move people, emotionally. So, with that haunting my brain, I have not finished these to pieces.... BUT, I think I am close!

It is taking me FOREVER to capture what I see in the water of the estuaries of California. The diatom cover and mixture of algae and fungus - sounds like fun, HUH!? - I think it is getting there... I keep looking at it and seeing more that I should do... I want this piece to say something about all the estuaries I have visited here... sigh. And I have a few insects to add and some fish that tolerate brackish water, just under the surface. The salicornia needs some purple for the time of year, too.

The burned trees are coming along. They are scary in a way. The grasses below them are all non-natives and in the real world, are a problem of our forests that have roads - we bring the seeds of weeds where ever we go. To see this actual spot up in the San Gabriel Mountains of these burned trees is startling. It is a tough image to begin with let alone to make this work more the just an illustration.

The one artist my grandfather felt was capable of painting a painting in a medium other then the 'royal medium' of oil, was Adrew Wyeth. I agree with my grandfather on this point(we had our differences and discussions). Wyeth's most beautiful work was done in tempera. I think I could look at his paintings forever and see more every day.

Fructose = obesity + diabetes + fatty liver

2010-01-04T16:56:00.000-08:00

This is a 'must see' video on the biochemistry of fructose on the body. As Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology points out, fructose is a toxin and is metabolized just like ethanol (which is a toxin) but you don't get the buzz. What you end up with... after eating thousands of meals with high amounts of high fructose corn syrup .... is high blood pressure, insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease.... and weight gain.

Anna's acoustic set for new CD

2009-12-14T18:25:00.000-08:00

She does some interesting music - that girl of mine!

Strapped for water - you wonder why...?

2009-12-10T10:36:00.000-08:00

I have been looking at this issue for a few years. And like everything that is important to protect - we humans neglect because, well, I have yet to understand! I have been thinking that really it has something to do with the 'peacock' in all of us. All show and no 'go'!

The peacock or peafowl is from India. I have read and heard that some Indian tigers used to hunt these birds... not very sporting, I suppose, but maybe it was because they pissed the tigers off. Being all, 'I prettier then YOU!' and 'I don't have to hide from tigers cause I am -THIS BIG-!' or 'I don't have to have a beautiful voice because I look like- voooosh - THIS! NANNY NAH NAH!' ROAR! yummmm.... And like tigers and peacocks - nature get us back.

People liked the birds and revered them. Saw their gods in their feathers and riding on their backs. People did not like tigers. They saw their neighbors and children and farm animals mauled by them. The tiger is now, nearly gone but the peacocks have multiplied and made themselves nuisances in far away places such as in Los Angeles and Orange Counties. Now, if only there was a bigger creature out there that would fall in love with humans and their outrageous consumptive aptitudes and our ability to throw up our hands like the peacock and say, 'I didn't do it! It happened all by itself!' But... we don't. We try the peacock thing with each other and some folks fall for it. Most just keep eating.

So. Here we are. In a very serious drought situation. We really do know what to do but, we won't. Agencies like the CIty of Pasadena tell folks to only water their lawns once a week. I don't have a problem with this announcement - but, it is seen by the majority of people as only temporary - to morrow they will turn the streets into Slip-and-slides. Then other folks, who are the Water Problem Deniers say, that it's the water agencies fault and they are only lining their pockets and raising rates because we aren't buying enough water.

Here is a little video of our aquifer - where we store our water in the San Gabriel Valley. It is said this the aquifer under the San Gabriel River supplies only a million people... the water comes from rain and snow melt from the mountains behind it, MWD adds its water (Colorado, Owens, Sacramento Delta), and the rain the permeates the ground directly.

In 2004, we were in the last year of a six year, drought. I flew over the 'Durbin Pit' next to the 605 freeway for the video, Ya Don't Miss the Water (you can watch it by clicking the links on the right). Here is a clip showing the pit. Look at the size of this pit and realize there are several other monstrous pits in the area. The water you see in the pit is actually the top of the water table of the San Gabriel Valley Aquifer. Be aware of the depth by what you see at the sides of the pit.

IN 2005 we had a 100 year storm in the San Gabriel Mountains, which means that the mountains received more rain then on 'average years' and was near the 'record' for rain about 100 years ago. It's not really a very accurate method for measurement, but it is used by various agencies and insurance companies to mark, with a broad stroke, where normal rain fall is to 'more then normal' rain fall. Insurance companies use it to increase your flood insurance if you buy a house in areas deemed in the 50 to 100 year flood zone (delineated by marks left by older storms in soils, vegetation, rocks and/or described by records and finally, by looking the depth of the land to sea level (water flows down stream and pools in depressions).

I have been photographing the river and the mountains and looking for changes. Here is the San Gabriel Dam (north of Morris) following Route 38). TOo see differences check out my older posts.

This is what the San Gabriel Dam looked like November 26 of this year. First, looking north and uphill... Then, look at the next photo from that day and notice the ridges formed by erosion when the water was at higher levels... Can you see the grasses poking up in the center? You can see the bottom of the dam.

And now, here is a video of the Durbin Pit from a ridge looking over into the pit from the north east side...

What all of this says is that now, right now!! this time....we have REALLY created for ourselves a huge pile of doody for ourselves. One that we may not be able to fix or create work-arounds. Not watering our lawns but once a week is a really VERY pathetic reaction to this drought by the water agencies. What we need to do is re-evaluate at how all of us use our water everyday - including corporations that use the water and who decides to expose our aquifer to the air and thereby... increasing the loss of our drinking water by evaporation by the hundreds of acre-feet. (Why people are NOT screaming here is beyond me...) And, we have to re-evaluate how we build our cities here in the West (and other places now that the Locomotive, Climate Change is starting to pull out of the station). We can no longer think we can keep adding to our population without changing where we live and what we live in... no more - everyone gets a house, anymore.

And by the way... as the video ends... notice the size of the cars on the 605 freeway and see the pile of concrete that was used by the PIT DIGGERS to shore of the side of the pit. It will not be long before the 605 Freeway will be driving INTO the pit. The mud pit by then... maybe what? next year?

Inherently Evil about this lady's job

2009-12-07T08:13:00.000-08:00

Recently, I have been protecting my mother, who is now, not able to do the book keeping like paying bills or even to read and understand her bills. The Banks and the Telephone Companies are rapping at her door, trying to scam her of her money. Welcome to Amerika!

Here is one gal who stood up against her boss, B of A, and did the humane thing .... watch!

Sketches from Dayton, Ohio

2009-12-06T17:52:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, it is just not nice to take a picture... and also, it's wonderful to test your memory and draw what you saw a few days ago....

I flew back to Dayton, Ohio because a friend, mentor and my professor was retiring. Also, I wanted to say 'hello' to two other professors (one emeritus, now) who were also important to me as a human and a scientist.

Getting cheap tickets for flying is a chore.... not the buying but the using. Most of the time the flight is packed and I get the seat that doesn't go back... Horrible, because I can't fit in the seat. My legs rub the chair ahead of me and I usually need to get up and stretch out my body parts after a half an hour or so.

So, here we were, squashed, flying, and now it was time to offer us our dinner hotdogs.... ugh! This poor little stewardess, who at the ripe age of somewhere in her 60s, was having to look the part of the 'cutie' and push that damn cart. She newly had her hair done. The hair was bleached. The eyes were well outlined - perhaps a couple of times. The lips were smeared liberally with bright red goo. Poor little lady. The hair may have been an idea to make her look like she had lots of hair but, it really made her look ... "Bozo-esque". She never looked up at any of us. She just offered the penile formed mystery meat and then took the plastic boxes from our trays.... I hope she finds a day when she doesn't have to do this kind of work...

This is a different story... this is what has happened to Dayton, Ohio. Here is a post from a blog I read all the time.... The conversation began about Verizon attaching bill for unwanted products and 'services'. then someone asked about where does all the money from these big corporate scams.... and I said...

The easy part, really... "Where does the money go?"

Executives in BIG Co.s get many kinds of 'retirement funds'. Many in the millions. We are talking in the tens of funds way back in my day... who knows what they get NOW!!! IT's no longer the stock options any more... it's the 'special' investments' that go to the top few.

I just returned from Dayton - where the husk of NCR remains, to find a community of people either on one side or the other of the money fence. The other, I met trying out their brand new bus hub service - they are hungry. I find it interesting that the majority of long time residents, depending on what ethnicity you are - do not venture into the 'other' part of town. It goes both ways for a reason... I experienced this when I lived there. Anyone with pigmentation in their skin that drove down the Main street (the upper crusties spot) was summarily pulled over and told to go back to 'their' side of town. Now, we are talking about a town that at one time had a couple of million or more people. A town that invited George Carlin because of the 'in-grove' communities....

I don't know what happened, except that most of the big companies left for third world workers, and now after GM Truck division and NCR moving (top executives live in the more 'tony' New York... who don't want to accidently rub anything with the lower crowd). What is left is a Pepsi factory somewhere (I talked to a few folks on the bus about that)... and maybe... ??? I went to Cuba at the end of Nov. and they are hungry (lost 1/3 of their calories after the 'special period' when the USSR took a nose dive)... but, they were working and were obviously not as starved and wild for food as the Dayton lower class.

I did buy a family a month worth's of food in Cuba when I was asked. The mother and daughter dragged me into a tiny grocery store and they piled on the dried milk and soup. The little girl wanted a package of cookies.

We are looking at disasters here in the US>>> It's not just the Rust Belt anymore... I just don't understand those jolly bunch at the top who turn their back on so many.

Scrub jay that sings other songs...

2009-11-19T16:47:00.001-08:00

I have several Scrub Jays visiting, begging for peanuts and planting my yard with oak acorns and bits and pieces of their peanuts. Two are very tame and let me sit by them and give them goodies like vanilla yogurt, little bits of dry cat food, meal worms and some of the spiders I catch from under rocks. When I go hunting for something under things they wait patiently for me until I find something to give them.

One of the bireds has taken to sing to me a different song (other then the 'caw'!). I have not heard of a Scrub Jay singing any other song... So, I finally brought out my small camera, small enough so I won't scare him/her. In this video, he first stands on top of my new chicken coop (you can hear them chuck-chucking). Then I talk to him and 'coo' at him to try to encourage him to do his special song. Finally, he sits next to me and sings.... what a wonder!

Oklahoma Anna!

2009-11-19T15:53:00.000-08:00

It was fun but too short a visit. I got to paint with my daughter and go to some concerts with her.

Here are two little videos of her one painting away.... the other of her working on one of her band's song - 'Blood Money'.

Back from Cuba

2009-11-11T18:03:00.000-08:00

"Wow! Cuba?"

The Society of Wetland Scientists opened up an opportunity to go to Cuba. We would be able to visit the Humedales or Wetlands for a Symposium in Cienaga de Zapata and stay at the Bay of Pigs.

Lots of information to digest culturally about Cuba and the US. The wetlands were extraordinary. Here is a little 'mov' I put together of my photos and video. Enjoy!

OH so very hot, muggy and SMOKEY

2009-09-07T18:10:00.000-07:00

Here is the street next to my house and it is around 10 am. The smoke was blowing away from this area by this time of the day and the fires were several miles away and over a ridge of a tall mountain - Mount Wilson.

What I found interesting - this was taken last week - were the memories of how shadows looked like on the ground when I was a kid. During the really bad days of summer, where, at camp we hiked up to Griffith Park, there were never any 'real' shadows on the ground because the smog diffused the light to such a degree. Horrible!

It has been hard to sleep these last two weeks with the air so heavy from smoke and heat and humidity. I remember as a little kid (and up to high school) what it was like to look down the road when LA had the most horrible smog. It looked like the picture above and much worse. Notice the red tinge to the white cement and the odd look to the shadows from the tree just out of frame? That is from the cloud of floating ash that blanketed the San Gabriel Valley.

These pictures remind me of those bad old days, but in these pictures, these would be like the GOOD old days! When it was VERY BAD as a kid in Jr. High, we would go out on the 'play ground' and next door was the Church of Latter Day Saints - the Mormon church which abutted to its rear, Emerson Jr. High. The golden statue, the guy blowing his horn way on top, sometimes when the smog was REALLY BAD, only the pillar could be seen but not the statue above. It would be enshrouded in brown muck! And, after playing outside, our lungs would hurt to take a breath.

I remember the Red Car, because we took it around Hollywood to be with my grandfather and later, so he could look for work. Ted lost his dream to a partner that turned out to be a crook. Ted was so proud of his studio and he was just broken after it was taken from him.

After walking for hours all around Hollywood, we would go to Nick's hot dog stand near Capital Records on Vine Street. Nick would give us hot dogs and hamburgers for free or, we would buy one and he would throw in the rest... he knew we were hungry. Nick used to wave me toward the cash register, and whisper, "...hold out your had..." and he would give me a fist full of candy to tide me over. Nick was Greek - I remember how he talked and laughed... Funny how you remember things. He has been gone many decades but, he must have done a lot for other people on the down-and-out because, no matter who owns the building , the sign, Nick's Place, remains. Nick's hot dog stand was just south of the Capital records building. It's the red sigh.... if you can see it in the link above.

My grandfather knew Glen Wallichs. And after my grandfather built his studio on Yucca and Argyle, and then found Glen was building his Capital Records building he said with a laugh, "... you aren't gong to build so close to me are you?" If you look at the Google Map screen grab below, and then look at this old photo of my grandfather's studio above (he cut out the wood for that sign and the numbers ... he did stuff like that) you will notice that the Capital Record's building was not yet built.

That day when we visited my grandfather before he lost his studio, we took the Red Car. I remember making a connection in front of my grandfather's (I called him Teddy) studio. My grandmother said that the Automobile Club and General Motors wanted to take out the Red Cars, and that this might be the last time will ride it ever again. She said that the companies wanted to take away the ugly electric wires so we can see the big beautiful blue sky. Not soon after the Red Cars were gone and the wires were taken out, my grandmother told me to come out on the porch. "See that line of brown? That is called 'smog' it is getting worse and worse. It will make us sick." If you look at the old photo and compare it to the new one from Google, you can SEE the fuzzyness of the encroaching bad air.

It's truly amazing what and how much we will believe in when companies tell us a bunch of lies and fabrications so they can make billions from our health and lives.

A side note about why my grandfather lost his studio - his partner forged his name on the papers of ownership. He bought the judge, too. He had done this several times, apparently, to other small studios from what my grandmother told me. Then he tried to do this to one of the big studios, like Columbia or...????. The big studio had enough money to hire lawyers to put him away for ever. I guess "Berger" (what I remember of his name) after years of successful theft, he finally found a studio too big to swallow.

My grandfather was hired finally by the Nelsons. He worked on and off for them until Ricky Nelson died. That was a very sad time.

Maybe someday I will turn some of the film Ted shot into video and post it. He was an artist. That is all he wanted to do - his art.

Mugu and it's tigers on the run....

2009-08-07T10:27:00.000-07:00

Going to visit the insects on Monday!

I took some time to view some restoration sites in the Central Basin mudflat. The area was scraped of the ice plant last year. Ice plant was planted maybe 40-50 years ago, to protect the sand of open dunes and marsh from erosion... except, the natural plants are far superior and offer the animals that are adapted to Souther California, food and shelter... (Why do people think we can do better then nature?) Now, Disticulus sp. (love that name... reminds me Bugs Bunny), Salicornia virginica, Frankenia salina are coming in and... so are the tigers. They were running and jumping and 'freezing' in mid-spin! They stared me down like the ferocious beings they are!

My work at Mugu has allowed me the chance to follow the various species of Cicindela. One tiger, Cicindela gabbi, was thought to not be at Mugu - too far north of its Mexican home. I found it to be the dominant species in the Central basin at Mugu. But, as I was surveying the newly restored site two weeks ago, and watching what I thought were lots of C. gabbi, I was wrong! They were intensely green morphs of Cicindela trifasciata sigmoidea . I took pictures of several... and tomorrow, I will bring some home.

It is hard to catch the tigers on camera - they are very fast.

There is one salt panne in Mugu where I met my first tiger. It contains a small population of C. hemorrhagica hemorrhagica and occasionally, C. oregona. Walking carefully through the panne, the tigers were quite small - smaller then the smallest I have ever caught. Beetles emerge as big as they will ever get. Their growth is dependent on the quality and the quantity of prey they catch and eat as larvae in the soil. I am wondering if this group just did not have enough good prey food last year (numbers or poor quality)..... Here is a shot of one of the tigers in the small panne. Beautiful, just the same. I will bring some of these home, too, and compare these new tigers next to my older specimens.

Touch the Water - a play about and at the LA RIver

2009-06-28T16:40:00.000-07:00

To see more photos go to....

I learned a lot about Frog Town playing Jade Kenten-Denton green in Cornerstone Theater's environmental justice piece, 'Touch the Water'. This small community, because of its strong sense of... 'this is ours!' ..... kicked butt and took names when Joseph T. Edmiston, Executive Director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy came and said, "I'm a white guy who likes to stand and look at the river!" He strutted around and yanked mikes out of peoples' hands and shook one man by both arms just to bully them into submission. He has millions of our tax dollars and power and proudly states "You can't vote me out!" and everyone can just lick his shoes! The community was shocked at first and then they finally pulled together and told the L. A. City Council, Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation, and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy where to go and what they wanted to have built. WAY TO GO!!!!

You can go to the Conservancy's website but you won't read much of how this community was treated by the State agency. But isn't that the way?

I wish more communities were as head strong.... but then, the folks in Frog town were thrown out of two other communities before they learned you have to FIGHT CITY HALL!

And as I was driving home from rehearsals downtown Los Angles, where I have gone to many meetings of Los Angeles City Councils and Los Angeles County Supervisors trying to stop unwanted projects cooked up by public officials and their friends.... this is what I would see before getting on the freeway ....

And à propos of something...

Trash and Trashing our Home - Earth

2009-05-18T15:35:00.000-07:00

The shot above is looking north towards the San Fernando Valley.
This is looking south towards Down Town Los Angeles

On May 9th Lots of folks came out from behind their weekend lives and helped remove trash from the Los Angeles River, supported by Friends of the Los Angeles River (FOLAR) and other volunteer groups and Governmental Agencies. It was wonderful to see people get involved in making their part of the River cleaner. It was estimated that about 3000 people dipped in and near the River - from north to south - to remove the nasty junk that flows down the river and out to the sea.

Cleaning the 52 mile stretch of the concrete covered Los Angeles River possed a daunting task but, many local groups supplied water (some in plastic - we will learn someday) and music. The Western Swallowtail (Papilio rutulus) butterflies were alight in Atwater and that was a joy. The man in the turban is looking right at it.... click on the photo and see if you can find the yellow spot.... that's the butterfly.

I suspect, that most of the plastic that gets wrapped around the trees and brush are not there just because 'someone' threw it there. People are absent minded about the junk in their lives. People do not recognize the mess they live in - the mess they create by buying all that stuff. Their homes are filled with stuff that they never use. They spend most of their life either at uninteresting jobs, going home to a house filled with things they never use or wear, and then, when they go outside.... stuff just 'flakes' off. They/we never see it because, trash is in all of our lives. People - we - are used to seeing things trashy.

Here are two of my bags of trash (normal sized large garbage trash bags provided by FOLAR). I picked up about five bags and helped pull off plastic from a few trees. As you can see, the plastic - the REAL TRASH - is knotted in the branches, leaves, soil, and shreds into tiny and tinier pieces. (For comparable sizes, those are my flash drives.)

The pieces of plastic from dry cleaning, are really nasty. They shatter very easily. The plastic bags from grocery stores stay flexible longer and cause trees and brush to knot into huge sheets of dead vegetation. The bags which has mylar bonded with a thick plastic for potato chips and other greasy perishable fast food, is really bad because it stays in its shape and form much longer and is resistant to UV light degradation.

Eventually, the plastic breaks apart and is taken to the sea ..... into the large trash heap in the Pacific Ocean.....

SO..... Los Angeles, (specifically its Rivers even with folks trying to clean it up) is one of the main sources of the trash that is killing our ocean. Thank a lot guys.

AND... The San Gabriel River is another mess. But FAR WORSE because it has the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy. "WHAT!??" A Conservancy with billions of tax dollars, which has spent lots of money on studies does not clean up the San Gabriel like the folks at the Los Angeles River? - WHY...Yes, because the RMC has other things on its collective minds..... and it has nothing to do with conservation of the rivers and the mountains......CHECK OUT the trash in the San Gabriel... THANKS A LOT RMC!!!! ....Thaks for NOTHING!

Pictures of trees in the San Gabriel River....

OH.... and Ms. Rivers-and-Mountains-Conservancy, are those QUAGGA MUSCLES in the River???? What are you planning to do about THAT!!!??? Oh yeah... nothing....

(UPDATE: June 28... These are actually, Asian Clams, Corbicula fluminea, which are invasive but have not been mapped in the San Gabriel River. Maybe I should do something about that...)

Movable Murals

2009-05-01T12:39:00.000-07:00

One favorite murals to make (the collaboration with the clients) was one for a friend who left science to go into the coffee house biz. My friend needed something that was unique and had a feeling of being old. She and her husband lived in Santa Paula ...so, they called their coffee house the Santa Paula Coffee House.

The area is beautiful with mountains, trees, and framing. So, she wanted mountains, trees, farms, and coffee beans, all in a Craftsman style. Sounded like one of those wonderful orange crates from the turn of the 20th Century... With lots of ideas back and forth over the internet we came to a design, pallet of colors and style.

Lettering is always a bitch... but they wanted something homey....

Here it is at the opening of the shop....

Still in progress...

2009-04-27T19:58:00.001-07:00

It can take a long time to finish a painting. OR, it can come in a snap. My stilt painting is taking a while. That is ok. I kinda liked the first version but now I am liking this new view much better.

I thought it needed a place to walk out from. I felt it needed other animals. I outlined a tiger beetle near the mud bank on the right. Can you find the crab?

I also felt the Salicornia needed more life.

Also, I started another painting. I can't help myself. This is also along the San Gabriel River but, at the Whittier Narrows.

Have yet to finish the burned trees. I will do some more before I up load it.

REALLY OLD stuff

2009-04-20T09:47:00.000-07:00

Way back in Ohio, when I was on the Board at what had been the Dayton Museum of Natural History (now it is the Booshoft Museum of Discovery)~(as an aside.....any museum with 'Discovery' in its name ...should ... uh...well... this over used word, 'discovery,' now sounds like a corporate buzz word. 'Discovery Museum' 'Discovery Center' 'Museum of Discovery' all sound like a place to sell junk to the innocents.)

ANYWAY.... I painted murals for the museum. I had a wonderful time. I grabbed these old shots from my old website which lives in the Wayback machine.

Sometimes we had smaller shows... this one was about artifacts from Mexico.

My friend, who was the director, asked if I could do something to help display some of their materials from the ocean that had been in storage for years. So, I did this...

Dayton Museum of Natural History needed images of a time when the earth and moon separated as molten globs. I loved the illustrations from my children's Life books. I would stare at them for hours and hours. I am deeply influenced by those artists. So, I re-created the birth of earth for them.

Dayton was the birth place of CFCs.... there was this celebration.... and I got to paint the mural. This is really my vision of what the molecule might look like... fun to imagine!

Prior to working and living in Dayton, I lived in L.A. and worked at the LA County Natural History Museum in their Discovery Center (sigh...well, when they named the Hall, it - 'that word' - was not over used - yet). I built hands on materials for children and their parents to learn together. One of several boxes of materials was called 'The Eyes Have it!'. Kids learned all about how other animals saw their world. I even built a camera obscura from two white plastic spheres, which together. looked like an eye ball. Kids could hold the handles on each side of the 'eye' and see that the world was projected on the back of the ball, upside down. I also wrote materials explaining optics and the biology vision for all ages, which were all in the box, too. Here were a couple of illustraitions.

I also got to do some stuff for their members' booklet.... all so much fun!

Oklahoma Anna

2009-04-05T17:18:00.000-07:00

This is a year old. Almost. I will put up some other songs by my daughter.

Lost a friend.

2009-03-16T12:51:00.000-07:00

These are just some pictures. My daughter took some and so did I.

This was where Flo Itkin lived, in Mandeville Canyon.

My friend, Flo, and my children's great aunt, died the first week of this month. She had been ill and fighting Parkinson's. My son and I went to see her just the week before. She wanted to be at home and not at the hospital. We visited her. She was so little. She had been so big so vital so important to us all. I held her hand for a short while until that became too hard for her.

Flo loved her backyard with all of its visiting birds. She adored hummingbirds.

She was a friend when no one else would be. She would listen when no one else would. She loved no matter what. Thank you, Flo.

The Ceanothus was in bloom. Flo loved plants and gave them to her friends and family. And at this time, they were in bloom and fully fragrant. She would have loved them.

She understood how much I wanted to go back to school to get a degree. She knew how much art was part of me. It was Flo who sent a letter to me telling me of the scholarship in art at Mount St. Mary's College. Thank you, Flo.

My daughter, trying to be 'together' while walking about the 'empty' house, needed to go up the side of the canyon just above her house.

Visiting over the Holidays...

2009-01-01T19:05:00.000-08:00

Taking the train out to Oklahoma this time, my son will be coming with me. We will share the small room-ette and I will take the bunk... I may regret that decision, because my back has been killing me, but if Russ wants to read all night he can and I won't notice.

Looking out the windows is very relaxing... and it is striking how different so much of our country looks from this vantage point. The trees are different. The soils are different.

These two pictures were of Texas, which is most of the trip going to Oklahoma. It is not a straight shot. The train follows the outline of the state and then makes a bee line through the center to Chicago, stopping along the way in other states' cities.

My daughter's group was playing, at the restaurant where she works, on my birthday - the day after Christmas. Here she is setting up two hours before her set.

My son and daughter are special people.Very talented. Anna's mural at the restaurant where she works.

Russ stayed for a week but they got to talk. Good things.

TIME FOR A POST!!!

2009-01-01T18:32:00.000-08:00

I have been in over my head. It's been interesting but at times, difficult.

My job at Mugu with Tetra Tech (Chadux, in Alaska) is wonderful. I am glad to get back to doing insects. Now, I am writing my paper for the Navy.

Here is a note to me.... which I have sent on to others...

Another day to find Cicindela oregona and/or Cicindela hirticolis gravida... no luck... end of their season.... I think.... though, I did find a tiger out by the main drag a bit north of the "Mugu Lagoon" on the map in Central (C) mudflats. It was too quick and I could not rouse it again from the Saliconia in the blowing Santa Ana winds. It was 94 degrees F today at Mugu... October 22... This Cicindela looked like a C. oregona... This is the right time.... This is crazy weather!

I wish I could have gone yesterday.... I almost did but phones, oh phones...

I visited section (A) but only at the entrance of the Upper Marsh just after the bridge. The Telegraph weed (Heterotheca grandiflora) that has grown there is mostly dead. I did not see the Wandering Skipper (Panoquina errans) However, in the sticky traps in the Firing Range (B) several Umber Skippers (Paratrytone melane) were caught. I suggest looking there next year for the Wandering Skipper. The difference is the light colored edge of the wings. Also, any place that has lots of Distichlis spicata spicata..... and Asteracea just might have that little skipper...

I then tried to look for C. hirticolis gravida

The last time I visited these dunes (one month ago) I found Globose Dune Beetle (Coelus globosus ) and the cleptoparasite of Anthophora sp. , Zacosmia maculata, which breaks into the cell cap of her host (Anthophora), oviposits and then re-closes it. Zacosmia is reported to be from Baja California. (But Mugu's tiger, Cicindela gabbi is also a tiger from Mexico). I found this bee tumbling along the dunes... It should be called the Tumble Bee. http://bugguide.net/node/view/143811

Mugu's Mexican tiger, C. gabbi...

Mugu's C. hemorrhagica...

By the way... it seems that I am finding more and more insect internet sites with wonderful photographs!!!! For this email - the map is Google's (I altered it), and the other shots in this email were mine... but the shots in the links are what makes a lot of this study possible!!!! .

I love the dunes at Mugu. There is so much trash.... from the ocean !

See those plants.... they have these terrible seed pods that get into your shoe and poke you with sharp spines... They tumble across the sands just like the Zacosmia maculata.

So finally, I hunted for tigers at the Airport... which is the little square west of C. No tigers but lots of these wonderful curious dragon flies, Varigated Meadowhawk (Sympetrum corruptum). There were a few in the Upper Marsh but there were many in West Salt (just above the dunes near the fence in F). I walked back to my car after walking the open pannes looking for tigers I saw all of these Meadowhawks holding tight with the winds in the vegetation. Little gossamer wings reflected the light from the sun (which was on the decent). There are quite a number of different Odonata. Many hunt in the upper marsh but they were all over.

Mugu has several species of dragonflies (5). I had not met a Black Saddlebags (Tramea lacerata) until Mugu.

Variegated Meadowhawk (Sympetrum corruptum)

2008-11-22T17:48:00.000-08:00

Ahhhhh.... Back at Mugu this summer to next spring. I sure miss this place! I have been hired to look for endangered insects and to write an assessment of the marsh and lagoon's insect populations. I have set up five trapping suites in and across the marsh and salt pannes.

At Mugu there are birds (shore, chord grass, fresh water, riparian, pelagic), and mammals (besides people, are sea lions, seals, coyotes, rabbits, mice, rats, voles, bats, and shrews) reptiles (snakes, lizards, only the bones and parts of a shell from one California tortoise), and insects and other Arthropods (two species of crab and snails). Snakes eat insects, and small mammals. Small mammals eat insects, too but the coyotes eat the small mammals - rarely birds (from the scat). Seals haul out not to eat but to sun bath and mate. Some birds eat the crabs, but many eat insects.

The salt tolerant insects, that feed on kelp and fungus in huge numbers may be, I believe, the cinch pin for terrestrial life in the marsh. It has been said that God must have loved beetles because there are so many of them in the world... But, I think Poseidon loved .... Diptera.

In the photo above, it must be noted that the size of these insects is important. The round stick in the frame, on the right at the bottom, is the tip of my mechanical pencil lead, 0.7". The flies are floating in alcohol 90%.

This is an image of three important flies in Mugu. This is not to say that the others are not as important, but these three are interesting because either of their great numbers all over the marsh or because of their unkown biology. Dolichopodidae are also vital and are in plenty of numbers in marshes and other wet (fresh and salty) areas. The Sarcophagidae, Calliphoridae, Muscidae, Otididae, Drosophilidae, Syrphidae, Platypezidae, Anthommyzidae, Diastidae, Tethinidae, Bibionidae, Scaridae, Chaoboridae, Ceratopogonidae, Chironomidae, Tabinidae, Staratiomyidae, Bombyliidae, Empididae, Chloropidae, Tachinidae, espcially, Psychodidae all can be in riparian, forest and urban backyard areas,too. Oh, and we can't forget about Simulidae, too... which are indicators of highly oxygenated water (good) but the females need a blood meal to lay eggs (bad, if they are not species specific in their supping of local mammals or birds - you). But, Simulidae, or Black Flies are fresh water insects.... how did this one find its way into Mugu???

There are fresh water inlets into the marsh from inland and from run off from the farms.... oh, and there are Culicidae - mosquitoes.

The top fly is an Ephydridae. You can always tell this Family by it's flat or frog like "lower jaw" - and this one has setae on its 'upper lip' so, I believe it to be Ephydra hians. Ehydridae are called Shore flies but some of this Family are called Petroleum Flies for their propensity to live, mate and eat around oil seeps like at La Brea Tar Pits. Most Ephydridae are capable of living in highly saline conditions, an environmental of evolutionary distinction. They are important because of their numbers in marshes, tidal pools and inland salt flats and lakes. They are food to the birds and vertebrates and invertebrates in those areas... One group of Native Americans, the Modocs, subsisted on the larvae of Ephydridae in the Great Salt Lake on a seasonal basis for hundreds of years.

The larvae of Ephydridae are filter feeders of microorganisms in shallow waters, some adult Ephydridae are parasitoids of marsh inhabiting spiders, and one group are predators of Chiromonidae.

The fly on the left is identified by its triangular spot on the top of its otherwise light colored head, where it sports three other 'eyes' or ocelli. Chloropidae fly in swarms of great numbers. Some are leaf miners, phytophagous, some are saprophagous (feeding on decaying plants, animals, and fecal matter, and a few have been bread on fungi). I am making a jab at its genus, Oscinisoma sp..

The middle fly with the mustache and goatee is a Phoridae. They are sometimes called Scuttle flies because of their jerky movements, walking. This is the first real find in a few years (I have either helped in identifying insects traped for UCLA's biological surveys for the Navy or been the sole insect identifier since 2001). The 1983 Los Angeles County Natural History Museum's insect study referenced past work done for the Navy and did not by all indications, find any themselves. Phoridae are attracted to the decomposition emanating from dead flesh and vegetable matter. There are a few genus that are interesting predators on other flies, bees, and then .... there is this ant decapitating fly.

This specimen is, Megaselia sp., identified by Dr. Brian Brown at the LACNHM (thank you!). Phorid flies may swarm in numbers, but VERY few are caught in the traps at Mugu. This year I caught 8 in drop and Malaise traps and 52 in the sticky traps.

It just seems a very interesting point that the most diverse and abundant group of multicellular organisms at Mugu, are Diptera. And many of Diptera are involved, in some way, with fungus, especially at the marsh. It has been found that the Salicornia sp (pickle weed) has a particular symbiotic relationship with fungus (Mycorrhiza)

Decomposition is all around you at the marsh. The smell of sulfur is in its many forms is all around you. And sometimes you get a whiff of the decomposing bodies of seals that wash up on the beach. AHHHHH! That's nature for you!

One young man, who volunteered from UCLA as an undergraduate, said to the graduate UCLA crew who were contracted with the Navy to do ecological studies of the marsh habitat, when he first stepped into the marsh, ".... You know,.... it smells REALLY bad here...." He said this as if this was a very important piece of information that had to be said.... He was surprised when we all chuckled.

Animal Perenting

2008-06-29T22:58:00.001-07:00

I had a very good meeting with a friend at Claremont College in the morning and decided to visit the most recent fire in the San Gabriel Mountains, above the town of Sierra Madre. It was in early May and there has been sufficient time for people to get their lives mostly in order. I hoped that the road was open so that I could photograph the grounds and the vegetation. I also wanted to take samples of the grasses that were around the burn area for a painting I have been working on of an area in the mountains that has had several consecutive fires. There have been several studies showing that the deposition of NOx from exhaust from cars contribute to nitrogen loading in near forests. Nitrogen increases the likelihood of invasive grasses which thrive in soils with high amounts of nutrients which contribute to the fires that start and burn so hot at the intersection of forest and urban areas. The USGS has some important studies rarely used by City planners, that urban sprawl causes forest fires. On top of all of that bad news is that the same pollution that causes destruction of forest habitat even from far away cities, the ozone which cars produce is in high enough concentration and fill so much of our world landscape that when people want to get away from it all can't, and may be exposed to higher levels of the lung destroying molecule when they visit the mountains.

Well, with all of that lovely information in my head - hey! I have to live with the Debby-downer brain everyday and it's not easy!!! - I traveled up Santa Anita until it turned into a single lane. When I finally came to edge of the burn I found a turn out where trucks had pushed debris into what was a small turn out.

I was at the beginning of the forest and I parked the car and took out my camera and lenses. There seemed to be trash about my car and plenty of beer bottles from after the fire (not shattered). What? Was there some sort of a party after the blaze?
Another vehicle drove up past me as I walked across the single lane road to listen to the cicadas sing and to inspect the partially burned, but still living oak tree.

What I find in burn areas is a lot of destruction of the surface soils from the water used to dowse the fire by the fire fighting crew. It is like a preamble to the coming winter rains which will continue to lubricate the highly disturbed soils and rock from the side of the mountain. Sands and small to very large rocks fill the gullies and undercut road shoulders, which are ready to move down the hill in a landslide all because the fire fight was to save housing. (See above for why we should not build so close to the forest)

I took these two shots and then turned to take a picture of the oak tree. I crossed the road and saw a bunch of different species of grasses all in one area - COOL! I opened the trunk of my car and started to take small clumps of grasses. One clump at eye height was sitting on top near a giant boulder. There seemed to be new deposits of trash about my car and not from the bulldozers....There was plenty of beer bottles from after the fire (not shattered). What? Was there some sort of a party after the blaze?

As I was pulling the clumps of grass when I heard a strange gurgling sound... coming right in front of me. I looked down - just a bit (why I did not see it before the sound, escapes me) what looked to me to be a DUCK!!!! It had its head in a defensive posture, trying to hide in the clump of grass I was pulling.

So, what does a good biologist do when faced with an animal in a defensive pose? I pulled on its tail and it gurgled some more... and I took it out and found it was not a duck but a chicken. Why in HELL was a chicken up here!????

I looked her over and found that her nostrils had some black inside probably from rooting around in the burn area. WHY FOR HEAVEN"S SAKE WAS SHE HERE??? She was actually quite a large chicken the size of a DUCK!! and obviously comfortable with a human examining her. She was someones pet! I decided to take her home and call my vet. This bird had a respiratory problem . .... She was dumped by some crappy person probably just before I got there.

Dr. Cauble came the next morning and told me she was an older bird, had some arthritis. She was sick with one of three organisms, two of which we could treat. I had her in quarantine in the garage and fed her and gave her water. She was very dehydrated. She had a good night's sleep in a safe place.... but we decided to put her to sleep and call the health department.

I can't watch the animals go. "Chris, I will be inside the kitchen." Dr, Cauble watched over her. The chicken went peacefully. Dr. Cauble took her body with him and he will tell me what the Department has found. They needed the exact spot and time where I found her.

This was a sweet bird. Perhaps she was past her egg laying days like my Miss Chicken. I could not put my bird out to be eaten by dogs, or coyotes, or raccoons. There is so much trust that my animals have in me to take care of them.

After Dr. Cauble left I got a call from my son's friends. Lisa and Gabe were coming over with Zoe. "Is 3 p.m. okay?" "Sure."

I took care of Zoe for two summers. She is a delightful Abyssinian. Last year, I was having work done on my house and decided to put her in the studio. She thought all the spaces under the easels were great places to hide and my son was making his own place in there, too. FRIENDS and PLACES TO JUMP! ZOE was such a happy curious girl.

On her second day in the studio, breakfast was as usual, she gobbled it all down and then returned to her duties at the windows and under chairs. I had an appointment before lunch and returned early after lunch to find Zoe sitting on the rug not moving. I touched her and found her to be HOT! She was lack-luster. My son looked up the address of the emergency animal hospital.

The hospital staff took x-rays and found her food to still be in her stomach from the morning! And something like a blockage in her bowel!!! Her temperature was quite high and they said I should leave Zoe there for observation. I called after an hour and they said she was getting worse! I told my son to call or email Lisa and Gabe about their kitty.

HOLY MOLY! And on my watch!!!! Zoe was transferred to another hospital where they put her on intravenous fluids. She was going down fast! Lisa and Gabe came back early and picked up little Zoe at the hospital. I was devastated and so were Zoe's parents. I had no idea what happened to her. Zoe continued to go down and Lisa and Gabe spent a lot of money trying to save the little cat.... and called the next day and said that their doctor was considering to put her to sleep.... and asked if I would take her... and, I said I would an try to save the little girl.

Then, Zoe made a miraculous turn around and got better. We were all relieved and spent! I wracked my brains trying to understand what happened.. and so, indulge me in my take on what nearly killed this little cat...

Last year, I had two yellow jacket nests to contend with... one of which was out side the studio. I found the nests, of course, by walking near them and being attacked and stung multiple times. I used the safest methods for ridding them but I think what happened was this....

The studio had a ceiling but the people who were renting my house in the 90's while I was in Ohio, took the ceiling out to expose the rafters. This was a wonderful idea because the building was small and claustrophobic. The bad part was that there are ventilation holes between all the rafters. I suspect that a wasp came in and Zoe found it. Lisa said that Zoe is fascinated by insects and eats them. Cats are very sensitive animals and will develop high fevers quickly. This will also shut down the digestive system which looks like one of several serious conditions. Zoe may have even been stung internally by the wasp and the reaction put her in a tail spin. She was put on strong medication .... some of which may have acted like an antihistamine. This may be what saved Zoe....

Well, Lisa and Gabe are moving and cannot take Zoe with them. They asked if I would look after her and I said, "Yes." Zoe is now a new member of my household.

Meet Zoe.

The story that is becoming an IPISH

2008-06-11T17:06:00.000-07:00

What is an 'IPISH' you ask? In Yiddish, it means bad odor and in some Jewish families, it means there is a flood of 'pig stuff' coming....It is clearly a David and Goliath situation....

But for now, focus on this wonderful place and look at the children... enraptured by the teacher and the beautiful surroundings. Where else can children learn of their world like this in Los Angeles? NO WHERE!

Children come to the Whittier Narrows Nature Center to see how Los Angeles looked before all the freeways, and all the cars, and all the buildings. This is the place where children get to see up close what birds do in 'real time' and not on the computer or on the television.

They walk with the Docents and their teachers in silence - the teachers and docents RARELY have to say anything about being quiet because the beauty of the open space opens their eyes instead! Cotton tailed rabbits scurry in the brush and the children squeal in delight! Big red ants burrow in holes in the dirt and there is laughter. Swallows shwoosh overhead catching flying insects and all eyes are at the sky. Then the Docent says, "...listen here..." and they huddle under the tall walnut tree (an offspring of walnut trees which Whittier supplied to the nation).

Just after the children come off their big buses they wait at the front of the Center. A docent waits with the owl on a tether and the children ask, "IS THAT REAL???"

It is expensive these days to rent buses for schools. Most schools are not going on field trips anymore. The Los Angles County Natural History Museum has eighteen wheeled trucks with exhibits inside so the kids can stay in school but still get some experience in hands on science. And, none of the Museum's trucks have living owls!

The Docent asks questions of the children to see how much they know and to adapt their talks to the children's educational levels. Some children of very young age have a lot of knowledge of the plants and animals, but most do not. The Docents are from a variety of backgrounds but their love of Nature and Education bring them together at Whitter Narrows Nature Center. When I was a docent at the Natural History Museum most of my colleagues were at least 30 years my senior. The majority of them retired from teaching, NASA, or other science based careers - they were a wealth of experience and knowledge. We all had special training by the museum from the curators of the different science "-ologies". And at the end of our training, we were expected to write a thesis just like in college, and present our work to each other. It was fun and difficult and we all loved it! We also trailed behind experienced docents to learn what to do and say to which aged group. FANTASTIC!

I have great respect for all docents.

All around the Narrows there are acres of open space where some of the most precious animals raise their young. This female black-chinned humming bird was not too keen having me take her picture as she sat on her nest of eggs.

After a walk on the trail, the children come in to see more animals! Grace Allen has in her hands in this picture, a California kingsnake that used to be everywhere in the basin. My mother used to see them slither in her parent's yard in the Hollywood Hills, but so many people equate snakes as "bad" and most have been extirpated from their natural habitat. The children, once again, cannot believe their eyes! "IS THAT REAL???" How wonderful and exciting to see their excitement!

Ed Barajas, who has been documenting the comings and goings of birds at the Narrows, asked me to follow him with my camera. We walked towards a ditch that is filled from runoff from the streets and choked with willows and walnuts and oaks. Ed makes the sounds, "swishes swishes swishes" looking for the Vireo. We can hear the bird calling back. The bird forages in the thick of the ditch where the water sits and duckweed grows. There is a buzz of small flies about but it is still 'in the cool' of the morning so we were not attacked by mosquitoes.

"...swish swish swish!" Ed calls again.

We walk about the parameter of the ditch. We can see swallows above our heads diving in and out of the taller trees catching insects 'on the fly'! "Did you see him?!!" Ed asks. I keep my camera poised, the long telephoto lens is in automatic focus - just in case. Down in the ditch, we see a gray bird flying about and then landing at the edge of the water with the duckweed. The bird is eating things at the surface of the water! The insects that would be there are mosquito larvae and adults and midges and maybe some water striders.... The bird jumps into frame and then ducks behind the brush! I snap as much as I can.... but I got only the image below for you.... The Federally Listed (Endangered) Least Bell's Vireo is hiding and giving us the eye!

Click for a larger image!

It's always somthing isn't it?

2008-06-09T17:36:00.000-07:00

or.... SOME things are just born to fail...

I love museums. I spent my first trip to London as a young adult, scouring the halls of the British Museum. I looked at every mummy, every hand painted scroll, every stuffed mammal and bird I could. Much earlier,as a kid, I spent many hours at the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum because the summer 'camp' where I went, dropped us off so that the counselors could do what ever they did during that time (I did not care!). My own children spent time exploring the back rooms and libraries of LACNHM and spent every week at the Page as well. They learned my 'talk' when I was a docent. One time my daughter, after memorizing what I said, found some sightseers from England and took them on a tour of her favorite hall, the dinosaurs, when she was four years old! (She was fantastic!).

The people I know who are scientists and who work at the LACNHM were like me, they loved the museum as kids and all the dusty corners and lovely, knowledgeable older (folks with gray hair) people who worked there. Like me, they could not ask enough questions, could not soak up enough information. It was all there! We learned more there then at school. And, we took that knowledge outside when there was an outside.

The LACNHM had a jewel named Miss Gretchen Sibley, who I met when I took docent training in the late 1980's. Gretchen, in the 1950's, brought together businesses to the museum in a different way then they do now - not just for MONEY but to participate in the education of the high school kids.... like they did in Chicago. The Field Museum created hands on exhibits before anyone named them 'hands on' and they built them out of beautiful wood and glass with money endowed by the big companies of the time. Gretchen taught many of the Ph.D.s that worked at the museum and elsewhere.

But what is that horrible picture above, you ask? That, my friends, is the Los Angeles Children's Museum.

After struggling for seven years to raise enough money for a new facility, the Children's Museum of Los Angeles marked a milestone last fall when workers put the finishing touches on the angular building nestled in the Hansen Dam Recreation Area's easternmost corner.

But the modern structure, surrounded by a chain link fence, still sits empty. Its entryway is choked with weeds. And there's not enough money to pay for ambitious exhibits meant to fill the 57,000-square-foot museum .

Funny how all the lights were on and no one was home! the air conditioner was running full tilt which we are all paying for....

See all those weird tube things at the top of the wall.... I think that is where the air from the air conditioner blows cool air in.... creepy...

The question comes to mind, "Why wasn't this finished? or Why is it closed?"
I took my children to the original Children's Museum downtown. It was in the heart of the City and we even took the train (the old train a year later was removed and only recently replaced with the Gold Line). It was a favorite place for kids of all colors. And it was fun. For some reason the folks who ran it or who funded it or maybe it was someone looking for a Gold Plaque with their name engraved on a building (or street) that decided the museum needed to be BIGGER and MORE EXPENSIVE.

Given the scope of this project, the museum closed its facility at 310 North Main Street on August 27, 2000 to focus its resources on developing expanded mobile community outreach programs, and to work on the design and construction of the two new campuses. The budget for the design and construction of each of the campuses excluding exhibition design, is between $12 and $16 million.

The Children's Museum plans to construct an "urban museum" at the Art Park site. The exact size of this museum has yet to be determined, but is expected to be in excess of 60,000 square feet. The Museum will focus on the urban experience, as well as on the performing arts, graphic arts, film, and television. The Art Park site will include the administrative staff for both campuses.

A major focus of the Hansen Dam site will be the natural environment. The 60,000-square-foot building will have an indoor-outdoor feeling and visitors will be able to move easily between the environments. The building itself will serve as an exhibit of sustainable architecture, encouraging visitors to understand new ways to construct and maintain buildings. The site will also take advantage of the surrounding landscape by including a garden of flora and fauna native to the northeast Valley environment.

I think basically, there was a lot of money in this for a lot of shadow people. I think that there was a lot of people wanting to show how wonderful they were. I think that putting it out in the boonies, though, destroyed it for the children.The trees planted around the area look sick. The grass is dying. It's too expensive to drive a car out to these places. No one wants to go out there. And, even with the beautiful weather today, I saw no children playing in the park.

There is another 'museum' in the works and it's called the Whittier Narrow Discovery Center. The proponents of this project have been told by City biologists that their project does not abide by the Rules Set by the County of Regional Planners, who are responsible for the design of this City (there was a DESIGN???? Were they DRUNK!!???). SEA-TAC members decide whether a design fulfills the ideals and upholds the boundaries of EPA and regional laws to protect the Significant Ecological Areas set by the Technical Advisory Council (SEA-TAC)(many areas have Endangered species and rare ecosystems).

In other words, the County bureaucrats thought the RMC bureaucrats did not have a clue and they want to destroy animals and property of the People. You can learn more about the group that wants to keep the Open Space Open for birds and people....

One boon-doggel after the next...EH!? I also think we ALL need to be leery of anyone or any group who says that what they are about to do WILL BE WORLD CLASS!!!! I am sorry. You have to build it or make it first BEFORE that decision is made... by other people....

Q. Why did the Children's Museum of Los Angeles temporarily close?
A. The old museum, opened in 1979, was never intended to be the permanent home for the Children’s Museum of Los Angeles. As demand began to exceed the available space the Board of Governors began designing a NEW, BIGGER, WORLD-CLASS facility to the people of Los Angeles.

All this world class and the little pools of water behind the "Stay Out" signs on the chain link fence were filled with mosquitoes. CLASSY!!!!

(Update!) Here is another museum in California that is dead. It is the Metropolitan Water District Museum. Funny, these same guys are really excited about the WHITTIER NARROWS DISCOVERY CENTER.... I can't imagine.... their museum goes BUST and the Children's Museum goes BUST and they support (with the other water districts) another museum which will very likely go BUST ..... What is that? The Dead Museum Club?

Gentleman Fred

2008-05-27T14:47:00.000-07:00

I am crying as I write this. Fred is gone. He was my good buddy.

He was given to us, my family in Ohio by a Chinese family who came to look after our kids while my husband and I were out of the country. The young woman was studying biology and was close to finishing her Ph.D. from the University of Dayton. Her husband had just received his and they were about to have their first child. The grandmother- to-be was living with them in anticipation of the baby and was also looking after their young cat, Tigger. This was 1990.

We had several other cats. We had Wat (she was very tiny as a kitten), Buggers (she earned her name), Coquette (a beautiful and sweet Abyssinian given to me by the owner at a cat show - "Here. Do you want her?") and PVP (my son named him Playful Velvet Paws... shortened to PVP). Should we take in another? My daughter loved the little tabby, but who wanted the tabby the most was our cat, PVP.

PVP loved tabby cats. I cannot say this enough. Before moving to Ohio, there was a cat also named Tigger who used to visit PVP. He had a collar and so I decided to walk to the house to let the owners know where their cat liked to come everyday. He lived about six houses down - quite a distance. I found that Tigger was not 'altered' and suggested they might do that especially since he liked to visit friends so far away from home. The owner said she did not believe in those 'sorts' of things... Well, not long after our conversation Tigger disappeared for two weeks. PVP was heart broken. He cried and cried for attention. So, I walked to Tigger's house to see how he was. He had narrowly escaped death and was hit by a car and lost his tail. His owner said her vet suggested neutering (as I had) and so she did. Tigger was traumatized and never visited PVP again.. and PVP was sad. There was a moment of happiness when a manx tabby, named "Shamus" came to visit.

I cannot emphasize enough, PVP loved red cats especially stripey ones. That morning we returned from our trip from over seas back to Ohio and the young man and his pregnant wife, holding the striped tiger tabby asked if we would take 'her.' "The next place where we are going will not let us have a cat." PVP said "MEOW!!! MEOW!!!" I took the tabby in my arms. "She is a very nice cat." said the young woman. As I looked down at Tigger I said, "Tigger is not a she. She is a he." PVP stood as tall as he could to see Tigger, "and I think we will take him to be PVP's friend." I later re-named him Red Fred.

When I returned to Los Angeles, Buggers and Coquette had been eaten by a coyote in Ohio and Wat passed away there, too. I found a kitten in Glendale which I named Mouse (he squeaked when he spoke and loved cheese).

I have always trained my cats. They sit up. They come when they are called and I had one cat that was especially good at fetching. This time I thought I should teach my cats how to behave well with company. My dear friend, Rich, and his daughter are in this silly video of PVP, Fred, and Mouse.... at the dinner table.

PVP developed kidney problems and he passed around 2002. Fred had always been the silent kitty but when PVP died he started talking. Fred did his best to be patient with Mouse, who has always had a hard time being calm. Fred was always a pillar of strength and a most thoughtful cat. He also, very adroitly demonstrated that cats have logic - a special type of logic. And in this lesson, showed that if I feel that perhaps a cat's logic may have 'holes' in it, then surely as there is light in a day, even our brightest and most logical humans are silly and illogical. Fred loved his friend Miss Chicken. And he loved to come and sit next to me while I read the news on line. It always worried me that he might fall. He would climb the tree to the tip of the branch next to the lip of the roof and the weave forward and backward and then... jump! Then he would 'MEEorawl!!!"

I always opened the window and let him inside. He loved to do this sometimes several times in a row.... kinda made me crazy sometimes... but he was such a gentleman...One time in Ohio, after Buggers disappeared, Fred was late coming inside for dinner. Then at the window over the kitchen sink, he appeared. I ran outside and collected him in my arms. I touched the side of his chest and he winced. Something had pulled a large section of his skin open and it was hanging. I took Fred to the emergency and they said he was the best patient they ever had.

Here is Mouse. Mouse loves to eat grasshoppers. I understand why a cat would love to 'play' with one. I have never understood why he loves to eat them. He usually leaves the legs and wings somewhere I can see them...???? (video to come)

This is Magic. She lived with me for a period of time upstairs and Mouse was quite jealous. Magic was leery with Mouse and with good reason. If you ever wonder if you find your cat watching TV if he/she really understands what is going on, this little video will clearly show how much they truly understand... (video to come)

The last days of Fred's life was very difficult for me. I did not want him to go. He was having trouble with his kidneys and I gave him drip liquid into him under his skin. He fell off the roof in March and the vet came to the house to look him over we decided not to take his canine tooth, "...it may heal inside his jaw and it is probably too much of an operation for him, now..."

I had water bowls all over the house and the garden and as it became harder and harder for him to jump up on the bed I carried him about. I knew he was loosing his vision - his eyes seemed to always be dilated - and when I called to him he could not quite find me to face my voice. On Saturday, I was talking to my daughter on the phone and the back door was open. I went outside to find Fred and decided to walk down to the sidewalk. Off in the distance I saw a little figure talking - Fred was nearly down the entire block! I ran to get him and carried him home. He like to hold my fingers in his paws. That day he paced and paced trying to feel better. I gave him more subcutaneous water and he ate. The next morning he was stiff and I took him to the emergency in the morning. They called to tell me he was having seizures and put him on Vallium. I didn't think I would see him much longer, but maybe a few more days... I called the hospital, "can I come and see him?" "Yes" As I walked into surgery, the doctor stood away from his little body on the table. He was gone. I gathered him up and took him home. I keep seeing him here and there. He was such a fine Gentleman.

EYES WIDE SHUT

2008-05-13T16:48:00.000-07:00

On a trip with the California Wetlands Recovery Project 2008 Symposium, I chose the to go to the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve. This area had been a National Park and Preserve set aside, studied extensively because, for all the insults by people to the land, rivers, watersheds, ocean and ecology, the Tijuana Estuary was still a vital functioning system teeming with life not seen elsewhere in California or the Nation.

Now, Homeland Security has seized the land and is building the Boarder Fence. Homeland Security does not have to follow the law of the land... it has been given by Congress a privileged position, which allowed it the suspension of more than 30 laws that you, I and all other entities must follow to protect land, property and life, to build a structure to keep Mexicans from coming across the boarder. This 'fence' which is already starting to crumble from poor workmanship, will span from California in the Pacific Ocean to Texas, through the Gulf of Mexico, cutting sensitive ecosystems and communities... without vision or craft. Already, the 100 foot mounds of dirt are eroding, with boulders tumbling and soil swiftly washing down streams... Now, they are thinking of filling in a very large ravine that runs next to a city near the boarder. Filling the valley, using the same craftsmanship of the other developments and cement work, could mean disaster.

Underneath are a number of water pipes (there are people who LIVE in them) that are already below grade and the highway, and there is a stream that runs along the hillside over the filled ravine.... In a very rainy year, the hillsides could collapse causing an international incident killing many many people.

The largest number of people live just above the highway but their houses are constructed of this and that and sit upon layers of tires.

There seemed that day, to be a large fire near by.

Many homes are built with scraps of wood.

The political postures of building a fence to keep out 'the illeagals' only serves those people in power. Their shoddy ideas cause more environmental disasters and human tragedy then nature.

This estuary has millions of dollars invested in it to serve two countries' needs of fresh water and healthy near shore fisheries. But, because of this insane policy to demonstrate some sort of political will, these actions will not only destroy this wetland but the poorest of the poor.

The Waxwings found the Ginkgo biloba!

2008-05-04T19:11:00.000-07:00

Well, since the last update, I had waxwings sitting about in the Jacaranda...

Tonight, abound 6:30 p.m., I found them back in the ginkgo! There is a slight breeze so, the birds must hang on. One looked as if he was not too happy with all of the bouncing. The tree is full of birds! The still shows just how many per branch! They sing to each other until the sun is gone.

They are sleeping in the ginkgo, tonight.

2008-05-03T09:51:00.000-07:00

Bombycilla cedrorum

I have been hearing high pitched whistles that sort of reminded me of Chimney Swifts that used to fly around my house in Ohio. They would nest in the two large chimneys and sometimes the babies would fall from the nests and their scratching and peeps could be heard from the basement... so, I would go down into the basement into the boiler room and find the little 'things' in the dust or clinging to the inside wall of the chimney clean out. For the most part, when the birds would fall from their nests, they were big enough to fly. I would gently pick them out of the dust and ash and let them grab my shirt with their claws (their legs are so short it is almost as if they only had feet) and wear them around outside like a fancy pin. Eventually, they would fly off.

However, those birds do not come out this way to California, at least that species. Cedar Waxwings come in flocks through my yard. One time in fall, my Ginko tree's leaves had turned all yellow. There was a lovely breeze and when I opened the widow, there were fifty or more little Waxwings 'blending' and waving softly with the wind.

So nice to see them in spring, too.

Looking Back

2008-04-29T17:14:00.000-07:00

The hard part, for me at least, of moving to Ohio was leaving all the things wild in California I would never meet! Isn't that funny... That is what I told myself at the beginning.

My spouse got a wonderful job offer. He had just been pounding the streets working for various companies after being fired by his own Board of Directors (he was founder and inventor). He had just met the CEO of NCR through a consulting contract. .... That was the BIG thing to do in the late 80's... get the inventor to get the patents, the people, the money to start the business, the first product out and then....get rid of the founder and stick a MBA to run the place....Business guys hate folks with Ph.D.s especially in science....but that's for another story... NCR liked him so much they made him an offer.

I was working in my dream job at the museum, doing art and science, making hands on learning exhibits for children and contributing a big part to the bread winning - that made me so very proud. My spouse said, "They offered me, Chief Scientist, and I said, 'YES!' I shook his hand and said, "CONgrat--u--lations....oh my god..."

This meant, I was leaving the job I loved, the people and the place that I loved, my grandparents and my mom, and was going somewhere for someone else.

There were positive things to think about, like... maybe the public school might be better and they will help our son learn to read - he had some learning disabilities like I had. Our daughter was in ballet, and my son and daughter did gymnastics, and loved their science classes, were playing music and had lots of friends that came over to put on stage make-up, costumes, and do plays for us and anyone who wanted to watch. Over there, we could fish together. Over there...

My husband and children left first for the new giant house... leaving me to get the Californian house ready for the renters - I refused to sell it. I sent all the cats, rabbits, chickens, geese, finches, tortoises ahead in carrying cases on the "red eye." When my husband and the kids went to the Dayton airport to pick up the pets, the guy on the tarmac said, "HELLO NOAH!"

Then, when the house was painted, a new roof was put on, sprinklers and a gardener to take care of my garden ... I said good bye to my grandparents and my mother. I turned and left on the airplane. And, when I got to Ohio, I tried so hard to be positive.

But, I painted California. The desert.

My little Californian desert tortoise died in the first few weeks living in Ohio, after eating a balloon that had lost its helium, from some party. I rushed him to the Cincinnati Zoo veterinarian who knew more about reptiles then the vets in Dayton. The little tortoise passed away on route.

My daughter loved snakes and the cleaning lady didn't. The snakes seemed to always die so soon. My son loved going to the desert with his school in Pasadena. After I finished this painting, I gave this picture to my husband for his big office. His secretary had a gold frame put on it to match the other pictures in the building. When we divorced, he gave the picture back to me.

In winter, the flies and beetles that got into the house, would somehow manage to get up to the 'ballroom' on the third floor, and die trying to get out of the house through the locked windows. The window sills were always filled with dead insects.

Most of the people I met through NCR were women (wives) who were expressly lonely - almost pathologically. One lady across the street told me at one of neighborhood get togethers, that she, "loved the color I painted my bedroom!" The master bedroom was on the second story and from her house, we were across the street and two doors down, through the trees.... I had never invited her or anyone from her family inside my house ... Another year she warned me that she could hear what everyone said when we left the windows open in summer.... We lived on an acre parcel! And set back from the street! The CEOs wife, who was when I met first her, found her to be a stout soul of competence - someone you could look to in any circumstance. She said one day in a proud sort of way, that when her kids were in school she would lock herself up in the attic to drink all day... and the kids and their friends would not see her.

What kind of a place was this? An enclave of wealthy corporation drones living in fancy houses. Fancy houses. Fancy houses by the score. Marching, marching eating, scouring, sucking....the gray of the sky. matched the gray of the skeleton trees, which matched the gray pallor of everyone's faces, which matched the gray that was building inside of me.

Here - OHIO!

I decided, after talking to wife of the CEO of the bank which had our loan... she was getting her masters at the University of Ohio, Columbus, going back to school was a good thing. I piled on the science credits and found that Wright State University had a program on wetlands. I met my first tardigrade in Invertebrate Biology and it was love at first sight.

This painting was from a moment in time when I went to walk about in the spring thaw of the Beaver Creek wetlands which, I had been studying for two years. I still have that frog.... WHY? you ask. Because, folks who work in natural history museums are like that.

Distractions

2008-04-12T12:05:00.000-07:00

I have been once again distracted by an image, a thought, that must take form. The mountain is beautiful and terrible all at the same time. The fires that savage the living 'skin' of the San Gabriels leave behind extra ordinary forms of death and yet, without fire, nutrients would be locked up in the soils and water would run off and not soak through to the roots.

After the fires, non native grasses burst through making the blackness of the burned trees more stark and scary.

My little stilt painting is growing the salt filled plants, Salicornia sp. which we can eaten. In fact, the first time I ate the "pickle weed" was in Canada on a trip to the Queen Charlotte Islands or the Haida Gwaii. We had sailed from Vancouver with friends from the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum, trekked about the forest and needed to start thinking of dinner. We gathered the pickle weed at the splash zone on the lee side of the Charlottes, and sprinkled them on our salads, raw. YUM!

I have been asked many times whether I paint or draw from photos. Many times I do, but from my own. And many times I take images and put them together. And sometimes the paintings come from the dark recesses of my dreams. My paintings seem to follow my views, internally and externally.

Moments when life seems bleak...

Tall trees at sunset have shadows that look like silhouettes of faces. And in the darkest of personal storms, the natural world has metaphors for our lives...

Since 2000, I have been studying California water systems, ecology, and policy. And I have been documenting the changing landscape of the mountains behind my house, the rivers that flow near by, and the policies that alter the ecology.

In 2005, the region had a hundred year storm event, mostly felt in the foothills and mountains. Trees in the upper watershed were ripped out by the roots and shunted towards the valley below. Most of the debris was caught by the first dam, San Gabriel Dam, and left to float to the sides of the reservoir. Now, after three years, the trees are visibly deteriorated.

In 2005, just after the heavy rains, Public Works and the Fire Department thought they could rid the dam of the mess by cutting the individual trees and burning them.... I, and so many others, are glad they understood (finally) the magnitude of that decision.... They decided, after trying to cut and burn the thousands of mature trees floating in the dam, to let them float... and pile up along the edges of the water like a bathtub ring. When the dam fills with water from the winter storms, the disintegrating trees, now lighter, float to the center taking the tree-chunks along with them.

...here is a closer look at the tree slime.... in our drinking water. It's okay. The water is let to fill the percolating ponds in the City of Irwindale, and then pumped up and filtered again. About 2 million people drink this water.

My earlier studies of the mountains...

The mountains have lungs, you know, besides the trees. It is ocean that regulates the temperatures and the direction of the winds.

The sky above and what we humans do to our land, water and air determines our climate, the amount of water we have available, and how well we will live. Ecology and Public Policy are co-joined guiding how we do economically.

Here is the Rockface close up...

Finally, when I was a kid, I loved to hike the wild hillsides of the Hollywood Hills and the Santa Monica Mountains. I collected insects of all sorts and spent hours alone exploring. One time, I walked up the mountain barefoot for some reason. After hours of walking on stones my feet became quite tough.

Here is a painting of what it would be like if you, like I used to do, plopped into the grass on your back looking up into the sky. Everywhere around you the bugs would wonder, "Who invaded our territory?" and buzz and hummmmm..... Hold still and listen.

Evolution and the species Homo sapiens

2008-03-16T09:13:00.000-07:00

Sapiens..... the Online English to Latin to English Dictionary reports back that it means wise, judicious as in, "a wise man, philosopher." However, one has only to read the newspapers to understand that this description of our species is at least over generous. The fight of bible thumping people over science and the evidence that life did not just pop out of the ether, is another indication that perhaps we should change our name to maybe, Homo plumbeus, or Homo bardus, or Homo profundus tardus.

I saw this video and wanted to share....

Living out in the open

2008-03-06T20:53:00.000-08:00

I am here in Oklahoma .... finally. It took more then 45 hours from Los Angeles.... A bit harrowing because of the long ride in Texas. And I DO think trains are the answer to much of our nation's problems (economically and globally as per climate change). However, I spoke to the conductor of the Oklahoma connection, and I need to check if the all the details are correct.... It is owned and operated and run moment by unresponsive moment by the Federal Government ......

Oklahoma pooled its money and upgraded and rebuilt their interconnects and now they can run their trains above 100 mph ... Also, they modernized their switching stations so that they can monitor WHERE the trains are and were they are going.....

Most of the Texas Amtrak is in dire need of upgrades and because of that, trains are not allowed to go much faster then 45 mph (quite a difference). Most of the tracks are in very bad shape - broken ties, steel spikes sitting next to and not in the rails.... Texas is an accident .. and a terrible one... waiting to happen.

The train to Oklahoma runs along the border between Mexico and Texas. The Texas train sat at crossings, or poked along well below 15 mph, or spend nine hour lay overs in San Antonio. The train in San Antonio is there just to "switch this car to this train, and that car to that train, and the put this car back again...." Why? Because it would take to long to transfer the luggage...." Right. I could not find a single person at Amtract who could give a convincing reason for all that hullabaloo...

When the train moved in Texas it went 35 mph maybe 45 mph (like the cargo trains) and along the open stretch along the Rio Grande. The little towns and scrubby living conditions pepper the open space like my grandparent's old photographs of the turn of the 20th Century... or of the 30s Dust Bowl.

Ranches of cattle and sheep in the dry surroundings were isolated.

But the sky above the stratified mountains were beautiful.

What I liked about the train over other means of travel across the nation was the opportunity to meet and talk to so many different people. One couple from Michigan, who were a Mennonite, were coming back from Mexico. They were teaching German and learning Spanish. One lady was going to Fort Worth because of her sister, I think she said she was 36, and was dying of cancer. Another lady (about 66) was traveling to see her dying mother who was over a hundred. The first lady hated to travel by plane the second had burned her lungs. ~ The older woman had poured Chlorox into her new house's tub and then turned on the hot water. The chlorine wafted up in the hot steam and she breathed it in... She ended up in the hospital and then found out about her mother. Her doctor told her not to fly so she took the train. She had called Amtrak for tickets and to make sure there were no any lay overs - her mother had such a short time to be alive. The Amtrak Customer Service person said, "No." However, there was a lay over - a nine hour lay over in San Antonio. The conductor on that train said, "They never tell people about the layover. Everybody is told it goes straight through..."

Lunar eclipse

2008-02-20T19:43:00.001-08:00

The first time I saw an eclipse, I was pregnant with my daughter. I, my husband and my son, lived in a small rented house with a lovely little garden. We had a cleaning lady who brought her adult daughter to work with her - the mother did not speak English very well and so her daughter translated.

The night of the eclipse, I sat out on the front lawn watching the night sky. My husband would peek out now and again to check on the progress of the eclipse. Our son was sound asleep and so were most of the neighbors. The moon seemed to loose its light, the dark spots of the craters took on the color of bruises, and then the entire planet turned dark red. I took pictures of it then, too.

The next day Angie and Melayna came to help us find the floor and clean clothes. Pattering after my son who always had a fist wrapped around a small toy car..."Did you watch the lunar eclipse?" I asked. Both looked puzzled. Then I explained.

Malayna looked horrified and then Angie asked, "Did you wear a metal belt while you were outside?" "No." I said. "Did you cover your belly?" Angie pantomimed wrapping something about her waist. "No. Why?" I asked.

Well, it seemed that the evil spirits from the moon would make my baby deformed at birth or be born without arms and legs. "Really!" I said. And the more I listened to their reasons I realized that Melayna, with great worry, was describing through Angie, how the sun god, 'Quetzalquatal ' had a fight with his sister, 'Tezcatlipoca' and cut her into bits.... "But, every month she re-grows herself. And if any to-be mother watches the night sky when the moon is dark - that child will be cut up instead!"

"Well," I said, "what should I do now?" .....We prayed and had some interesting food. They prayed to Jesus, which did not make any sense to me... Especially, when the culprit was an ancient Central American God....

My daughter, I am pleased to say, was born with all the proper parts. This isn't the first time I have participated in a ritual with divergent cultural mixes. I am always fascinated how mythology of the past persists into the mythology of the present.

Spring Fungus - and friend

2008-02-18T19:33:00.000-08:00

The days are coolish and sometimes, warmish. This wonderful oak is calling for you to explore.

It has rained nicely this winter and will rain at the end of this week. My cherry tree has old blossoms and the bees are tired of trying to extract pollen from them. Both are looking sad.

My peach, plum, apricot, nectarine, apples, orange, tangerine, and pear are ready to burst forth with blossoms. The oxalis is everywhere in my garden, but because of the rains, fungus is lifting its various forms of fruiting bodies. I have not found any fungus as yet in my garden so I went with a friend to some remaining forests in the area.

Stirring under the leaf litter, on downed trees and limbs, slime mold slips through the xylem and emerges towards the light. Shelf fungus oozes out of cracks in tree bark and hardens into multi colored ruffles. Fat mushrooms without gills pop up from under the litter to dance on the forest floor. What must precede the amazing dance of new life is the recycling of the deceased.

The Morchella sp. is found in the woodland.

Cup fungi belong to the Ascomycetes, include yeasts, powdery mildew, morels, true flask fungi, false flask fungi, and truffles. The inner surface of the sup contains the spore producing asci.

The foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains is where the oaks dance. Their branches look as if we caught them waving their arms in some wild moment. So much of these wonderful mystical areas have been downed for the silly gated communities which sport grass, fancy cars, and palm trees. They are usually named things on their front wall like 'Secret Oaks' or 'Lofty Two Stories in the Trees' or 'We're Rich and Special and You Aren't' ...But, all of the wonderful trees are gone... and.. well... there is a subprime bubble going on. Perhaps, names like 'Money Gone Down the Tubes' or 'Take My BMW, Please' might be a better match.

These oaks create a quiet like no other forest. Under these trees are tons of poison oak. Many of the 'irritating hives' induced by the plants are still without leaves. Everything on the plant, dead or alive will induce and immune response that causes blisters.

This wonderful little mushroom has heavy gills. I have not found its name in my books.

This is a Hypoxylon sp. which grows on birch or alder.... and since birch (Northern California) does not grow normally here in the foothills this strange growth is on an alder.... which is a tree that grows in Southern Californian riparian areas.

Who knows who this little guy is... But, another will come up after the coming rain.

This is Coriolus versicolor. It is a common bracket fungus which grows on dead wood. When they first form, they look soft and velvety, but in a short time they dry out and become hard and smooth.

We went looking for these guys. They look just like the little fat 'shrooms' from the film, Fantasia. This fungus is in the order of Boletales which produce spores not in gills underneath but in closely packed tubes.

One thing that can be said that if you find lots of lichen about then the air quality must not be too bad.... The more varieties the better.

The best find was yesterday - a great horned owl in a pine tree. I hooted at her and she looked down to see the silly sounding animal below. Such fine creatures!

SO MUCH TO DO! and not enough of me...

2008-01-16T11:11:00.000-08:00

I have finished... no I never finish a painting, but I just stop trying to add and fix... one 3'9' oil painting and have three of the same size to fill in and detail. I would also like to add one more to my San Gabriel Mountains and River Series by next week (HA!). They have a date with the City of Pasadena, Ca. One is of the mountain range (not shown), another is of the rocks that make the mountains (the finished painting), one of the vegetation and invertebrate world (partially drenched in light from the window) and one of the estuary at the end of the river (the painting in process on the left easel). The last one would be of the burned section of the upper watershed because fire is an important component in soil nutrition and California endemic plant growth.

I love painting several at a time. And, I love painting large!

The goofy collage of cut oak flooring and wires and tubes is something new I like doing - mosaics from found objects. That one is titled - "Open Space"

Stats and life

2007-12-08T10:48:00.000-08:00

Ginkgo biloba, or the Maidenhair tree, once was thought to have died out with the dinosaurs, was discovered alive in a small grove in Central China. It comes in males and females and it's the females which produce the stinky fruit which contains flavonoid glycosides and terpenoids that are vasodilators and thought to help in brain function and in particular, memory.

I was recently told how to distinguish the difference between the sexes of the trees by a phrase, "... the girls wear skirts and the boys wear pantaloons." And it is true that some trees have split leaves that make each leaf look like two, and others have small slits or no slits at all. I have a girl tree and she produces the stinkiest fruit. It smells just like a mix of dog poo and vomit. What a combination! I can't imagine how people would think to try to eat them.... discovering their medicinal properties.... Only, perhaps if you think that if it smells bad it must be good for you!

Lagerstroemia, or Crepe myrtle have been planted all over Pasadena, California. It likes warm summers and nice rain and cool winters. When I lived in Ohio, I saw people try to grow these trees. They are quite beautiful. Their flowers, which cover the entire tree like a puff ball, come in purple, pink, red, and white. And in winter, their leaves turn red before falling. However, even when the people in Ohio wrapped their Crepe myrtle in blankets (which they did) the cold winds would either stunt the growth or kill the tree.

The leaves of both trees have mostly fallen off. I use them in the flower beds for color. I rake them up and sprinkle them over the bare dirt. I suppose that my neighbors think I am crazy, but the leaves provide the rich colors of red, yellow and orange in a normally brown ground, and eventually the leaves become mulch for the plants in the dry summers.

But, as I was looking at the fall of the leaves on the bricks, I could not help see how statistics work. My Crepe myrtle is older and has many more leaves then my Ginko and so the leaf drop is much more dense from the Crepe myrtle. One could see that if you were considering what the chances were for a particular incident, say of getting in an accident in your car, the more times you drive the chances increase. The fewer the times the chances go down. Or, how about.... the chances of winning the Loto or at Craps or at cards do go up if you play long enough.... but how much money do you loose in the end? Or... what are the chances of having cancer, or some other disease... the more exposure the higher the probability.

Opossums on my mind

2007-12-03T20:41:00.001-08:00

dsc_2937.jpg
Originally uploaded by r_neches

Okay, it has been a month or so since I let the opossums out into the world.... and I see one picture and I miss them.

You have to admit, they are cute.

My son is at his computer and I set this little guy on his head. The opossum liked crawling around on and in your hair and being close. Very wonderful animals.

Abbey Road revisited

2007-11-12T20:47:00.000-08:00

My little girl was hit by a car two weeks ago while she was riding her bike. She is going to be fine. As a parent, I am deeply impacted by her accident in significant ways. I can not image being a parent of a child lost in the Bush's wars. How do people not understand the depth at which Bush and Cheney and their minions will crawl to do such evil? And the biggest evil to start wars, with lies, stealing the lives of our nation's children?

On this Veteran's Day, I am sadder then ever. The men and women who gave of themselves.... I am deeply saddened by this war of choice... this should never be! We need to stop it.

What have we as a Nation wrought? Here and elsewhere?

Sigh....

I went to Oklahoma in January to do what I could for my daughter's band and CD party. And I had to do this shot. I am sure that every band since the Beetles have had to do this pose, too.... but did you know that a very fine college textbook called, Molecular Biology of the Cell also had the authors pose for their back coversimilar shot? And guess who were walking down Abbey Road????

Funny how iconic images cross all barriers! (Whose that guy in the funny hat?)

Just walkin' cross the road...

2007-11-11T22:14:00.000-08:00

Well, it all started when a dear friend asked if I would like to go to the Los Angeles Zoo's new exhibit on spiders, and I said. "Yes!" My life has become a bit crazy and that particular weekend I also promised I would take some shots of the first rain in the mountians.... This was the end of September....

My friend is very uncomfortable about spiders. She says it is because of the numbers of the large garden spiders that cover the garage doors and back doors of her parent's home in Ohio next to Lake Erie. She describes how you can wash all the spiders off in the morning with a hose, but the next day, they are back covering the doors and walls again. In the San Gabriel area we have large garden spiders that drape large webs in the evening and which are destroyed by morning light.

There are nocturnal orb weavers and diurnal orb spinners. When disturbed, the diurnal spiders use the 'bounce' (if you touch the web the spider vibrates in place in the center of the web for many minutes) as a defense against the destruction of their webs. Nocturnal spinners do not need to do this. Large moths like the the sphinx moth, are a large part of the nocturnal spider's diet and they tear the web apart. And the only thing that could fly through - bats rarely fly through their webs... The nocturnal orb spider just runs to its hiding place when under attack (the web attachment under a leaf or twig at the top of the web... or under the the light next to your back door!!!)... Rarely, will you find nocturnal orb spiders still in the center of the web in the morning from the night before. They usually are hiding in their special spot well before the sun comes up but will return to fix their web when dark falls.

Daytime is bad for spiders and their webs because of birds. Birds eat spiders and they fly through the webs which are woven in clearings to catch flying insects. The bouncing defense of the diurnal orb spider confuses birds - makes it hard for the bird while in flight to see the spider and ... diurnal orbs spiders weave heavy stripes radiating from the center of the web which looks more 'solid' while the spider shakes.

Well, back to my friend. I am real proud of her. She has come a long way from her days in Mugu when all spiders made her skin crawl... She used to kill all spiders that found their way into her bathtub or sink. But now, she wanted to see all sorts of spiders - live spiders - at the Zoo.

I had to take this small detour up the mountain and we visited the pipe-cleaner forest. This area on the mountain where the trees have been burned so many times though, still alive, have no limbs so the needles grow out from the tall main trunks. They look like they have had a 'poodle cut'

Well, I got the shots I needed and so we were set to drive to the Los Angeles Zoo. As we were zooming down the winding road my friend shouts, "STOP!! A TARANTULA!!" I turned around and then parked and sure enough, there was a wandering male hunting for his lady love.

(The poor male has to hunt around for the ladies who sit in their lair... and it's the males who become the meals for the tarantula hawks this time of year, too) And, of course... in harms way on the road.... These poor fellows tend to get into ALL sorts trouble looking for love in all the wrong places. So, we got out of the car and decided to prod the fuzzy guy back into the brush.... My friend helped scoop him up with a stick and not drop him (they are fragile!!! and these guys do NOT jump!!). The spider tried to entice us to touch his back end by waving it about and rubbing the stinging hairs with his back legs and with his long adroit spinnerets.

Needless to say we missed the opening of the Spider show that day, and we met the next weekend to oooggle at the black widows and brown recluse at the Zoo.... but, I think the best was meeting a wild and crazy 'guy' waving his cute hairy butt!!! In the street, no less!!!

Rocks - lots of rocks

2007-11-10T20:00:00.000-08:00

The rock faces of the San Gabriel Mountains have a particular look. The shapes are sharp and they are made of very crumbly material. Grasses have a hard time growing between the rocks because there are so few nutrients and things to grasp with their roots to survive. When the rains come, anything that can get a grip grows fast and takes advantage of the short wet season. The canyon wren, Catherpes mexicanus, is peeking from under the large bolder. Click on the picture for a larger view.

This photo is becoming a painting. It is taking longer then I thought it would but I am finding so many wondrous things that live in this vertical quarry. Centipedes hide in the cracks waiting for a juicy beetle. Grubs, beetle larvae, emerge from their winter sleep. So, no wonder brown creepers and wrens hop about these places.

This rock face is adjacent to the face in the upper image. It is composed of completely different substances and is far more crumbly. It bulges as if it is about to pop - I did not alter the image or enhance it.

Many veins of speckled rock have very large boulders that project out over trails and roads. Considering how crumbly and loose the pieces are, these faces can be quite a hazard. But, oh, how dramatic they are.

Oh! Those opossums!

2007-11-08T20:33:00.000-08:00

Oh my! My heart has been stolen! Stolen by five funny, smelly, wonderful little two month old opossums!

They came into my life because a friend had found them, not abandoned but lost - their mother had been hit by a car and they were left wandering the street. My vet's secretary took them in and forced fed them until they were 3.5 inches long in body length until six squirrels were given to her to raise, too. I said I would look after the opossums and I knew they were almost ready to release....

.... but then I fell in love....

I picked them up and carried them about and they found that sitting on my head was the best place to be... second to finding a pathway through my hair.

I fed them dog food (wet and dry), apples, bananas, peas, beans, seeds, sow bugs, crickets on the hoof, worms from the garden, flies, grubs, and my favorite - cheese. They would grab with their dexterous hands their slice and chew and chew and chew and chew.... My next favorite food to give them were small snails. They would crunch and crunch and crunch....

Their jaws do not 'grind' their food like a cow or horse or even like us. Their bite is more like a lizard (on a couple of occasions once when one was frightened by something and another time when my finger smelled of food), biting straight down with a strong squeeze. Their tongues move their food around inside their mouths until the juice is squeezed out and swallowed. The solids are spun within their pointed shaped jaws and their very masterful tongue until the shape of the bolus is in a possum sized cigar, which is THEN swallowed. Lots of good food falls from their mouths eating in this fashion... but is then eaten by the next happy possum who does not have to work so hard to fill its tummy. Many times the possums would try to steal food from each others' mouths in the process of chewing.

Cheese is such a funny substance and they love it! Cheese really doesn't have much moisture so the jack cheese is studiously worked on for many many minutes. All five possums facing in various directions chewing and grasping and licking..... I have to say, it is much more amusing to watch opossums eat cheese then a dog with a tongue full of peanut butter or even.... a goose with a bill full of peanut butter! All of which I have observed.

Possums greet each other by touching noses after some huffing sounds. Everyday, I would call their names (BABIES!) snuff a bit by their cage and they would come to me to touch my nose with theirs. (- NOW! For YOU who are reading this....I would not do this with a wild un-introduced opossum!!... they might try to eat your nose! - ) And when I let them wander my yard they would come back to my back door to say hello... where we would do our greetings ("BABBIES!" snuff snuff, 'bump nose'). One little male called to me when he got worried (it sounded like a sneeze) and I would call back with kissing sounds - which seemed to calm him.

Well, tonight, I had to let them go out into the wilds of the San Gabriel Mountains. They were still sleepy from a big meal of cheese, apples and wet dog food. It was dark and I drove them to a place where there were still some people about (forest rangers and others who care for the Angeles Forest) but not too many. I put some dry cat food on the dirt and left their smelly blanket for them to return to if they got cold. The little guys had more then doubled in size and were ready to explore this world.... but it was hard for me to say 'Good-bye, Babbies!"

Be safe little Guys! And have many more babies!

How do they do that?

2007-10-23T19:56:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder how a cat can just become a body with a head and no legs?

Well, if Mouse could talk, he would say that all you have to do is tuck your elbows and knees up against your body so that they disappear inside your skin folds. then as you sit down completely cover your feet and hands with the rest of your skin and fur...

Fred will demonstrate. As you can see - he is sitting in this position on the netting covering the patio.

Every cat has a 'style' of sitting. Fred likes to leave one paw out. Now that you have taken a look, Fred wants you to practice.

Time changes all...

2007-10-19T11:02:00.001-07:00

Size
Originally uploaded by tardigrade

About an hour after finding this little tiger thrashing in the up ended wet sand, his color started to change. His elytra darkened. He still was not very strong and his legs were like noodles when he tried to walk. Eventually, he turned green... but he was not able to survive the day. That made me sad.

I am not sure why he died. Insects are very sensitive to the quality of food they eat. IF as larvae, they do not get all of the protein they need, as they develop into adults they will be smaller then their parents. If they do not get the special nutrients they need but plenty of calories, they may emerge as adults without legs or other malformations. You can see this very clearly if you buy commercially bread meal worms. They will develop non-survivable abnormalities because of the poor nutritional diet they are given in the factories.... And now, think of how those meal worms may effect the pets they are supposed to feed!

Cicindela sexguttta

2007-10-17T12:10:00.001-07:00

Sexgutata-from-Ohio
Originally uploaded by tardigrade

My dear friend goes back to Ohio where she was born and raised and where her parents live, at least once a year. She helped me many times at Mugu catch tiger beetles. Then one year she and her mother were walking along the beach of Lake Erie on a path she had taken since she was a tiny person, and she spotted something familiar - TIGER BEETLES!

Quick! catch them! She told her mother. "WHAT?"
her mother exclaimed wondering whether there was some horrible animal coming after them. "Tigers!" yelled my friend. "What do you mean, TIGERS? I don't see any tigers!" her mother yelled back. "Down there on the ground next to the water!" "Those beetles????" as one jump past her. 'Woooooosh!' "How are we gonna catch these bugs??? They are too fast!" her mother said. "Like this!" and my friend jumped on a mating pair.

She showed the struggling beetles to her mother by carefully holding them in her fingers.

"Aren't they beautiful!" she said. "Yes, But now what are you going to do?" her mother asked. "Catch more for Terry!"

So, my friend and her mother caught about 18 tigers and then my friend brought them back for me - alive, well most of them. I put them in an aquaria and fed them flies, big and small, spiders and earwigs. Then I had an ant attack and many of the tigers died. Finally the last of the Ohio tigers passed, but they left a number os suspicious holes in the sand - larvae.

I raised fruit flies in my kitchen... this is not really recommended.... by letting a banana get over ripe near the tank. Then I put the spoonful of red wine in a spoon next to the larvae, but not too close.

Anyway, after over a year, and more ant attacks, I thought all I had was one larvae left. I didn't see the hole anymore.... and I was worried. I decided to dump the sand and see if there were any wiggling... and instead I found something white with black legs.. and it was alive!

I put it in the sun and the outer coating of the tiger started to harden so it could walk.

Isn't it pretty?

Bubbles, giant massive bubbles...

2007-10-15T10:09:00.000-07:00

I saw this YouTube and I think it needs to go viral....

You work real hard and then, ppllltttzzzz!!!

2007-10-13T17:18:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed doing this mural for a friend. She and her husband bought a place in Santa Paula, California and with their own two hands and backs they created a wonderful little coffee shop. Ros asked me to create a painting that would capture the feeling of the surrounding mountains, and orchards. We thought a California Impressionist painting would be fun...one that might have been a label on some long ago box of freshly picked oranges.....

The Santa Paula Coffee Company still lives but Ros and her husband have sold the business. I wish them well. I don't know if the new owners have the painting, because I told Ros if she and husband want to start another one - "...just take the painting with you and I will put on another name....."

So thennnn......

2007-10-13T17:04:00.000-07:00

Another time, and another super long day... no, a week of counting snails and other anal retentive type things. The mudflat had been inundated with water and it had been standing for weeks. The algal growth was ferocious and the mold was spectacular. I have to tell you I did not have to boost the saturation very much in this shot. These algae, cyanobacteria, diatoms, and fungus are really really cool!!!

Our fearless leader was a good sport and I posed her in this shot. The sky was created in a program called 'Bryce' generally used for 3D movies (simple ones) and single images, too. We thought of doing wedding shots in the mud... but that didn't turn out. Maybe one day I will..... this image is still hanging in the UCLA wetlands office.

Long time, no see...

2007-10-13T16:11:00.000-07:00

I have not visited in a long time. I felt too guilty to visit. You, Blog, were just there waiting so patiently, I, feeling so guilty, I just let you sit and wait. But I am back.

Well, I have been looking after my mom, my cat, my chicken, and my tortoises. Sometimes, it just gets to be too much. I take my mom to her appointments - mostly to the dentist and the doctor and then to the pharmacy. Then, I inject fluids just under my cat's skin because his kidneys are letting too much fluid out. We sit in a chair while the fluids drip under his loose skin between his shoulder blades. It doesn't bother him too much and he gets to be rubbed and petted. Then, I force feed my chicken because she is old and thin.... I don't do that often because I find that when I offer her food on a chicken sized table she can see to eat. Yes, I have a mostly blind chicken. The tortoises just need looking after because they wander about wondering.... Very much like Alzheimer Reptiles. Oh, I forgot. I have a mostly blind finch that feels his way to his water dish and seed dish through a maze of his poop piles. OH! You think I am kidding? When I take them down he has a hard time finding his way around... until the piles "re-grow" at the floor, deposited from his perches.... If not for my mother I could call my household a geriatric zoo....

For myself - I have been writing, painting, taking pictures and going to meetings. While I was off-loading files from one computer to the next, I found some old goofy images. While working at Mugu counting endless patches of plants and snails, I would explode and do silly things. Most people, I suppose do, but maybe not...

Here is the first one in 2002, summer.... Oh!!! it was a super long day. I was tired inside and out of having to measure the height of, literally, acres of plants that only grew just below my knees.... and then... I thought, 'That stuff looks so nice and fluffy.... and soft .... and..." and in about two minutes I gave one friend my camera and then I threw myself into the Salicornia and making a mud angel.... "SHOOT ME NOW!!!" I cried! I am a bad influence because an undergraduate working with us had to do the same. Shame shame...

humming-bird-egg

2007-07-06T21:49:00.001-07:00

humming-bird-egg
Originally uploaded by tardigrade

My brain has wrapped around how the physical body of an organism adapts to its environment. I can imagine how it might be programmed to eat and do things within that environment... But, what truly astonishes me is the part where an organism just knows how to do the most impossible things. For humans, myths and legends and stories that are handed down through the generations in hunter gatherer communities, is thought to be the way we 'remember' how to feed, cloth, and live with other humans. But, to have that all on board without communication from the parents.... There are finches - like zebra finches - that learn how to sing (the males) from their fathers. But, even that is amazing.

Fire in Los Angeles County

2007-05-24T11:22:00.000-07:00

This is very early for fire.

Sicko pyromaniacs have hit us hard early, too, this year in Hollywood.

The smoke and ash are bad for young and old lungs. Add smoke and ash to our climbing smog and ozone concentrations from increased volume of cars on the road, and we have lethal atmospheric conditions.

Plant stomas can be blocked by ash and soot, cutting off the CO2 going in and O2 going out.

http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Ash and soot can be in small enough particles that can go deep into human lungs. These particles, PM10 (measurement of particle size) and below, go deep into our air sacks and we cannot be expel them by coughing... which causes irritation we cannot feel... which leads to inflammation, which causes blood vessels to break adding more damage, and more inflammation.... which leads to scarring and, can ultimately cause cancer. Also, the particles can be small enough (PM 2.5 ) to pass through the lung tissue cell walls and go right into the blood stream, perhaps causing clots which can impact more lung tissue and the heart.

I don't remember the radio stations, during this time, calling for people to saty indoors....

Time to read

2007-05-10T14:28:00.000-07:00

This Chicken is one of the sweetest birds I have ever known.She loves people and she feels she is one of the 'flock.' When new people come to visit, she will come to inspect things around on the ground and tell the new people in her flock all about all sorts of things. She has a sweet voice, mostly, with a particular upturn at the end of a phrase (yes, you can hear stops and starts in her sounds a like 'sentences') as if to ask questions. If you sit down she will walk about next to you.

My son has had chickens since he was small. Miss Chicken adores my son. He came over for dinner and found my Science News. The two of them read the article.

Red tailed hawk

2007-05-10T12:24:00.000-07:00

Birds are nesting .... and so are the hawks. This image is one hawk from a pair flying circles over the city of Glendora.

If you follow the road (on the map...) up the mountain, and past a gated community, there are indications of farms and ranches that were owned by families from the 20s, 40s and 50s. In the early 50s the City of Glendora had only 3000 people. One particular family that bought land in the mountains owned a stone house next to a property owned by Charlie Chaplin. This family is unusual in that it is 5 generations Californian.

Apparently, from a story told to me by the son of the owner (generation four), his father used to say that Charlie Chaplin had 'orgies' next door.... probably just Hollywood parties... The stone house and Charlie's house are pretty close... about a quarter of a block away from each other. So, with enough music and conversations by those with thespian backgrounds, one could very well assume wild unfettered partying was going on.

This family who lived near Charlie, donated about 40 acres of their 400 to the San Gabriel Mountain Regional Conservancy and is planning to sell the Conservancy more using various funds from local cities. The family was divided about this. One part of the family, which made lots of money in the drilling oil in Southern California, wanted to sell the parcel off... While the other sector (headed by the matriarch whose one son is a doctor) wanted to give it to a non-profit group to preserve the open land.

As with many of these sorts of large and valuable parcels and family issues, it was hard to make the decision to preserve. All around the parcel, many other landowners have sold to builders who are grinding away at our common heritage with bulldozers. The 8 thousand square foots monsters set on little mountain peaks, built for people who need monuments to themselves, have to have water pumped up to them. In the end, the city and the state of California, which has few reserves of natural sources of water, will pay for the 'parties' or more appropriately, orgies that the builders are enjoying on our future dime.

The Conservancy had a day on the Ranch and got to listen to the matriarch of the family. One of her son's... perhaps the one not happy about the gift, flew his plane over our heads.

Other people representing conservancies from other parts of Southern California, came that day to rejoice in the gift to the future. They wanted to know how to preserve more and to protect lands from the building orgies and their lawyers who constantly push weak government bureaucrats. They wanted to meet successes to give them courage. In Southern California we are loosing not only sensitive ecosystems but farming land to houses. Soon, we will need to go abroad for most of our food. Hope that it won't be harmful and expensive..... what do you think????

When the property was a ranch, 50 years and more ago, the cattle ate the chaparral. The cattle have not been on the mountain for many many years but you can still see where their hooves scared the soil. There are trails that cut the surface of the mountains ... the trees are gone, only grass is dominant, and the medium sized brush is mostly gone. You can see the pattern in the soils - it looks like the wire mesh used for stucco on the outside of homes.....

It IS Spring....

2007-03-30T13:13:00.000-07:00

The flowers are blooming on the fruit trees. Weeds are as high as my knees. Birds of all sorts, are tearing up my Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) for their nests which drape all the outside lights. Acorn Woodpeckers (Melanerpes formicivorus) were hitting my neighbor's Liquidamber styraciflua so loud it echoed inside my house. There were two males hopping around at top of the tree.... actually hopping on their tails.... over a single female which was flying around them. I guess one male looked cuter and flew off with the 'girl' which left this poor guy for me to take a quick picture of it in its confusion.

Then just inside the garden two male Xylocopa sp. or Carpenter bees were making a ruckus. The males have longish hair that is yellow-brown. They seem very mean and aggressive, but I caught this one to examine it up close - It hated that! They do not have a stinger and these two males were demonstrating their ability to find a good home for the shiny black female just up in the tree near-by. When I happened along this one male was petrolling his prime spot. A second male tried to take it but, the first one shooed the usurper away. This wonderful little guy kept his eyes on me as I took this shot. He knew I was trouble! I love his antenna.

Then I heard the sound of .... oh, I can't explain it.... I have a chicken and my neighbor came over to report that she heard my chicken coughing or having a hairball or something.... Then she noticed that my 50 pound tortoises were.... um.... She was shocked. I tell you ! Shocked!

But the best part of my spring day was at the market. This young lady was scurrying into the florist shop and said something about getting her stuff for her friend's babyshower.... OH, how she fussed! Two men from the market came out to help her. She was late and the florist was late and and and what was she to do!!!!!.... "Yes.... just bring your car around and we will put the balloons in your car...." The gal ran off and drove up in this small car.... or did she order too many balloons???? The guys had to stuff the balloons into the car while the lady was in the driver's seat and STILL she had to drive off with balloons coming out of her windows ..... Everyone stopped to look and laugh....

Spring brings out the silly in all of us...

One last shot.... This little shop has been here for ages. This was the first time my son saw it. He had my camera and thought it a hoot. Enjoy your spring.

CFCs

2007-03-25T11:55:00.000-07:00

Funny story.... you know how it is. You hear one thing and then another and the next thing you know they all connect.... into one big cluster f**k. (an aside; I learned that term from an esteemed Caltech person who will be nameless.... Caltech folk have very interesting colloquialisms for describing horrific mistakes.)

I lived in Dayton, Ohio, the home of General Motors truck division and the birth place of two very interesting chemicals that will dog humanity until the day we disappear. In the city of Dayton there is a smaller community called Kettering named after the man who developed the starter motor for all motor vehicles today. The starter motor was key to selling all those cars we have on the road today. Before his nifty devise, you had to have some strong person crank over the engine to start it. Lots of people hurt themselves badly. Mostly rich people, with expendable help, had cars.

Kettering, and a number of other people, felt that oil was not going to be the way of the future of automobiles. He and many others felt that ethanol was going to be it and that the US could produce enough for our automobiles and be independent of foreign oil. Does this sound familiar?

Charles Kettering hired Thomas Midgley, a chemist, to devise a way to stop the 'knock' in our cars engines. Midgley created tetra-ethyl-lead (TEL), an additive to gasoline, which aerosoled lead from millions of tailpipes into the air, water, and soils. This period, geologically speaking, is like a fraction of a second in time,... yet... our children's children's children will be 'less' for it. Lead deforms and disfigures and causes mental retardation and destruction of brain functions. Lead doesn't just do its work on humans. Along the main road from the airport to Johannesburg, South Africa, I found ornamental trees filled with butterflies that could not complete their pupation cycle and emerged deformed. Hundreds and hundreds of dead butterflies at the base of the trees year after year should alert people to stop using this poison, you would think..... But then... many people died in the labs of Dupont/GM/Standard Oil creating tetra-ethyl-lead and many sickened including, Thomas Midgley.

Midgley also developed a 'safe' refrigerant which today, like TEL, is banned by many countries. It allowed for people to have refrigeration in their homes and air conditioning.

What is interesting is that these two chemicals allowed everyone and anyone to own cars and to enjoy air conditioning and have refrigeration. There is no doubt that the devices gave us some short moment in our human history of comfort and fun .... But because of their popularity - you can do a one-to-one association with numbers of humans to numbers of devices - the damage done to our only home, earth, is incalculable.

But what really happened? For generations it has been understood that lead was the poison that destroyed Ancient Rome - not Christianity (sorry, I had to study these roots myself in Catholic school). So, why did we think it was 'okay' to use the stuff? How about the connection between Standard Oil, Dupont (which took over GM) and dropping ethanol for the US fleet ....ethanol did not knock - gasoline did.... Then the next question that bugs people who wanted the electric car for economic and ecological reasons.... Why did GM drop the EV1 and pay off a member of the Californian Air Resource Board and buy up the patents for the really good car battery that could be used for electric cars????..... Let me see.... Oil companies on the boards of GM that made the EV1..... hmmmmmmmmm??????

But I still don't get it why these dudes think that they will be unaffected by their own actions? Do they have some sort of ticket to another world? One without global warming? What???? The super rich during the European Plagues were NOT immune from getting sick. They did try to avoid it by building their castles far away from the great unwashed (oh, right, they, too didn't like to bathe...). Only those who had a particular genetic predisposition to avoid dying of the infection from the black plague were safe ... which to this day, protects their descendants from AIDS (don't go around hoping you are a descendant).... Perhaps, it is thought by the super rich that patting and rubbing and wallowing in lots of greenbacks will protect against the verisimilitudes of bad actions.

When I lived in Dayton there was a big celebration for the birth of Midgley. I was commissioned to paint a mural of a CFC molecule. I was allowed a lot of creative freedom - hence the swirls and such. I asked about the celebration, and what was said was ... CFCs saved a lot of lives because ammonia was the refrigerant of the large ice factories. People used the chunks of ice in their homes to cool and partially preserve their food. The concentration of ammonia in the factories was toxic when it leaked and it was explosive. There was good with the bad...I was on the cover of the Dayton Daily News with this mural......

2005 to 2007, San Gabriel Mountains

2007-03-02T13:23:00.000-08:00

My grandmother would say, "...one should always have a reference point from which to compare...." and so to understand my last post, I have to go back to my photos of the San Gabriel Mountains from a couple of years, at least. Is my reaction to the condition of the SG River valley from February 24, 2007 just because I have not visited the area for a while... or is there something very different seasonally and perhaps 'globally'? The top picture was shot February 2005.

Look at February 24, 2007... this is not of the same angle of the valley and the reservoir as in the upper shot, but if you could look to the left up into the upper tributary of the River... this what you would see..... today....

Late November to March is our rainy season (give or take a month) so in February the rains should have stimulated growth of not only the weedy grasses but also the oaks and the Laurel Sumac (Malosma laurina).

The picture on the left was shot after the 100 year storm in March of 2005. The reservoir was being drained. The mountain face with the most green vegetation on the right, was taken at the higher elevation approximately a mile or so from the area seen on the left.

In April of 2006, the valley was still green with some patches of dry. The picture on the left is at a higher elevation (above 2500 feet above sea level). The picture on the right is just above the dam (seen in the upper image)and around the thousand foot level.

The larger picture below was shot in December of 2005. This is looking north past the valley. I hiked with a friend on the 26th to enjoy the cool air of winter. The toyon trees (Heteromeles arbutifolia) were covered in red berries and lots of birds were enjoying the feast.

Now, the question is, is the valley being impacted by something that is drying out the vegetation faster then in other areas? I have been driving the last few days around through in the passes and I find some spotty drying, but not the wholesale valley as seen in the surroundings of the San Gabriel River.

I called this picture '80% dead'.... I am not sure if it is.

Record dry year - so far....

2007-02-25T13:01:00.000-08:00

I have been pining for the mountains. I have been to busy to visit. The bug study, for me, is over but there are a few this and thats to do. I had to see what the few rains had done - if anything - to encourage weedy grasses and such.

As I drove up Highway 38 I noticed that the face of the hillside where the new community was built a few years ago in the mouth of the San Gabriel River as it leaves the foothills, was particularly dry looking. The soils around the vegetation was obviously exposed and light colored (dry), but the brush was brown. I stopped to shoot this image just as the local police were coming down the hill. The highway to the top veers to the right.

As I drove up the mountain, the slant of the faces were brown - I did not see much green from the Laural Sumac which dots the landscape. All around me, the valley looked dead.

The lower part of the San Gabriel Dam had water, but above, there were only tiny streams.

A section of the running water had red algae and the deeper section had green. The Forest Service and County people suspended a red tape so that the Off Road Vehicles would not run through our drinking water.

I just could not get over how bad the valley looked. How much of the vegetation was dead and how deep did the plants die? If we don't get more rain this could be the worst fire season ever. And, even if we do get enough rain to bring these plants back from the brink, there is something else needs addressing. Slides.

Roads into forests bring people with their weedy non-native grasses and other invasive plants, hitchhiking on shoes, tires, clothes, dogs, and hair. Roads also bite into the basic fragile structure of mountains and hillsides. It is normal for areas around roads to look different then areas without roads. This spot shows that the construction of the road plus the erosion and weeds, have created a situation where the integrity of the slope is becoming weak and, in a sense, is becoming fluid. This section of the slope near the road even looks like it is pouring and ready to slump onto the road below.

This area is were a hill slide occurred last year and the year before. There is nothing to prevent further erosion. Plants that could prevent further slumping do not have the time to grow and set roots. This area will continue to degrade until the flat stabilizes as a deep furrow... However, that may undermine the road and other hill side structures.

And... there is something else going on here.... The rains that did come may have caused more slumping and slides. The weather has been so dry for so long that plant roots are shallow. The dirt below the plants are bone dry and very friable. When the rains come, the soils at the surface become wet and heavier then the soil below, and the loose dry dirt act as ball-bearings carrying the plants and the hillside with them.

This slide is brand new. It was not there this last summer. You can see the dead sumac rinding down the slope on their shallow rooted toboggans.

Just as I turned around to go back, I noticed that there was the beginning of a new slide. The dust was rising and little cones of piled dirt had just formed. Sometime, soon this section will have a great bite out of the face of the mountain.

The mountains look sick. The vegetation seems not to be doing well. We need to do better.

Los Angeles Rain and "CARB" car

2007-02-11T14:27:00.000-08:00

California Air Resource Board and its CARB car

It rained last night. Finally! Yesterday was sunny, warm and beautiful. My friend and I had lunch at the Port of Los Angeles, outside, under an umbrella. After we finished around 5 p.m., a huge Tsunami of clouds enveloped the Port community and the Peninsula and 'splashed' against the bridges and container hoists.

At 7 am I met my friend at USC. She was prepping the Toyota EV and checking all the air quality devices. There were at least two computers manning diesel particulates (both newly emitted and ones older, larger, and stuck together in clumps), NOx, CO, CO2, NO, NO2, weather conditions, video and sound, and our global position. About 500 lbs of stuff whirring, clicking, and humming made noise even though the car did not.

When we left USC, the CO2 levels were fairly normal. When we got on the freeway we found the CO2 levels to be double the normal ambient amounts. It stayed that way until the weather changed....

When we got on the road, I watched the laptop and looked at what the instruments were detecting. When a truck passed us there were spikes in the number of minute diesel particles - the ones that contribute to cardiopulmonary disease - and from cars and SUVs as well.

We had stops where we monitored intersections and residential areas for spikes in particulates and other combustion by-products. We video taped the areas to identify sources and recorded our voices for particular issues that we may experience during the drive. We didn't talk exclusively of science matters, my friend and the other people will have a good time listening to our stories.

At the end of the run, our beautiful weather turned peculiar. Not far from us was an oncoming rainstorm. On the west, where all of the cranes and containers for miles, high dark clouds started forming. Then, a bank of low clouds poured over the peninsula north-east of the Port, covering the community with a thick layer of cold moist clouds. It then pushed forward towards the Port litteraly splashing into the container cranes and hoists. Then the world turned very dark and it was time to be home.

Dry as Dry Bones

2007-02-07T18:48:00.000-08:00

The Los Angeles Times, on February 2, 2007....

"For perspective, consider the driest year in L.A.'s documented record: In 2001-02, 3.66 inches of rain fell between July 1 and Jan. 31. Then it got really dry. February, Southern California's wettest month, produced virtually no rain, and March was no better.

Up to now, the 2006-2007 season has been even drier. But forecasters still believe it's possible the region will see more rain later this month and next. If it continues dry, however, officials said L.A. could be on the road to setting another record.

The dry spell has stretched from the northern Sierra to San Diego."

I must shoot the mountains this weekend. This shot was done in fall/winter 2006. I will go to the same spot and see what the differences might be.

Notice the ridges on the side of the mountain and the dried grasses that grew when there was water... The winter is when the County lets the water run out of the reservoirs and down into the spreading grounds in Irwindale... which is pumped out down stream near Whittier and distributed to 1.5 million people in the San Gabriel Valley. Our 'soiled' water is filtered clean at Whittier and is pumped out in Orange County for drinking water.

We need rain to fill these dams.

Passion and Climate Change

2007-02-03T13:33:00.000-08:00

I eagerly awaited the day I would meet up with others in Nashville, Tennessee who wanted to change the public stance in the US on Climate Change. I did worry about not knowing enough. There is so much to understand. I tried to read original literature prior to driving from Los Angeles. I did worry how I would be able to do what I promised to do - 10 talks this year. But, this problem would be solved when I got back home. I wondered if Al Gore actually would teach the session, and he did.

I was in the last group of the thousand speakers Mr. Gore said he would give his presentation to, to disseminate the issues of this hot button topic. He gave his all giving his talk. There was no forced quality to his speech or actions. He was graceful and touching as he told personal stories interpreting this gargantuan and complex problem into something an individual could grasp in a very emotional way. I cried when he talked of his nearly loosing his son from a car accident, and how this close encounter with his death, was like humanity just 'this close' to loosing this world.

I wanted to take pictures during his talk, but I felt I would interfere and break the connection between audience and speaker.... However, at the end I thought I could get in a few shots when everyone would be clapping. I tried to shoot with the widest opening and the most sensitive setting in my camera while using my long lens. The images were blurry and so I shot one shot at the end with a flash using my wide angle.

Looking at the blurry shots, there is no doubt of Al Gore's conviction and passion. there is no hiding these facts. The image with the flash captures his last moment with the last slide of earth. That image of earth - so vulnerable so beautiful...

Death of a Rat

2007-01-31T21:45:00.000-08:00

This summer I had to take care of my mother, her cat, her tenants, her house, and her unpleasant neighbor. Her neighbor rebuilt the house next door and somehow broke a sewer line which belonged to my mother's tenants.

Their houses and the neighbor's at one time were all one property, were built at the same time (roughly) and all shared the sewer line at the street below .... But in 1951 the original owner subdivided the property into two pieces; the two houses on the up hill were one property and the house the neighbor bought, on the downhill side, the other. Basically a pie shaped piece of land (the neighbor has the smallest part with very little land, approximately 75 feet below my mother's tenants' front doors on the upper street). Since shit flows best downhill, all lines followed the shape of the property to the lowest street - collecting to a single line 15 feet below the neighbor's front door to the street.

In July something icky was bellowing in the neighbor's yard below. A black slow moving river started collecting and I called the Health Inspectors and the place began to crawl with City people. I found the easement signed by all parties way back when, when my grandparents bought the property. I found a lawyer... and the tenants had to use prota-potties for a few months as I tried to straighten things out. I called so many plumbers for estimates to try to fix things. I found a place for the tenants to shower and wash their dishes and clothes. You never know how much we take for granted until the water is shut off... We can do lots without the electricity. We can use candles and we have many hours of daylight... but water! That commodity is something we use all day long even if we don't drink from the tap...

One day, while opening the tenant's basement door - for yet another plumber - I found something on the floor in the back corner. This basement was a storage space for all of the gardening tools and such and apparently my mother had trouble two years ago with fungus in her lawn.... so there was this bag of fungicide which had a tear at the bottom... actually it had been chewed by a rat. There was something partially hidden by the bag and the disconnected soil pipe that look like an old sock draped on a cement block.

The rat got into the basement was hungry, and started to look for food. The fungicide smelled like something it could eat - however, there is no small amount of fungicide that is not poisonous. It killed the rat and then when the flies tried to eat it, the maggots died. The body became bloated - as you can see from its present shape - and after the hair fell out, Dermestid beetles tried to eat the dried skin, and stopped because they, too, died (they caused the funny shaped holes near the legs). The internal organs of the rat are in perfect condition. The hairs of rats are very fine and easily drop out. The skin of the rat's head - the ears and such - may have been attached for a long time except his (yes you can tell it was a male) head was near the sewer clean out and may have rotted to some degree in the wet. The rat had eaten something so toxic that nothing could eat it... even after death.

2007-01-29T22:04:00.000-08:00

So, along this corridor I found three coal fired plants and one nuclear. These monsters are hiding in plain site. I mean... if someone wanted to do something they could.... but the Homeland Security... nah,... they are too busy reading email and listening to phone conversations... What do you think?

What is lurking behind those hills?

2007-01-28T13:36:00.000-08:00

Driving through Arkansas on I-40, I found this pastoral scene interrupted by something that dwarfs this valley of multiple square miles. We built that. We built this one item that dwarfs this large space of land. And then ...there are the miles of copper conduit fanning across this beautiful valley. What things do people give up for television and blenders?

This could stay like this forever until the plant is finished with its usefulness (forever does have an ending in our world).... except, what do we do with the waste radioactive material? The thing to do to keep the plant going is to have breeder reactors but that violates International laws on nuclear proliferation. So, in all our wisdom, we have decided to try to find a deep cave that won't leak its poison into deep aquifers which feed rivers and bodies of water which we tap into to drink... like Yucca Valley. What are our options? The plant could stay forever doing what it does, but things wear out and then what? and then, there are accidents... I hate to think of those.

2007-01-27T19:28:00.000-08:00

I drove home from Nashville after a fine time at the Climate Project. My Prius was a champ. I averaged 54 mph overall. I had to make it home quick, though because the year's first ice storm was about to bite me in my butt. On the radio I head 57 people had been killed in weather related accidents. I was pulled over by a Nashville extraordipoliceman because my right tail light was not working. I wiggeled the bulb and the officer didn't write the ticket - I thanked him for catching it.... I had long nights ahead of me, dancing back and forth on the long two way highways with the big rigs. Those eighteen wheelers run all night long on this nation's highways.

I stayed for a few days at my daughter's house in Oklahoma. That was wonderful fun. I shot pictures and did video for her band. I will cut all that latter for them. But, now, it was time to push on... and on.

My leg hurt while driving - an old dance injury - so many times I turned the cruise control on just so I could change the position of my leg.

I like to find a solid big rig driver. One that doesn't swing back and forth, or one that is strapped for time. I watch the truckers to find a polite guy and then I stick to him like glue. If he surges on, so do I. He goes around a line of trucks, I am right behind him. If he starts slow down... so do I. By doing this I go for long distances through the night and watching a good driver means he has the information on the road issues ahead. Most cars drivers are hazards. Most car drivers are terrible pushy and egotistical and they are dangerous to follow because they rarely know anything about what is ahead of them.

This shot is of the black top of Route 66 heading straight into the sunset. The colors of the snow and the dark greens of the patches of bushes and trees were so beautiful I had to pull off and take pictures. I was driving through a Reservation and most of the land was stark and extraordinarily compelling.

Waiting for Rain

2006-11-21T20:01:00.000-08:00

Back up in the Mountains.... I am still counting bugs caught in 2005 just after the storms and then, months after them. I thought it would be a good idea to shoot some shots of the area before the rains come. So far it has been a very hot and dry summer and fall. Yesterday, on November 20, it was in the high nineties! That is crazy! We are supposed to get some cooling soon... I hope. The air is dry and so is the forest.

I was just able to get just a small section of the reservoir and the mountains surrounding them. Ran out of time and my battery died!

If you look at the side of the reservoir, you can see what appears to be sticks thrown up on the banks. Those 'sticks' are tall 15 foot+ trees that were ripped out from the 100 year storm in 2004/2005. Whole areas of the forest was pulled out from their roots and thrown into this body of rushing water that left scars on standing trees in some places 6 feet at the lowest, or acres of trees left standing like sticks with no limbs to call their own.....

What strikes me is that there is something that is invading these mountains.

Many areas next to roads and public access are patches... I would say, growing patches of dry dirt and weeds. Something is creeping up into the forest under the brush. Weeds. Look how they die and fall over. Like little pyres. Almost as if goats have walked to and fro but they haven't. It's just the way these weeds die. I wonder if they are doing other things to this forest besides exposing it to conflagrations? Could they be interfering with the forest's ability to take up important nutrients? Or just out competing the California natives for space?

Taking out the public access to the forest roads would be a loss for many people. I would miss my jaunts into the wild. I just wish that people didn't need to do some things in our National Heritage.

2006-10-22T11:07:00.000-07:00

I have tried to raise these Midwestern tigers, Cicindela sexguttata, before. My friend went back to Cleveland, Ohio to visit family and brought back a few of these wonderful tigers that skittle near the lake's edge. I got so far with my first batch that I was sure that I would have adults by the spring of 2006. However, I was having some trouble catching insects for them and the pet store had trouble getting shipments of fruit flies, that I decided to put the larvae just outside in the warming sun with a banana ... to entice unsuspecting small critters.... Instead, I came back to find the larvae rookery scratched up and a happy Ms. Chicken. She ate my little charges!

So, back to the drawing board... My friend returned with more adults and they laid eggs and now.....

But, I still am having trouble getting fruit flies from the pet store. I noticed my bananas had a nice halo of flies.... One way to rid an area, a room perhaps, of flies is to pour out a bit of dark red wine into a glass. The flies go in, get happy, and don't get out... So, with a small plastic spoon in the midst of the larvae, I pour the smallest amount of Merlot. I put just enough wine so that it attracts the fruit and vinegar flies but does not kill them. They drink. They mate. They lay eggs. They get drunk and and and ..... get to close to the larvae.... Happy larvae.

Life is so cruel.

I took these pictures in the afternoon sun as it peeked through the window. I have to sneak up on these guys to see them otherwise they disappear down their burrow.

Phidippus adumbratus

2006-10-13T18:44:00.000-07:00

Phidippus adumbratus
Originally uploaded by tardigrade.

Phidippus was sitting on the right rear fender of my car. He looked up and saw me. I love these spiders. He was busy at something, or concentrating on someone - or, perhaps trying to blend in the black of my car.... I reached down to touch his back leg and he gave me another look and turned a bit. I touched his back leg and he stood up higher to look at me, maybe to even look bigger then he was (about 2+ cm). His long mustache was very fetching. I have looked on the net for other color variations of this species of Salticidae, or jumping spider. I think this one was particularly beautiful and furry.

Torture-destroys-US

2006-09-21T21:06:00.000-07:00

Torture-destroys-US
Originally uploaded by tardigrade.

Tiger beetles and people have much to worry about with this American Administration. Tiger beetles because of the total disregard of life and people - especially in the US - the disrespect of human rights and the Great American Experiment. I did this image at this moment of great sorrow.

I wonder, when I vier towards the political, whether I should or not... It is my blog. In one of the striking comments in John Barry's Book, the Great Influenza, he talks about how people took such great loss for granted- accepted it or ignored it... and rarely wrote about their personal experiences. So, I feel that just for the few, I should reveal the depth of our loss as I see it.

At this time, many people are discussing their feelings and thoughts and political ideas on this great conveyance, the Internet. I hope that what is happening will not be relegated to plots and numbers and headlines. I hope that the voices of the world will he available to read and study. I can't imagine people being much different then we are at this moment in time... so, I suspect that the same ills will rise up to hurt and disfigure. But maybe, somewhere there will be minds willing to do better...

Cloudless-sulphur (Phoebis sennae)

2006-08-31T21:10:00.000-07:00

Cloudless-sulphur
Originally uploaded by tardigrade.

Wonderful news! This Cloudless sulphur dropped in this evening at early dark, to sleep the night in my Night-blooming Jasmine
(Cestrum nocturnum).

These animals migrate from Mexico north up to Palos Verdes Peninsula. I have found them as far north as in Mugu Marsh in Ventura. Cloudless Sulphurs are desert butterflies and their larvae eat Cassia alata... They used to be more plentiful in Southern California perhaps, when people planted Crotalaria agatiflora in their back yards. . Certainly people have planted the good the bad and the ugly with their particular needs for ornamentals for their houses (that become invasive species) , or if they or they plant monocultures, or people just accidently walk them in

This shot was taken with a leaf filtering the bright flash from my camera....

holding-Torchy

2006-08-21T22:16:00.000-07:00

holding-Torchy
Originally uploaded by tardigrade.

How much do we value life?

Our lives? the lives of our children? the lives of our parents? the lives of our spouses? the lives of our friends? our neighbors? our countrymen? other life?

How do we rate life?

Which lives are more important? Which are less? Why do we think humans are more important then other animals and plants? Do we value those animals with fur over those with six legs? How do those with scales rate to those with feathers? Why do we have such a system of worth?

What would life really be like without other life forms?

Other life is important to me. I would never want to be in a position to choose which lives and which dies especially if it came to deciding whether my child or parent or friend .... or even a stranger.... were more important....

But somehow, we do. We do it everyday. Knowingly and unknowingly. We use chemicals to have large strawberries and kill birds and insects and reptiles and mammals and increase our own body burden of toxins...... And just for some big strawberries.... and maybe not even very delicious ones at that!

We do when we go to war. We decide which people have more worth then others. It's not magic. It's not some edict from heaven. It is one then another then another person declaring that 'those people over there must die.' And it is as simple as that.

It is hard to live with differences. People that think differently, People that look different. People that do things and eat things and say things that are different. It is hard to reconcile that we have the same body and behavioral plan yet we have these small differences that irk us.

How do we live with animals that don't have the same body plan? that cannot speak as we do? that cannot understand our shape and smell and movements and our life styles? But what makes us love and love other animals? and care for each other when not caring is so easy? not loving is so easy?

I felt somewhat silly when the Cicindela that I studied for ten months died, I cried. I cried over the death of an insect. But then, why not. Maybe it's just a simple decision to care.

My mother is loosing her cat. She found him 17 years ago wrapped in bamboo leaves with his sisters. My mother said his mother gave birth to her babies in the bamboo stand and left the kittens in the nest like a collection of easter eggs. The kittens were of various colors mixed with white. The mother was eaten by a coyote but my mother collected the kittens and she and her mother loved them.

Taking-Torchy-outside

2006-08-21T22:14:00.000-07:00

Taking-Torchy-outside
Originally uploaded by tardigrade.

Two of the calico sisters were eaten as young adults by other coyotes, one sister lived to 14, but the boy, Torchy is almost 18 years old. His life represents moments in time. My mother's mother and father were alive. My children were little. I lived in Ohio. I was married. But this cat's life is more then place holders for our lives, more then our memories. What is it? What is this life worth?

My mother strokes and pets and gives her cat his medicine for his diabetes. She takes him out into the garden, his little body of sticks with a fluffy tail. He tries to walk but is tired and upset with himself and so lies on his side and cries and huffs and then lays silent in the grass.

Sitting-with-Torchy

2006-08-21T22:06:00.000-07:00

Sitting-with-Torchy
Originally uploaded by tardigrade.

My mother loves this animal. She carries him and talks to him. She sits brushing the flies away.

When I was about five years old - ready to run up into the hills to hunt for lizards and bugs, I heard someone crying. I didn't recognize who it was so I followed the sound. I peeked around the corner and watch my grandfather carefully placing our cat, Shadow, into his grave. I had never heard him cry before.