Down splashes the water! streaking down the street! swiveling around tires and slipping around oily stains! Leaves collect in pitching masses. Flotillas of cigarette butts gurgle and boil with human spit-um and dog, bird, and unknown animal shit and vomit. Parts of decaying animals lurking in the dark street drains, swallow the incoming waters and mix it all up with the pesticides and herbicides skimmed from silly urban "gardens."
Sunlight kills many of the floating micro-organisms hacked up from diseased lungs and sickly bowels. But enough of the organisms attach to the coffee cups and plastic bags that cram the storm drains that rush to the sea.
This is just a picture of some water in a plastic pot that used to be clear.
It used to be free of horrors.
There used to be mosquito fish (which ate the mosquitoes) and damsel and dragon flies (which ate the fish and mosquito larva and adults).
Then we poured pesticides and other PAHs and plasticizers and mercury and lead and zinc and Tylenol and estrogen and drugs that prevent psychotic episodes in people - all the stuff that run down our streets into the sea and lakes and rivers and streams.
First the fish died. Then the dragon flies died. Then the algae and cyano-bacteria pulled up from the soil which covered floor of the pots. There were greasy globules of oily substances that kept things floating in suspension, There grew a skin of a sort that slowly rotated in the changing temperatures of the day. The water never settled out. Then the fungus grew. Bubbling thick masses of black and pink burped musty puffs of spores. You can smell the fungus for many meters from the pots.
Then one day, floating on the top were many mosquito eggs. The larvae hatched. They wiggled to the surface to sucked in their first gulp of fresh air.
They ate the algae and shed their skins of chitin and toxins.
Then another batch emerged.
The first batch died then the second ate the dead of the first. Little round heads of mosquito larvae bob at the bottom of the pots. With each new batch of mosquito larvae, the water cleared. With each new batch of mosquito larvae, they became more and more tolerant of the pesticides and other toxins that might kill them. Finally, the adults emerge from their pupas, ready to mate ... hauling out their shoulders from the slick surface. Masses of flies dancing in the pools of dwindling sunlight. ... and then the females, ready to take their first blood meal so they can lay the next generation of mosquito - able to tolerate the insecticides that killed its predecessors....
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Friday, April 14, 2006
early-morning-moon
Early in the morning, when only the mocking bird sings, is an odd time. In winter, crickets don't sing. It is too cold. I find this time unpleasant because it is so alone.... Just the mocking bird and I. One can ponder ephemeral life .... my own and others. How silly it is to think we live forever. How frightening to think that we could be stuck in a 'heaven' of our own design.... strumming a harp or using up virgins.... floating toward some light... both of which sound like hell ... long sleep isn't so bad.
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Playa Vista
So, while I was taking the photos of these panoramas of Ballona wetlands - in the man-made freshwater section (they use sprinklers to water the 'natural' wetland areas) - I was thinking of Global Warming.... I can almost see people purposefully crushing the life of the entire planet .... every time I watch a television show or listen to a radio program they are selling car after car after car .... I can watch images of melting mountains of ice at poles with each new line of vehicle ... the deep ocean currents changing directions as the trucks roll by tearing out trees and planting lawns ...
bluffs at Ballona
The cold water sinks, and salt water is heavier and has a lower freezing point. Deep ocean water, is at or below freezing but is liquid from the its salinity and great pressure. The ocean waters are never still, they move and change latitudes and longitudes and pour around the contours of the sea floor and continental shelves. The surface temperatures are warmed at the equator. The winds and the currents pump the air and water like a heart from the pull of the moon, the temperature changes of the seasons, and by the changes of night and day. The deep earth vents, and the cold, melted freshwater from land further churn the oceans. Our over use of fossil fuels, the burning and destruction of forests, mountains of trash and manure, loss of green forested land for cement are all contributing to the change of CO2/N over O2....
There were a few other times when our planet went through such changes in a short period of time. The first great death happened when the first organisms to photosynthesize created so much oxygen it killed the methane breathers... Then there was another great death when atmospheric oxygen plummeted from 21% to less then 12 % in only 20 million years. Land vertebrates at sea level had the same amount of oxygen as if they were at present day 9,200 foot mountain ... The Late Permian Early Triassic saw 90 % of the ocean organisms die and 75 % of the land plants and animals die. What a horrible death it must have been for not only did the oxygen vanish, but CO2 increased and with it temperatures. The earth became a steamy hot box with not much to breath...
http://www.uwnews.org/article.asp?articleID=9592
There were a few other times when our planet went through such changes in a short period of time. The first great death happened when the first organisms to photosynthesize created so much oxygen it killed the methane breathers... Then there was another great death when atmospheric oxygen plummeted from 21% to less then 12 % in only 20 million years. Land vertebrates at sea level had the same amount of oxygen as if they were at present day 9,200 foot mountain ... The Late Permian Early Triassic saw 90 % of the ocean organisms die and 75 % of the land plants and animals die. What a horrible death it must have been for not only did the oxygen vanish, but CO2 increased and with it temperatures. The earth became a steamy hot box with not much to breath...
http://www.uwnews.org/article.asp?articleID=9592
Ying
In the end, after hours. days, years of work, you must publish. Then after that, you hope that what you have done will be of use to those who come after you to do similar or related work. The tedium of much of the everyday stuff is like any other job, but perhaps more like the tedium of art.
The initial idea of a painting is exciting. Then the sketches begin. So many of the sketches that you produce are not up to the ideas that you think you have done in the past... doubts creep in... but that is all part of the fight. With a blank canvas, hope is renewed but then so are the new worries. For most of the painting, you hate it. Love returns only near the end where you just can't get enough of the brush strokes, the colors, the shapes. Damn!
The initial idea of a painting is exciting. Then the sketches begin. So many of the sketches that you produce are not up to the ideas that you think you have done in the past... doubts creep in... but that is all part of the fight. With a blank canvas, hope is renewed but then so are the new worries. For most of the painting, you hate it. Love returns only near the end where you just can't get enough of the brush strokes, the colors, the shapes. Damn!
Bottles
I have been submerged in two very engrossing projects ... one that is testing the efficiency of wetlands in taking up pollutants (pesticides, PAHs, metals, drugs) by isolating the two major wetland plants and the soils from a source in the man made wetlands of Sweetwater Reservoir... and the other is sampling the runoff water from the parts of the Los Angeles Basin which feeds the Ballona Wetlands. Both studies can finish with many useful concepts and discoveries. They are both very labor intensive, and even with the simplest tools for collection, filtration, oxygen, sampling, and other thoughtful considerations of protecting and stabilizing pollution constituents after capture, there is just not enough people, time or money.
Liters and liters of water must be collected in hopes to capture the tiniest amount of some chemicals. The water must be prepared for storage, and then carefully kept from light. Many times the tiniest amounts, perhaps in parts per million (even trillion), can have dire effects on those (people and other animals) who drink or swim in the water. Then to isolate and find those compounds which have been shown to produce adverse affects, the equipment for finding them must be calibrated (and sensitive) to those amounts. Then the number of times the water must be collected (or for any other scientific study... the number samples ) must be high enough to demonstrate a trend - in other words - to have significance.
Liters and liters of water must be collected in hopes to capture the tiniest amount of some chemicals. The water must be prepared for storage, and then carefully kept from light. Many times the tiniest amounts, perhaps in parts per million (even trillion), can have dire effects on those (people and other animals) who drink or swim in the water. Then to isolate and find those compounds which have been shown to produce adverse affects, the equipment for finding them must be calibrated (and sensitive) to those amounts. Then the number of times the water must be collected (or for any other scientific study... the number samples ) must be high enough to demonstrate a trend - in other words - to have significance.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
peach-blossom
I can't explain how I feel about the weather. I should be very relieved about the rain. It is cold here in Pasadena - around 37 degrees F... and in Oklahoma it is 80 degrees F. But I worry about the possibility of too much water in a short time when the mountains' trees and shrubs have not had enough time to re-grow from past fires. The plants hold back the mud. The trees absorb the water. The native plants can handle the heat from the fire which the introduced weeds from urban development cannot .... so ..... what to do.
We had a hail storm this afternoon. Not as robust as a month ago where the stones were the size of marbles.
I have gone up to the mountain to take pictures of the hillsides to document the present conditions. If we continue to have lots of rain we may have mud slides. This could be very bad.
The mountains' geology and composition of sediments from ancient rivers (which created the San Gabriel Mountains) make a very porous and rocky (some rocks are quite huge) sludge when mixed with a great deal of water from rain and snow. Months after last years storms, waterfalls ran until late summer. The cold weather, this year, has brought the snow level to around 1300 feet above sea level in some parts. Last year's storms had in some parts of the mountains, 20 inches of rain! If something like that happens this season, even with all of the dredging of the bottom of the San Gabriel Dam by the County, we could have floods.
With so many housing developments at and near the mouth of the river the City of Azusa and others take chances with peoples' lives. Why do Cities allow development so close to the moth's of Rivers? .... so close to open oceans? .... so close to? ...... City Governments need to take more of an active role in the protection of their citizens.....
I learned just recently that the same area during World War II was a site of a nerve gas manufacturing site developed to deter the Nazis( "if you drop anything on us we will give you double" ).... A person who lived in the area during that time described the situation. His father was a policeman at that time and when an incident within the plant occurred, releasing nerve gas into the area, his father went back in to save his buddies.... the three of them survived.... The person who recounted the story said his father was a large man who carried one man over his shoulder and dragged the other by the scuff of his neck - shirt - to safety
What other things have happened at the mouth of the San Gabriel River?
We had a hail storm this afternoon. Not as robust as a month ago where the stones were the size of marbles.
I have gone up to the mountain to take pictures of the hillsides to document the present conditions. If we continue to have lots of rain we may have mud slides. This could be very bad.
The mountains' geology and composition of sediments from ancient rivers (which created the San Gabriel Mountains) make a very porous and rocky (some rocks are quite huge) sludge when mixed with a great deal of water from rain and snow. Months after last years storms, waterfalls ran until late summer. The cold weather, this year, has brought the snow level to around 1300 feet above sea level in some parts. Last year's storms had in some parts of the mountains, 20 inches of rain! If something like that happens this season, even with all of the dredging of the bottom of the San Gabriel Dam by the County, we could have floods.
With so many housing developments at and near the mouth of the river the City of Azusa and others take chances with peoples' lives. Why do Cities allow development so close to the moth's of Rivers? .... so close to open oceans? .... so close to? ...... City Governments need to take more of an active role in the protection of their citizens.....
I learned just recently that the same area during World War II was a site of a nerve gas manufacturing site developed to deter the Nazis( "if you drop anything on us we will give you double" ).... A person who lived in the area during that time described the situation. His father was a policeman at that time and when an incident within the plant occurred, releasing nerve gas into the area, his father went back in to save his buddies.... the three of them survived.... The person who recounted the story said his father was a large man who carried one man over his shoulder and dragged the other by the scuff of his neck - shirt - to safety
What other things have happened at the mouth of the San Gabriel River?
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
parrot
... so, two days ago I was writing about my spider study at Mugu when I thought I heard a parrot 'gacking' outside my window. In Pasadena parrots fly in flocks east and west a couple of times a day. Some times I find a few flocks in trees near Old town Pasadena. And, I have heard that some flocks find the fruit of kaypoc trees
delicious...
I have had some sort of animal eat large holes in my oranges last year, and my pomegranates this year.... I thought it might be rats or birds like the blue jays.... but perhaps not. A flock of parrots flew by on Monday and then I heard a lone parrot next door.
The mocking birds were not too happy. You see, they "own" the tea tree"
and will follow me about as close as five feet away. When the parrot decided that the tea tree was a nice place to sit they chased it up into the liquidamber.
Well, it squaked and carried on until I hung my head outside (it was 92 degrees one Monday!!!!). "Yack!"I yelled, and then it listened. Back and forth I would make some horrible noise and the bird would return a scream. My neighbors already think I am nuts so I have no qualms about hanging out my window and acting like a fool.
Well, it is much cooler today and tonight, so, tomorrow I will put some seeds on the roof and see if it will come to the window.
It looks like a canary parrot, Brotogeris versicolurus chiriri
I had one that I bought from Sears long ago. I felt particularly alone one day and decided to visit the local pet store. Out in the back, with the potted plants, people were yelling and screaming, "It's over here!" "NO! NO! OUCH!!!" and then "DAM BIRD!" and"Can we kill it?!" Three adults with nets and ladders could not catch this feisty bird. For some reason I liked it. "I called up to them, "I'll take it!"
Well, that rallied the troops and they finally caught it after another half an hour. They were very happy to sell the monster to me at a greatly reduced price. He came home with me and was called, ''L'oiseau"
I found my new friend to like grapes. L'oiseau was not very big for a parrot, he was about 8 inches. I have seen large parrots consume grapes and I found that birds have a special capacity for eating them. The large parrots can eat up to 12 grapes before one of them is dejected out the other end. I found L'oiseau was a four grape parrot; one, two, three, four, five/poop, six/poop, seven/poop.... etc.
L'oiseau lived with me for 8 years. It was an adult when I bought him so I really don't know how old he was when I got him. I had a friend take care of him when I went on trips. He would try to be nice to him and L'oiseau would lure my friend to put his fingers in the cage just a bit too close and, "OUCH! IT'S PARROT POT PIE IF YOU ARE NOT CAREFUL!"
delicious...
I have had some sort of animal eat large holes in my oranges last year, and my pomegranates this year.... I thought it might be rats or birds like the blue jays.... but perhaps not. A flock of parrots flew by on Monday and then I heard a lone parrot next door.
The mocking birds were not too happy. You see, they "own" the tea tree"
and will follow me about as close as five feet away. When the parrot decided that the tea tree was a nice place to sit they chased it up into the liquidamber.
Well, it squaked and carried on until I hung my head outside (it was 92 degrees one Monday!!!!). "Yack!"I yelled, and then it listened. Back and forth I would make some horrible noise and the bird would return a scream. My neighbors already think I am nuts so I have no qualms about hanging out my window and acting like a fool.
Well, it is much cooler today and tonight, so, tomorrow I will put some seeds on the roof and see if it will come to the window.
It looks like a canary parrot, Brotogeris versicolurus chiriri
I had one that I bought from Sears long ago. I felt particularly alone one day and decided to visit the local pet store. Out in the back, with the potted plants, people were yelling and screaming, "It's over here!" "NO! NO! OUCH!!!" and then "DAM BIRD!" and"Can we kill it?!" Three adults with nets and ladders could not catch this feisty bird. For some reason I liked it. "I called up to them, "I'll take it!"
Well, that rallied the troops and they finally caught it after another half an hour. They were very happy to sell the monster to me at a greatly reduced price. He came home with me and was called, ''L'oiseau"
I found my new friend to like grapes. L'oiseau was not very big for a parrot, he was about 8 inches. I have seen large parrots consume grapes and I found that birds have a special capacity for eating them. The large parrots can eat up to 12 grapes before one of them is dejected out the other end. I found L'oiseau was a four grape parrot; one, two, three, four, five/poop, six/poop, seven/poop.... etc.
L'oiseau lived with me for 8 years. It was an adult when I bought him so I really don't know how old he was when I got him. I had a friend take care of him when I went on trips. He would try to be nice to him and L'oiseau would lure my friend to put his fingers in the cage just a bit too close and, "OUCH! IT'S PARROT POT PIE IF YOU ARE NOT CAREFUL!"
Thursday, February 09, 2006
cute-tiger
In the dead of winter, it was 82 degrees F... the sky was a beautiful blue without a cloud in sight. There was a soft off shore breeze perhaps 2-3 knots... if that... just to get the few tigers (who were out today) to fly more then five feet.
Up in the upper marsh of Mugu the pans were fairly slicked down from the rains from a month ago... was it a month? No! Strange weather!... The Halictidae burrows were mostly covered over by a thin crust of salt. This allowed the few tigers that were adults to come out to play. A few ladybird beetles flew here and there.
The Lycosidae snuck out from the safety of the Salicornia sp. and Frankenia sp. on the pannes and tried to blend with the back ground - they stood over cracks in the soil - to hide from the Pompilidae who were out hunting for fat spiders for their rookeries. My large (body 2 cm, legs 1.5 cm each) female, caught in September, lets me pet her legs - softly with a toothpick (their bite can become necrotic) and has not taken much food lately. She may be ready to mate.... in which case her wolf spider brothers and sisters in Mugu are in the same condition. A scary time for these creatures - ready do mating displays but, also a special time for the spider wasps, too.
The sun is very important to animals that cannot create the warmth they need for high energy tasks like foraging for food, hunting, mating, running from danger. Tigers bask in the sun so that they can become the fierce hunters we know and love. It is also a way to be able to escape their predators... like me or birds or spiders. Warming in the sun may also play a part in how well they out maneuver the fast flies that they eat, and may determine their rank the inter and intra species hierarchy, too.
The salt pannes are warm in the sun and the tigers find this very enjoyable. I found this Cicindela senilis frosti basking, turning this side and then the other side to the sun... then again turning its backside to the sun... a full rotation.
Most C. s. frosti caught and pinned in the Los Angeles Natural History Museum and the Santa Barbara Museum are grey with off white markings. The C. s. frosti that I have caught at Mugu come in grey, green, blue, and reddish colors. this one has it all. green, red here and there, and grey. Beautiful.
Up in the upper marsh of Mugu the pans were fairly slicked down from the rains from a month ago... was it a month? No! Strange weather!... The Halictidae burrows were mostly covered over by a thin crust of salt. This allowed the few tigers that were adults to come out to play. A few ladybird beetles flew here and there.
The Lycosidae snuck out from the safety of the Salicornia sp. and Frankenia sp. on the pannes and tried to blend with the back ground - they stood over cracks in the soil - to hide from the Pompilidae who were out hunting for fat spiders for their rookeries. My large (body 2 cm, legs 1.5 cm each) female, caught in September, lets me pet her legs - softly with a toothpick (their bite can become necrotic) and has not taken much food lately. She may be ready to mate.... in which case her wolf spider brothers and sisters in Mugu are in the same condition. A scary time for these creatures - ready do mating displays but, also a special time for the spider wasps, too.
The sun is very important to animals that cannot create the warmth they need for high energy tasks like foraging for food, hunting, mating, running from danger. Tigers bask in the sun so that they can become the fierce hunters we know and love. It is also a way to be able to escape their predators... like me or birds or spiders. Warming in the sun may also play a part in how well they out maneuver the fast flies that they eat, and may determine their rank the inter and intra species hierarchy, too.
The salt pannes are warm in the sun and the tigers find this very enjoyable. I found this Cicindela senilis frosti basking, turning this side and then the other side to the sun... then again turning its backside to the sun... a full rotation.
Most C. s. frosti caught and pinned in the Los Angeles Natural History Museum and the Santa Barbara Museum are grey with off white markings. The C. s. frosti that I have caught at Mugu come in grey, green, blue, and reddish colors. this one has it all. green, red here and there, and grey. Beautiful.
Monday, February 06, 2006
Frosti-2
Here is the C.s.frosti that I caught at Mugu in August of last year. He was never a great hunter and with his flight wings mangled, he would never have survived. I feed him tiny crickets, flies, and occasional meal worm and cat food. He digs in the sand when it is cold and runs about when warm. He has a few hypopyl mites, one on his left eye.
Monday, January 30, 2006
too-much-water
Originally uploaded by tardigrade.
California seems to be the land of Paradise to so many. Enough to make the streets and the highways hard to transverse even to go to a market .... and many things must be purchased in shopping malls which very quickly become like a backed-up sewer pipe. This is only one problem of 'Paradise' the other problem is getting things like water to so many people in a naturally dry environment.
Los Angeles was really several towns that grew together via the rails. There was a town at the beach, Santa Monica (still there), which was connected to a light rail which ran down San Vincenty and Santa Monica Boulevard from Downtown Los Angeles. Downtown was THE metropolis and was connected by rail to the Harbor, south, and then, east, out to the city of San Bernardino (my grandfather and his mother moved our here when his father died in Arizona - the town used to be called by the LA locals, "San Berdoo."). The cost of living got out of hand for the everyday citizens, and the City Fathers of LA needed more tax money (at that time the corruption issue in LA was blatant and outrageous) and so people began the ubiquitous suburbs that now choke the entire area.
The movie industry came here because we were so lawless (and immoral .... think about that as you watch the television today). And, just as WWII wound down, and not to ignore some other issues (see the movie Chinatown or watch my documentary - click on it to the right, it's free) folks from various backgrounds (many were either poor farmers or inmates from other state prisons) build the San Fernando Valley.
One has to understand that the San Fernando Valley, historically, was a swamp in some areas, and so today when it rains, the freeway fills with water. Before the homes were build (and all the good workers were taken back from hence they came - I met someone whose father was on one of the teams from jail in Utah) the area was farmland. My grandmother came to LA as a small child by railroad, to be with her grandmother who lived in the Adams District. My grandmother said she could smell the orange blossoms miles before she could see them by train. Fact is, Los Angeles and the surrounding counties have been giving up farming land to houses and such... even as I write this. But, one problem remains - water.
During the early fifties, the AAA and GM got together to get Los Angeles to give up their light rails for freeways and cars (their campaign was to get rid of the ugly electric wires for the clean electric cars that transversed the city so we could see the blue sky - but by 1960 smog eliminated that!!!). GM also invested in land in the Santa Monica Mountains and other areas to create more developments that needed more cars and freeways to get anywhere. And the three sources of water for all of Southern California; Owen's Valley, Sacramento River and the Colorado River, are all coming to their own 'tipping point' with the increases of the human population, climate change, and the need to pour concrete over everything.
There are many little details that go into this story, but I had to give a taste of things because as I drove through yet another area (Agora Hills in Ventura County, one of the fastest growing counties in the basin) that is being torn up for mini-mansions and such. I find stuff like this and I just can't believe it.
These people have just invested in a multi-million dollar home with automatic this and that... and yet no one is home ....in ALL of the possible definitions. It was chilly the last few nights, and the area can go below freezing, but these people have to have a perfect lawn. Icicles a foot long formed on the trees and the grass and the street and the sidewalk - !!!! everything where the sprinklers poured water, there was ice....!!!! sign.... And what didn't soak the lawn, or froze on the plants and cement, melted in the morning sun and ran down the drain out to the ocean.... only to be seen again in a few years, perhaps.... if we get enough rain.... or snow in the Sierra Nevada's a few hundred miles from here... or the Grand Canyon a thousand miles from here...
California seems to be the land of Paradise to so many. Enough to make the streets and the highways hard to transverse even to go to a market .... and many things must be purchased in shopping malls which very quickly become like a backed-up sewer pipe. This is only one problem of 'Paradise' the other problem is getting things like water to so many people in a naturally dry environment.
Los Angeles was really several towns that grew together via the rails. There was a town at the beach, Santa Monica (still there), which was connected to a light rail which ran down San Vincenty and Santa Monica Boulevard from Downtown Los Angeles. Downtown was THE metropolis and was connected by rail to the Harbor, south, and then, east, out to the city of San Bernardino (my grandfather and his mother moved our here when his father died in Arizona - the town used to be called by the LA locals, "San Berdoo."). The cost of living got out of hand for the everyday citizens, and the City Fathers of LA needed more tax money (at that time the corruption issue in LA was blatant and outrageous) and so people began the ubiquitous suburbs that now choke the entire area.
The movie industry came here because we were so lawless (and immoral .... think about that as you watch the television today). And, just as WWII wound down, and not to ignore some other issues (see the movie Chinatown or watch my documentary - click on it to the right, it's free) folks from various backgrounds (many were either poor farmers or inmates from other state prisons) build the San Fernando Valley.
One has to understand that the San Fernando Valley, historically, was a swamp in some areas, and so today when it rains, the freeway fills with water. Before the homes were build (and all the good workers were taken back from hence they came - I met someone whose father was on one of the teams from jail in Utah) the area was farmland. My grandmother came to LA as a small child by railroad, to be with her grandmother who lived in the Adams District. My grandmother said she could smell the orange blossoms miles before she could see them by train. Fact is, Los Angeles and the surrounding counties have been giving up farming land to houses and such... even as I write this. But, one problem remains - water.
During the early fifties, the AAA and GM got together to get Los Angeles to give up their light rails for freeways and cars (their campaign was to get rid of the ugly electric wires for the clean electric cars that transversed the city so we could see the blue sky - but by 1960 smog eliminated that!!!). GM also invested in land in the Santa Monica Mountains and other areas to create more developments that needed more cars and freeways to get anywhere. And the three sources of water for all of Southern California; Owen's Valley, Sacramento River and the Colorado River, are all coming to their own 'tipping point' with the increases of the human population, climate change, and the need to pour concrete over everything.
There are many little details that go into this story, but I had to give a taste of things because as I drove through yet another area (Agora Hills in Ventura County, one of the fastest growing counties in the basin) that is being torn up for mini-mansions and such. I find stuff like this and I just can't believe it.
These people have just invested in a multi-million dollar home with automatic this and that... and yet no one is home ....in ALL of the possible definitions. It was chilly the last few nights, and the area can go below freezing, but these people have to have a perfect lawn. Icicles a foot long formed on the trees and the grass and the street and the sidewalk - !!!! everything where the sprinklers poured water, there was ice....!!!! sign.... And what didn't soak the lawn, or froze on the plants and cement, melted in the morning sun and ran down the drain out to the ocean.... only to be seen again in a few years, perhaps.... if we get enough rain.... or snow in the Sierra Nevada's a few hundred miles from here... or the Grand Canyon a thousand miles from here...
Sunday, January 22, 2006
stream-monitor
Testing the water in streams, rivers, lakes, and other water bodies has become quite an effort. Runoff, trash, illegal dumping point source pollution from industry damage our drinking water.
What these UCLA students are setting up is a prototype mechanized water tester.... It tests pH, DO, Nitrogen and Phosphorous. It also is a spectrophotometer that can identify the absorbence of the major components in the water.... identifying the algae populations by their chlorophyl.
Can you imagine automated water testers throughout California making sure the water is up to standard and the information broadcast to a main station somewhere....? sort of like wiretapping water before you tap the tapable tap.
What these UCLA students are setting up is a prototype mechanized water tester.... It tests pH, DO, Nitrogen and Phosphorous. It also is a spectrophotometer that can identify the absorbence of the major components in the water.... identifying the algae populations by their chlorophyl.
Can you imagine automated water testers throughout California making sure the water is up to standard and the information broadcast to a main station somewhere....? sort of like wiretapping water before you tap the tapable tap.
dirty-stream
It is amazing how many water ways in California are filled with trash and peoples' clothes. This particular stream in Ventura County is no exception. Last spring after the water receded from one of our most recent big storms, the up-rooted trees were filled with the branches of downed trees and festooned with trash, underwear, and t-shirts. Why?
Even after months past the big storm, this stream had been found to have a very high intestinal bacteria count. The main source of water of the stream was actually from a water treatment plant which must meet Federal Standards of water quality including low bacterial counts. So, why is this stream in such a bad way?
Well, If the underwear is any indication we may have an answer. Many water courses in Southern California have homeless people living along the banks. The intestinal bacteria... even though the upstream plant is releasing properly treated effluent, may come from the people who find shelter along the water courses.
Even after months past the big storm, this stream had been found to have a very high intestinal bacteria count. The main source of water of the stream was actually from a water treatment plant which must meet Federal Standards of water quality including low bacterial counts. So, why is this stream in such a bad way?
Well, If the underwear is any indication we may have an answer. Many water courses in Southern California have homeless people living along the banks. The intestinal bacteria... even though the upstream plant is releasing properly treated effluent, may come from the people who find shelter along the water courses.
chaoborus
Phantom midges, as adults, have only one thing in mind when they emerge from their sleep as a pupae. They don't eat.
They are, many times, the tiny guys that fly around in small swarms above the ground above bushes, or a pond, or a pool, or someone's head. Why or why do they find the hood of my car to be the place for their love nests?
The fly on the left is the male. He has the fluffy antennae.
They are, many times, the tiny guys that fly around in small swarms above the ground above bushes, or a pond, or a pool, or someone's head. Why or why do they find the hood of my car to be the place for their love nests?
The fly on the left is the male. He has the fluffy antennae.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
dead-dove
Sweet innocent Ms. Chicken... recently has been hiding under a bush in the backyard. She holds perfectly still and makes a strange soft whirring sound. This usually signals to me that there is somehing scary in the vacinity....
A Sharp Shinned hawk (Accipiter striatus ) has been to the feeders in the past, taking a few doves and I saw it yesterday in a tree above Ms. Chicken's favorite bush. Ms. Chicken is very smart about these things. She barely blinks an eye and I wonder if the hawk notices her being so still, or perhaps hopes that Ms. Chicken will move out of hiding. The hawk's visual system is so keen I can't imagine her not seeing Ms. Chicken.
This afternoon, one of my neighbors had feathers strewn all over the front yard. I had just left the house and did not say good-bye to Ms. Chicken. I was struck by the obvious evidence of a kill and I had to make sure it wasn't anybody I knew.... Towering above the neighbor's house is a huge four story Deodar Cedar (Cedrus deodara) and just about 5 meters up there were white feathers on a branch. Apparently, the hawk captured a white dove and feasted on it earlier in the day. I was relieved.
Sharp Shinned hawks, after killing their prey (birds), carefully pluck out the feathers. Cats, on the other hand, dive right in, bite the head, and tear open the body cavity... so do dogs. Cats and dogs (coyotes) eat the birds from the inside out leaving an over coat (and smaller chunks) with feathers.... Sharp Shinned hawks like to tear off beak sized pieces of a fully plucked prey.The hawks also like to take their prey to some place where no one will disturb them... like cats... dogs eat on the run (like us) so, the branch full of feathers was typical. Now, did the hawk leave anything behind like the beak or claws ...?
A Sharp Shinned hawk (Accipiter striatus ) has been to the feeders in the past, taking a few doves and I saw it yesterday in a tree above Ms. Chicken's favorite bush. Ms. Chicken is very smart about these things. She barely blinks an eye and I wonder if the hawk notices her being so still, or perhaps hopes that Ms. Chicken will move out of hiding. The hawk's visual system is so keen I can't imagine her not seeing Ms. Chicken.
This afternoon, one of my neighbors had feathers strewn all over the front yard. I had just left the house and did not say good-bye to Ms. Chicken. I was struck by the obvious evidence of a kill and I had to make sure it wasn't anybody I knew.... Towering above the neighbor's house is a huge four story Deodar Cedar (Cedrus deodara) and just about 5 meters up there were white feathers on a branch. Apparently, the hawk captured a white dove and feasted on it earlier in the day. I was relieved.
Sharp Shinned hawks, after killing their prey (birds), carefully pluck out the feathers. Cats, on the other hand, dive right in, bite the head, and tear open the body cavity... so do dogs. Cats and dogs (coyotes) eat the birds from the inside out leaving an over coat (and smaller chunks) with feathers.... Sharp Shinned hawks like to tear off beak sized pieces of a fully plucked prey.The hawks also like to take their prey to some place where no one will disturb them... like cats... dogs eat on the run (like us) so, the branch full of feathers was typical. Now, did the hawk leave anything behind like the beak or claws ...?
Monday, January 02, 2006
Pas-Power
It is cold and rainy. I am not sure how folks can sit out in the rain to watch the Rose Parade every year - but they do. This is the first year in 51 years that it has rained on the parade. It didn't just sprinkle, it poured. And after the parade - every year - the City people from the Water and Power folks to the Trash collectors to the Sewer Maintenance all have to pick up, tear down, re-wire, fix, you name it because of the influx of a few more million people in this small town. The trash is particularly disgusting.
At 3:30 p.m. we had a small electrical outage in my neighborhood. Damn! I was working on something on the computer and while fixing a cup of green tea (and to do some thinking) BLIP! So, I rebooted my Mac....
Then again, at 4 p.m. the power went out on the entire street again. The sky was so dark it could have been night. The rain was getting monotonous. I could see there were flashing lights up the street near the main pole. I decided I could go to some store or another (but wasn't interested), sit in the dark, try to read by candle and flashlight, or go out and watch the guys fix the power. I chose mixing with the power folks.
Fred, the cat, seems to have a penchant for tripping me while I walk to the back door... and in the dark he's got his technique for maximum effect. When I was a kid I used to walk around in my dark room to see if I could remember where things were and could get around as if I were blind. My mother never understood why I like to bumble about in a dark room.... I suspect it must have seemed peculiar. I never ran into things - much. However, the practice in my ill spent youth allowed me to find, in a dark closet with lights, my tripod and my camera and I was able to attach the two together. Fred stayed inside while I went to schmooz with Pasadena Water and Power Maintenance Crew.
There were five trucks two of which had 'buckets' one of which was headed for the top of the electrical post. The heavy winds and rains caused the tall palm trees to drop their heavy palm fronds, The fronds have huge serrated stems and one was straddling all four wires. There was a pile of them just at the bottom of the pole.
Several of the guys were actively watching the workers in the bucket and so I thought I would ask a few questions about the procedure for fixing the downed line. They were happy to talk about what they were doing. One of the guys n the bucket took a pole and shoved the frond off the wire and the wires arched.
Then I asked if Pasadena's power plant at the end of the Pasadena Freeway produced enough power for the whole city. One of the guys seemed very interested in describing how our City gets power. Apparently, our fair City helped another or more... fair cities build their large power plants in Oregon, Utah, Nevada,... gosh, I wonder where else?... so we can buy power from them. The Old Pasadena Power Plant was just too small to produce power for the numbers of new households in the city. As I listened I wondered if and when those other Cities would get too big for their britches... and where would we ALL get our power from?
Like a pyramid game, there comes a time when we can't get any bigger. In fact bigger is not better. Growth becomes a reallllllly bad thing. Sustainability, or worse, stasis will be the word of the day.... Now, that many of us are starting to contemplate a time when oil will not flow like water, and cities will have to be self supporting. Suburbia and all that goes with it will be the monstrosity it really is. Individuals owning cars filling up every open space on the surface of ground will be ridiculous.... and all of this could come rather suddenly... Roger Rabbit will fold his arms and say "THee, I told you so!"
Monday, December 26, 2005
Sediment-in-reservoir
It was my birthday today so, I visited the mountains with a friend. What better way to cheer on another year.
The last couple of days the mornings were cool with some fog and then the sun, in early afternoon, would peak out and warm things up. Two days ago it was 87 Fº in Pasadena - nice. I have been planning to go visit the upper watershed and hoped it would stay warm, but alas, the winter clouds won. Still all in all it was lovely.
Water was still pouring in the East tributary of the San Gabriel River. Most of the small waterfalls off the sides of the mountains have been spent. All summer Public Works have been hauling the sediment from the bottom of the reservoir to another location in the mountains to make room for water in the reservoir behind the dam for next year's winter's rains - and to supply water for drought impacted Los Angeles County.
Dams are funny things. We build them to save water and yet they have a limited 'life' span or usefulness. Rivers are a bodies of water which flow from high places to a lower places - they have a much larger body of water beneath the surface in the soils flowing generally in the same direction, albeit slower.The trees and rocks and animals are swept up in the water, too. The flotsam and jetsam that flow on the surface bring minerals to the iron starved oceans and the sediments enrich the effluvial fans surrounding the rivers. The process distributes the plants, animals and water to the surrounding lands, eroding the mountains away. Before people, the washed out trees, brush, and sediments provided protection from predation, material for breeding, and food in the form of islands for the various ocean going organisms.
We build dams. Then rains and snow-melt, which soak through the soils in the mountains, fill the rivers with water. The force of the water washes sediment down the mountain. The sediment fills up the reservoirs behind the dams, which lowers the depth of the man-made lakes. Depending on the amount of rain, and the decomposition of the mountains' soil and rocks, the man-made lakes can, with some bad luck, be filled and useless in ten to twenty years.
I need to visit the new mountain Public Works created from this summer's dredging of sediment....
hanging-cloud
Last Thursday before Christmas the sky was full of these strange clouds. It looked like the clouds wanted to have rain - if you can HAVE rain - but something kept happening to the water droppets. The drops would fall and then get sweeped up back into the air. These silly vapor bags were hanging all over the central vlley of the Los Angeles basin. They somewhat reminded me of a sow's teats.
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Dark-eyed-Junco
Originally uploaded by tardigrade.
Down under in the bushes and roses, this small bird was turning up the leaves on the floor looking for little yummy bits to eat. Perhaps, a ground beetle, or a earwig, or a snail, or a centipede hiding under a twig in the moist soil. All I could hear was the shushing of the leaves below.
Birds are funny little animals. They are curious, and if you make the right noise they will stop what they are doing and come out from hiding to look at where the noise is coming from. Two sparrows were just above the Junko and my walking closer made them fly away. "Chi-Chi! Chi -Chi!" I said and up came this little bird to look.
Down under in the bushes and roses, this small bird was turning up the leaves on the floor looking for little yummy bits to eat. Perhaps, a ground beetle, or a earwig, or a snail, or a centipede hiding under a twig in the moist soil. All I could hear was the shushing of the leaves below.
Birds are funny little animals. They are curious, and if you make the right noise they will stop what they are doing and come out from hiding to look at where the noise is coming from. Two sparrows were just above the Junko and my walking closer made them fly away. "Chi-Chi! Chi -Chi!" I said and up came this little bird to look.
Ginko-leaves
Ginkos, a friend once said, never learned how to be trees - they were too ancient. They grew branches and stems like the lobes on Equisetum, also an ancient plant prior to the Cretaceous Period, sticking straight out perpendicular to the trunk. Oh, but the leaves are so unique and so yellow in fall and early winter here. In China, I have heard people eat the fruit.
Oh , the fruit! They drop to the ground in fall and when crushed, smell like a mixture of dog poo and cheese. However, it is said that they offer good medicine in the form of a vaso-dialator used to help those who forget stuff... Some formulations suggest only using the leaves. Even the yellow jackets that buzz in fall, stay away from the smelly things.... I use them as a deterrent to stepping on my plant beds next to the street. First time steppers in fall are reminded that something was rotten where they last parked...
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