The Station Fire has changed the habitat of the animals who live in the San Gabriel Mountains and we are having more bear sighting and a small herd of bucks have been grazing the front yards during the day. I know that deer are a common sight in Ohio, Georgia and Virginia but in suburban Los Angeles deer sightings are as rare as honest politicians. A deer is behind the tree just to the left of my mailbox through my gate into Lew’s front yard… Read More »Bucks Up
NASA sent a drone over the Station Fire and compiled this very cool map showing the extent of the fire: Want more details? Go to the NASA site. Your tax dollars at work.
The Prickly Pear Cacti in Eaton Canyon have a white mold looking stuff on them. This years there is a lot of it. Inside the mold is a small sac of red liquid created by a bug called: Cochineal-dactylopius coccus. The red liquid used to be the only really good source of red dye and was one of the early exports from the “New World” to Spain. It still is used as a red dye in foods. So when you eat red velvet cake part… Read More »Purple Dye
Rebecca and I were hiking up the Mount Wilson Toll Road last Friday and we saw this deer near the upper slide. We walked up the newly bulldozed road (Click here to Read that wonderful story) and we saw him peeking at us over the ridge: Then finally as we looked down off the road we saw him again wandering off: Clearly this is a deer who does not feel threatened by humans.
The most common adjectives about the Station Fire are that it is scary, destructive, wild, voracious, raging and uncontrolled. These are all true but they contain some hyperbole and not a little anthropomorphism. The San Gabriels on 8/31 from Kaiser Sunset I’d like to propose a few others adjectives that we should also be hearing. The Station fire is: normal, useful, cyclical and natural. We live in a very arid region. Fires were a natural part of the environmental cycle long before humans arrived here. … Read More »Station Fire Perspective
If you are looking for information on the Station Fire here are a few resources you can try: My Blog about reopening the Mount Wilson Toll Road has a few pictures and my claim to prescience. The Altadena Blog has very timely information about the fire The Mt Wilson Towercam has real-time pictures of the Summit of Mt Wilson The Altadena Weather cam And the LA Times site has Maps and Photos that are only a few hours out of date We feel pretty safe… Read More »The Station Fire
Yesterday Corina Knoll from the LA Times called and interviewed me for a story about the Mt Wilson Toll Road. Today there is a nice story in the Times on Line that quotes me and mentions my blog about the trail. It has been a long wait but it is nice to know that the Toll Road is finally reopening. Perhaps my gadfly blog had a tiny effect on the outcome. Click here to see my Mount Wilson Toll Road Informer Blog. Or here to… Read More »Simon in the Papers
This is the link to the story about Gabion Baskets I wrote on The Mount WIlson Toll Road Informer This is the teaser picture: At least you got a new word out of it.
This one appeared at the top of the horse trail where it intersects the Mount Wilson Toll Road: it was cleverly situated to make the clump of grass work as hair. The ancients are a mysterious people. The other documented dirtogylph.
One of the threads I have developed that is gaining some readership is about re-opening the Mount Wilson Toll Road. To better serve that group I have started a new site called: The Mount Wilson Toll Road Informer It is now three years since the slide that closed the trail and it does not appear that there is any progress toward reopening it. I’ll be inserting links to this new site on all the Mt Wilson Trail posts on Swcamborne and posting new stories about… Read More »Toll Road Gets its Own Site