Fire in China Camp

I'm glad we went to China Camp when we did. They just had a big fire over there yesterday. Fortunately no one was hurt. Apparently there has been a lot of Sudden Oak Death in that area, which lead to a lot of dried out trees in addition to the usual dry grass.

The weather has been hot this week and will continue through the weekend, which means fire danger around this area is pretty high. Be careful out there.

Saratoga Cemetery Public Meeting

In case any of my readers are in the Saratoga area - there is a public meeting next Tuesday at Oak Street Elementry School to discuss the future plans for development and expansion of the Madronia Cemetery. I'd encourage, nay entreat, anyone in the service area for the cemetery to go, hear the plans, and give feedback. The cemetery serves the community, but the community needs to participate in the process to make that work.

Details about the meeting can be found the Madronia Cemetery website. (If you can't attend, they have posted a form for comments as well.)

Fishy... I mean, suspicious.

Two guys in what could have been a refrigerated truck just pulled all the way up my driveway. The passenger got out, came to chat me up, not very effectively, and tried sell me some meat or fish, entirely unsuccessfully.

Now, the logo on the shirt did match the logo on the truck, and did involve a steer head. And it's possible they were making a delivery in the neighborhood, as they claimed, and saw me alllll the way back at the end of the driveway, where I was raking, and decided I looked like someone who might buy meat out of a truck, and came expressly to make me a customer.

But it seems pretty fishy to me. And not the kind that comes out of the back of a truck. He was anxious to know if I was a worker or an "owner", and the driver never left the vehicle. It's possible they were casing the house.

I made sure to let him know I wasn't working, and therefore home all the time. And you can bet I'll be watching for that truck around the neighborhood.

Aliens

E and J visit the Monk's Kettle and order hamburgers. Some way into the meal...

E: Can I have a french fry?
J: What happened to YOUR french fries?
E: Aliens. Very dangerous. They came all the way from Mars.
J: [elbows him in the ribs] Fine. You may have a french fry.

Several moments pass.

E: [reaches for fries again]
J: It's not my fault you let aliens steal your french fries!

War for the Oaks

I am waging a war on all the baby oak trees sprouting up all over the yard. I would say I was waging war against the squirrels who likely buried them in the vegetable beds to begin with, but if the acorn has gone so far to sprout a 4" tree, I think it's safe to say the squirrels have long forgotten about them. I suspect squirrels don't have the greatest long-term memory. And certainly we can't blame the squirrels for all of them - quite a few are within tossing distance of the oak trees in the hedge alongside the yard.

Now, I love oak trees more than your average person. There is something about the sight of brown hills with spreading dark green oak that says "home" and "California" to me like nothing else. However, this does not mean I want them taking over the vegetable garden, or sprouting up under the apple trees, and getting in the way of our grand plans for this summer's gardening.

And so I wage war. I was hoping for a sprinkling of rain this week, to soften the ground. I haven't gotten it, so I'm going ahead without. I've pulled up a dozen so far this morning, and there are many many more to go. With the ground hard and dry, it's hard to get up the acorn itself, which means I may be re-fighting today's battle again in a few months. But I shall fight on. Right after I find a pair of gardening gloves, because my hands are starting to hurt.

(with apologies to Emma Bull for the title)

Social Networking Reads

I've come across quite a few interesting articles lately. Here are some of the ones I've enjoyed the most.

Time Spent on Twitter Soars by Over 3,700%, Facebook up 700% from PR 2.0

New Twitter Research: Men Follow Men and Nobody Tweets from Harvard Business' Conversation Starter

China Camp Hike

Grass in the wind
Originally uploaded by jessajune

The Monday of Memorial Day weekend, we went hiking at China Camp. We drove all the way out to the remains of the fishing village at the end of the park, took a quick look, then set out on the trail to find a good picnic spot.

It was a perfectly gorgeous day, and the park is a nice one - only $3 to park all day, and they have picnic facilities for people who don't choose to find a likely spot at the top of a hill, like we did.



The only difficulty in our day was that we didn't really consult a trail map. We just picked a direction and walked in it. It turns out that if you take the trail along the back side of the park, it just runs along the border, and you'll walk 5 miles or so through lovely grass and wooded areas with no forks in the trail. And if you are too stubborn to turn around, like we were, you will walk around the entire China Camp park, because if you leave your car at one and and then walk to the other, you don't have much of a choice but to go back (though by a different route, to keep things interesting). And maybe you will be pretty tired before you are finished with the trek back. Possibly.



That said, it was a great day, and I would highly recommend it as a place to go to escape June Gloom in SF. Just check a trail map before you set out, ok? And don't forget your sunscreen.