Joaquin Miller Park Hike

We enjoyed the hike last week with Clay and Carol, so we thought we'd head out to do a similar one close to home. The East Bay Regional Park District has over 500 miles of trails within 30 minutes drive of our house. Today's hike was into the Joaquin Miller Park area only 5 miles from our house.

We park at the entrance to the dog park area, walk up the road only a few feet, get on the trail and drop immediately down to the creek. You can see the loop we took in the picture to the left. What a nice hike through the redwoods!







The trail is absolutely beautiful, open trail and sunshine followed by travel through dense redwood forests. The whole hike too around 2 hours and was up and down the whole way. Deb and I were both thankful that we brought our hiking poles along as the downhill / steeper parts of the trail are also covered by pine needles, loose gravel and rocks.

One watch out for this trail is the steepest downhill part, Cinderella Trail, is also a favorite mountain bike trail. It's steep, narrow, rutted, rooted, and rocked and the mountain bikers are barely under control as they come down. It's a challenge to stay out of their way without getting into poison oak, stinging nettles, or other nasties. Al-in-all, a great way to start a Sunday.

Spring is Definitely Here

Spring is definitely here. It seems like every year there gets to be a little less distinction between the seasons. That has the odd effect of making annuals (flowers and so on) into perennials and getting plants to bloom in more vibrant colors and at earlier times in the year. All that's really nice and the Spring is welcomed, but the early warm weather also has a less welcome side effect.

As an example, Maple trees need cold weather to allow seeds to go through the germination process. It has to be around 40 degrees F for about 70 days before the seeds are ready to sprout. Just think - if the weather isn't cold enough for long enough, there won't be any maple seedlings produced! That's not too much of a problem since we have all kinds of nurseries here that produce maple seedlings, but it leads one to wonder what other unforeseen consequences there might be.

We ventured into the world of tech again, purchasing an "Apple TV" box. It's an amazing little gadget, truly a "black box." The box synchs with one of the house computers, allows all of that computer's music to be streamed through the surround sound system, has movies available for rent or purchase, has something called "mirroring" which allows you to project what's on your computer screen onto your TV screen, and has apps installed for Netflix and a bunch of other commercial sites.

I don't know if I've told you, but I absolutely hate Comcast. Seems to me that they are ripping me off, charging me to watch TV channels like CBS, NBC, and ABC when I used to get them for free. TV was always free; all you had to do was put up with a couple of commercials every now and again. Now we have to pay to get any channels, and we still have to watch all of the commercials. Enough of that whining for now.

Since I've retired, one of the major worries I have is not being able to keep up. When working, I was always up on the latest technologies because they were used to advantage by my employers. Without an employer, I am on my own dime and have to stay abreast of the newest technologies by myself. Thank Him or Her for my iPhone 4 and apps like USA Today which has a Tech section that I can download every day to get the latest and the greatest innovations! (Did I just say that?)

Reservoir Canyon and Bowden Ranch

We visited Clay and Carol in Arroyo Grande this past weekend and enjoyed their hospitality and a hike at Reservoir Canyon. It's 6+/- miles long and climbs from 400 feet to around 1,800 feet, with most of the climbing in the last mile. 

Carol has a new addition to her family. Benjamin came along last year; he's a Golden Retriever mix. The latest addition is Bernadette, an Shepherd / Great Dane mix. Both dogs love the trail and pulled Carol up the hill most of the day. Lucky her!

We drove the Lexus down and back and both Deb and I were surprised by the gas mileage - right at 47 miles per gallon! It's a comfortable car; it might be a little on the small side for a trip of any length of time. It's got 134 horsepower combined in the electric and gas engines, but even at that low HP level it seems to handle freeway driving, merging and hill climbs just fine. 

We're back into our third round of the Cleanse starting today (Monday). We do it every so often when we feel like we need to reset our bodies. It gets out the acids, coffee, alcohol we've been eating and drinking and resets our eating habits around better food choices. The first time was difficult, second time was easier, and this time should be quite easy as we know what to expect and how to prepare for upcoming meals. Downside for the regimen is that it takes quite a bit of time and effort to keep up with the preparing, cleaning, chopping of the vegetables and grains. I'm not sure someone working full time would be able to keep up with the prep work. 

This time around I'm going to try to keep track of the daily calories for the regimen, and I will continue to exercise as I have been even though the people who put the regimen together don't recommend exercising at high effort levels. 

Bro Comes to Visit

My brother came to visit us from the Pacific Northwest. He's the kind of guy who, if you don't see him or talk to him for a couple of years, will still remember you and pick up the conversation right where it left off last time. It's like we see and talk to each other every day!

He has a penchant for scuba diving. He's used to the cold waters of the Puget Sound, so anytime he has the opportunity, he likes to get into warmer waters. The quest for warmer waters brought him down to California, specifically to the Monterey Bay area. This trip he brought along his wife and two sons. The boys also dive, so they brought along a ton - literally - of diving gear. It was a chore to get them all loaded up at the airport and trucked over to the house.

Now Bro didn't have a car, having flown down from the PNW and in order to dive at Monterey Bay he needed to borrow my truck. No problem; I had another car for work. The caveat was he had to buy his own gas.

I wasn't off work, so Bro and the Boys were going to load up the truck with their gear and drive down to Monterey by themselves. Bro needed to fill the truck up with gas, so I sent him downtown to a station I knew would be open. Alameda is a relatively small town, even smaller if you know that it's basically broken into the areas around Park Street and the area around Webster Street. These areas are mini-cities, and the residents stay pretty much in a 15 square block area where all the services are located. To give you an idea of how close the Park Street area is to our house, Deb and I regularly walk downtown to take in a movie, to shop at the market or to have dinner. The walk takes about 15 minutes.

Now Bro took off in the truck to get gas. He had directions to the gas station. About 20 minutes after he left I got a call - Bro. He had purchased the gas and started out from home and gotten lost - he couldn't get back. Remember, the truck's vintage was such that it wasn't equipped with GPS. Bro was agitated - his cell phone was running out of juice and this was the last call he was likely going to be able to make.

I gave Bro directions home - a right and a left and a straight and he would be home. We signed off the call and I went back to conversation with the Boys. Twenty minutes went by and we noticed that Bro wasn't back. We weren't worried though because after all, he couldn't get lost in such a small area.

The phone rang. Guess who? Yep. Bro on the phone. Calling from a pay phone. His cell phone had expired and he'd used all his paper and coins to get gas (who doesn't use a credit card to get gas nowadays?). He'd driven around for 20 minutes, and gotten lost; couldn't get home. I asked him to look at the street name signs at the intersection and I'd give him directions home. He read off the name of the intersection, I gave him directions, made him repeat them back to me - which he did - and wishing him well, signed off the phone call.

Twenty minutes later. Guess what? Bro calling. Lost again. Had to borrow money for the pay phone since his cell was out of juice and he'd spent all the cash money he had with him and didn't have any credit cards. Where was he? He told me what intersection; I said wait for me, I'll come and lead you back home. He said OK.

I set out from the house, went directly to the intersection he'd named. No one there. If Bro had actually been there, he'd left. I went back home. The whole trip to the intersection and back home took maybe 15 minutes.

Another twenty minutes. Bro calling. "Where'd you get the money for a phone call" I asked. "Weren't you ever a Boy Scout? Didn't they teach you to stay put in one place if you got lost?" I could hear his sheepish grin through the phone. I'm trying to decide what to do now - should I try another rescue? Would the Boys like to take a shot at finding him? Would his Wife mind if I didn't go get him? If he runs out of gas dodging me when I try to rescue him, would he stay with the truck?

I can't call him because he's at a pay phone and there's no caller ID for pay phones. I wait and sure enough, he calls again. "One more rescue attempt Bro and if you mess this one up, I'll rent the Boys a truck and they can go scuba diving without you! Got that?"

Early next day, off they went to Monterey to scuba dive. Late in the evening the phone rings. I know who it is and what he's going to say. But, I'm wrong. This time he's calling to tell me that on the way back the truck's engine blew up and he's stuck by the side of the road. Wants to know what to do. I ask him "What's the name of the intersection you're at; I'll come get you." He tells me.

I wonder if he actually thinks I'll fall for that trick again?

Coleonema pulchellum - Sunset Gold or Gold Breath of Heaven

I think I said that I bought two new plants today for my new endeavors into bonsaiing. The second one is a Coleonema Pulchellum, called either Sunset Gold or Gold Breath of Heaven. It's a non-native plant, coming to the US from New Zealand in the 1980s. It's a hardy plant with needle-like yellow-green foliage and small white or pink 5-petal flowers that bloom in the winter through the spring. The plant attracts bees, butterflies and birds, and is relatively drought tolerant. Most people grow these as low hedges, placing many plants fairly close together and letting them grow to a height of 2 - 3 feet and a width twice that.

I'm going to experiment with this hedge-type shrub as my experimental plant. I hope I can learn some of the tricks of the hobby without killing too many trees and shrubs!!

I'm starting slow, doing a pruning (branch removal) rather than  pinching back the new growth on the ends of the branches. That'll allow me to see the shape of the trunk and the distribution of the limbs with little or no risk of killing the shrub. Deb bought me a pair of Bonsai trimming scissors at Hidai Japanese Gardening store across the street from REI on San Pablo. Using them, I trimmed and cut and snipped and plucked until much of the undergrowth was gone and only the top knot (see "bad hair day" before picture) was left. Here's a pic of the shrub soon after the haircut. 

I'm going to let the plant rest for a while. I think I could get carried away in the pruning, and I don't want to harm the plant. In addition, I don't want to prune it so far that it looks terrible nd takes a long time to recover.

Acer Palmatum - Japanese Maple

Deb made a major discovery in the garden last week - two Japanese Maple (Acer Palmatum) seedlings just peeking their heads up. I'm not sure if it is a Japanese Maple seedling, but we have that tree in the front yard, the seed pods for the Japanese Maple have 6 to 8 seeds in them, the pods are winged, and there are lots of squirrels around the neighborhood that get really busy in Fall planting nuts for the Winter. More than a few of the nuts have sprouted in flower pots and beds come Springtime.

We watched the seedlings for a couple of days, and then I decided it would be perfect for a new bonsai plant, so I dug it up and transferred it to a 4" ceramic pot. As you can see in the photo, the largest seedling is about 2" high and has been out of the ground for about 8 - 10 days.

We visited the Golden State Bonsai Federation Collection in Oakland today. That collection has somewhere around 100 plants on display, and one is a particularly unique specimen. The Daimyo bonsai was given to the US Envoy to China when he was passing through Japan as a present for sitting President Abraham Lincoln in 1847.

The Docent at the Bonsai Collection agrees with my plan to let the seedling stay in the 4" pot for a year or more, then to transplant it into a larger pot for trunk growth and later into a bonsai pot for development as a bonsai plant. We'll see how it goes. The Docent also said that if the seedling grows too fast, some of the new growth should be taken off.

The older bonsai Japanese Maples are around 30" high, so this seedling has a ways to go. Here's a picture, again from the Federation Collection, of a grove of Japanese Maples. Deb likes the grove look, so I'm hoping to get at least 4 or five seedlings in this pot so I can develop these seedlings as a grove.

Easter Bunny Arrives!

Milana and Simon were here this weekend since the Easter Bunny made deliveries for them! This year Milana gets the idea of looking for eggs and Simon gets the idea of chocolate!

Easter Sunday ends a three-day run with the Gkids. First, at our house over night for clean up and reorganization of the apartment, then to Sacramento in the afternoon to celebrate Sarah's 16th birthday. She's quite the young lady, a great hostess and socially very adept at making people feel welcome and comfortable.




After the party, back to home for sleep and getting ready for Easter's coming.