Late November Clan Subset Gathering

(Note: this post was composed using Microsoft's "Live Writer," which I don't think I'm going to use again.)

A subset of the extended clan gathered at Ft. Harrington on Thanksgiving (US variety) weekend to indulge in non-turkey feasting – and to gather up presents from Ireland that somehow had not yet been distributed.

Dessert Time. Clockwise from left: Grace, Andrew, Lynda, Adam, Gisella, Ryan (behind his mom), Mrs. Fort. Grace’s mom, Adrianne, had to leave before chow time.

Lasagna, salad, garlic bread (yummily not turkey, which all of us had over-ingested in other places the previous Thursday) followed by two kinds of pie: apple and pumpkin (pies accompanied by an ice cream option, of course) – Diane put on her usual fare with country flair.

Adam and Gisella, closer-up.

Gisella is Lynda’s daughter Jamie’s little girl, which makes her Adam’s step-granddaughter.

Which makes her my step-great-granddaughter!

Ryan and his hat from Donegal.

Ryan took an afternoon off from his waiter’s gig – and from studying for his EMT course. (If all goes well, he should be licensed for the latter by early next year.) He couldn’t bring the lovely Casey with him this time, but we all were thinking of her.

Adam and Grace with their Irish souvenirs. Note old Kelsey-the-Dog in the lower-right.

“My dad went to Ireland and all I got was this rugby shirt.”

Adam’s shirt – identifiably Irish by three discreet shamrocks about where Grace’s wrist is – came from Kenmare as did Grace’s cap. Her necklace is from Mullingar, as is a belt-watch for Andrew (which can’t be seen in the picture below.)

Andrew with Emma

Grace and her mom compare knit goods. The champagne flute is also from Mullingar.

In the above picture, Adrianne is not wearing a significant new piece of jewelry that she recently acquired: an engagement ring! She and her Ryan (“her” to distinguish from Diane’s Ryan) will marry in May or June.

Grace models her new bling. Notice Emma-the-Spaniel in the lower-left: she still absolutely adores Grace, and is never more than a few feet from the girl whenever she visits.

Now eight years old, Grace has developed a wide variety of facial expressions and uses them to great effect.

Grace and old Fonzie.

After the ruckus

Once the leftover containers had been filled and taken, after the last hug and kiss good-bye of the evening was done, the various animals in the Ft. Harrington menagerie had a variety of different reactions. Extremes of that spectrum are shown here. Jax, bred as Cavalier King Charles Spaniels are to be sociable and intoxicated by children, was exhausted, collapsed on his pile of pillows on the couch, and was dead to the world for hours. Finn McCool, on the other hand, still not comfortable with people he doesn’t know, hid under the bed all day, so when everyone left he was wound up, energized, and ready to rock and roll! If this were a video, you’d see his tail whipping back and forth.

I hope you all had a pleasant Thanksgiving weekend, too – and, from all of us at Ft. Harrington of any number of feet, we wish you a warm and happy holiday season ahead!

Annual Renewal Notice

For SherWords' readers in the snowy climes of Maine, Michigan, and New Brunswick (to name a few if not all), I am happy to tell you that relief is on the way: spring has sprung its notice here in Ft. Harrington, and will be wafting its way to you posthaste. It says here.

This afternoon I took a little stroll around the compound and snapped these shots of things sprouting, budding, and blooming in the yard (click on any image to see a larger version):

Lilac...

... plum (with buds looking remarkably like tiny Brussels Sprouts)

... peach ...

... apple ...

... and jasmine sprouting brand-new, so briefly-red leaves.




The camillia trees have been blossoming since last month, but they're just now hitting their full stride, producing a wealth of blossoms too heavy for their stems, which fall on the deck with an audible PLOP at all hours, in...

... white ...

... red ...

... and pink.

The spaniels, hard at work watching me this afternoon.


In another sense of annual renewal, today was Diane's and my 17th wedding anniversary, which we celebrated with dinner at the Shadowbrook Restaurant in Capitola (or "Capitola-by-the-Sea" as its chamber of commerce would like -- just to make sure, I suppose, that we don't think it's Capitola-by-the-Forest or Capitola-by-the-Reactor.)

The most enjoyable way to reach the restaurant's entrance is by a steep cable car down from the parking area.




Delightful place, delightful meal, and a delightful 17 years.






And in yet another sense of renewal, and in yet another delight, Diane's older son, Ryan, and his wife, Christel, are expecting their firstborn, a daughter, next month.

Alnitak loved the cradle we got for them, and was not happy when we took it away to the baby shower last week! (This photo was taken last Saturday, and is the only one in this post not taken today.)

Happy renewal, everybody!

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Flickers from February

Whacked swing, damaged by a redwood limb's downward trajectory, Ft. Harrington, February, 2002.

The shortest month is, gladly, the shortest month. February, in any northern hemisphere clime, is winter at its dreariest, and, even in so clement a place a Northern California, its blessings are generally on the artificially-heated side of the door.

Here are some blessings from today, February 23^rd, in the central dwelling in Ft. Harrington, as we rode out a mild storm:

Guinness can sit comfortably on any of his sides in any of three dimensions.

Finn, still twitchy and still trying to figure out all this zoo, has become comfortable with the spaniels…

… and is sufficiently happy with his little buddy, Guinness, that he doesn’t completely freak out when Guinness jumps into his snuggle-stuffs.

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Stormy Weather

Yes, it rained pretty hard here yesterday.

No, it wasn’t a big deal.

However, since the fairly typical just-after-the-solstice storm here in Northern California gathered some national (and even international) news attention (and since Ft. Harrington’s dear friend, Lucile Taber, went looking in this blog for updates), I’ll put up this special edition post about it.

Kings Creek from the Ft. Harrington back deck, Wednesday, January 2^nd.

We needed rain pretty badly. Last winter (the usual rainy season here in the Santa Cruz Mountains) was exceptionally dry, and that’s bad news for an isolated community like this that depends on groundwater for all of its water needs – not just for household use, but for emergency agencies, firefighters in particular. The picture above, looking downstream along the creek through the heart of Creepy Hollow, shows how depleted the watershed had become. It was taken a day before the forecast triple-storm was to hit our area.

Thursday, January 3^rd, brought a little spritz of a shower… but yesterday, Friday, January 4^th, brought the first big rainfall we’ve had in two years. According to the Ft. Harrington rain gauge, we had 6 ½ inches in 24 hours from 5pm Thursday to 5pm Friday, and by mid-afternoon Friday, the creek looked like this:

Kings Creek from the Ft. Harrington back deck, Friday, January 4^th.

I estimate that the creek rose about three feet in that 24-hour period, but it wasn’t even close to being a worry for anyone here in the Hollow. Oldtimers hereabouts say that the creek can crest above the red patio at the right of the frame in the above pictures, but we haven’t seen that in our decade here. We have seen the creek significantly higher than it was this week, though:

Kings Creek in the winter of 2005-06.

Creepy Hollow, with Ft. Harrington at its core, is sheltered by high mountain ridges from most winds in winter storms, and it was for this one. While Northern California in general was blasted by sometimes hurricane-speed winds, our air was relatively tranquil during the downpours. We are, however, dependent on the electrical power grid for our distributed electricity, and that grid failed (as it usually does several times each winter.) The Hollow was without electrical power from the grid for most of Friday – but that’s no never-mind, since almost every house in the Hollow has a generator like the Fort does. Loud, is all, not major bad news, since the generators keep the refrigerators, furnaces, and lights going. The worst inconvenience for humans is that cable TV (and internet services) go out when the main power grid does.

When a storm is over, the creeks and rivers exhale mist among the redwoods. These two pictures are from "downtown" Boulder Creek this afternoon. (Click on any image for a bigger version.)

Kelsey and I surveyed the Creek this afternoon (make sure the volume is turned up on your computer and then click the arrowhead):

In this clip, I address Kesley as "Kelsey-the-Dog," which is actually what he's usually called around here. I don't know why, since there's not much doubt about whether he's a dog or not.

All in all, the storm was a blessing for us, not a problem. It was a blessing because it recharged, all in one shot, the groundwater on which this entire community vitally depends. However, it would have been a big problem for me if it hadn’t happened while I was on winter break from school: any highway I might have tried to take from Ft. Harrington to Silicon Valley was closed due to mud/rock/dirt slides or downed trees. But I didn’t have to go anywhere, so Mrs. Fort and I and all the fourfeet snuggled down and napped through most of it. So did the chickens, but in their house, not ours.

Earlier storms have not been as benign. Below are some scenes from previous winters:

Above, Adam and Ryan survey some storm damage on the Fort's main building's roof in 2001.

Things get really bad when the wind does get fierce here in the Hollow: redwood branches can’t take the strain, snap (with a sound like a rifle shot) and fall their hundreds of feet onto whatever happens to be below. Those falling branches are called “widowmakers,” and the one above fell just up the road from the Fort in the winter of ’01- 02.

When a winter storm brings snow, it also brings carloads of folks up from Silicon Valley to revel in it. Above is a group of DeAnza students frolicking at a vista point above our San Lorenzo Valley in the winter of 2004-05.

The San Lorenzo Valley in 2004. Ft. Harrington is somewhere close to the middle of this rainy frame.

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Rac Attack

My first impulse was to blame my neighbor. My second was to blame the freakish weather of the past two years. But, finally, I had to blame myself.

Last week’s Thursday was USA-ian Thanksgiving day. We had friends here at Ft. Harrington to help us celebrate the day and help us eat the traditional poultry. During the evening’s joviality, I forgot to close the chickens’ run door, leaving them vulnerable to predators.

For the past several years, there has been no reason to worry about that. Any encroaching varmint was welcomed by alarm barks, loud and furious, from Kelsey. This year, probably because of a two-year major drought here in the Santa Cruz Mountains, even our usual raccoons vanished, leaving our plums to drop uneaten from their trees. (And on to our deck, making a mess.)

One of our neighbors, though, leaves food for his cats outside his front door, because his cats can’t come inside, because they can’t get along with his dogs. A couple of weeks ago, a juvenile raccoon discovered this free food, and started stopping by on a regular nocturnal basis. Since no other raccoons were around, because – I guess – of the drought, which has dessicated the hollow’s creek to a trickle and wiped out the crawdad population, this youngster became bold.

He found our chicken run and, I’m guessing, waited until a gate was left open. That happened on Thanksgiving night.

We heard nothing that night, nor (evidently) did the dogs. But the next morning, we found pieces of Pepper scattered around the garden and the rest of the flock cowering in various places.

That night, we made sure to secure the chicken run as usual… but the ‘coon now knew that chicken dinner was to be had here. The young ‘coon ripped a large wooden piece from the run’s door and ripped into the run at about 3:30 in the morning. It made the mistake, though, of going after Xena, who resides in the uppermost portion of the run at night. She screamed loud enough to wake me, Mrs. Fort, and all the dogs. In various states of undress (which, for the dogs, was total, of course) we raced out to the chicken run and chased the little ‘coon away.

We also scattered the chickens away, since all the doors to the run were opened in the fray.

For the next hour, she in her nightgown and me in my robe, we scoured the compound for frightened, hidden chickens, finally locating and gathering them all at about 4:30am. We carried them into the potting shed for safekeeping, and did our best to finish our night’s sleep.

The following day, I prepared the potting shed as best as I could to be a temporary home for the 10-chicken flock.

Potting shed as refuge. The chickens at bottom are the two inquisitive ones: Specks and Lacey.

The plan now is to keep the chickens in the potting shed at night for another week, hoping to convince the young ‘coon that the chicken buffet is closed. Meanwhile, I’m “hardening” the chicken run doubly: by installing hutches within the run in which we can enclose the chickens at night and by reinforcing various vulnerable places on the run’s exterior fencing.

Morning after a busy night of pooping on black plastic. (Xena is at bottom-center, the little warrior princess!)

Meanwhile, I can’t walk by the chicken section of our grocery store’s meat section without feeling a little queasy .

'Bye, Pep

Pepper, 2005

Fort Harrington's chicken compound was attacked by a raccoon on Thanksgiving Day, 2007. Of the eleven birds, Pepper was the only fatality. The incident will be recounted in more detail later, but I thought Pepper should have her own post now.

Bless you, Pep. You were a good chicken.

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Signs of the San Lorenzo Valley

Our town, Boulder Creek, is one of several small towns that are strung out along the short San Lorenzo River, which runs from falls in Castle Rock State Park at the ridge of the Santa Cruz Mountains down to Monterey Bay in the city of Santa Cruz. Last Saturday (the 18th of August), as is my custom on a Saturday, I puttered up and down the valley doing various errands. This time, since I was in an Andy Rooney sort of mood, I took my camera to record some signs by the roads that have been irritating me.

Gossamer roadblock, strung from apple (left) to holly (right). The sign above the gate, facing the road, reads "Harrington" on the other side and is, in part, why locals call this place what they do.

First things first, though -- go on up to the front gate and get the newspaper for Mrs. Fort. Now, a spider spinning a web across your walkway isn't quite as daunting an obstacle as this one that Mike Peterson frequently faces, but it would require ducking if I didn't want to ruin the critter's all-night work.

Spiderwarp of spacetime.

Looks like this spider could afford to lose some weight, though.

Chicken spaniel.

After getting the paper, I noticed that Emma hadn't followed me all the way to the gate, as she usually does. Vacant or not (either the web or the spaniel), she didn't want any part of that web (which can be seen, very out of focus near us in the above view, as a bright dash in front of the Fort's front door, a bright dot in front of one of the kitchen windows, and a smear above the right edge of the walkway.) If you click on the above image to get a bigger view, notice the open, green-framed window at the upper right: that's the window by the computer where I do most of the stuff you guys out in cyber-land see.

On to downtown Boulder Creek (only about two miles from the Fort)...

Turkey Foot, August 18, 2007.

... sometimes, in the past, known as "Turkey Foot" because of how its confluence of creeks with the San Lorenzo River looked on railroad maps of the late 1800's. See the banners on almost all of the light poles? Up close, they look like this:

Junk-n-Drunk!

Every Memorial Day weekend, for three days, the main route along the San Lorenzo Valley (California Highway 9) is clogged by an "Art and Wine" festival. Denizens of the local usenet news groups have, for years, called the exercise the "Junk-n-Drunk" and don't like it much. The catchy nickname was devised by a colorful local eccentric who, among other delusions, thinks he lives in a fort.

Notice that the "festivals" are held on Memorial Day. Notice that the above pictures were taken on the 18th of August. No rush, eh? Not around here, fer sher.

Just a little outside of town, on a heavily-used secondary thoroughfare called Bear Creek Road, I parked my Jeep...



















... next to this yellow sign of serious demeanor:

Okay. Thanks.

We have lived here for ten years. I have traveled Bear Creek Road countless times. This sign has been there the whole time, and I have absolutely no idea what it means.

Farther down the valley, in the somewhat posher town of Ben Lomond, is this sign -- not put up by some official agency, but carefully crafted by the mailbox owner, and sturdy enough to have survived in good shape for at least three months:

Then maybe they should move.

Now. There is at least one resident of Ben Lomond who claims, evidently in all seriousness, to be a werewolf and publishes interesting stories about how hard it is to integrate his condition into modern social norms. If so, then perhaps this sign isn't simply a misspelling; if werewolves, why not fauns? If that's so, then one wonders why the fauns are so damn' irritated.

It was pleasant to return home to the menagerie. Cooper, especially, was a comfort, as amiable and easy-going as he is:

Cooper, August 18, 2007.

He shares his feeding with Fonzie...

What's your hat size?

... and with --

... huh? ...

Um, what?
WHO THE HELL IS THIS?

Okay. This will take some looking into, gentle reader. I'll get back to you on it when the HI-POD series is over (sometime next week.)

Dog 1.0.0 Upgrade

Our friend Jeff is Ft. Harrington's Guru of Gigabytes, our Ramses of RAM, our "It-Man" of IT... well, you get the picture. In case you didn't, here it is: he's real smart (read the third entry in the page linked here.) He comes out and fixes whatever fix we've gotten ourselves into, computer-wise. That's good, and that's important, but he puts up with us, too, which is even better and even more important.

He also tends to notice things that we didn't even know were worng. Like that last word, or...

(Please click on each picture to see a larger and better version.)

... like he noticed yesterday, when he came out to fix the cyber-equivalent of Sherwood sticking a wad of chewed gum into his computer's "documents and settings" folder... he noticed that Kelsey was still Dog version 1.0.0! For shame.

Lucky for us (but just a matter of course for always-prepared Jeff), he had an upgrade module in his truck. Above, he's installing it.

Now Kelsey is a proud Dog 1.4.3, the toppermost of the doggermost! And, you can see, he's already being noticed by the chicks!

Thanks, Jeff! Woof!