Sun 16 Jan 2011

A Great blue heron, mondagreens, and three cheers for Ghana

Posted by DavidMitchell under General News, West Marin nature, Wildlife
[4] Comments

Great blue herons are the most widespread variety of heron in North America, and one of them has taken to frequenting the field around Mitchell cabin.

Great blue herons typically weigh 4.5 to 8 pounds and measure 36 to 55 inches from their heads to their tails. Their wing spans are huge, 5.5 to 6.5 feet. As birds go, their stride is also impressive, usually around nine inches in a straight line.

A Great blue heron and a Blacktail doe take a late-afternoon stroll together in my pasture.

Although herons do much of their hunting in shallow water, where they prey on small fish, crabs, shrimp, and insects, they also hunt in fields such as mine, where they dine on rodents, frogs, snakes, and even small birds. Great blues swallow their prey whole and have been known to choke on oversized morsels.

In other matters, if you have not yet seen the YouTube video of a “flash mob” in the Antwerp, Belgium, train station, you really ought to.

As people walk through the bustling station, a recording of Julie Andrews singing Do Re Me from The Sound of Music starts playing. Dancers young and old gradually emerge from the crowd until roughly 200 of them are prancing in the center of the lobby, much to the delight of onlookers.

Most of us know the song: “Do, a deer, a female deer; re, a drop of golden sun; mi, a name I call myself; fa, a long, long way to run…” The tune was running through my head yesterday, so I began singing it for my friend Lynn Axelrod.

When I came to “ti, a drink with jam and bread,” however, she was surprised. “I always thought it was ‘a drink with German bread,’ Lynn laughed. “Julie Andrews’ enunciation must not have been very good.”

I’d add that it’s just as easy to spot something else that probably contributed to Lynn’s misunderstanding. In the musical, Julie Andrews as a governess teaches the song to the von Trapp family children to mitigate the Austrian-military-style parenting of Capt. von Trapp.

As it happens, there is a word for mishearing a lyric the way Lynn did: mondegreen. It comes from people misunderstanding a line in an old Scottish ballad, “Thou hae slay the Earl of Murray and laid him on the green,” as “Thou hae slay the Earl of Murray and Lady Mondegreen.”

Other notable mondegreens include a line from a hymn, “the cross I’d bear” being heard as “the cross-eyed” bear.” Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “There’s a bad moon on the right” has likewise been misheard as, “There’s a bathroom on the right.” (Please see the 1st and 3rd comments regarding this one.)

But my favorite mondegreen is confusion over a lyric from the Beatles’ song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds. On occasion, “the girl with kaleidoscope eyes” has been been misheard as “the girl with colitis goes by.”

Western Africa. Ghana is in the center at the bottom of the map.

I used to wonder who the viewers are of all the beauty and wisdom this blog imparts each week, so I checked. Although numbers vary from day to day, the largest group of readers consistently comes from the United States, particularly California.

They’re followed (at the moment, which is fairly typical) by: Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, India, Australia, and Mexico. Somewhat to my surprise, however, were the many regular visits this blog has been receiving from the geographically small country of Ghana on the west coast of Africa.

Of the roughly 200 countries on earth, Ghana was recently 9th in visits, is currently 15th, and has consistently been in the top 25.

These are not the robotic visits of computers making contacts with this blog for only an instant. Typical visits last from 45 seconds to nine minutes, and often they come from people who have never visited this site before.

By African standards, Ghana with a population of 18 million is not unusually impoverished thanks to gold, oil, diamond, bauxite, and agricultural exports. Its literacy rate has been steadily improving, and if its residents keep getting information from this blog, it could become among the most-sophisticated countries in sub-Sahara Africa.

Before long, no Ghanaian will mishear the Beatles’s She’s Got a Ticket to Ride as “She’s got a chicken to ride.” (I suspect this mondegreen originated in the United States where some people have trouble understanding English accents.)

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Sat 8 Jan 2011

Video of two tributes to Missy Patterson during her memorial reception

Posted by DavidMitchell under Dave Mitchell, Marin County, The Point Reyes Light Newspaper
1 Comment

Among the many friends and relatives paying tribute to Missy Patterson during her memorial reception in the Dance Palace was former Point Reyes Light reporter Janine Warner, along with me.

As we were telling what Missy had meant to us, Janine’s husband Dave LaFontaine, unknown to me at the time, shot a video, which he has now edited. Here it is it for the benefit of those who were not able to be present, as well as for those who were.

Missy Patterson Memorial Service from Artesian Media on Vimeo.

Janine Warner and Dave Mitchell speak about their cherished memories of West Marin matriarch Rosalie (“Missy”) Patterson during her memorial reception at the Dance Palace in Point Reyes Station.

An earlier posting describing the memorial reception and mass for Missy can be found by clicking here.

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Tue 4 Jan 2011

Wishing a healthy, happy new year to West Marin’s critters, you included

Posted by DavidMitchell under Point Reyes Station, West Marin nature, Wildlife
Comments Off on Wishing a healthy, happy new year to West Marin’s critters, you included

Planned Feralhood, which uses humane methods to keep the local feral cat population under control, needs financial help for the coming year. The organization’s Trap/Neuter/Return program has become a model for other communities, and it’s worthy of our support.

Planned Feralhood, which is headed by Kathy Runnion of Inverness Park, has been taking care of West Marin’s feral cats for eight years, and for the past four years, Kathy told me last year, no kittens have been born in the targeted areas. Colonies of feral cats that were exploding in size eight years ago are now stable and healthy, the cats living out their lives without reproducing, she said.

Kathy Runnion of Planned Feralhood feeds cats at their new shelter in a barn near Nicasio Reservoir.

Volunteer feeders help keep the colonies localized. Between these colonies and the cats in its shelter, Planned Feralhood has been taking care of an average of 75 cats a day, Kathy added.

When Planned Feralhood was faced with finding new quarters last year, donations made it possible. There are now two shelters for the cats: one at Kathy’s home and one in a well-maintained barn near Nicasio Reservoir. I urge readers to support them.

Checks should be made payable to ASCS. The Animal Sanctuary and Care Society is Planned Feralhood’s IRS 501C (3) fiscal sponsor. Please mail your tax-deductible contributions to Planned Feralhood, PO Box 502, Point Reyes Station, CA 94956.

West Marin’s Gray fox population is steadily growing. Nowadays they can be seen in places as public as downtown Point Reyes Station. A year ago, Kathy, who is also a postal clerk, spotted this pair out the back window of the post office and called me, so I hurried downtown and photographed them. The foxes were sunning themselves on the roof of a Toby’s Feed Barn lean-to that adjoins the Building Supply Center lumber yard.

At Mitchell cabin, as has been noted, two or three foxes show up most evenings. In years past, I’ve seen the number of foxes and raccoons in West Marin occasionally soar only to have epidemics of distemper or some other disease cause their populations to crash.

A curious family of raccoons steps inside to inspect my kitchen.

Obviously the more raccoons and foxes there are in a region, the easier it is for disease to spread from one to another. I just hope nothing like that happens anytime soon.

Eight deer and a cat in the field below Mitchell cabin.

Unlike foxes and raccoons, West Marin’s blacktail deer are able to live in large groups without spreading diseases among themselves. The only significant exception has been infrequent outbreaks of bluetongue, a viral disease spread by a small, biting insect called a midge.

Bluetongue gets its name from the fact that the lips and tongues of animals with the disease swell, giving a blue appearance to the mouths of some of them.

Western gray squirrels are also vulnerable to insect bites. In other parts of the West, epidemics of mange, which is spread by mites, is a major cause of death among gray squirrels. This squirrel at Mitchell cabin, however, is starting the new year looking healthy.

And may you too have a healthy, happy new year notwithstanding the squirrely folks you may run into.

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Wed 29 Dec 2010

‘Tis the time of Janus, the god who looks forward and back

Posted by DavidMitchell under General News, Inverness
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January takes its name from Janus, the god of gates and doorways in ancient Rome and Greece. Small statues of the god, who had two faces, one looking inward and one looking outward, were often placed at the entrances to homes. New Year’s is likewise a gate between two years, making this a time to both look forward and look back. So here goes.

Nicasio Reservoir overflowed Seeger Dam last Thursday afternoon, Dec. 23, district staff reported. More than 9 inches of rain have fallen here in the last two weeks.

As 2010 comes to an end, Marin Municipal Water District is looking into the new year with healthy water supplies. MMWD provides water to the San Geronimo Valley, along with most of East Marin south of Novato, and as of this week, the district’s seven reservoirs were at 97 percent of capacity.

With more than 200 people on hand, Missy Patterson’s daughter Alicia Patterson Ferrando (at center) on Tuesday spoke emotionally about her mother’s love for her family, as well as her candor.

A reception in memory of Rosalie “Missy” Patterson, who died Dec. 19 at the age of 84, was held Tuesday afternoon in the Dance Palace. The reception was preceded by a High Church mass in St. Columba’s Episcopal Church. So many people were fond of Missy that there was standing-room-only in the church for much of the crowd.

Missy, who came to West Marin in 1959, was the mother of 11 children. For 28 years under four ownerships, she was circulation manager and front-office manager for The Point Reyes Light.

Missy worked for me 22 years, and at Tuesday’s reception I noted she came to learn so much about her job that she sometimes had to explain to government staff the regulations for dealing with newspapers. (Photo by Lynn Axelrod)

People in West Marin trusted Missy, and when the last publisher found that numerous oldtimers felt he had turned The Light into a scandal sheet and had stopped reading it, he made Missy a columnist in an effort to win them back.

The column, Ask Missy, was a compendium of Missy’s thoughts about the world. Sometimes she was indignant and sometimes bemused. In her last column, which was published three days before she died, she wrote about being hospitalized (with pneumonia) on Dec. 2.

If she’d had her way, Missy wrote, her friend Barbara would have driven her to Cabaline Country Emporium and Saddlery to look at some shoes, but Barbara instead drove her to the West Marin Medical Center.

Missy ended up in Kaiser’s Terra Linda hospital for a week and then stayed briefly with a friend before returning to Kaiser. In her final column she thanked everyone who had come to her assistance, adding, “Take good care of yourself… and it’ll keep you around almost longer than my 84 years.”

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Wed 22 Dec 2010

The death of a West Marin matriarch

Posted by DavidMitchell under General News, Point Reyes Station
[6] Comments

Like many other West Marin residents I was dismayed by Rosalie (Missy) Patterson’s death Sunday at the age of 84. She was mother to 11 children, a pillar of St. Columba’s Episcopal Church, and a long-time employee of the Point Reyes Light.

For decades beginning in 1959, Missy and her family lived in Inverness although she spent her last few years at Walnut Place in Point Reyes Station.

Missy’s 28-year tenure at The Light was the longest of anyone’s in the paper’s 62-year history. I was second with 27 years.

Sometime after my former wife Cathy and I sold The Light to Rosalie Laird and her short-term partner Ace Ramos in late 1981, Rosalie hired Missy to help with bookkeeping. I kept her on as circulation manager when I reacquired The Light through a default action at the end of 1983.

When I sold The Light to Robert Plotkin in November 2005, he too kept Missy on the job and eventually had her also write a weekly column, Ask Missy. When Marin Media Institute bought The Light earlier this year, Missy kept her front-office job as well as her column.

Missy with former Light reporter Janine Warner and me in 2008. (Photo by Dave LaFontaine)

As front-office manager, as well as circulation manager, of The Light, Missy controlled who was admitted to the newsroom, the ad department, and the production area. She was very aware of the paper’s weekly deadlines and protected staff from folks who just wanted to gab when the paper was going to press.

Her sense of humor was wonderful. She was particularly liked recounting the time an indignant reader slammed the door as she stormed out of the office, only to be jerked to a stop when her skirt caught in the door.

When impertinent acquaintances remarked that she and her husband Donald must have made love constantly to have produced 11 children, Missy would cut them off with, “No, we only did it 11 times.”

Missy in the 2005 Western Weekend parade flanked by the late Frank Cerda (left) and the late Ed Brennan.

Part of Missy’s workday at The Light included trips to the post office and the bank. Six or seven years ago when walking long distances became a strain, Missy acquired an electric scooter to get around town, as well as back and forth from Walnut Place.

For Missy, the scooter was virtually a go-cart. She loved to speed up and down the sidewalk, beeping her horn and sometimes forcing townspeople to jump out of her way.

When Linda Petersen, who runs the front office of the competing West Marin Citizen, had to temporarily use a scooter herself following an horrific traffic accident last year, numerous people encouraged them to hold a race. Missy, whose scooter was more powerful, would inevitably respond, “I’d win.” Linda agreed, and the race was never held despite their being on friendly terms.

Missy died Sunday at Kaiser Hospital in Terra Linda following a brief illness. A funeral will be held at 2 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 28, at St. Columba’s Church in Inverness. A reception will follow at the Dance Palace in Point Reyes Station.

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Tue 14 Dec 2010

Improbable politics in Wasilla, St. Petersburg and Point Reyes Station

Posted by DavidMitchell under Point Reyes Station, West Marin nature, Wildlife
[2] Comments

When Sarah Palin said in a Nov. 24 radio interview, “Obviously, we gotta stand by our North Korean allies,” it was impossible to say who was more surprised: the US government, Korean War vets, South Korea, or…. North Korea?”

If General MacArthur were still alive, he’d be rolling over in his grave, so to speak.

This week, however, another politician surprised the world even more. At a fundraiser in St. Petersburg for children with eye diseases and cancer, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin sang in English Fats Domino’s signature ditty Blueberry Hill.

If you haven’t watched Putin’s performance, I urge you to do so. It’s pure opera buffa. Although he pronounced it “Blueberry Heeel,” Putin managed to stay on key and delighted his audience, which included a host of Hollywood celebrities.

Meanwhile, my efforts to negotiate peace among this hill’s foxes and raccoons have run into a bit of a snag. Although there have been no outbreaks of hostility, each has taken to stealing the other’s food.

This initially caused me to leave bread for the foxes just inside my kitchen door, where the raccoons couldn’t see it, but the stratagem worked only briefly.

It didn’t take the raccoons long to figure out what was going on, and they began grabbing the bread before the foxes could get to it.

This left the foxes sadly contemplating the disappearance of their dinner.

Then I remembered what the late Jerry Friedman once demonstrated. Friedman, a Marin County planning commissioner, was also co-founder of the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin.

Back when I edited The Point Reyes Light, Friedman showed up one day with a photo, which we published, of his hand-feeding a fox that lived near him. If the EAC co-founder could hand food to a fox, I figured, I could too, thereby making sure the food was distributed evenly.

So far, Friedman’s system is working, and I’m feeding three foxes a night, along with three or four raccoons. The foxes and raccoons remain a bit wary of each other, and they all consider me as much a danger as a benefactor.

As for Putin, the US remains wary of him, but whether he constitutes a danger to this country is unclear. Also unclear is whether Palin is dumb like a fox or just plain dumb.

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Mon 6 Dec 2010

Faces along the Path of Lights

Posted by DavidMitchell under Point Reyes Station
[2] Comments

Friday’s Path of Lights in Point Reyes Station gave a festive start to the yuletide. Hundreds of West Marin residents flocked downtown after dark for events in several locations.

The annual lighting of the town Christmas tree, which is between Wells Fargo Bank and the Palace Market, drew a crowd that sang Christmas carols and held up candles.

West Marin Senior Services organized the tree lighting. The group’s chairman, Chuck Gompertz of Nicasio, welcomed the crowd, who sang along with Harmony Grisman and other West Marin musicians.

Part of the crowd (from left): Jasmine, Maria, Carina, with eight-month-old Giovanni.

Across the street, Point Reyes Books celebrated the release of The West Marin Review, Volume 3, a fascinating compendium of art, stories, essays, and poetry. The contributors range from Nicasio School 8th grader Kevin Alvarado, whose painting warns of violence against cattle rustlers, to native Alaskan Jan Harper Haines, who writes about belief in the supernatural. In Hootlani!, Jan describes her Athabascan village’s fear of referring to dead people by name.

Point Reyes Books and the Tomales Bay Library Association co-published The Review. Here Steve Costa (center), who owns the bookstore with his wife Kate, ladles out hot, spiced cider while contributor Amanda Tomlin (left) signs a copy.

Having contributed Tall Tales of Intelligent Animals to The Review, I was asked to take part in the book signing. I did, but many of those on hand were more interested in my new electronic cigarette. E-cigarettes, which provide users with a minuscule hit of nicotine, have no tobacco and emit only water vapor. Because there’s no smoke, I was allowed to enjoy mine inside the bookstore.

One oddity of the e-cigarette is that the recharger for its battery, which powers the vaporization, does not plug into a wall socket but into the USB port of a computer.

Meanwhile down the street, the gallery at Toby’s Feed Barn opened a show of art by Celine Underwood, carvings by Ido Yoshimoto, and prints by his father Rick Yoshimoto, as well as photographer Art Rogers’ portraits of the artists.

Santa Claus showed up among Toby’s hay bales to hear children’s Christmas wishes.

Also on hand at Toby’s was West Marin Citizen publisher Joel Hack. The once disheveled journalist is looking dapper these days now that West Marin’s newspaper “war” seems to be coming to an end.

Joel has hired as a part-time reporter my friend Lynn Axelrod, who once worked for me at The Light. Earlier in the day when Lynn tried to use a coverup in order to take a nap, Eli, the dog of Citizen ad manager Linda Peterson, quickly tracked her down and took her into custody.

Lynn, by the way, took all the above photos except this one.

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Mon 29 Nov 2010

Literary and civic news sponsored by the creatures of West Marin

Posted by DavidMitchell under Point Reyes Station, West Marin nature, Wildlife
Comments Off on Literary and civic news sponsored by the creatures of West Marin

Point Reyes Station’s annual Path of Lights, which includes sidewalks decorated with luminaria and the lighting of the town Christmas tree (between Wells Fargo Bank and the Palace Market) will be held this Friday evening, Dec. 3.

The festivities will include contributors to the new issue of The West Marin Review (Volume 3) signing copies at Point Reyes Books from 5 to 7:30 p.m. More about that in a moment, but first a word from our sponsors.

A raccoon friend of mine for the past several seasons picks a slice of bread off my kitchen floor Monday.

Also on Monday, a blacktailed buck grazes just below my deck as a doe and a couple of fawns graze nearby.

Four roof rats show up on my deck Sunday to share in the birdseed I put out for my feathered friends.

One of the Point Reyes Arabians looks over my fence from beneath a persimmon tree Monday. In the upper left is a stockpond belonging to the Giacomini family.

Grey fox on my deck last week shows no reaction when I use a flash to photograph him through an open door.

Wild turkeys eating with a blacktail fawn. Perhaps “birds of a feather flock together,” but they also flock with other creatures, as seen Sunday out my kitchen window.

And now back to the news. As the West Marin Review website notes, “In [the new] volume are Jonathan Rowe’s provocative, urgent essay about the future of irreplaceable places and Elia Haworth’s sweeping history of the farmers who settled in the area.

“The beauty of West Marin is evoked in vivid, colored woodblock prints by Tom Killion, in line drawings, watercolor, and photographs, in precise rendition and in abstract design.

“Some of the poetry is site specific,” but The Review is not exclusive to West Marin. It seems that ‘place’, wherever it is, is always a source of creative inspiration. Many of the essays and poems refer back to earlier homes, earlier times and lives.

“Fiction pieces include The Miles Pilot by Cynthia Cady, funny and painful and wrenching at the same time, and The Cat Lover by Jody Farrell, where reality and fantasticality link arms.”

The list of contributors to The West Marin Review is generally impressive, and many of them will be on hand to sign copies at Point Reyes Books. Although not particularly impressive myself, I’ll be among those with pen in hand should anyone want my autograph.

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Mon 22 Nov 2010

Another round of inter-species peace negotiations at Mitchell cabin

Posted by DavidMitchell under Point Reyes Station, West Marin nature, Wildlife
1 Comment

This fall four foxes began showing up on my deck just after dark each evening, as has been previously reported. Although skittish, they take turns grabbing slices of bread from my hand. They eat peanuts off the deck even when the door is open and we are only three or four feet apart.

However, this is also what the local raccoons do, which has led to several encounters. On more than one occasion, a raccoon has given a fox the evil eye, causing the reynard to scamper off.

A year ago, I dealt with the same problem; only that time the adversaries were a possum and raccoon. It took a bit of planning, but their historic suspicions notwithstanding, I was able to work out a ceasefire.

To bring both sides to the negotiating table, I placed a couple of piles of peanuts on it. Over several nights, I brought the peanuts closer and closer together until possum and raccoon were finally eating nose to nose in peace.

A week ago I began trying the same strategy in fox-raccoon negotiations, starting with peanuts spread fairly far apart.

As the peanuts moved closer together over several nights, so did both animals. Mutual enmity may seem like part of their God-given nature, but as Bertolt Brecht so aptly observed, “Grub first, then ethics.”

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Tue 16 Nov 2010

Ramblin’ Jack Elliott takes turns performing with Corey Goodman and Maria Muldaur at amazing fundraiser in Marshall

Posted by DavidMitchell under General News
1 Comment

Sunday’s Trailer Stash, a musical fundraiser at Marconi Conference center to buy supplies for the Marshall Disaster Council’s emergency trailer, turned into a star-studded event.

Ted Anderson’s traditional Irish music, followed by Ingrid Noyes and the Marshall Community Chorus and Kazoo Band, began the bash, which ended with two songs by legendary folksinger Maria Muldaur. As a fundraiser, the event was both a musical and financial triumph. More than $2,500 was raised to outfit the trailer.

Maria Muldaur, who is probably still best known for her 1974 recording of Midnight at the Oasis, continues touring and dropped by with no advance publicity. She and another folk music great, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, together sang Richland Woman Blues by Mississippi John Hurt. She also treated the audience in the center’s Buck Hall to an a cappella version of It’s a Blessing by Mississippi Fred McDowell. In 2005, she recorded this “field holler,” as she called it, with Bonnie Raitt.

Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, who happens to live in Marshall, likewise performed with little advance notice (except on this blog). Ramblin’ Jack played San Francisco Bay Blues accompanied by Corey Goodman on piano and sang the traditional song The Cuckoo, She’s a Pretty Bird, accompanied only by himself.

There were other surprises as well. The boogie and ragtime music of a young pianist named George Fenn greatly impressed the crowd, who responded with enthusiastic applause.

Two organizers of the event, Paul Kaufman (on piano) and Kristi Edwards (on flute), performed a happy parody of the 1926 song It All Depends on You. (“I can be happy, I can be sad, I can be good, I can be bad, It all depends on you. I can be lonely out in a crowd, I can be humble, I can be proud, It all depends on you.”)

In Paul and Kristi’s version, which the audience joined in singing, the words were: “We can be safe, We can be glad, We can be nervous, And we can be sad, It all depends on you. We will need lanterns, We will need shovels, Bolt cutters, hammers, To fix our hovels, It all depends on you.”

I happened to be sitting in the second row when Rick Pepper of Marshall (on steel guitar), accompanied by David Harris (on harmonica), cut loose with some gravelly voiced blues.

Not long after Pepper began belting out two Robert Johnson songs, someone sat down beside me.

I was concentrating on the performance, so I didn’t immediately look over to see who it was.

When I finally took a moment to see who had joined me in the second row, I discovered it was Ramblin’ Jack. “This is great,” exclaimed the Grammy Award winner as he listened to Rick and David.

A bit of a surprise for those who do not know him well, Corey Goodman, chairman of Marin Media Institute which has bought The Point Reyes Light, is also a first-rate jazz pianist.

The biotech entrepreneur from Marshall is perhaps best known in West Marin for being the first to expose Park Service misrepresentations regarding the Drakes Bay Oyster Company.

Corey is seen performing with Tim Weed, West Marin’s accoustic virtuoso, who plays everything from guitar to classical banjo. Tim’s collection of classical works for the five-string banjo, Milagros, is regularly featured on National Public Radio.

Also a singer and songwriter, Tim performs in many places. This Sunday, Nov. 21, he’s scheduled to play from 5 to 8 p.m. in the Station House Café.

Despite having a magnificent lineup, the Trailer Stash fundraiser didn’t draw a huge crowd. I’d guess only 75 to 100 folks found their way to this extraordinary concert, and notwithstanding the similarity of names, none was trailer park trash.

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