Sun 12 Jan 2014

Legends of the Celtic Harp music and stories wow enthusiastic crowd in the Dance Palace

Posted by DavidMitchell under General News, Point Reyes Station
1 Comment

The Dance Palace started off its new year of shows Saturday evening with a dazzling musical/theatrical performance by Legends of the Celtic Harp, comprised of musicians Patrick Ball, Lisa Lynne, and Aryeh Frankfurter.

Publicity photo of the trio distributed by the Dance Palace.

Advance publicity quoted an unnamed reviewer of one of the group’s performances as writing: “Legends of the Celtic Harp is a blend of music and oratory falling somewhere between concert and theater. It spanned nearly the range of human feeling, from humor to tragedy, tenderness to rage, reality to mysticism, and more besides.”

From that description, I didn’t know just what to expect, but I went anyhow, and I’m sure glad I did.

Patrick Ball, who’s performed in West Marin previously, is both a master of the Celtic Harp and an engaging storyteller.

Although they have been called among the best in the world, Ball modestly said the name Legends of the Celtic Harp does not apply to the group itself but to the material in their performances. Indeed, Ball, usually accompanied by music, retold fascinating stories from Irish legend about harps and “harpers.”

Speaking with a wonderful Irish brogue (learned while spending time in Ireland), the harpist recited Irish poems and even a prayer. Ball, who holds a master’s degree in History from Dominican College, not only told tales of ancient harpers, he occasionally threw in a traditional Irish dig or two at the English. (England colonized Ireland in the 12th century, resulting in eight centuries of rebellion against the British throne.)

Lisa Lynne publicity photo.

Harpist Lynne, who played other stringed instruments as well, told a miraculous story of how her life had been changed by playing the harp. She started out as a bass player in a Heavy Metal band, she said, and later moved on to a biker band. While still in these bands, she began introducing harp music into their sets and found that audiences loved it.

In 1999, the nation was stunned by the Columbine (Colorado) High School massacre, in which two boys shot to death 12 students and a teacher, as well as injuring 24 others, before committing suicide. Not long after this, the family of one of the injured students, a girl who had become paralyzed below the waist, contacted Lynne. It turned out the one thing bringing the injured girl any comfort was a recording of Lynne’s harp music.

Lynne then traveled to Columbine, played for the girl’s family, and helped get a harp for the girl. It was the first thing the girl was given when she was able to sit up, and she took to it immediately, Lynne said. By this point in her story, half the Dance Palace audience was in tears.

Very quickly, word got out that a harp’s happy, soothing sound comforted and brightened the lives of people in hospitals, nursing homes, and even facilities for juvenile delinquents.

Through a program she helped launch, Lynne said, harpists now play for patients throughout hospitals “except in post-op wards.” They don’t want patients freaking out at hearing harp music as they wake up from surgery, Lynne explained, drawing prolonged laughter from the audience.

As it happens, Aryeh Frankfurter is Lynne’s partner, and he sometimes played a Celtic Harp with Lynne and Ball. More often, however, he played an instrument most of the audience had never seen before, a Swedish Nyckelharpa.

The Nyckelharpa is bowed like a violin but uses piano-style keys, not fingers, to fret the chords. The reason we’re not familiar with it, Frankfurter said, is that the instrument is played primarily in Swedish folk music.

After the performance ended, I spoke with several people who, like I, had wondered ahead of time what exactly to expect. All of us, it turned out, had been enchanted by what we’d just heard.

Unfortunately, there won’t be another chance to hear Legends of the Celtic Harp around here soon. Although they’re from the Bay Area, the trio spend most of their year on the road. Their next stops are in Oregon. Ball then plays Mendocino and Willits before the trio head to the Southwest and then on to the East Coast.

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Mon 6 Jan 2014

A gallery of local-wildlife photos

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

I’m using the start of the new year as an occasion to exhibit a number of wildlife photos I’ve shot around Mitchell cabin during the past three or four years. I make no pretense to having produced photographic masterpieces, for I still use a Kodak EasyShare, a primitive digital camera that’s no longer made.

Wild animals in unlikely juxtapositions, whether deliberate or serendipitous, are some of my favorite subjects, so let’s begin with a few.

Deer in particular are curious about other creatures that are not big enough to be threatening. Friendships such as that of Bambi and Thumper are not all that unusual in the real world. Indeed, I once saw a young deer trying to cozy up to a jackrabbit; the rabbit, however, retreated under a bush when the fawn got too close.

Here a blacktail doe sticks around to watch Linda Petersen’s late Havanese named Sebastian when the dog wandered down my driveway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The blacktail around Mitchell cabin appear particularly interested in housecats.

Here a nosy doe watches a cat on a woodpile cleaning its fur.

 

 

 

 

 

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Deer and housecats seem pretty much at ease around each other, somewhat in the same way that deer get along with cows and horses.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A bit more surprising, to me at least, was seeing this doe and great blue heron hunting together in my pasture. The deer was there to dine on new clumps of green grass while the heron was there to dine on gophers. ________________________________________________________________

Some creatures, however, need encouragement to fraternize. Foxes and raccoons aren’t terribly fond of each other, but they will show up to the same feast, which in this case consisted of honey-roasted peanuts I’d scattered on the deck. __________________________________________________________________

Possums and raccoons are even less companionable under normal circumstances. If a raccoon gets too close, a possum will often bare its fangs although it’s all a bluff. But both critters will peaceably attend ecumenical dinners when honey-roasted peanuts are served. _________________________________________________________________

Possums, in fact, can be convinced to undertake almost any endeavor if the reward is honey-roasted peanuts. In one notable case, I was able to use sweet-roasted goobers to teach a possum table manners. __________________________________________________________________

One of the most popular photos I ever posted involved my using the same peanuts to encourage a bodhisattva possum along his path to enlightenment. Word of the photograph must have gotten around. For months after I posted it, one of the more-frequently Googled terms bringing people to this blog was “bodhisattvva possum.” __________________________________________________________________

Turning now to birdbaths. A towhee keeps its feathers in good condition by washing in the birdbath on the deck of Mitchell cabin. Such ablutions are why we call the these basins birdbaths. _________________________________________________________________

And, of course, many birds count on birdbaths for their source of drinking water. Here a mourning dove leaves the birdseed to a towhee for a moment while it takes several gulps. Because so much of their food is dry, these birds need regular drinks to wash it down. I place a couple of bricks in the birdbath for birds that like to stand in water. ___________________________________________________________________

Birds are not the only creatures who use the basin for bathing and as a source of drinking water. I’ve seen as many as four raccoons squeeze into the birdbath to wash their paws after eating. Here three kits balance effortlessly 15 feet above the ground on the narrow railing of my deck as they clamber in and out of the basin at night. ______________________________________________________________________

Nor do I discriminate. My birdbath also provides drinking water for any creature that can get to it. Honeybees frequently show up to drink although a few inevitably fall in.

Probably the drinkers with the worst reputation are the roof rats. These rats originated in southern Asia, and you’ll recall it was their fleas that spread the Black Death throughout Europe in the 14th Century, killing roughly half the people.

I don’t mind roof rats’ drinking from the birdbath and stealing birdseed from my deck, but I’ve periodically had to trap rats that got into my basement. The problem is their unfortunate habit of gnawing on everything chewable from paper to dishwasher drain hoses to electrical-wire insulation.

It’s really too bad they’re such nuisances because, as you can see, they’re awfully cute.

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Mon 30 Dec 2013

The Ghosts of Xmas Presents

Posted by DavidMitchell under Photography, West Marin nature, Wildlife
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Lynn watches as the final days of 2013 come to their end.

By the way, despite complaints from the illiterati, spelling Christmas as Xmas does not amount to “leaving Christ out of Christmas.” As the American Heritage Dictionary notes, “Xmas has been used for hundreds of years in religious writing, where X is understood to represent a Greek chi, the first letter of “‘Christ.'”

Likewise, religious scholars have often spelled Christian as Xtian. Half a century ago when I took a course in Theology and Contemporary Literature at Stanford, the professor shortened the spelling even further to Xn.

No doubt thankful that they were blacktail deer and not reindeer so they wouldn’t have to drag a sleigh all over the globe on Xmas eve, two bucks graze in my fields and gaze at my camera.

Also spending a bit of the yuletide in my fields was the bobcat seen here crossing my driveway. Bobcats tend to be merciless loners, sort of like Charles Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge.

If you recall Dickens’ 1843 novella A Christmas Carol, you know that Scrooge is transformed from his grasping, cynical ways through a series of nighttime visions:

First, he is visited by the tormented ghost of his late partner Jacob Marley, who regrets his life of avarice, for it has left him cursed to wander the earth forever, dragging the chains of his greed.

Second, he is visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past, who reminds Scrooge of his innocent childhood.

Lynn and I as ghosts of Christmas Just Past (right).

Third is the Ghost of Christmas Present (odd name), who shows Scrooge people enjoying Christmas as well as the meager Christmas dinner at the home of his employee Bob Cratchit, who cannot afford treatment for his chronically ill son Tiny Tim.

Fourth is the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Be, who shows Scrooge the death of an unloved businessman, whose servants quickly steal his belongings while no one tends his grave.

After all this, Scrooge is terrified. He no longer rejects Christmas as “humbug.” He anonymously sends a turkey to Bob Cratchit’s family and gives his employee a raise so he can get care for Tiny Tim. A thoroughly new man, he begins treating everyone with kindness.

With 2014 beginning on Wednesday, four contrails enhanced by a lens-flare sunburst on Sunday morning heralded the coming of a new day. In the words of Tiny Tim, “God bless us, everyone.”

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Sun 22 Dec 2013

The holidays are the time for us in West Marin to start preparing for disasters

Posted by DavidMitchell under General News, History
[2] Comments

At first glance, it may seem inappropriate to talk about natural disasters during the holidays, but unfortunately that’s often when some of the worst weather-related crises have occurred in West Marin.

Moreover, I’ve been asked by Anne Sands, the new West Marin Disaster Council coordinator, to publish her letter to the community. So I’m doing so below.

On New Year’s Eve in 2005, a rainstorm caused Papermill/Lagunitas Creek to flood. The Point Reyes-Petaluma Road was inundated in several locations, and one was at the now-closed Rich Readimix plant near Platform Bridge. Even before the flood crested, the car of a passing San Francisco Chronicle delivery driver got caught in the current and overturned near the plant.

Downstream, low-lying areas of Point Reyes Station were also flooded that New Year’s Eve and Day. ________________________________________________________________

On Jan. 4, 1982, a ferocious storm caused floods and landslides which destroyed homes in Inverness and left a San Geronimo Valley resident permanently paralyzed. _______________________________________________________________

Not all the disasters that periodically hit West Marin are related to the weather, of course. With the San Andreas Fault running under Bolinas Lagoon, up the Olema Valley, and the length of Tomales Bay, major earthquakes can be expected from time to time. The April 18, 1906, earthquake along the fault killed 3,000 people around the Bay Area and overturned this train in Point Reyes Station. _______________________________________________________________

And when the weather is dry and windy, as it unseasonably is now, wildfires are a continual threat. In July 1929, the Great Mill Valley Fire (above) charred Mount Tamalpais from Mill Valley to the peak and destroyed 117 homes. ________________________________________________________________

The Inverness Ridge Fire in October 1995 was also exacerbated by high winds and dry weather.

The “Mount Vision Fire,” as it is alternately known, destroyed 45 homes and blackened 15 percent of the Point Reyes National Seashore.

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Because the chance of more such disasters in the future is real, I will now let West Marin Disaster Council coordinator Anne Sands of Dogtown use this space to present a strong case for being prepared.

Anne, by the way, is a former president of the Bolinas Fire Protection District’s board of directors.

She’s also an equestrian and told me, “I am rarely away from a horse at any given time.” Here she rides in the Western Weekend Parade a couple of years ago.

>Dear West Marin residents, It’s New Year’s Resolution time again! What about that disaster-preparedness class you have been meaning to take?

A major earthquake can hit anywhere around the infamous Pacific Ring of Fire, the great circle of tectonic activity created by the Pacific plate [of the earth’s crust] rubbing against its neighboring plates.

And we in West Marin are right on that Ring of Fire.

One of the best things we can do as a community to survive the next earthquake, tsunami, winter storm or wildfire is to increase the number of us who have learned basic disaster-preparedness and response skills.

A series of Pacific storms caused widespread damage in Stinson Beach during January and March of 1983. This is Calle del Ribera. (Point Reyes Light photo)

These skills include first aid, triage, communications, team building, and search and rescue. Immediately after a disaster, it will be impossible for our firefighters, EMTs, and other qualified medical people to take care of everyone who needs immediate help. We must be prepared to extend the capacity of our local emergency responders by becoming trained Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) members.

The fire departments of West Marin are offering a two-day CERT course on Saturday, Jan. 11, and Saturday, Jan. 18., at the Nicasio Corporation Yard. Many West Marin residents have taken these classes and are already involved in local disaster preparedness.

Paul Gallagher’s dog appropriately carries a buoy as Mesa Road floods in Point Reyes Station during the New Year’s Eve storm of 2005.

You can join your neighbors and friends to make our communities more self-reliant and able to cope with disasters. There are no pre-qualifications for this training, and you do not have to be in “great shape.” In a widespread emergency, there are many ways to contribute your newly learned skills.

For 18 hours and $45 you can learn how to prepare yourself, your family, and your community to respond effectively. CERT class graduates receive a certificate and an Emergency Response daypack. There are scholarships available for those needing financial assistance in order to register.

Be prepared! Join CERT, the Community Emergency Response Team. To register go to www.marincountycert.org or call Maggie Lang at 415 485-3409.

Thank you for taking CERT.

Anne Sands, West Marin Disaster Council Coordinator <annewmdc@gmail.com> 415 868-1618.

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Mon 16 Dec 2013

The last days of fall

Posted by DavidMitchell under West Marin nature, Wildlife
1 Comment

Winter will begin on Saturday, and the last days of fall have been mostly brisk in West Marin. Freezing temperatures at night killed a few potted plants on the deck of Mitchell cabin, and the surrounding hills were white with frost several mornings this past week.

In Inverness, where the ridge creates daylong shadows in some places, there were days when the frost never melted.

Horses munching on bunches of green grass below my persimmon tree. Although the persimmons have ripened, Lynn and I haven’t found time to pick them, so birds and raccoons have been feasting for a couple of weeks. (Photo by Lynn Axelrod)

Five blacktail bucks in my pasture near the Giacomini stockpond. Bucks can often be seen hanging out together these days.

The sunrise Saturday a week ago was so spectacular, I had to get out of bed long enough to photograph it. ‘Twas another reminder that the world is waiting for a sunrise.

Four of the horses grazing near Mitchell cabin are wearing blankets because of the cold. (The fourth would be totally hidden were it not for its blue blanket.) The fifth horse is either hardy or unlucky enough to have an owner that can’t afford to buy it a blanket, which I doubt is the case. (Photo by Lynn Axelrod)

A young buck grazing outside my kitchen door.

For years many people believed (and many websites still say) that blacktails are a subspecies of mule deer, a species found from the Northwest to the deserts of the Southwest and as far east as the Dakotas. DNA tests, however, have now found mule deer to be a hybrid of female whitetail deer and blacktail bucks.

As Bruce Morris writes in Bay Nature, “All three major deer species native to North America (blacktail, whitetail, and mule) trace their ancestry back to a primordial, rabbit-size Odocoileus, which had fangs and no antlers and lived around the Arctic Circle some 10 million years ago.”

Whitetails first appeared on the East Coast about 3.5 million years ago, as this blog previously noted. DNA evidence suggests they spread south and then west, arriving in California about 1.5 million years ago.

In moving up the coast, whitetails evolved into blacktails, which resemble them in appearance and temperament. Blacktails eventually extended their range eastward, meeting up with more whitetails coming from the east. Apparently the blacktail bucks were able to horn in on the harems of their parent species. The result: mule deer.

I always feel nostalgic as fall comes to an end. It’s a time to reflect on both the past year and the passing of the years.

Having just read virtually all issues of The Point Reyes Light/Baywood Press from shortly after World War II to the present, I can understand why longtime West Marin residents think of the old days on this coast as a happier, simpler time.

American entertainment was frequently cornier while at the same time more fun.

You can share in the nostalgia by watching this goofy but clever video featuring the pop-eyed expressions of the late Jerry Colonna (right) more than half a century ago.

You’ll need to be full screen with the sound up to appreciate it. The Girl that Married Dear Old Dad (click here).

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Sun 8 Dec 2013

The Light on the Coast due to gleam this week

Posted by DavidMitchell under History, Point Reyes National Seashore, The Point Reyes Light Newspaper
[10] Comments

The April 12, 1956, edition of Point Reyes Station’s Baywood Press reported: “Mrs. Joe Curtiss’ television set caught fire last week, and the wall behind the set began burning.

“Before the fire department could answer the call, Margie picked up the set, threw it out the window, and proceeded to extinguish the blaze.”

That was the entire report, but Margie must have been a hardy soul because that early TV would have been big and heavy as well as hot.

The Baywood Press, as The Point Reyes Light was called for its first 18 years, began publication on March 1, 1948.

The newspaper’s coverage of the past 65 years of West Marin news, big and small, is the focus of a book its publisher, the Tomales Regional History Center, has just released.

The book’s cover at left.

I’m particularly interested in the book, The Light on the Coast, because I, along with Jacoba Charles, authored it.

The graphic artist was Dewey Livingston, formerly production manager at The Light. He is now the historian at the Jack Mason Museum of West Marin History and is an historian for the National Park Service.

The Light is in its 10th ownership, Marin Media Institute, and the evolution of the newspaper itself is part of the story. As editor and publisher for 27 years, I was responsible for the chapters covering the first eight ownerships. Jacoba, who is on The Light’s board of directors and formerly was a reporter for the paper, was responsible for the most recent two.

Flooding in Bolinas. The ferocious storms that periodically hit the coast have always received extensive coverage in The Light.

Highlights of the 354-page book include the evolution of West Marin agriculture; the effects of the arrival of the counterculture on local politics, law enforcement, and the arts; the creation of the Point Reyes National Seashore and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Examples of The Light’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of violence and other illegal activities by the Synanon cult are, of course, included in The Light on the Coast.

The newspaper’s complete series on the five historic waves of immigration to West Marin is also a central chapter.

The forefathers of many longtime families in West Marin arrived in immigrations from specific locales in: Ireland, Switzerland’s Italian-speaking Canton of Ticino, Croatia, and Portugal’s mid-Atlantic Azores. Researching their journeys to West Marin, as well as the more-recent immigration from Mexico, involved sending Light reporters abroad four times between 1988 and 1997.

This illustration for Sheriff’s Calls by cartoonist Kathryn LeMieux’s was often used in Western Weekend editions. The final section of our book consists of some of the more unusual Sheriff’s Calls from the the past 38 years.

The Light on the Coast features, along with a variety of news and commentary, a sampling of cartoons, advertising, and photography (including 10 portraits by Art Rogers). My partner Lynn Axelrod and I reviewed almost 3,000 back issues of The Point Reyes Light/Baywood Press in compiling the book. Jacoba reviewed more than 400. After making our selections, she and I wrote background narratives for many of them.

Those who’ve read the book have had good things to say about this approach of presenting West Marin’s history through the pages of The Light. Commenting on the book, San Francisco Chronicle reporter and columnist Carl Nolte writes: “The Point Reyes Light is a great window into a fabulous small world.”

Dr. Chad Stebbins, executive director of the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors, is likewise enthusiastic: “Dave Mitchell and The Point Reyes Light are synonymous with top-shelf newspapering. Dave is one of the few small-town editors ever to win a Pulitzer Prize; his investigation of the Synanon cult is a textbook example of tenacious reporting. His witty and colorful anecdotes always make for good reading.”

The Light on the Coast is available at Point Reyes Books for $24.95 plus tax.

It can be ordered online from the Tomales Regional History Center bookstore for $29.95 including tax and shipping.

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Sun 1 Dec 2013

Using words well and not so well

Posted by DavidMitchell under General News
Comments Off on Using words well and not so well

He’s one of those writers whose words we all remember, but few people today are familiar with his works or even his name.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

Yet when Snoopy sits down to type his novel, we readers of the comic strip Peanuts immediately know what the opening line will be: “It was a dark and stormy night.”

Now where did cartoonist Charles Schultz get the line? The British writer cum politician Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803-73), coined it for the opening line of his 1830 novel Paul Clifford.

Let’s take another line that’s frequently used, especially among journalists: “The pen is mightier than the sword.” One might guess it originated with someone like Voltaire or Thomas Jefferson. In fact, this adage too was coined by Lord Lytton. He used it in his 1839 play called Richelieu; Or the Conspiracy.

Along with being a writer and serving in the House of Commons and House of Lords, he was Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1858-59. As such, he focused much of his attention on the development of the Crown Colony of British Columbia.

The son of a general, he knew how the upper classes viewed the world. So it is not surprising that he coined a dismissive reference to the common man as “the great unwashed” in his novel Paul Clifford. Or that he coined the condescending “pursuit of the almighty dollar” in his 1871 novel The Coming Race.

These phrases have become clichés, so the next time you hear people using them, ask if they know whom they’re quoting. If they need a clue, you can tell them he was once a member of Her Majesty’s Privy Council. Then ask them if they’ve ever heard Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton.

Joseph Estrada receives congratulations upon being elected mayor of Manila in May.

There has been so much tragic news from the Philippines as a result of October’s Typhoon Haiyan I’d thought I’d offer some light-hearted relief. The mayor of Manila is Joseph Estrada, a popular movie actor who was the country’s president from 1998 to 2001 but was ousted following charges of graft.

On the eve of Estrada’s taking office in 1998, The Los Angeles Times published what it described as an apocryphal story: “Estrada, who is as famous for his malapropisms as for his romances with leading ladies and beauty queens, has three children out of wedlock, is said to have taken confession from Roman Catholic Cardinal Jaime Sin and replied, ‘Forgive me, Sin, for I have fathered.”

Drew Houston. Listen carefully to what he says.

Sometimes what people hear can cause as much confusion as what others say. On Sept. 17, Wired Magazine’s website wrote in an interview with Drew Houston, co-founder of the Dropbox computer application, that “he soon saw that what he was making had the potential to be useful to everyone. ‘You think about who needs Dropbox,’ he said years later, ‘and it’s just about anybody with nipples.'”

Four hours after the posting went online, Wired issued a correction. Houston hadn’t said “anybody with nipples” but “anybody with a pulse.” I guess they do sort of sound alike. And if that isn’t subtle enough, Houston pronounces his name “HOUSE-ton” (like the street in Greenwich Village, not the city in Texas).

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Sun 24 Nov 2013

My 70th birthday

Posted by DavidMitchell under Dave Mitchell
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On Saturday I became a septuagenarian, having been born near the midpoint of U.S. fighting in World War II. There was no special celebration for my 70th, but Lynn and I nonetheless had a good time.

Lynn stands in the garden area at the entrance to Heidrun Meadery’s tasting room.

We started out the day at Heidrun Meadery, which two years ago opened across Highway 1 from Campolindo Road, where Mitchell cabin is located.

Despite its being so close, Lynn and I had not previously visited the meadery. Most of the time, guests need to make reservations for mead tastings, but on Saturday the meadery held a “holiday open house.” Another is scheduled for Dec. 7.

Heidrun owner Gordon Hull tells guests about the different varieties of mead he produces.

Mead is an alcoholic drink made by fermenting honey and water. In various parts of Europe, it has been popular for centuries. Heidrun’s meads are bubbly, having been made with the same method used to make champagne. Despite the honey content, Heidrun meads tend to be more dry than sweet.

Inside Heidrun’s tasting room.

The meadery was founded in Arcata, Humboldt County, in 1997 and moved to Point Reyes Station in 2011.

Avery Giacomini describes how one cheese differs from another.

Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese gave out samples of Point Reyes Original Blue cheese and Point Reyes Toma cheese during the mead tasting.

Cheese company owner Bob Giacomini grew up on his father’s dairy ranch in Point Reyes Station. In 1959, he purchased pasture land three miles north of town and went into the milk business on his own. In August 2000, the farm produced its first rounds of blue cheese, describing it as “California’s only classic-style blue cheese.”

The cheese, which is not as sharp as some blue cheeses, was immediately popular. In 2011, Point Reyes Original Blue won the gold medal for Outstanding Cheese/Dairy Product from the National Association for Specialty Food Trade. This year, Point Reyes Bay Blue won the gold medal for Best New Product while Point Reyes Toma was named the Outstanding Cheese/Dairy Product.

As it happened, musician Ingrid Noyes of Marshall (in the center talking with me) invited a number of other musicians over to play Saturday. Her friend, Vi­ctor Reyes (upper left), who writes a Spanish-language column for The Point Reyes Light, is also a longtime friend of mine, and he made sure Lynn and I were included. (I brought my harmonica.)

Cake on a stick.

By chance, Saturday was the birthday for three of us at the party, and Lynn brought a chocolate-fudge cake. The cake contained so much fudge that I was able to pick up my piece with the long birthday candle stuck in it. So that was the way I ate it, calling it “cake on a stick.”

Shaili (at center) in Kenya.

I received birthday greetings from several friends and relatives, but by far the most distant greeting came from my stepdaughter Shaili, who is in Kenya taking part in a study-abroad program of the University of Minnesota.

Although our voices faded in and out, Shaili, Lynn, and I were able to chat by cellphone. Other than getting help from tech support in India, neither Lynn nor I had previously talked on the phone with anyone so far away. The time in Kenya is 11 hours ahead of the time in Point Reyes Station.

Shaili is working at an education center for Maasai girls, who too often are forced into marriage before getting schooling. Lynn and I are extremely proud of her, and I couldn’t hope for a better 70th-birthday present than hearing her good wishes from rural Africa.

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Sun 17 Nov 2013

The Mitchell cabin perspective on protection and food for wildlife

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

As days grow cold with still no rain, I’m starting to see more and more of my wild neighbors.

A fortnight ago when I stepped outside, a bobcat was walking nonchalantly past Mitchell cabin. Unfortunately, my camera was in the car, and by the time I retrieved it, the bobcat, hearing me, hurried off. I managed to snap only one good shot of it as it retreated under my neighbor’s fence.

A fawn warily trots past Mitchell cabin, careful to avoid becoming dinner for the bobcat.

A Golden crowned sparrow pauses for a drink at the birdbath on my deck. The Golden crowned sparrow spends its summers in northern Alaska but heads south for the winter. Its song has been described as “Three Blind Mice in a minor key.”

SUNSET WITH A CRESCENT MOON OVER INVERNESS RIDGE  In preparation for landing, please return your seats and tray tables to their upright and locked position.

Trick or treat.

I’m pining for a conifer that for 37 years stood in a row lining my driveway but which died during the dry weather. Two weeks ago, Nick Whitney of Inverness dispatched his Pacific Slope Tree crew to cut down and chip the 25-foot-high Monterey pine. It took three men all of an hour.

A young doe (left) and buck blacktail deer graze just uphill from Mitchell cabin.

Two Golden crowned sparrows and a California towhee peck birdseed off the picnic table on the deck. Periodically, some towhee can be heard knocking on a cabin window. It turns out California towhees are prone to challenging their own reflections.

BOBCAT ON THE PROWL The bobcat was back hunting in my pasture Saturday. Bobcats’ favorite prey are rabbits and hares, but they’ll eat anything from insects to rodents to deer. Adult bobcats range in size from 2 to 3.5 feet long and have been clocked at up to 34 miles per hour.

There’s good news for California’s bobcats.

California legislators passed the Bobcat Protection Act of 2013 last September, and Governor Jerry Brown signed it into law Oct. 11. The bill, AB 1213, was authored by Assemblyman Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica).

“The Legislature,” notes the Legislative Counsel’s Digest, “finds that a rise in the demand for bobcat pelts in China and other foreign markets has resulted in a substantial increase in the number of trappers taking bobcats as well as in the number of bobcats taken for commercial purposes in California.”

As of Jan. 1, 2014, bobcat hunting and trapping will be prohibited on lands around Joshua Tree National Park. In addition, “the bill would require the [California Fish and Game] Commission to amend its regulations to prohibit the trapping of bobcats adjacent to the boundaries of each national or state park and national monument or wildlife refuge in which bobcat trapping is prohibited.”

“Body gripping traps are already illegal in California,” The San Francisco Chronicle reported in March, “so the bill would ban the use of wire mesh cages that trappers generally bait with cat food or carrion to lure the cats inside, causing the door to close.”

Equally important, the Fish and Game Commission commencing on Jan. 1, 2016, must “consider whether to prohibit bobcat trapping within, and adjacent to, preserves, state conservancies, and any other public or private conservation areas identified to the commission by the public as warranting protection,” the Legislative Counsel’s Digest notes.

“The commission, as necessary, shall amend its regulations… to prohibit bobcat trapping in any area determined by the commission to warrant protection.” The Digest adds that the Fish and Game Commission “may impose additional requirements, restrictions, or prohibitions related to the taking of bobcats, including a complete prohibition on the trapping of bobcats.”

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Tue 12 Nov 2013

Guatemalan murder suspect, who was hunted via social media, caught in Mexico via TV

Posted by DavidMitchell under General News
Comments Off on Guatemalan murder suspect, who was hunted via social media, caught in Mexico via TV

Suspect Roberto Barreda, who allegedly murdered his wife Cristina Siekavizza in Guatemala in 2011 and then disappeared with their two children, was arrested Friday in Merida, Mexico. Perhaps because he knows some English, Guatemalan news media had originally speculated he might have fled to the US.

As I wrote at the beginning of 2012, I became interested in the case because my former wife in Guatemala (who asked that her name not be used here) is a friend of Cristina’s relatives. My ex and Cristina’s brother Pablo notified me at the time that roughly 25,000 people were currently using social media to track down Barreda.

His arrest followed an anonymous tip to Fundación Sobrevivientes, which has been supporting Cristina’s family, from a man who had just seen a TV special on the case. Barreda was first sent to Mexico City for interrogation before being extradited to Guatemala.

BARRADA’S ARREST in the State of Yucatan was a joint effort by Mexican and Guatemalan law enforcement. Barreda (center) was wanted by Interpol, and the Guatemalan Interior Ministry had offered 50,000 quetzales (approximately $6,360) for information leading to his arrest. Yucatan Times photo

The couple’s children, Roberto José, 9, and Maria Mercedes, 6, had been with their father.

Cristina with Roberto and Maria (right).

Guatemalan President Pérez Molina told the press they are in good health.

He also said that Barreda had changed his hair color and hairstyle while on the lam.

In addition, Barreda had changed his name to Carlos Roberto Barreido Villarreal. He led the children to believe they were younger than they are and that their mother had run off with another man.

The murder is believed to have occurred on July 6, 2011, but Cristina Siekavizza’s body has never been found. Right after Cristina’s disappearance, however, Barreda and the children moved to his parents’ house. The family’s house worker said she saw a lot of blood in one room of the Barreda home and was told to clean it and to wash bloodied sheets.

The house worker (above) also told authorities she saw Barreda and his mother washing out his car and that the water was bloody. The mother had threatened the worker to keep silent about what she’d seen. Roberto’s mother, who is a former president of Guatemala’s Supreme Court, was subsequently jailed for 10 months. She has now been released but cannot leave the country. Photo from Fundación Sobrevivientes (Survivors Foundation)

“The house was cleaned with special liquids, but the chemical luminol, [which is used in police investigations], found blood stains,” my former wife writes. Blood was also found on the skylight of a balcony, where Cristina may have gone to call for help from neighbors, “which she did not get.”

For two years, protesters organized by Voces por Cristina have been marching to demand that authorities give serious attention to Cristina’s case.

Roberto Barreda in custody. Prensa Libre photo

My ex, who is a member of Voces por Cristina, writes, “Many women have said that after hearing about Cristina, they have gotten out of bad relationships where they were hurt in different ways. Some say it has saved their lives and that of their kids.

“We have learned a lot. A lot of [comments] have been posted on our [Voces por Cristina] web page, and it coincided with the creation of Feminicide and Violence against Women Courts. So we feel this has raised awareness of a great problem in Guatemala.

Protestors in another Voces por Cristina march demanding that a transparent investigation be carried out and that justice be done.

“Cristina’s mother has said that if Cristina’s passing has saved lives, her death is not in vain,” my ex writes. “I have seen women coming to her, asking for help/guidance in their cases, while we have been out as a group. She has directed them to Fundación Sobrevivientes. Some have returned to thank her for her help.”

“I saw a lady [who]…was able to get custody of her granddaughter because the foundation helped her,” my ex added. “The father had killed the wife and wanted to keep the little girl. We need more of awareness and education, and I believe this situation has helped a lot.”

Roberto and Maria are reunited with their grandparents, Juan Luis Siekavizza and Angelis Molina. Guatemalan Interior Ministry photo

Meanwhile, the social media are still on the story. My former wife writes that people can keep up with the case in Facebook at Voces por Cristina.

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