2011-01-30

Cercis and Ribes sitting in a tree...






Many of California's native plants are coming into their best season now. In my back yard I have Cercis occidentalis (Western Redbud - a wonderful small tree) and Ribes aureum (Golden currant) planted next to one another. I intended the Ribes to be in bloom when the Redbud was not, but here they are working together. I think they both could use a bit more sun, but they have done pretty well in this spot for a few years now.

- Posted at great expense from my iPhone

2011-01-24

Griffith Park hikes

Until a couple weeks ago I'd never hiked Griffith Park, despite the fact that it is only a 30 minute (in the AM when traffic is low) drive to many trail heads and contains an abundance of local flora and fauna. The official narrative on Griffith Park says,

With over 4,210 acres of both natural chapparal-covered terrain and landscaped parkland and picnic areas, Griffith Park is the largest municipal park with urban wilderness area in the United States. Situated in the eastern Santa Monica Mountain range, the Park’s elevations range from 384 to 1,625 feet above see level. With an arid climate, the Park’s plant communities vary from coastal sage scrub, oak and walnut woodlands to riparian vegetation with trees in the Park’s deep canyons. The California native plants represented in Griffith Park include the California species of oak, walnut, lilac, mountain mahagony, sages, toyon, and sumac. Present, in small quantities, are the threatened species of manzanita and berberis.

Over the years recreational attractions have been developed throughout the Park, however an amazingly large portion of the Park remains virtually unchanged from the days Native American villages occupied the area's lower slopes.


All that appears to be true.

I had a plan to lead Boy Scout Troop 283 on a hike to the Hollywood sign but since I'd never been there I pre-hiked the trail with my buddy Dan. Dan and I had ideal hiking weather: cool and overcast. The following weekend I hiked the trail again with the Scouts, but the weather was warmer and I needed all the water that I brought with me. Dan was also seized by enthusiasm for Griffith Park and met the Scouts on the trail while he completed a much longer Griffith Observatory to Mt. Lee hike. Modern Hiker has a particularly nice writeup on the Hollywood sign hike that I followed both times.

View of the transmitter tower on the top of Mt. Lee, home of the Holylwood sign.  The edge of the sign is barely visible in this photo, I think, below and left of the tower.

We're getting closer.

The trail is dirt access road and paved road on the upper reaches of Mt. Lee.  It twists and turns through the canyons.

There!  A fence separates you from the sign.  It's pretty steep, so the public safety aspects of the fence seems legit.
Dan on top of nearby Mt. Cahuenga looking out to the San Fernando Valley ("The Valley" in local parlance).

I'm using high dynamic range photography whenever I can these days, as you can see below.


Surveyer's mark on Mt. Cahuenga.

Fun single track trail up Mt. Cahuenga.


Native plants grow in profusion.

Scouts on the way up.
Nice view!


On the second descent, view of Mt. Lee though sycamores.
View down to the trail below.




I'm sure I'll be back to hike some other trails soon.

2011-01-19

Farm, Garden, Landscape

It was Pomona who put me on to Google Ngrams - word frequency analysis based on the digitized library of Google books. Here's an Ngram for the words Farm, Garden, and Landscape.




Are we several years into a new agrarianism?

2011-01-07

Blog action - save Arcadia Woodlands

I'm copying the following text from Wild Surburbia and urging everyone to sign the petition to save a local natural resource.  Other blogs, linked below, have far better background than I so I urge you to visit them, read about the issue, and get involved.

In solidarity with other bloggers, I implore all of you to sign the petition to save Arcadia Woodland, contact your County Supervisor, make yourself heard. Because as the Once-ler said:
"Now that your're here,
the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear,
UNLESS someone like you
cares a whole aweful lot,
nothing is going to get better.
It's not.
Update: There are now many more blogs that have posted to raise awareness of the Arcadia Woodlands

Fellow bloggers in solidarity to SAVE THE ARCADIA WOODLANDS:


While we're talking about rain

I've noticed that many of my recent posts are simply cataloging rainfall. That's an appropriate activity for a garden journal type of blog, but just how accurate and useful are my figures?

I now have six years of data to compare against a generic, but official, "Los Angeles" rainfall and I'm happy to report that my measurements correlate well with the official Los Angeles measurements. See below how there's a straight line relationship between my measurements and the official ones? I take that as a good sign. I think that the offset in the official measurement is due to their better sensitivity to heavy fog / light rain. For instance, yesterday it rained enough to wet the concrete at my house, but not enough to measure. I will bet they have more sensitive measurements at the official Los Angeles weather station.


Just how useful my rainfall figures are is debatable. Certainly, I put them to good use in my rain barrel series, a stunningly insightful bit of analysis that made blindingly obvious the merely "quite clear" . For the conspiracy theorists among us, I've also independently correlated official government rainfall reports, so at least we know they're less likely to be lying about the rain. Now about that moon landing.... However, for me the greatest usefulness is the satisfaction that I get as a citizen scientist.  I suppose I ought to aspire to sounding rockets or weather balloons or at least a higher degree of automation.  Maybe later.

2011-01-04

Rain 0.61"; season total 11.61"

0.61" on 3 Jan.

(versus 0.5" reported at the San Pedro annex where we've now added to our rain gauge reporters.)

We're even with the rainfall amount that we had at this point during the very wet 2004-'05 rainy season. That season brought me about 29" total.


- Posted at great expense from my iPhone

2011-01-01

Christmas Holly 101 and Living Wild

...are the names of two web sites that I'm looking at right now.

Christmas Holly is one of the common names for Heteromeles arbutifolia, also known as Toyon. It's a native shrub that has distinctive red berries and it's said to have been the "holly" in Hollywood.

Christmas Holly 101

Living Wild is a wiki that focuses on food, medicine, and landscape plants native to the Sierra.

Living Wild

Thanks to the Gardening with Natives email list for the links.

2010-12-29

Rain 0.7"; season total 11.00"

After last week's series of storms, we have more rain for this time in the season, than in any rainy season in the prior 6 years. 

In the two watches department: On Facebook, my neighbors noted that they had about 8" of rain for the last series of storms versus my 7.14" (which I borrowed from SpaceX, only a mile or so up the road since my gauge overflowed while I was away).  I guess I'll have to just note that there's some uncertainty there, unless I can find a closer weather site to break the disagreement.  What's this have to do with two watches?  I've said for years that only the man with two watches doesn't know what time it is.

2010-12-26

Rain 0.66"; season total 10.30"

In normal circumstances, this would be a significant rainfall, but given last week's performance by Mother Nature, it seems mundane.


- Posted at great expense from my iPhone

2010-12-24

Rain 7.14"; season total 9.64"

15 Dec, 2010 0.01" overnight
16 Dec, 2010 through Dec 24th, 2010, estimated over 7 inches! 

I was away from the house and my poor rain gauge maxes out at 5.5".  That max is somewhat below the upper lip and the gauge seems to have overflowed, so I'm estimating 7" or more in my back yard.  That's a phenomenal amount of rain for California.  I won't belabor that point, since it's already been all over the news.

Rainfall amounts at nearby SpaceX, just up the road, were:
15 Dec 0.01" (agrees with me, good)
16 Dec 0.02"
17 Dec 0.44"
18 Dec 1.15"
19 Dec 2.09"
20 Dec 1.28"
21 Dec 0.87"
22 Dec 1.27"
23 Dec 0.01"
24 Dec 0.00"

For a total of 7.14", in good enough agreement with my estimate.  On top of the 2.50" of rain that we'd had already (a normal year by recent standards) this makes 9.64" for the season.

Fortunately, the house had no obvious signs of water damage, so I'm counting myself lucky and prepared: I had my downspout diverters up and had confidence that my garden could absorb quite a bit of water.  Still, I would have liked to be here.

2010-12-19

Rain ???, season total ???

It's been raining cats and dogs, possibly the most exciting storm this year, but I have no update until I return home. See my other blog for some cool pics in the mean time.


- Posted at great expense from my iPhone

2010-12-15

Let's play Global Warming

Found in a store today.


I used OCR on the back side of the package:

Global warming -— the steady
increase in Earth’s air and ocean temperatures since the mid-20th century - is one ofthe most discussed and studied topics in the scientific community today. This kit introduces you to Earth': climate and the issue of global warming with 23 hands-on experiments. Since Earth's formation, its
climate has been constantly changing. Periods ol warmer climate have alternated with ice ages. These changes happen over long periods of time. During the last few decades, a warming in the climate has been
observed everywhere on Earth. While some warming may be due to natural phenomena, scientists predominantly attribute global warming to human influence. This kit gives you the basic knowledge you need to understand the chmate, wlry it changes, and how our actions affect it.


First, learn about Earth's climate
system, weather, and atmosphere by conducting experiments with a model
Earth and atmosphere. Explore the hydrological cycle to learn about humidity, clouds, and precipitation. Model Earth’s heat reservoirs, thermals, global and local winds, and ocean currents.

Next, learn how human activity
influences the climate with experiments involving carbon dioxide and the greenhouse effect. Measure the effects that increased levels of carbon
dioxide have on air temperature.
Finally, investigate the potential
consequences of global warming on humans, ecosystems, and the world's economies. Learn what we can do to protect the climate.


2010-12-06

Rain 0.24"; season total 2.50"

0.24" of rain fell overnight for a season total of 2.50" so far.

Anticipating a dry winter and knowing that my natives will look best later with more water now, I was out watering some of them by hand this am, before the clouds had all burned off.


- Posted at great expense from my iPhone