More Mendo & Bits

 

Mendocino Headlands

Something for a rainy day. A few more pix from Mendocino, plus a little urban mushroom action.

We couldn't resist pulling off the road at the Navarro Winery entrance when this rainbow appeared along Hwy. 128. The photo file info recorded this shot at 1:13 p.m. (but it was actually 12:13 p.m. since I forgot to turn off DST), which explains why the rainbow is arcing so low over the ground (high sun angle). Both ends of the bow touched the ground seemingly just a few feet in front of us, making it a piece of cake to find the treasure.

We'd never seen so many brown pelicans on the sea stacks before. We're actually more used to seeing lots of Canada geese feeding on the grassy tops, but this year there were none (and very little grass left for them to feed on). 

Along with the pelicans, a bunch of cormorants were huddled up.

Looking at sea stacks from Mendocino Headlands toward Russian Gulch State Park on one of the clear days.

Sea stack island with the Russian Gulch Bridge in the background.

View from Russian Gulch back toward Mendocino.

View from the North Trail at Russian Gulch.

The bird feeder at our cottage had probably been empty for a long time before we got there. We filled it up on day one, but the birds didn't find it until day four.

View from our kitchen window.

I was surprised to find several mushrooms growing in my pot of Coast Live Oaks, which I started from acorns collected on Mt. Tam a few years ago. I picked two of the shrooms for identification purposes before I took this picture, so it was actually a bit more crowded. I had just been looking for our cat in my neighbor's yard and found a couple of beautiful and edible blewits under his oak (which also grew from an acorn he planted in the late '60s). Unfortunately, my shrooms turned out to be Hebeloma crustuliniforme, or Poison Pie. I wonder if the spores came with the acorns themselves, since the soil came from Sloat Garden Center.

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Over Time

UCSF Demolition, 9/29/2023

UCSF Demolition, 12/22/2023

Photographs are a great memory aid, and I've always enjoyed "before and after" or "then and now" photos. A couple of things I kept track of over time as I did my city walks last year were the demolition of some old buildings at UCSF's Parnassus Heights campus, an eyesore parklet on Irving Street, and a neighborhood trash dump on Noriega Street. 

The UCSF demolition is really the only one that started out as a before-and-after. The parklet and the trash dump provided unanticipated changes.

The trash dump was actually part of a series that I posted back in May, and I never anticipated the surprise ending. 

The parklet was interesting to me because it was such an over-the-top, hideous disgrace on Irving Street. Eventually the restaurant had someone paint a mural over the graffiti. It was looking good for a while, but the muralist paused work for so long at one point that taggers eventually began to reclaim the territory.

Noriega Street Trash Dump, 1/18/2023

How to Fix a Trash Dump, 12/27/2023

Pandemic Parklet at 16th & Irving, 4/26/2023

Pandemic Parklet at 16th & Irving, 12/27/2023

Parklet gone (no parking meters yet either)! As of 4/10/2024.
[UPDATE]

Coco the Cat, 1/19/2023

Coco the Cat, 12/22/2023

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Mendo Moments

 

Sunset at Mendocino Headlands, 12/31/2023

We were lucky to get a nice mix of sun and rain the last few days. The clearing skies gave us beautiful sunsets and hiking opportunities at Jug Handle State Reserve, Russian Gulch State Park, and the Pt. Cabrillo Lighthouse, as well as around the town and headlands of Mendocino. And when we were indoors, enjoying a warm and cozy cottage, the sound of rain on the roof and skylights was music to our ears. Here's to a great year in 2024.

Mendocino Headlands, 12/30/2023

Crepuscular Rays at Sunset

Sea Stacks at the Headlands

Last Light

Last Flight

Sundown at the Headlands

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Ocean Beach

 

December Sunset

The forecast for large swells today did not disappoint. I went to Cliff House to record the festivities as best I could with the FZ-80, but the resulting images are somewhat disappointing, quality-wise. 

There was so little contrast in the scene that the autofocus kept hunting for a subject, so I switched to manual focus despite being unable to really gauge sharpness through the tiny viewfinder. I also ran the "dehaze" slider pretty high in Lightroom to try to bring out some contrast, which also brought out a lot of noise.

All of which led me to add a few December-at-Ocean-Beach shots from my files, just to have something a little nicer to look at in the post.

Anyway, the swells were definitely much bigger than they were in my last post, although as "surf," it was completely untenable without even the slightest offshore wind to tighten up the waves. Instead of three or four guys out, there appeared to be nobody crazy enough to be out. 

It was interesting to see the ocean crashing right up against the bluffs below the old Cliff House, and even pouring into Sutro Baths. Check out the video below.

Wave Action at the Old Cliff House

I thought this was going to be the peak of the action as the wave struck Seal Rocks...

...but in the next moment, the wave exploded right over the rocks.

Cleaner Lines and Hollow Sections
(December 26, 2013)

The Right Stuff

See you next year!

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Swell View

 

Wave Power at Seal Rocks

I walked down to Ocean Beach just as the 6.7-foot high tide was beginning to recede, and I was awed by the huge swells breaking in front of Noriega and Ortega streets. A lone photographer was stationed on the dunes waiting for the two or three surfers brave and/or crazy enough to be out there to catch a wave. I watched one of the surfers paddle like mad and just barely catch one of the larger waves, only to fall off his board and drop like a stone off a cliff. Even that wasn't the end, though, as I next saw him getting sucked over the falls. 

Imagine grabbing a breath as you fall off your board, and instead of the wave just going over you, it sucks you up into its vortex and pounds you back down into the ocean. You come up for air but the foam is briefly so thick you can't take another breath. People die out there, and I was glad when I spotted the guy paddling back out once the churning whitewater cleared enough to give me a view.

After I got home I went back down on my bike. No one was surfing near the Cliff House, and I don't think there were more than one or two guys out as far south as Lincoln Way. Nevertheless, the waves were making a spectacle of themselves, and I enjoyed it for a good while before finally tearing myself away to go home for lunch.

Video clip from the old Cliff House.

Note the breaking wave way off the coast in the upper left, in a spot called the Potato Patch. Assuming a water depth there of 23-36 feet, wave heights have to be 17-27 feet to break there.

Long view from Cliff House to Point Bonita Lighthouse.

More large swells breaking way, way outside.

Closer to shore....

Fishing from the Cliff House.

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Solstice Succotash

 

Day's End From Grandview Park

After I made up my mind this morning to stick with my usual urban hike-n-bike instead of driving up to Mt. Tamalpais, I didn't think I'd have anything to post today. And, well, if not for some very small white worms (sufferin' succotash, they were maggots!) that primed my shutter-pressing pump during the hike, I might not have. 

As I watched the Earth rotate out of the sun's line of sight just minutes ago, I felt a little sense of renewal. I'm actually pretty excited to be at the winter solstice, the year's nadir, with nowhere to go now but brighter days. It's also a good time to be able to hold contradictory views simultaneously: brighter days ahead, but also much trepidation about the state of the world. Beauty and terror. I can only participate in a state of awe.

Solstice Sets & Spindrift

Months ago I discarded several pots of primrose that had long lost their luster, pouring them out beneath my hazel tree to add a bit of soil. Lately, a couple of them seem to have actually become rejuvenated, freed from the fetters of their former pots.

I circled one of the maggots (probably the larvae of fungus gnats rather than flies) in red, but you can see there are more. I'm guessing this is a big blocky Cortinarius that they are emerging from. I found this decaying little fruiting while hiking through the otherwise posh Forest Hill neighborhood.

I was interested to see that several of the maggots were fleeing their fungal birthplace, wriggling across terrain littered with pine needles and wood chips, and climbing the bark of this large tree (with what looks like an Amanita muscaria button at its base). Where were they going? I did not stick around long enough to find out, but they must be looking for a safe place to pupate.

I finished my walk and biked down to the beach, shooting toward the sun from right next to the Giant Camera. I looked at my watch and was surprised it was  only 10:30 a.m. The light from this angle is sweet this time of year.

Surfing the Silvery Swells

Last year's storms toppled this tree into Metson Lake (see post from last February), and I have been wondering as I ride past it almost every day, whether the parks department is going to remove it. Given that it's now been there nearly a year, it's probably safe to assume that it is going to be left in place, not as an eyesore, but as habitat. It does make a nice perch for a preening Great Blue Heron.

Since I'd used a phone camera and a point-n-shoot for today's succotash, I wanted to add a frame or two from the DSLR as well. Thanks to the rain and wind we've had this week, the back yard hazel has lost nearly all of its leaves, making the tiny, ripening male catkins stand out on its bare branches.

The tiny red female flowers have not made an appearance yet, but I look forward to gathering pollen from a couple of hazels on Mt. Tam when the time is right. Hopefully I'll get some tasty hazelnuts next year.

Sunset Over The Sunset

Last light before the "green flash" that didn't happen.

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Rear Window Time Lapse

Nothing especially dramatic, but the passing clouds -- all too rare despite a rainy season carried in by El Niño -- called to me anyway.

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Tam Cam

 

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