Tomales Regional History Center on Sunday held an opening reception for an engaging exhibition titled “Tomales Neighbors: Informal Portraits by Steve Quirt, Ella Jorgensen, and Others.” The people I spoke with at the opening likewise found the photos fascinating.

Frances Fairbanks and cat, circa 1920. Frances was the granddaughter of pioneer William Fairbanks, who settled in Tomales in 1864. She was also a niece of Ella Jorgensen. Photo by Ella Jorgensen ___________________________________________________

Using a box camera, Ella Frisbee Jorgensen around 1900 began shooting photos of townspeople, including Tomales pioneers who by then were already elderly. “In her pantry-turned darkroom, she developed and printed countless photographs,” the spring issue of the Tomales Regional History Center Bulletin notes.

“Photographer Ella Jorgensen spent nearly 50 years chronicling life in the village; much of what we know of early 20th century Tomales is because of Ella’s work.” Jorgensen died in 1945.

Steve Quirt using his iPhone is now shooting similar photos of current townspeople. “Steve’s portraits inevitably recall, not so much in style as in spirit, the casually shot but thoughtfully posed portraits by Ella Jorgensen,” observes the Bulletin.

At the bootery. Carrie Jensen, Jorgen Jensen, Sille Jensen, and Walter Jensen (left to right). Carrie Jensen was a native of Copenhagen who arrived in Tomales in 1857. Photo by Ella Jorgensen _______________________________________________________________

Bakers Charles and Vesta Stone. Photo by Ella Jorgensen. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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Zilla Ables Dickinson was postmaster in the Tomales Post Office for 35 years. After Zilla and her husband Leon were married in 1886, they bought the general store in Tomales (now Diekmann’s). In 1936, their son Bray took over the business. 

Dickinson (above). Photo by Ella Jorgensen.

A. Bray Dickinson. Photographer unknown

Bray Dickinson took over his mother’s position as postmaster in Tomales after she died. He is now best known for his book on the North Pacific Coast Railway, Narrow Gauge to the Redwoods.

Today’s postmaster, Julie Martinoni (right), and Liz Cunninghame of Clark Summit Ranch open a shipment of baby chicks in the Tomales Post Office. Photo by Steve Quirt _______________________________________________________________

Annette Winn Wilson. Photo by Ella Jorgensen _______________________________________________________________

Ranchers Loren (left) and Al Poncia. Photo by Steve Quirt _______________________________________________________________

Bea (McCulla) and V.L. Phillips. Photographer unknown

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Dan Erickson accompanied by his lambs on John Street. Photo by Lisbeth Koelker

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Edith Bonini, former owner-operator of the William Tell bar. Photographer unknown ________________________________________________________

Lois Parks and Smokey. Photographer unknown _______________________________________________________________

Three girls on Main Street, May 1917. Mercie Wilson at far right with two unidentified girls. Photo by Ella Jorgensen _______________________________________________________________

George Dillon (left) and Thomas Ables. Photo by Ella Jorgensen

Dillon, a native of Ireland, crossed the Great Plains in 1856. In the 1860s, he bought a 644-acre ranch at the mouth of Tomales Bay and “threw his beach open to his friends,” according to the late historian Jack Mason. “In 1888, as near as can be determined, [he] built an 11-bedroom hotel.” The building “is still there,” Mason wrote in Earthquake Bay (published 1976). When Dillon in his later years sold the property in 1903, he stipulated that the area would forever be called Dillon Beach.

Thomas Ables (standing with Dillon) was a bank cashier who went on to become the Marin County Superintendent of Schools. _______________________________________________________________

Norman Meyers (left) and Fred Jorgensen. Photo by Ella Jorgensen _______________________________________________________________

Hazel Guldager (Martinelli). Photo by Ella Jorgensen ____________________________________________________________

When the History Center’s curator, Ginny MacKenzie Magan, wrote an announcement of last Sunday’s opening for The West Marin Citizen, she noted it would be a 50-photo exhibition of Tomales neighbors over the past 150 years.

“These people, along with many others, have contributed some subtle essence of their character to the town,” she explained. “For over a century and a half, a few hundred at a time, neighbors have participated in this mysterious alchemy, contributing their intellects and their emotions, their talents and their eccentricities, coloring this place and adding to the ever-changing essence that is this small assortment of humanity….

“The exhibit celebrates these neighbors, those among us today, those we remember, and those we never knew.”

From a butterfly to a pair of badgers, from a newt and a salamander to a bobcat and a coyote, this posting is a collection of some of my favorites from among the photos I’ve taken of wildlife around Mitchell cabin.

A Buckeye butterfly atop a chrysanthemum on my deck.

Closeup of an amphibian, an arboreal salamander.

Lying low, another amphibian.

A Pacific tree frog’s color depends on where it is at the moment. Unlike chameleons, whose colors change to match background colors, tree frogs’ colors change (between brown and green) depending on how dry or moist their surroundings are.

A poisonous amphibian.

The skin of a California newt such as this secretes a neurotoxin, tetrodotoxin, that is hundreds of times more toxic than cyanide.

A macho reptile.

Male Western fence lizards do pushups to intimidate other males. In the process they reveal their blue undersides, which is why they’re sometimes called Blue-bellies.

A colorful but seldom seen reptile.

I found this Pacific ring-necked snake in a rotten log while splitting firewood. The snake eats very small creatures, tadpoles, insects, and especially salamanders. It has just enough venom to immobilize them but is not dangerous to humans.

A beady-eyed garter snake warms itself in the sun on my driveway.

Garter snakes are the most-common genus of reptile in North America. Although they are venomous, their venom is too mild to harm humans. However, when they’re disturbed, garter snakes emit a foul-smelling secretion from a gland near their anus.

Common garter snakes come in innumerable variations and are found in fields, forests and wetlands nationwide. Like this snake, adults average about four feet in length. In West Marin, their diet typically consists of tadpoles, slugs, and earthworms. But unlike other snakes, they don’t eat insects. When first born, the snakes are prey for bullfrogs. Hawks and foxes eat adults.

Gopher snakes are non-venomous although they don’t want you to know it.

“When disturbed, the gopher snake will rise to a striking position, flatten its head into a triangular shape, hiss loudly and shake its tail at the intruder,” the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum website notes. “These defensive behaviors, along with its body markings, frequently cause the gopher snake to be mistaken for a rattlesnake.”

Golden-crowned sparrow disguised as a stained-glass window.

Heading for a drink at the birdbath on Mitchell cabin’s deck, a crow hops over a second crow, which stays put at their birdseed buffet.

A great blue heron hunting gophers in my field.

Chipmunks visit Mitchell cabin only occasionally, so I felt lucky to snap this photo of one.

A Western gray squirrel as seen from my bedroom window.

Every morning the ground around Mitchell cabin is littered with the freshly cut tips of pine branches because of this squirrel and his clan. Squirrels like to feed on pine trees’ cambium layer, which is immediately under the bark, and in the process they gnaw off twigs.

Trying not to be noticed.

West Marin’s large jackrabbits, which some people call black-tailed hares, are often seen in the late afternoon and evening around Mitchell cabin. To avoid catching the eye of predators, jackrabbits typically sit motionless unless the danger comes too close. Then they suddenly spring away, making sharp, evasive turns as they flee.

A gray fox on Mitchell cabin’s deck.

Young raccoons retreat to a tree when they feel threatened by other animals.

A blacktail doe nurses one of her two fawns.

Relying on its spots for camouflage, a newly born fawn tries to be invisible in tall grass by lying absolutely motionless even though I was leaning over it to take a photo.

A buck and two fawns bounding across tractor-mowed grass.

A mother badger and her cub sun themselves on the mound of dirt around their burrow (known as a “sett”).

A bobcat hunting outside my kitchen window.

A coyote heads for cover in, appropriately enough, a patch of coyote brush.

Besides photographing the wildlife around Mitchell cabin, I also enjoy having a bit of fun with it. My posting about encouraging a bodhisattva possum on her path to spiritual enlightenment has proven to be one of the best-read I’ve ever put online.

I take each species’ disposition into account when determining what it is best suited to learn. Raccoons, as you might guess, are natural bartenders.

The biggest challenge I’ve faced in training wildlife has been convincing different species to get along with each other.

I felt a bit like a miracle worker when I finally got a possum, a fox, and a raccoon, none of which traditionally like each other, to dine nose to nose just outside my kitchen door.

I did it by setting out well-separated handfuls of peanuts for them and over time moving the handfuls closer and closer together. Now why can’t diplomats do that in the Middle East?

Today is my 69th birthday; that is, I am now in my 70th year. I can claim to officially be an old codger. I have outlived my mother. My beard has turned white; it’s Nature’s way of awarding me a combat ribbon for having thus far survived the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

My birthday was sunny and warm. The roads of West Marin were jammed with tourists. Tonight, however, is chilly, 48ºF at the moment, but that’s outdoors. Inside Mitchell cabin, a fire in the woodstove is warming the start of my 70th year.

Give a turkey an inch and it’ll take a mile? It is traditional for US Presidents to “pardon” a turkey so that it escapes the fate of the other 45 million turkeys eaten on Thanksgiving, which happened to be yesterday. All the same, I was a bit startled to see both of these headlines on the same screen when I checked Google News on Wednesday.

Of course, the bird takes its name from the nation although the two have nothing to do with each other. You can read an earlier posting explaining how this came about by clicking here.

Just before Turkey Day, as some people call Thanksgiving, a flock of 29 wild turkeys crossed my field in a long line.

Turkeys are native to North America but not to West Marin. Working with the California Department of Fish & Game, a hunting club in 1988 introduced the local wild turkeys on Loma Alta Ridge, which overlooks the San Geronimo Valley. The original flock of 11 hens and three toms all came from a population that Fish & Game had established in the Napa Valley during the 1950s.

Tom turkeys strut and display their feathers for a group of hens.

Wild-turkey hunting, however, has dropped off significantly in recent years, and in some parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, wild turkeys are becoming a problem not only in gardens but also on roadways. NBC Bay Area reported yesterday: “One bicyclist died when he crashed in Martinez trying to avoid a flock of the birds, according to [The Contra Costa Times]. A motorcyclist wrecked but survived when a turkey hit him on Interstate 680 last year.”

Gary Titus of Tomales has told me of driving a truck and trailer in the Two Rock area when a wild turkey suddenly flew out in front of him. The bird hit his windshield with wings spread, totally blocking his view. Gary slammed on his brakes. The truck and trailer jack-knifed and spun 180 degrees but somehow managed to stay on the road; however, tires were flattened by the skid. As for the bird, friends had roast turkey for dinner that night.

A tom turkey keeps a watchful eye on his harem.

Making sure the hens don’t wander off.

With the dominant male gobbling, the toms tend to stay in groups, often with their tail feathers spread and their wings dragging on the ground, as they strut for the hens. The tom in the foreground (without its tail fanned) was unfortunately reduced to hopping on one foot and had a hard time keeping up with the flock.

I have no idea, of course, how his other foot got injured. If he was attacked, he probably would have appreciated being armed with one of those NATO missiles.

Everyday wildlife seems to take on new character in the Fall, as can be seen in this small gallery of photos shot from Mitchell cabin during the past two weeks.

Flocks of Canada geese head to their nightly roosts around Point Reyes after days spent feeding further east, often at Nicasio Reservoir. Many migratory geese winter here, joining West Marin’s resident population. Larger flocks of Canada geese typically make their presence known at sunset by their honking as they fly.

Further proving that birds of a feather do indeed flock together, Oregon juncos assemble for birdseed on the railing of my deck. As with Canada geese, West Marin has a year-round population of juncos, but their numbers go up substantially in the late fall.

Flocking together on their own section of railing are these Golden crowned sparrows. Their breeding grounds are as far north as Canada, but they show up in West Marin during the late fall. Golden crowned sparrows can be easily identified by their three-note song, which sounds like “Three Blind Mice” in a minor key.

When I headed down to the foot of my driveway to pick up The San Francisco Chronicle this morning, I surprised a doe and two fawns grazing about 25 feet from my front steps. To reassure the deer I meant no harm, I moved slowly and spoke to them in a soothing voice. That approach worked, and the deer stuck around.

After filling themselves on green grass engendered by days of intermittent rain, the fawns lay down by my neighbors’ fence to chew their cud. Their mother did the same about 10 yards uphill from them.

I may be guilty of anthropomorphizing wildlife, but to me the fawns are cute as can be.

Not so cute. Teenage Mutant Ninja Blacktail? From this unflattering perspective, a grazing doe appears to have three legs and a turtle-shaped head and body.

Gray fox on my deck.

I’ve long noticed that foxes will eat almost anything, from wild berries to roasted peanuts to white bread. Last week on a lark, I decided to find out if a fox will also eat coconut cream pie. I can now testify that it definitely will. The fox ended up with a dab of whipped cream on the end of its nose but happily licked it off with its long tongue.

According to the Aesop fable, when a fox could not reach grapes on a vine, he consoled himself that they were probably “sour grapes” (from which we get the expression). When this fox found a slice of pie within easy reach, he satisfied himself that even coconuts are sweet.

Neither my partner Lynn Axelrod nor I had taken even a short vacation for a couple of years, so last week we spent Thursday afternoon to Saturday afternoon in Gualala on the coast of Mendocino County. The town is only 80 miles north of here, and it took us about two and a half hours to drive there.

Superficially, Gualala resembles Point Reyes Station. Highway 1 is the main street, and the population is not noticeably larger: 1,927 versus 848.

Both towns are rich in history and share some of the same problems. Where Point Reyes Station’s historic Grandi Building, erected in 1915, is derelict and boarded up, the 1903 Gualala Hotel (second from right) has closed its restaurant, lodgings, and once-renowned bar, but the building is in better condition.

Gualala is perched on a bluff at the edge of the Pacific, and many homes and businesses enjoy views of the water, which helps make it an exotic getaway. And because of moist breezes off the ocean, all manner of flowers bloom throughout the town.

As for the origin of the name Gualala, there are two main theories. One is that Gualala was taken from the Pomo word Wallali, meaning a place where two rivers meet or where a river meets the ocean.

The second is that Gualala is a Spanish rendering of Walhalla (a.k.a. Valhalla), which in Teutonic mythology was the abode of heroes fallen in battle. According to this theory, Walhalla was given its name by a German immigrant, Ernest Rufus. He and a partner in 1846 had received a Mexican land grant to an extensive region up there.

I had stayed in Gualala twice before and had found a charming inn, the Breakers, so Lynn and I had made reservations there for two nights.

All the rooms have decks with views of the ocean, as well as the Gualala River, and Lynn (above) immediately fell in love with the place. The bathroom included a two-person spa. A fireplace in the living room/bedroom made our accommodations seem especially cozy. All the rooms are thematically decorated. We had the Connecticut room which was vaguely reminiscent of colonial New England.

Lynn and I had not traveled to Gualala primarily to stay at the Breakers, however. After all, Mitchell cabin has its own deck with a narrow view of Tomales Bay, a hot tub, and a fireplace. A key attraction was the Gualala River where we wanted to go canoeing.

We had reserved a canoe from Adventure Rents and paddled upstream for a couple of miles, coming ashore on a rocky beach to look around. Dozens of cliff swallows were skimming over the river to catch insects. In addition, we saw what appeared to be a plover nesting on the beach, so we kept our distance to avoid disturbing it.

The Gualala River bridge is not only utilitarian but a work of art. We launched our canoe just downstream from the bridge. The river mouth is closed at this time of year because ocean waves throw up sandbars once there isn’t enough water coming downstream to wash them away.

While looking down on the bridge from the bluffs above revealed its grace, looking up at the bridge from our canoe revealed numerous clusters of swallow nests. The chance to see the nests was one reason I personally wanted to go canoeing.

Birds, in fact, were everywhere. This seagull kept showing up on our deck in hopes we would feed it pieces of bread, which I did. Often more than one gull would perch on the railing, which sometimes led to tussles over who got the bread.

Sunset in Gualala. The mouth of the river can be seen at the right.

Notwithstanding Gualala’s small size and relatively isolated location, it is remarkably sophisticated in many ways. It boasts a large (32-page) weekly newspaper, The Independent Coast Observer, which has all the coverage one would expect in a community newspaper and more.

Its election coverage was outstanding and included a well-written piece on the too-soon-to-call battle between Democrat Norman Solomon of Inverness Park and Republican Dan Roberts of Tiburon for the second spot in the District 2 congressional race.

The Coast Observer also printed a lengthy Sheriff’s Log and the usual land-use planning stories. Perhaps the most surprising story in last week’s issue was a first-person account by a local burlesque dancer who had just returned from India where she had worked with abused women and fought sex trafficking.

The burlesque star, Melinda Miller-Klopf, wrote that she has been criticized in the US and India for fighting sex-trafficking and abuse of women while working as a burlesque performer. To this she responded, “At their heart, they are the same issue with the same goals: self-empowerment for women and girls, ownership of sexuality, and love and respect for the bodies we are born into….

“What is titillating about burlesque is only partially the skin; most of the allure comes from the slightly scandalous feeling one gets from watching women having way too much fun.” Miller-Klopf was about to put on a burlesque show in the Gualala Arts Center, and apparently her argument was convincing. Just before we left town, Lynn and I saw women young and old lining up to buy tickets.

Saturday we headed back to Point Reyes Station but stopped at the Sea Ranch Chapel to admire its architecture. The chapel, built in 1985, was designed by the award-winning San Diego artist James Hubble.

Three large stained-glass windows give an understated elegance to the chapel’s interior.

Lynn peers through a sculpted fountain outside the chapel.

Our final stop on the way home was in Jenner where harbor seals could be seen basking on a sandbar. Lynn got into a conversation with an older couple from Los Angeles, who had also stopped to enjoy the scene, and came away convinced she had been talking with actor Ed Asner. I couldn’t tell, and we’ll probably never know for sure.

All in all, our short adventure was as exotic as a trip to Hawaii, and for a tenth the cost.

The 63rd annual Western Weekend, which celebrates West Marin’s agricultural heritage, drew one of its largest crowds in a decade last weekend. On Saturday, the West Marin 4-H Fair, the Western Weekend queen’s coronation, and a barn dance were all held at Toby’s Feed Barn.

Sunday’s events began with a noontime parade down the three-block-long main street of Point Reyes Station. Despite the short route, the parade lasted more than an hour because street performances frequently stopped the procession. In addition, a few entries upon reaching the end of the route took a side street back to the starting point and made a second pass through town, thereby lengthening the parade.

Following the parade, the Marin County Farm Bureau held a chicken barbecue in Toby’s parking lot while a band played, people danced, and 4-H members sold pastries.

4-H Fair  Olivia Blantz of Point Reyes-Olema 4-H (left) and Emily Charlton of San Rafael 4-H cradle their poultry prior to the judging in Toby’s Feed Barn. Olivia’s hen won Best in Show.

Emily’s sister Erin Rose Charlton won the Showmanship award in the Junior category for her hen.

Goats  Olivia Tyrnauer’s goat Cinnamon (right) won first place in  Senior Showmanship. Olivia is a member of Mill Valley 4-H.

A Pigmy goat named Sylvester, which is owned by Megan Sintef of Nicasio 4-H, won a first place award in Junior Showmanship.

Altogether five goats were entered for judging in the 4-H Fair.

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Rabbits  Amelia Paulsey, 6, from San Rafael 4-H with her bunny Butterfly is questioned by her mother Kari Paulsey, who happened to be one of the judges.

For the first time in memory, no large animals such as cows and horses were entered in the 4-H Fair. As Allison Keaney, Marin County 4-H program representative, explained: “The fair in general has been running the risk of just not happening. With the alterations of the school schedules over the years, the first weekend in June [became] hard for folks.

“Our fair only had 36 members enter, representing only 25 families. That is actually up from last year. We only had two large-animal entries in 2010 and 2011 and therefore scratched the competition.

“Also, the demographic of our county enrollment has changed. The average age of our members has dropped a lot. We have lots of little members, which is exciting for the future, but members can’t do a large-animal project until they are nine years old.”

Western Weekend Queen Brenda Rico of Point Reyes Station riding in Sunday’s parade.

Parade Grand Marshal Michael Mery of Point Reyes Station.

Marin County Sheriff Bob Doyle (right) rides on a buckboard in Sunday’s parade.

Last hurrah  Lynn Woolsey (D-Petaluma) takes a last ride in a Western Weekend parade as a congresswoman before she retires from the US House of Representatives.

Incumbent Marin County Supervisor Steve Kinsey of Forest Knolls (center) does some last-minute campaigning during the Western Weekend parade in advance of this week’s election.

Congressional candidate Norman Solomon (D-Inverness Park) and his wife Cheryl Higgins led a large contingent of supporters in the Western Weekend parade.

The Aztec Dancers of Santa Rosa, traditional Western Weekend parade favorites, stopped periodically during the procession to dance to the beat of a drum. The dancers took third place in Adult Street Shows. They also won the parade’s Grand Prize.

KWMR community radio, 90.5 FM in Point Reyes Station and 89.9 FM in Bolinas, was represented by numerous marchers and an elaborate float. The entry won 2nd place among Adult Drill Teams.

Youngsters took advantage of the main street’s curb in order to have front-row seating for the parade, as well as to grab candies thrown from floats.

Adult spectators took whatever seating they could find, which for Gary Martin (left) and Bill Barrett was a spot on the front of the judges’ stand.

The Nave Patrola annually spoofs the World War I Italian Army, with the patrol’s soldiers marching chaotically and sometimes pausing to anachronistically shout, “Il Duce!, the group won the Best Adult Drill Team award, as well as the overall Best Drill Team award.

In the early 1970s, an official from the Italian Consulate in San Francisco complained to parade organizers, the West Marin Lions Club, that the patrol disparaged Italians, what with its seemingly confused marchers colliding with each other and going off in all directions. Defenders of the patrol replied that many of the members are of Italian descent.

The seventh and eighth grade rock band from West Marin School were highlights of the parade. Here the eighth grade performs some rock’n roll classics. The West Marin Kids Who Rock band won first place in Kids’ Music plus the overall Best Music award.

Papermill Creek Children’s Corner preschool in Point Reyes Station took 1st place among Kids’ Drill Teams.

The Wedding Party with Carol Rossi and pugs won first in Adult Animals. Possibly influencing the judges’ decision was their being given the top layer of the wedding cake.

Blazing Saddle Jason McLean of Point Reyes Station (left) sits astride one of two metal deer he built, with his deer shooting fire out its rear end. McLean’s entry took 1st place among Adult Vehicles.

West Marin Community Services, which sponsors among other things the Food Pantry, the Thrift Store in Point Reyes Station, and the Tomales Bay Waterdogs swimming classes for youths, took 1st place among Kids’ Floats.

A 1920s buggy driven by Ethan McNamara took 1st among Kids’ Horses and won the Best Horse award.

West Marin Pharmacy joined the parade for the first time this year and won 1st place in Adult Music.

Halleck Creek Ranch in Nicasio, which operates a riding club for disabled children, took 1st in Kids’ Animals and the Best Animal award.

West Marin’s own tap dancers, the Fab-U-Taps, provided a street performance called Women of the World for Peace. The group took 1st place among Adult Street Shows, as well as the overall Best Street Show award.

Following Sunday’s parade, the West Marin Lions Club held a chicken barbecue in the parking lot of Toby’s Feed Barn. Members of Point Reyes-Olema 4-H sold pastries, and the Doc Kraft Dance Band inspired people to get up and dance.

We’ll start with who deserves coal in their stockings come Christmas morning. At the top of my personal list is the Marin Independent Journal, which cheated me out of $32.65 last Oct. 22. Here’s the story in brief.

Lynn and I hand out about three loaves of bread to foxes and raccoons every evening. If we buy cheap white bread for 99 cents a loaf at Safeway, this comes to about $21 per week. If we bought the same amount of bread in West Marin, where bread typically costs about $5 a loaf, the total cost would be about $105 per week (or almost $5,500 per year), far more than we can afford. Which is why we buy it at Safeway.

On Oct. 22, I was leaving the San Anselmo Safeway with a cart full of bread when an Independent Journal vendor just outside the door stopped me, saying I could get half a year of the paper free of charge if I merely paid for the Sunday editions.

That came to $32.65, so I paid the vendor in cash and got a receipt. He said my IJs would start being delivered to my house in about a week. But none ever arrived, so on Nov. 6, I emailed the IJ’s circulation department to complain and asked that it look into the problem.

When I received no answer to my email, I wrote the IJ again on Nov. 11, saying I was cancelling my subscription and wanted my money back. If the paper didn’t send the money immediately, I warned, I would take the IJ to small claims court. A few days after that email, a woman in circulation called to say I should have been receiving my subscription. Would I like to start it now?

I replied that the whole experience had soured me on the IJ and that I merely wanted my money refunded. She said she’d have a check sent to me. Another three weeks have now passed without my refund, and I’ve started my small claims lawsuit. I’m certainly glad I saved my receipt to show the judge.

My advice? Don’t buy a subscription from an IJ vendor. It may well be a ruse to get your money without providing you with anything but frustration in return.

Who’s been nice

Point Reyes Station celebrated the start of the Christmas season Friday night with luminaria lining the main street and the lighting of the town Christmas tree, which is located between Wells Fargo Bank and the Palace Market at the far end of the street.

Toby’s Feed Barn held Christmas in the Barn, which included a visit from Santa Claus, with whom many young people wanted to be photographed sitting on his lap. Jewelry, crafts, and ethnic clothing for sale made the scene particularly festive.

In the gallery at Toby’s Rich Clarke of Marshall exhibited his photography while his son Kevin of Oakland showed off his paintings, furniture, and wooden sculpture. They each said they’ve been influenced by the other.

Meanwhile at the other end of town, the Dance Palace hosted a crafts fair that filled the church space (seen here) and the auditorium. Along with arts and crafts, jams, soaps, and jewelry were for sale.

In the main auditorium, Point Reyes Station painter Christine DeCamp discusses her colorful art with visitors to the show.

Who’s the naughtiest of all? “The US Postal Service wants to close your North Bay Processing and Distribution mail facility [in Petaluma] and send all of your mail to Oakland to be processed,” the American Postal Workers Union warned last week.

“If your ZIP Code starts with 954 or 949, this affects you. If this happens, all your mail will be delayed by at least one day! This will delay delivery of your checks and bills, your prescriptions, your packages, your movies, your absentee ballots, and everything else you receive in the US mail.

“Under this plan,” the Postal Workers Union adds, “if you want prompt delivery, you will have to pay high Express Mail rates.

“The USPS is required to notify affected customers and hold a meeting for public input. This meeting has already been held. Were you notified?”

The union has urged the public to send its concerns to Theresa Lambino, Manager, Consumer and Industry Contact, San Francisco District, Box 193000, San Francisco, CA 94188-3000.

However, your letters were supposed to be postmarked by this past Saturday. Unfortunately, the mails are already so slow that most people didn’t have time to respond before the deadline. Personally, I’d send a letter anyhow.

If you want to see how we got into this mess, check my Nov. 6 posting.

Women of West Marin, a show of black-and-white portraits by Art Rogers of Point Reyes Station plus commentaries by journalist Elizabeth Whitney of Inverness, opened Sunday in the Jack Mason Museum of West Marin History.

A guest ponders photographs of rancher Alice Codoni Hall (top) and her granddaughter Carol Horick (below). Nearly two dozen images of people who have been notable in West Marin’s modern history are included in the show.

Organizing the exhibit were Mary Kroninger and Meg Linden. Noting that more than 100 guests showed up, Kroninger said, “It was the best attended of recent openings.” Among those on hand were seven of the people in the portraits: Carol Horick, Celine Underwood, Dakota Whitney, Laura Wold Rogers, Nancy Hemmingway, Pat Healy and Elizabeth Whitney.

Copyright Art Rogers

Alice Codoni Hall (1898-1991) lived on D Ranch at Point Reyes. Her father Quinto Codoni was part of the wave of Italian-speaking Swiss who immigrated to West Marin from the Canton of Ticino in the mid-19th century.

“In 1873, he started working on the Charles Webb Howard ranches, taking hogs to market,” Whitney writes in her commentary. “He eventually became the chef hog and cattle buyer in the area. He had a hog and cattle butchering business in Point Reyes Station.” Quinto even came to be a part owner of the schooner Point Reyes that transported the meat to San Francisco.

“Quinto Codoni was considered ‘Mr. Point Reyes,'” Whitney adds, and when the [narrow-gauge] railroad was standard-gauged from Fairfax to Point Reyes Station [in 1920], he drove the ceremonial gold spike.

“His house in Point Reyes Station was very elegant and had a Delco plant to generate electricity for his house and a few neighbors.

“Alice went to school at the old school house on the hill [across Highway 1 from present-day West Marin School], and then when it was built, the Black School,” which was located where the firehouse is today.

She married William T. “Bill” Hall in 1919, and in 1925, they leased N Ranch. In 1927, Bill acquired D Ranch, and the family moved there from N Ranch in 1936. The Halls had about 100 dairy cows, which would be a very small herd by today’s standards.

“Alice tells of driving to Point Reyes Station for groceries or to Inverness to take her children and sometimes other ranch children to school even though she never got a driver’s license and never learned to back up,” Whitney writes. “She spent most of her time working in the house and cooking for the hands.”

Copyright Art Rogers

Point Reyes Station resident Carol Horick (seen here when she was 22) is the granddaughter of Alice Codoni Hall, and she told Whitney, “Grandma Hall, she was the best.”

Whitney adds, “Carol Horick grew up on her family ranch, the D Ranch overlooking Drake’s Beach, already in the thick of it as an eight year old with her first 4-H project. First it was lambs, then cows, and always horses.” She was “the quintessential cowgirl. ‘I remember being on horses all the time,'” she said in an interview.

“‘Fall off, get back on. That’s how you learned. Grandma Hall gave me my first pony. It liked to knock me off by running through the clothesline. Some days it came back without me; put the fear of God in my mother.'”

Retired restaurateur Pat Healy chats with other guests while standing in front of two photos of herself at the old Station House Café. The cafe had been owned by the late historian Jack Mason and then Claudia Woodward. Pat and her short-term partner Jackie Hordoko bought it on Feb. 19, 1974. On Dec. 3, 1989, the cafe opened in its present location, the refurbished Two Ball Inn building.

On June 1, 2005, Pat sold the business to Sheryl Cahill but retained ownership of the building and grounds.

Before moving to Point Reyes Station, Pat had been a well-regarded jazz singer in the vein of June Christy, Anita O’Day and Billie Holiday. Although she had performed mostly in the West, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, etc., she had also performed in Canada and toured the US with Ray Anthony’s big band.

MALT CO-FOUNDERS  The late Ellen Straus, an organic dairy rancher in Marshall (left), and environmentalist Phyllis Faber co-founded Marin Agricultural Land Trust in 1980.

“Ellen Tirza Lotte Prins was born Feb. 21, 1927 in Amsterdam, Holland,” notes the website of the family creamery. “In February 1940, Ellen and her family fled to New York, just ahead of the Nazi invasion.

“Ellen quickly learned English and graduated in 1948 from Bard College in New York with a hope to practice medicine. A year later, Ellen was introduced to Bill Straus, a German, Jewish immigrant. After courting for 16 days, they married three months later and came to ‘honeymoon permanently’ on the shores of Tomales Bay, where together they grew the dairy and raised four children….

“Ellen served on scores of boards, often three or more at a time, including the Marin Conservation League, the Marin Community Foundation, the Environmental Action Committee, the Greenbelt Alliance, the Eastshore Planning Group, West Marin Growers, Tomales Bay Advisory Committe, the Environmental Forum and the Democratic Central Committee of Marin. She also co-founded Marin Organic and the focus on Family Farms Day.”

Phyllis, an author and educator, has been a California Coastal Commissioner and a vice president of the California Native Plant Society. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts with a major in Zoology and received a master’s degree in Microbiology from Yale.

Some of her most important work, she’s said, has been editing and publishing environmental books and articles.

MALT grew out of Ellen and Phyllis’ concern that agricultural land in West Marin was being subdivided and no longer used as working open space. To counter this trend, MALT, with money from donors and grants, began buying agricultural easements from ranchers.

The easements allow ranchers to continue ranching their own land but in perpetuity prevent residential or commercial development of the property. To compensate ranchers for accepting the easements’ restrictions, MALT typically pays them half the appraised value of their land.

The money is often used to make improvements to the ranch or pay inheritance taxes in order to keep the ranch in the family. So far, 44,100 acres of ranch land in West Marin is being protected from development by MALT easements.

Women of West Marin will continue through Dec. 31 in the Jack Mason Museum of West Marin History. The museum shares The Gables, Mason’s former house, with the Inverness library, and visitors can see the show whenever the library is open.

Library hours are: 3 to 6 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m. Mondays; 10 a.m to 1 p.m. and 2 to 6 p.m. Tuesdays; 10 a.m to 1 p.m. and 2 to 6 p.m. Wednesdays; closed Thursdays; 3 to 6 p.m. Fridays; 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays; closed Sundays.

We can learn much about a society from its signs whether they announce weekend events at the Dance Palace or warn: “Speed Limit. Radar Enforced.”

“The sign brings customers,” wrote the French fabulist Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695), but sometimes signs can make it appear that the merchant has changed her mind. Take this pairing of signs on the door of the Busy Bee in Inverness Park. To be fair, I photographed the signs today when the bakery wasn’t scheduled to be open, but the juxtaposition was still surprising.

In wartime, signs can be far more jarring. In 1982, I photographed this graffiti on a building in Guatemala during that country’s long-running insurgency. The right-wing graffiti on the left translates as “Death to the EGP (Guerrilla Army of the Poor) and the CUC (Committee for Peasant Unity).”

The graffiti on the right warns villagers: “Not a bread nor a tortilla for the guerrilla.”

This writing on a burned-out van proclaims: “Viva, the Army of Guatemala! Death to the Guerrilla Army of the Poor.”

Guerrillas too, of course, have traditionally written their own graffiti here and there. This warning was scrawled on a wall in San Agusta­n, El Salvador. Back in 1982 when I shot the photo, control of the town had been going back and forth between the government and the guerrillas. The insurgents’ message on this wall pockmarked by bullet holes is a threat directed at government informants: “Death to the ears.”

Wartime graffiti can at times be merely sarcastic. Because of deforestation brought on by trees being felled for heating and cooking, the Guatemalan government three decades ago restricted cutting trees in the wild.

However, guerrillas back then often toppled trees across rural roadways to block traffic. The trees, of course, had to be cut up to reopen the roads, and that prompted this graffiti which, judging from its red-white-and-blue colors, was painted by a member of the far-right National Liberation Movement (MLN).

The MLN graffiti sneers, “Thanks for the firewood, guerrillas, mules and sons of the whore.”

Even when signs are meant to be merely humorous reality can sometimes intervene. While in Paris in 1985, I saw a maid trudging wearily down the street with food for dinner. Immediately, I was struck by her incongruous juxtaposition with a billboard she was passing. It showed a laughing, topless woman about her age joking, “My shirt for a beer.”

Equally surprising was this scene I came upon a week ago at the entrance to Tilden Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Berkeley. Was this a guard cat or was the cat staying behind the sign so it wouldn’t be disturbed by dogs? I don’t know the answer, but I’m looking for a sign.

In our willingness to do anything to get a photograph, we wildlife photographers, like paparazzi, sometimes seem to have no shame. If you’d seen me on my deck in my shorts Friday snapping pictures of a coyote, I’m sure you would agree.

As it happened, I’d spent the afternoon using a Weed Wacker to cut back grass along both sides of my driveway, which is about a tenth of a mile long. Needing to wash up after the work, I had taken a shower and was just starting to get dressed when I looked out my bedroom window and spotted a large coyote in the field below.

Without pausing to pull on a shirt or trousers, I grabbed my camera and hurried outside as quietly as I could so as not to scare the critter away. By now, the coyote had crossed my field and was nosing around near my parked cars.

I wondered if it was sniffing around for this doe I’d spotted by my cars earlier.

The coyote stuck around long enough for me to take its picture before it disappeared into a clump of (appropriately enough) coyote brush. As soon as it did, I called my neighbor Jay Haas about the sighting, and from his vantage point, he managed to spot the coyote too.

A bobcat wanders around a car belonging to two guests.

I don’t know what it is about my parking area, but it attracts wildlife as if it were a watering hole in the Serengeti Plain.

I’ve been able to photograph both predators and prey hanging around my cars, coyotes and deer, bobcats and rabbits, as well as wild turkeys, great blue herons, and countless other birds.

A brush rabbit, also known as a cottontail.

Near the bottom of my driveway is the top of my neighbors Skip and Renée Shannon’s driveway, and they have their own ecosystem of squirrels, crows, hawks, and owls.

Fledgling great horned owl. Photo by Renée Shannon

Renée, who is the business manager and ad director for The Point Reyes Light, last month told me Skip had been outside when a young great-horned owl fluttered down from a pine tree and landed in the grass. Skip quickly called to Renée to get her camera, and she was able to photograph the bird before it managed to fly a short distance and land on a woodpile.

Renée then phoned ornithologist Jules Evens of Point Reyes Station, and he caught the fledging owl and took it with him to a Tomales Bay Watershed Council meeting in the National Seashore.

Someone at the meeting was on her way to San Rafael, so I gave the owl box to her, and she delivered it to Wildcare (Patient #488), Jules told me later. “Apparently it had a fairly common blood bacterium [found] in owls and hawks.” The “prognosis,” he added, was “not good.”

Mystery skulls. Photo by Linda Petersen

My story took an odd turn a week ago when Renées counterpart at The West Marin Citizen, Linda Petersen of Point Reyes Station, discovered two animal skulls on the ground between her garbage cans and back fence. The immediate question was: what kind of animal?

Linda checked skull photos online and decided they looked like pig skulls. I emailed photos of the skulls to Jules and to Chileno Valley rancher Mike Gale, and both agreed Linda was probably right. “They appear to be medium-size porkers,” Mike wrote back.

That, however, doesn’t explain how the skulls ended up on the ground between Linda’s garbage cans and back fence. Did someone hold a luau and chuck pig heads over her fence? “Pretty rude of someone to toss them into her yard, eh?’ Jules mused.