Wed 8 Sep 2010

Avoiding more victims by capping a sticky gusher

Posted by DavidMitchell under General News, Point Reyes Station
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If you followed news of the three-month-long Gulf Oil Spill earlier this year, you know how distressing it was to see the victims. Well, it was almost as sticky at my cabin for 12 months before Terry Gray of Inverness Park and I finally capped another gusher one week ago.

For the past year, visitors to my cabin had arrived badly in need of a cleanup, their hands having become sticky from grasping the railing at the top of my front steps. Even the raccoons that show up each night at my kitchen door sometimes appeared to have sticky paws.

A tub of tree sealer sits where sap was dripping onto the railing of my steps.

A year ago, tree trimmers had cut off a pine limb which overhung my roof, and that had caused sap to drip from the wound onto the deck, railing, and steps below. After trying unsuccessfully to cap the leak by myself, I asked Terry for help.

Having concluded a girdle of cloth wouldn’t work because the sap would merely flow over it, I had already tried creating a collar using the inner tube from a wheelbarrow tire. Unfortunately, the bark of Monterey pines is striped with cracks, and sap flowing down those cracks went right past my rubber collar.

A new approach was needed. Before Terry showed up, I bought a caulking knife and a tub of tree-wound sealing compound at Building Supply Center.

It was Terry’s job to climb up on my roof two stories off the ground and slather the black goop all over the stub of the cut-off limb.

But within hours of his doing this, the wound was again dripping sap on my deck and railing.

So I asked Terry to come back and try again, for I had another idea.

This time he used a pocket knife to cut a shallow groove in the dry outer bark in order to divert the flow of sap away from the deck and railing.

The idea sort of worked but not totally.

Some sap continued to land where visitors would step on it and get it on their hands.

So Terry came back for a third try.

By now we were beginning to feel like BP struggling against the forces of nature.

Terry decided to lengthen the groove and build up its outer edge with sealer, which hardens within a few hours. At first, this approach seemed to work, but by morning the railing was again sticky with sap.

On Terry’s fourth try, he raised the edge of the groove even more but decided what was really needed was a wooden shelf to catch whatever sap overflowed the groove.

When Terry came back for a fifth time, he cut a shelf with one side shaped to fit around part of the trunk.

The shelf, which was attached to the trunk with wood screws, looked like it might be the perfect answer. But it wasn’t. The dripping became worse than ever because of sap oozing from the screw holes.

After cursing his shelf idea, Terry on his six try removed it, smeared tree sealer over the screw holes, and further built up the edge of the diversion groove.

He also smeared sealer on another wound where a very small limb had been cut off the tree.

It too, we now realized, was responsible for an occasional drip.

Terry headed for home fearing that the abandoned shelf’s screw holes would plague us for some time to come and assuring me he’d be back in a day or so to work on the damage.

But there wasn’t any. “You stopped the dripping ,” I told Terry when I got him on the phone. “Congratulations!”

Terry was naturally pleased but remained a bit dubious given all we’d been through. However, a week has now gone by without a drop of sap falling on the deck, railing, or steps below.

Today Terry climbed back up on the roof to check the stub of the sawed-off limb and apply more tree sealer. The leak has indeed been capped, he reported when he climbed back down.

Our persistence had been rewarded, and Terry hadn’t fallen off the roof. O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! I chortled in my joy.

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Tue 31 Aug 2010

Signs of the times

Posted by DavidMitchell under General News, Photography
1 Comment

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.

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Wed 25 Aug 2010

Crafting the Considerate House

Posted by DavidMitchell under General News
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Homebuilding techniques are not a topic I usually spend much time reading about, but I’ve found a new book titled Crafting the Considerate House to be surprisingly intriguing.

The word “considerate,” by the way, is being used here to mean more than just environmentally considerate, although that’s included. Indeed, the book in places argues that certain so-called “green” construction techniques are in reality not all that friendly to the environment.

I probably wouldn’t have picked up the book were it not that the author, David Gerstel of Kensington, has been a friend for more than 30 years.

David is a successful homebuilder, as well as a writer. Crafting the Considerate House is his fourth book, three of which are geared to builders. What sets this book apart from others in the field is that its often-humorous narrative describes the actual construction of a house, which the author built in 2007 on 19th Street in San Pablo.

At each stage of building, from designing the house to installing kitchen cabinets, David’s book explains why he decided to do what he did and what the tradeoffs were when he rejected the alternatives, whether they were in the foundation, the framing, the design of a staircase, or the carpet on the floor.

 

In planning and building the house, David writes, the “values that guided the construction” were that it had to be healthy to live in, environmentally considerate, ‘dollarwise,’ and ‘architonic.’

Architonic, a word David coined, is used to mean “the quality possessed by buildings that satisfy all our senses, not only the visual (with which the term ‘architecture’ is so heavily associated).”

Some of this is fairly straightforward stuff. Good ventilation is vital to air quality inside a house, for example.

By dollarwise, David means frugal spending so as to avoid waste, to preserve money for meeting various construction goals, and to keep within a budget so that a tradesman and his family can afford to rent the completed house. (David makes clear he is not writing about building “MacMansions.”)

An architonic house, meanwhile, looks attractive to passersby and fits the character of its neighborhood. It’s comfortable to live in for a variety of reasons: windows are placed to let in the proper amount of light, the floor plan is laid out so that sounds from one room don’t carry into another, there is plenty of space for social events, and so forth.

The most controversial part of the book is bound to be his calculations as to what types of construction are considerate of the environment. Some of his advice is generally accepted. Low-flow faucets and low-flush toilets save considerable water. However, he also notes that hot-water heaters that are too far from faucets waste significant amounts of water.

Front elevation of the 19th Street house.

Nor does he believe that on-demand water heaters, which are often considered green, are the best approach dollarwise or environmentally. For example, they are more expensive to install and require more maintenance than hot-water heaters. In addition, they occasionally encourage overuse of hot water, he writes.

In contrast, creating a good “thermal boundary” with insulation and tight sealing to keep a house from losing hot or cool air to the outdoors is extremely important environmentally, David notes. It greatly affects the amount of energy needed for heating or cooling.

Creating rooftop gardens, on the other hand, can be an environmental travesty, according to his book. Do these “green roofs” on large, luxurious homes benefit the environment, David asks, or are they “merely… a green veil to disguise the predatory character of the building beneath?”

After listening to a biologist expound upon green roofs, David writes, he pointed “to a nearby old warehouse [and] asked [the biologist] whether he would like to put a green roof on top of it. ‘Oh yes,’ he replied. I explained that as a builder I saw a potential consequence that might not come immediately to his biologist’s mind. Putting a garden atop the warehouse would require that it be heavily strengthened.

David Gerstel building cabinets.

“Constructing the concrete footings, columns, trusses, and steel connections required for that strengthening, not to mention all the components of the green roof itself, the waterproof membrane, protection for the membrane, drainage mats, irrigation systems, soil, and plants, would register a series of substantial environmental impacts.

“They included: Extracting raw material from the earth for every component. Processing it. Manufacturing it. Transporting it. Transporting workers back and forth to the site to reconstruct the building and install the green roof. Disposing of or recycling of waste. And then more impacts from extraction through transport and disposal for year after year of maintenance.”

 

“‘Oh yes,’ the biologist assured me, he knew about all of that. ‘Well in that case,’ I asked him, ‘was it possible the environmental benefits that a garden atop the warehouse roof would deliver might be outweighed by environmental hits left in its wake?’….

“If, in fact, it appeared that the roof would result in net environmental damage, would he advise against the green roof? ….He said he did not care about cost/benefit analysis. ‘I’m not a numbers guy,’ he said. ‘Building roof gardens is not just what I do for a living. It’s more than that. Providing wildlife habitat is my spiritual life. I’m a birds-and-bees guy. It’s who I am.'”

That answer, David writes, “outraged a friend who has devoted much of her life to protecting plant and animal habitat. ‘The hubris of it,’ she exclaimed. ‘To create a small patch of artificial habitat, he is willing to destroy who knows how much natural habitat. And he calls himself a biologist!'”

Front porch of the 19th Street house.

Crafting the Considerate House has caused me to think about many of these issues for the first time, including how well my own cabin was built. Fortunately, mine was designed to minimize construction waste, and that, David writes, is crucial. Supposed “green” construction, he adds, often talks as if reusing, recycling, and reducing building materials are of equal importance when, in fact, “the mantra should read reuse, Recycle, and REDUCE!”

If you’re planning to build a house, or have one built, you might do well to first read David’s book. He takes you along as he makes decisions regarding everything from types of construction, to building materials, to costs, to potential problems. You may be able to save yourself some money, and you will certainly end up with a better house.

Crafting the Considerate House by David Gerstel, 243 pages, $17.95 paperback, published in 2010 by Latitude 67.

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Mon 16 Aug 2010

West Marin remembers Duane Irving

Posted by DavidMitchell under History, Point Reyes Station
[5] Comments

Roughly 200 West Marin residents showed up Sunday evening in Toby’s Feed Barn to honor Duane Irving, who died of a heart attack July 19 at the age of 75.

A succession of residents related their memories of Duane for the crowd, and several remarked on his fondness for ice cream.

Duane’s parents had owned Halleck Creek Ranch in Nicasio where he spent much of his youth. A “Last Roundup” pamphlet, which was given out at the event, noted Duane “attended the little red school house in Nicasio [and was] a member of the last graduating class.”

Former Marin County Supervisor Gary Giacomini (left) lauded Duane’s vision in dedicating land on his ranch to the Halleck Creek Riding Club for people with disabilities. (Photo by Linda Petersen, West Marin Citizen)

At San Rafael High, Duane was an excellent football and especially baseball player, and after graduation joined the Marine Corps.

Following four years in the Marines, Duane broke horses for Bud Farley, whose ranch was later flooded by Nicasio Reservoir, and was game manager and cattle boss for Doc Ottenger, whose land would become part of the Point Reyes National Seashore.

At the request of the late Olema Valley rancher Boyd Stewart, Duane helped establish the Morgan Horse Farm within the National Seashore and subsequently worked in the park’s Roads and Trails Department.

Emcee Cindy Goldfield introduces her mother Joyce, Duane’s companion for many years, who paid an emotional tribute to Duane.

Many West Marin residents knew Duane best for his involvement in Halleck Creek Riding Club. For more than 30 years, he, Joyce Goldfield, and many volunteers helped people with disabilities gain self-confidence and enjoy rugged terrain on horseback.

People who had served as volunteers to lead the riders and people who had been riders themselves both told of their appreciation of Duane.

Xerxes Whitney (left), who was born with cerebral palsy, said he lived on the same hill as Joyce when she started the Riding Club, and “I was one of her first recruits.” (Photo by Linda Petersen, West Marin Citizen)

Despite some difficulties with speech and the use of his legs, Xerxes has developed into a first-rate athlete and now teaches tennis, as well as writes poetry.

He and Duane had played basketball against each other and held nothing back, including “sharp elbows,” Xerxes said. “Duane didn’t care if you could talk or walk,” Xerxes added. He cared about the person.

Perhaps the most-poignant tribute to Duane was offered by a young  woman with Down’s Syndrome. With unexpected eloquence, she described how much she valued Duane’s encouragement and support. Then speaking directly to Joyce, she said that Duane still sees her and loves her. By this point, I like many others in the Feed Barn had tears in my eyes.

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Tue 10 Aug 2010

The art of boating

Posted by DavidMitchell under General News, Point Reyes Station
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“Oh God, thy sea is so great, and my boat is so small.” Fisherman’s prayer from France’s Brittany coast.

‘Stacked Boats II,’ 48-by-48 inches, in the I Wolk Gallery.

A Point Reyes Station artist who in recent years has managed to survive on small boats is Bruce Lauritzen. In fact, for the past month, exhibitions of his idiosyncratic “Vessel Series” have been featured at two galleries in the Napa Valley.

His abstracted representations of boat hulls had been scheduled to come down this Thursday, but the show has now been extended to Sunday. Lauritzen sold a 72-by-36-inch canvas titled Yellow Boat (above) for $12,500 the day the show opened, which was “unexpected for hard times,” the artist acknowledged. More have sold since then.

Among the paintings on exhibit are ‘Rembrandt’s Boat,’ 54-by-54 inches, (left) and ‘Boat House,‘ 54-by-54 inches, in the I Wolk Gallery.

The show, called “Voyages,” is split between two galleries, the I. Wolk in St Helena (Lauritzen’s gallery before Ira Wolk was killed in a bicycle accident) and Ma(i)sonry in Yountville, which is also showcasing a wine line by the new owner, Michael Polenske.


Here the artist is seen at a Marin Museum of Contemporary Art show in June 2008, discussing his painting ‘Still Waters III’ with two guests.

Attending on scholarship, Lauritzen graduated from California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. He earned a master of fine arts degree at the San Francisco Art Institute.

Lauritzen later taught at the College of Marin and the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. He was also a member of the Marin Arts Council’s founding board of directors.

The artist’s work is in more than 100 private, institutional, and museum collections, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Achenbach Foundation at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor.

‘Boat on Trailer,’ 44-by-61 inches, I Wolk Gallery.

I. Wolk Gallery is located at 1354 Main St. in St. Helena, and Ma(i)sonry Gallery is located at 6711 Washington St. in Yountville. Those planning to see Lauritzen’s large paintings of small boats need to call ahead (707 944-0889).

 

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Wed 4 Aug 2010

Firefighters in action

Posted by DavidMitchell under Point Reyes Station
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Shortly before noon Wednesday, I received a call from Linda Sturdivant who was looking off her deck in Inverness Park. “I see smoke!” were the first words out of her mouth. A column of smoke was rising in the vicinity of Black Mountain, she said.

Immediately I hopped into my car and headed that way, but as soon as I turned off Highway 1 and onto the Point Reyes-Petaluma Road there was a sign saying: “Novato Fire District Training Exercise.” So there was nothing to worry about, but I continued on to Platform Bridge so I could photograph a controlled burn smokey enough to cause concern on the far side of Tomales Bay.

Update: Although roadsigns signs said the controlled burn was a “Novato Fire District Training Exercise,” the Marin County Fire Department, while the fire was underway, issued a press release that said the fire was “to provide a training opportunity for Marin County Fire Department personnel.” Go figure.

The county press release also said the fire was intended “to remove the non-native, invasive vegetation in the area.” The press release added that the burning would continue on Thursday, which it did.

I then returned to town only to find Marin County Firefighters in action on the main street. The firefighters had been dispatched around noon to clean up a paint spill in front the Palace Market.

One firefighter said he’d heard of small amounts of the white paint having been spilled from Inverness to Point Reyes Station. The top of a paint can was found in a trash receptacle at the market.

The fireman said that none of the paint, which was mostly in the gutter and the entrance to the Palace Market parking lot, got into the storm drain. However, he added, the cleanup (in which absorbent particles were used to sop up the paint) was necessary to keep cars from getting paint splattered on them.

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Mon 2 Aug 2010

Do you like coyotes and bobcats? How about rats?

Posted by DavidMitchell under West Marin nature, Wildlife
1 Comment

Coyotes began howling not far from my cabin just before dark tonight. For me it’s a thrill to hear and occasionally see them, but I’m no sheepman.

For 40 years, there were no coyotes in West Marin because of poisoning by sheep ranchers. However, coyotes never disappeared from northern Sonoma County, and after the federal government banned the poisoning, they spread south and began showing up here again in 1983. Since then coyotes have put more than half the sheep ranches in West Marin and southern Sonoma County out of business.

There are also more bobcats around these days, and some Point Reyes Station residents believe that many of them had been living in the pasture of the Giacomini dairy ranch before the Park Service bought the land and in 2007 flooded it. For residents raising chickens or other fowl, the forced relocation of bobcats has been a serious problem, and a number of them have been shot.

But for the rest of us, spotting bobcats is exciting. I occasionally see them around my cabin, and for the second time in a year, nature photographer Sue Van Der Wal of Inverness saw a bobcat at her house on July 23, as she told me with delight.

Also intrigued by bobcats is professor Michael Scriven of Inverness Park. Michael, who has taught at universities in the US and abroad, as well as written numerous books and articles, last month penned a light-hearted “memento of a recent visitor” and sent it to me.

Here is his poem titled Bobcat: “On my deck, spots and pads whisper past,/ The stride of a cheetah,/ The mien of an eater,/ Chipmunks chatter their ire,/ Doves flee from a flyer,/ The Prince of the Felids has passed.”

A roof rat eating birdseed off my deck last week. I enjoy watching roof rats but had to spend time and money last year cleaning their droppings out of my basement, sealing off walls they had chewed through, and repairing an electrical line on which they’d been gnawing.

Roof rats are also plentiful at the moment. In June, I found one that had been run over on block-long Campolindo Road, not exactly a high-speed thoroughfare. And during a dinner party in Stinson Beach last month, I spotted a roof rat at a neighboring house scurrying across (appropriately enough) the roof.

Some people have nothing good to say about roof rats. Along with getting into basements and attics, they are especially fond of chewing through the drain hoses of dishwashers.

In addition, many people are aware of the roof rat’s role in the Black Plague. In the 1340s, their fleas spread the plague around Europe, killing off half the population in some places.

Roof rats originated in tropical Asia and made it across the Near East in Roman times before reaching Europe by the 6th century AD. As the influence of European countries spread around the world, so did roof rats, arriving in the New World on the ships of European explorers. Not surprisingly, another name for roof rats is ship rats.

Roof rats are smaller than the inaccurately named Norwegian rats, which are actually from North China. An easy way to tell the two apart is that the tails of roof rats are longer than their bodies. The tails of Norwegian rats (also called sewer rats) are not.

All this raises the question: is there anything good that can be said about rats other than that they’re cute, at least to some of us. Apparently there is. The 2006 Children’s Choices Award went to a book by Barbara Wersba about a rat named Walter.

I haven’t read Walter, but Publishers Weekly reports: “Wersba’s brief tale of a blossoming friendship introduces a literate rat, who ‘christen[ed] himself Walter’ after reading works by Sir Walter Scott and [by] the children’s book author whose home he inhabits.

“The rat hero, who lives under the floorboards of a house owned by Miss Pomeroy, makes a discovery in her library one day. Not only has she written a children’s book series about a secret-agent mouse, but he discovers many other authors who have also written about mice (‘There was a whole flock of little books by a woman named Potter, which dealt obsessively with mice,’ he observes disdainfully)….

“Walter begins communicating with Miss Pomeroy through notes, and he questions why authors never write about rats. In the satisfyingly sentimental finale, the author leaves for Walter a singular Christmas gift and the two finally meet.”

Somewhat surprising for a children’s book are Walter’s reported allusions to The Great Gatsby, A Farewell to Arms, and The Maltese Falcon. These “will appeal more to older readers,” Publishers Weekly wryly observes.

Walter is appropriate for readers 8 and up, the review says. So if you’re 8 or older or have a child that is, you may want to pick up a copy of the book in order to keep rats in perspective. In the course of their lives, most people encounter far more rats than bobcats or coyotes.

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Sun 25 Jul 2010

Los mapaches con cacahuates; tambien fotos de los cuervos y venados

Posted by DavidMitchell under West Marin nature, Wildlife
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A mother raccoon guards her two kits while they eat peanuts (cacahuates) off my deck.

My former wife Ana Carolina in Guatemala refers to raccoons as “mapaches,” which is the name the Spanish colonists gave them.

The word was taken from the Nahuati word “mapachitli,” meaning “one who takes everything in its hands.” Nahua was the language of the ancient Aztecs and is still spoken in Central Mexico.

The mother raccoon (right rear) comes to my kitchen door each evening and stands on her hind legs so I will see her and put out food. But when I open the door to do so, she quickly backs away and begins a low growl. Her message is obvious: “Make sure you don’t get too close to my kits!”

The English word “raccoon” comes from the Virginia Algonquian word “aroughcun,” which is also spelled “arathkone.” The language, a subgroup of the Algonquian language, died out in the 1790s.

The kits are are far less skittish around me than their mother is unless I make a quick movement.

Historical curiosity: The first written description of raccoons was made by Christopher Columbus, who in 1492 discovered them on his expedition to the New World.

Many fledglings after first leaving the nest want to be fed as if they were still in it. On the railing of my deck, this young crow (“cuervo” en español) caws incessantly and holds its mouth open in hopes the parent will feed it birdseed, even though the youngster is standing in birdseed.

Crows are smaller than ravens although at a distance it’s hard to gauge their sizes. The most obvious difference is in their tails when the birds are in flight. The tail feathers of a raven form a wedge shape while the tail feathers of a crow are almost straight across.

Young bucks sparring next to my cabin. These young blacktails are not trying to hurt each other but to establish dominance. Does prefer to mate with the stronger buck. From an evolutionary standpoint, this passes along the genes of the hardier deer (“venado” en español), which helps ensure the survival of the species.

í que ahora ustedes tiene la lección de esta semana sobre los mapaches, cuervos, venados y la lengua española. Estudien mucho y no gasten dinero en Arizona.

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Sun 18 Jul 2010

Proposal for ceasefire in West Marin ‘newspaper war’

Posted by DavidMitchell under The Point Reyes Light Newspaper, West Marin Citizen
[3] Comments

The Wall Street Journal last Wednesday published the latest in a series of out-of-town-media reports on the dispute between The Point Reyes Light and The West Marin Citizen. The report ran under the headline: “Newspaper War Rages in West Marin.”

With many West Marin residents wishing the “war” would end, more than 300 people as of Monday evening had signed a petition calling for both sides to get together and work out their differences.

The dispute went public a month ago when Citizen owner Joel Hack published an “Extra” edition accusing Marin Media Institute, the nonprofit that had just bought The Light, of attempting a “hostile takeover.” The edition said that MMI was trying to take advantage of Joel’s personal financial problems to gain control of The Citizen.

Joel is married to Kathie Simmons, an attorney in Sonoma County. Kathie, who does business as a one-attorney law firm, had to dip into her IRA several times in recent years to cover business expenses.

The problem, Joel told me, was that because she was under 59 and 1/2, she had to pay penalties for the early withdrawals. Without the funds to pay the penalties and failing to file some tax returns in a timely manner, the couple saw their initial debt of $4,000 to $5,000 to the IRS and the State Franchise Tax Board balloon to $26,000.

On Feb. 26, Joel and Kathie filed for Chapter 13 protection (from creditors) under US Bankruptcy laws. They then began paying off their back state and federal income taxes at the rate of $600 a month. Under Chapter 13, they could do this over 36 months without incurring additional penalties.

However, MMI’s attorney Doug Ferguson then notified the bankruptcy trustee that the nonprofit had negotiated unsuccessfully to buy The Citizen and would still be willing to buy the paper if the trustee liked the idea.

Citing attorney Ferguson’s letter, the bankruptcy trustee last month recommended the bankruptcy court convert Joel and Kathie’s Chapter 13 (individual bankruptcy) to Chapter 7 (possible liquidation) or Chapter 11 (reorganization).

MMI now says it later told the trustee, when he asked, that the nonprofit was no longer interested in buying The Citizen. But the damage had been done. Faced with either Chapter 7 or Chapter 11, Joel and Kathie have now voluntarily dismissed their bankruptcy protection, and Joel told me he will dip into his own IRA to pay off their debts.

[Corey Goodman, chairman of MMI, on Aug. 3 offered a “mea culpa” for letting attorney Ferguson send out a letter that indicated MMI was ready to buy The Citizen. Corey said he should have “proofread” Ferguson’s letter but did not. In reality, Corey added, MMI by then was no longer interested in buying The Citizen.]

[I’m willing to take Corey at his word on this, for he confirms what I’ve said from the start. In a June 23 posting about the newspaper war I wrote, “Whom do I blame? Attorney Ferguson, who seems to have been too clever by half…. Ferguson was clearly looking for the bankruptcy court’s help in getting Joel to accept MMI’s (previous) $50,000 offer for The Citizen.”]

The Wall Street Journal meanwhile quoted me as saying the dispute between the papers “is extremely bitter. We’re reaching the point where an awful lot of people would like everybody to just quiet down the fighting.”

Among those people is Nancy Bertelsen, who has long been active in West Marin civic affairs, especially those involving the arts. On Friday she emailed me a petition that was also sponsored by six other people who are likewise prominent around Point Reyes Station: Steve Costa, Chris Giacomini, Michael Mery, Claire Peaslee, Jonathan Rowe, and Murray Suid.

“Prompted by the difficulties between our two weekly newspapers, those of us listed [above] met to discuss how we could encourage the owners of the papers to unite in some way for the good of the community,” the cover letter said.

“We’re writing to ask if you [the public] will support this effort by adding your name in support of the statement below. The intention is to bring the owners to the table to work out a solution that is acceptable to all. Use the following blog website to respond if you agree with the statement intent: http://www.westmarinblog.org/

“We hope you will be joined by many other friends, readers and advertisers. The proposal along with all our names and the list of advertisers will be submitted to both papers, with a request that they publish the full list. If you support the initiative and would like to have your name appear with ours, consider signing by Tuesday, July 20th (we hope this will be published on July 22nd).”

The petition to both publishers reads as follows:

“There is broad interest in West Marin in the emergence of a single newspaper that serves us all. The current competition between two weekly papers is not working. It forces both to struggle, journalistically and financially, and it strains the loyalties and resources of advertisers, readers and contributors alike. We urge that you end this situation, which is depriving the community of the strong, stable paper we need.

“Both papers exist to serve the community. The owners of both are clearly committed to that purpose. But the current situation is working against what both papers want to achieve, and against the best interests of West Marin. Readers and advertisers are weary and do not want this fractured situation to continue. We want a unified community.

“Specifically, we urge the owners of both papers and their representatives to begin an open discussion to work out a more positive relationship than is the case now. Using the services of a mediator would probably be helpful. A new relationship might include a merger of the two papers or any number of agreements that have not been imagined before now but that would be mutually beneficial.

“In any case, negotiations should be without conditions or preconceptions, and with neither recriminations nor need for apologies on either side. Instead, we call upon you to start fresh and seek a way forward, to restore the vitality and viability of West Marin’s local media.

“We know that resolving this will not be easy. But we feel that the task is important, and a responsibility of our local journalism establishment. We all look forward to supporting you and to helping in any way that we can. Something great can take the place of the current tensions: something can emerge that the whole community can support.”

The petition caught me by surprise, but I’ve signed it, and I urge other West Marin residents to do the same so we can quiet down the fighting. It’s easy. Just click on http://www.westmarinblog.org/ and type in your name and hometown. The web page includes a list of people who have already signed.

Update: On July 22, The West Marin Citizen printed the cover letter, the petition, the names of its sponsors, and the names of the more than 300 people who signed it. The Point Reyes Light the same day published the cover letter and names of the sponsors but neither the petition nor the 300 signatures.

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Wed 14 Jul 2010

The young creatures of summer

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

As I drove down Campolindo Drive Tuesday morning, I spotted a gray fox ducking into a culvert under neighbors George and Earlene Grimm’s driveway.

A week ago, I spotted a fox, possibly the same one, sitting in a field next to my cabin and being dive bombed by a couple of crows. The crows have a nest high in a nearby pine tree, but I doubt the fox could ever climb up to the chicks.

All the same, it was yet another sign that young animals are everywhere around here at this time of year.

A female raccoon shows up on my deck almost every night, hoping I’ll put out bread or peanuts for her. Some of the raccoons on this hill are comfortable around me, but she isn’t and runs off a short distance whenever I open the kitchen door. Nonetheless, she chases off the raccoons that feel more at home at my place.

Last night she surprised me by showing up with two kits, which were even more skittish than she. Both spent much of their time hiding behind my woodbox, watching their mother dine in the open.

Raccoon kits are not always so timid. More than once I’ve had kits walk right into my kitchen when I left the door open.

Raccoons breed from late fall into early spring, with females sometimes having more than one short-term mate. The gestation period lasts about two months, and litters typically range from two to seven kits. Kits are born deaf and blind. They do not open their eyes for about three weeks, a couple of days after their ear canals open.

Raccoons around water often appear to wash their food. In Europe, where they have been introduced, the Germans call them “Waschbären,” meaning “wash bears.” However, researchers now believe they are not actually washing their food but their paws.

Just above their claws are stiff hairs called vibrissae, which have sensory cells associated with them. The vibrissae allow raccoons to identify objects before touching them with their paws. Washing keeps the hairs clean and sensitive.

A blacktail buck beside my cabin last Thursday. If you’ve every wondered about the difference between a “buck” and a “stag,” the word “stag” refers to the male red deer of Europe, which is also called a “hart” when mature.

In the past few weeks, I’ve also spotted a blacktail fawn on this hill, sometimes with its mother. Usually blacktail does have two fawns, but a couple of weeks ago, I saw a fawn, which had been killed by a car, lying beside Highway 1 near Campolindo Drive. I fear the worst.

A blacktail doe at my back fence Sunday. Does give birth from late spring to early summer. “Hind,” as in the Golden Hinde Resort, is another word for “doe.” The resort in Inverness is, of course, named after Sir Francis Drake’s ship, which was named after the deer, and the name of the ship is sometimes spelled “Hinde,” as in London’s Golden Hinde Museum.

Blacktails in the wild have typical lifespans of seven to 10 years while in suburban habitat where they feast on gardens, they can live for 17 to 20 years if cars or dogs don’t get them.

“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,” Bay Nature reported five years ago,

Based on DNA tests, the magazine added, “researchers theorized that whitetails (Odocoileus viginianus) emerged as a separate species on the East Coast about 3.5 million years ago.

“They apparently expanded their range down the East Coast and then westward across the continent until reaching the Pacific Ocean in what is now California some 1.5 million years ago. Moving north up the coast, they evolved into blacktails.

“Columbian blacktail deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus) are the subspecies of blacktails native to the Bay Area. According to the California Department of Fish and Game, there are now approximately 560,000 deer in all California, about 320,000 of which are Columbian blacktails.

“Near the end of the Pleistocene, some 11,000 years ago, as the glacial ice receded from the Sierra passes, blacktails moving east from their traditional homes in the coastal valleys of California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia began to encounter a second wave of whitetails expanding their range westward across the Great Plains, Bay Nature added.

“It is now believed that subsequent back-and-forth crossbreeding resulted in the various strains of mule deer scattered across California and the western United States.”

Interestingly, Coastal blacktails and mule deer differ from whitetails in the way they run. As Mother Earth News has pointed out, “While the whitetail runs by pushing off alternately with its front and rear legs in long, graceful bounds, blacktails and mule deer typically launch themselves with all four legs at once in bouncing, pogo-stick jumps that verge on the comical, boing, boing, each bound gaining as much altitude as forward distance.”

At this time of year when there’s so many uncomprehending fawns boing boing-ing around West Marin, I urge drivers to slow down at night and use their high beams whenever possible. Hitting a deer is hard on your emotions, not to mention your car. I know; last winter I hit a young buck that jumped out in front of me on Lucas Valley Road.

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