More on those historic mercury mines of Marin (the short version)

A rather long note bene: Since I went through so much grief the other night trying to save my old 2020 mercury mine blogpost from Google Blogger AI censorship bots, in desperation I took screenshots of the original post and reposted it on my artist page on Facebook. I also made a very truncated version (below) for the Facebook group, California History as I was afraid the information I had worked so hard for was going to be forever lost. 

The original mercury mine blogpost had its inception Labor Day weekend when I was hiking San Pedro Ridge in San Rafael. We were still in Covid sequestration, and to keep my sanity, I wrote many articles I might not have other otherwise written. 

In this case, I wrote a stub that didn’t go anywhere, no real leads, and then I delved into it again in December 2020. I discovered that I was in over my head with the material, and no matter how I tried, I couldn’t finish the blogpost—partially because I couldn’t find the discrete information I needed. 

And also, I thought I didn’t have the chops to figure out how to present the material. Why a writer, suffering from dyslexia, is a writer is a mystery, but there are many of us out there. It’s not like I’m earning any money off my writing. I’m not getting paid for any of this. I write because I have to.

I suspect my writers’s block, or rather, my revisionist block, was due to the fact that it was too big a subject. The more information I uncovered, the more of the post grew. I was in over my head. I despaired. It was an albatross. But the only way out was through. 

Sometimes I think I can’t write my way out of the paper bag. or, that I don’t have the intellectual  chops. This time I was in one colossal kevlar-lined paper bag, but I persevered. It was probably one of the most challenging blogposts I have ever written. 

My Night Train to Moscow post (which began as an email), my redhead, pacer, bees, and daffodil blogposts also gave me some serious writer’s grief, but at least the posts weren’t banned by Google. 

I face enough unwarranted censorship from Facebook for writing bad similes, or thinking outside the box. I sure don’t need this kind of grief from Google either. I expected better from Google. (Google fail.) I feel betrayed.

The other day, when I made another stab at revising the original blogpost because of a Facebook post on the old mines in Lost Marin, I finally made some serious headway—only to have Google Blogger take it down and literally trash my blogpost, then reinstate it—some 30 times. When Google takes down a blogpost, you can’t even see it. It just disappears into the ether. No warning. Poof! Gone.

A while back, Google suffered a serious systemwide matrix glitch and took down multitudes of my innocuous posts—only to reinstate them later but I had to physically find my blogposts in the trash and then reinstate them. Before that, I didn’t know that Google had previously removed some of my other posts. Sadly, some of those posts are lost forever.

Thinking it was an email spam, I ignored the red warning label Google had slapped on my posts, and I lost my Juanita Musson memorial post, plus others. I reasoned, how could a memorial post be considered spam? It was not logical, as Spock might have said. But it was for real, only I found this out in arrears. 

I was able to salvage some of the removed old posts from first drafts that I had stashed elsewhere, but not all. Not Juanita in the bathtub. I despaired thinking I had lost all my revision work on the mercury mine post. I was 12 hours deep into it. So, of course I fought furiously to save my post, and to get it reinstated. Again and again.

Now I’m afraid to make any further changes on my original mercury mine post for fear of triggering the AI bots. Google no longer adequately warns you that it is removing posts. It no longer uses the red banner. And it took a long time for a Google warning to show up, explaining what the reasons were for banishment: violating community standards.

Google warned I was violating community standards, but it didn’t specifically say what. I had no idea. Googling it did not elucidate or shed any light on the subject. So, I kept removing images, revising, checking on all my links, and nothing worked. I wasn’t over quoting anyone, and it was my own intellectual property, not to mention, photos. And all the graphs I used were from publicly funded agencies, therefore within fair use parameters. I couldn’t remove the ban. I despaired.

A Google email eventually appeared, claiming this time that I was violating community standards by promoting or selling controlled substances. Huh? How is a blogpost on historic mercury mines even remotely considered to be promoting a controlled substance? Maybe it was the word “mine” itself that triggered the bots. So, this post below is a test of sorts.

(I am not trying to bite the hand that feeds me. If it wasn’t for Guy Kawasaki’s evangelical support of Google Blogger, I would not have delved so thoroughly into the new medium of cyber-writing. It all began innocently enough, I had lost some of my earlier poems to ASCII gibberish, and decided to put them online. Then I discovered I could back-post my work. One thing led to another. MySpace was no longer cutting it. It was a grand liberation to be free of the physical page. As it is, I now have 5000 blog posts. I must admit, I feel betrayed by Google at this point.)

See, during one of those rare moments, when I could actually re-access my ephemeral albeit temporarily reinstated mercury mine blogpost, I took screenshots of it and posted it on Facebook so I wouldn't lose my work completely. I also made a truncated version for a Facebook group I belong to, California History. I have previously taken several of my blogposts and revised (shortened) them for the group. 

Then I realized that the revised post I wrote for California History  is also a separate entity. New work. Probably closer to what I had hoped to originally write. It’s posted below. Now watch, Google Blogger will ban this blogpost too. Don’t worry. This time I have a link to someone who works at Google and I will complain mightily. How’s that for throat-clearing? Are you still there, Dear Reader?

Historic mercury mines in the North Bay (below is a truncated version of my original post. Click on the link/title for full post and research notes).

When I was a child, I was fascinated by my uncle’s old mining survey maps of Bolinas Ridge and Mt. Burdell dotted with old cinnabar (and copper) mining claims. Curiosity got the best of me.

Our red California earth is oftentimes a sign of the presence of iron /hemitite, or cinnabar (Remember Napa’s Silverado Mine on Mt. St. Helena, made famous by Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1884 novel, The Silverado Squatters?)

There are several historic cinnabar mines in Northwest Marin, including four at the Gambonini Ranch, near Solajoule Reservoir, some sites on Mt. San Antonio, and also on the ridges above Novato. The old mine shafts on San Pedro ridge in San Rafael seem to be gold claims. But where there’s gold, there’s cinnabar.

During the Gold Rush, cinnabar ore mined in California, for mercury, was originally used for silver and gold extraction. The crushed ore was processed in high-temperature smelting ovens. 

Those unstable leftover cinnabar tailings are what has caused the mercury runoffs into our watersheds, including in the San Francisco Bay—destroying one of the most fertile marine ecosystems in the world.

There are numerous historic cinnabar mine tailings throughout Marin and Sonoma counties, some that have also added to the high mercury levels in several of our reservoirs, including Bon Tempe, Solajoule, and Nicasio reservoirs and their drainage watershed, Tomales Bay. 

The fish warning signs that rim several of our reservoirs serve as a grim reminder that mercury poisoning is cumulative. Tomales Bay in Northern Marin County has higher mercury levels than San Francisco Bay—and it’s not from naturally occurring cinnabar deposits, as the mineral mercury oxide is inert unless it’s been heated and extracted.

According to the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), there is an fish advisory or warning that Nicasio and Solajoule Reservoirs contain methyl-mercury, as does Bon Tempe Reservoir on the slopes of Mt. Tamalpais, which once hosted several historic mines, including mercury, copper, gold, and even a nickel mine.

I assume that the rest of the Marin Municipal Water District (MMWD) reservoirs (our drinking water supply) also contain trace amounts of some form of (inert) mercury too as they’re all downstream of Bon Tempe dam and empty into each other, exiting via Kent Lake into Lagunitas Creek that drains into Tomales Bay. 

Naturally occurring mercury oxide does not enter the food chain the same way manmade methyl-mercury does. But at the Nicasio Reservoir methyl-mercury pollution is significant enough to trigger OEHHA advisory warnings about cumulative mercury poisoning from carp, sunfish, black, and large-mouth bass species (apex predators such as bass contain the most cumulative methyl-mercury in their systems). 

Why Nicasio? It doesn’t butt up against any known mercury mines, it doesn’t share the Solejoule Reservoir watershed to the north where there’s also an OEHHA advisory warning for black bass and crappie.) Why am I mentioning Solejoule? because in 2000, it became a Superfund cleanup site.

In a nutshell, in 1964, a PG&E subcontractor, Oakland-based Buttes Gas & Oil (BG&O), ran a lucrative open pit mercury mining job at Gambonini Ranch near Walker Creek in northwestern Marin. 

But in 1970, when the price of mercury fell, BG&O pulled up stakes and left the open pit mercury mine tailings exposed to the elements behind an earthen dam that epically failed during a series of fierce storms in 1982—which dumped ungodly amounts of leached methyl-mercury into Tomales Bay. More than in San Francisco Bay! 

BG&O had leased the land from Alvin Gambonini’s father from 1964 to 1970, never disclosing to the Gambonini family the potential dangers involved with the toxic heat-processed mine tailings to extract the mercury, or that the leftover toxic mercury particulates leach out of the rock tailings whenever it rains. (I wanted to ask, what about all the cows?) 

BG&O never sealed the four mines, nor capped the tailings. It took nearly two decades for the EPA to discover the mishap. It triggered a $3 million Superfund cleanup in 2000. 

Back to Nicasio Reservoir. The methylmercury is coming from somewhere. Not from abandoned mercury mines upstream that I know of, or from the isolated Solejoule Dam which empties into Walker Creek. Question is, from where?

However, some of those old red earth mine sites really were manganese, or hematite, a type of iron, not cinnabar—like the Sausalito mine, and the prehistoric hematite site on Mt. Burdell. Inert red dirt. Sometimes a red rock quarry is just a red rock quarry. Just don’t eat the fish.

Remembering Mary Smith Taylor, & a backstory of The Birds, & Warm Springs Dam

As I was moving boxes of old papers, I stumbled upon some writing fragments in a copybook dating back to a time before I became a writer. As I added the nascent scraps, written in a naive, childish hand (though I was 22), to my blog, and as I transcribed my notes, I also uncovered writing fragments with little pockets of memory attached. 

As I followed a wild hunch, I discovered that I was indirectly related by marriage to my Native American studies teacher, Mary Taylor, who was Coast Miwok. Then, I discovered a link that also led to the Warm Springs dam project (1974-1984), thanks to the internet. The aha! I always wondered how I became involved with the rescuing of native Pomo basket sedges.

Mary Taylor was a Bodega Bay Smith of Captain Stephen Smith infamy—who at 57, married a 16-year old Peruvian, Manuela Torres, in order to claim the Rancho Bodega land grant, but Smith also had a Coast Miwok "wife," Tsupu. The story goes, there were others.

Their son, Bill Smith had 12 children with Rosalie Charles after his first Miwok wife, Walla Walla, died. The Smith clan was a massive clan, with whom I would later be related to by marriage, when Bill Smith's youngest son, Young Eagle Smith, married my widowed aunt, Mary Azalie Howard Reilly (her husband Myles was my uncle) at St. Eugene's Church in Santa Rosa. 

I remember talking to Mary Taylor at the wedding reception in Santa Rosa. And I was puzzled as to why she was at our family wedding. Thanks to the internet which most definitely wasn't around in 1975, I was able to place her as Young's older sister. Wow! So my wild hunch wasn’t off.

Hoppity-hop picking in Sonoma County

Historic Walters Ranch Hop Kiln, Westside Road, Healdsburg, built by Angelo Soldini in 1905. California Historical Landmark No. 627 ©️ Maureen Hurley ca. 1981.

Before Prohibition, Sonoma County led the nation in the production of hops. Hops, a beer preservative, was first planted near the Laguna de Santa Rosa in 1858, and by 1899, more than 2000 acres were in full production. A story from 1900 in the San Francisco Chronicle estimated that 7,500 acres of hops were planted in Sonoma. From the early 1900s to about 1940, hops, not grapes, was king.

“Sonoma County produces the finest quality of hops grown on the Pacific Coast….there is more lupulin and a stronger aroma…which brings from one cent to two cents per pound more money in the market.”—Sunset Magazine Homeseekers’ Bureau, 1915

Apparently the top dollar paid for the superior California-grown hops was London, England. 

“From 1915 until 1922 California was the leading hop-producing state in the Union." (Tinged with Gold: Hop Culture in the United States, Michael A. Tomlan).

Hops (Humulus lupulus) related to cannabis, originated in Egypt and China; there is also a wild species native to the US. With hops, it's all about the lupulin. The unfertilized female blossom, or cone, laden with yellow lupulin powder and resin, is used to preserve and flavor beer. The hops varietals grown in Sonoma County were far superior to hops grown in other regions. During the 1930s, Sonoma County produced over 30 million pounds of dried hops.

Hop production survived Prohibition and the Volstead Act of 1919, but languished, shall we say, even tanked? during the post-war economy—despite the fact that Sonoma County was a bootleg capital of California. 

The use of nitrate fertilizers also introduced a mildew blight which ultimately killed the hops industry. By the 1960s, hops was no longer commercially viable, though escaped volunteers grew along the Russian River along with the native wild grape vines.

My first boyfriend's mother Leeta (a Petaluman who went to school with Lloyd Bridges) used to earn her pocket money harvesting hops (and fruit) every summer. During hop-picking-time, she waxed on poetically how families camped out under the stars all summer long picking fruit. 

However, she said that picking hops was brutal on the hands. Not to mention feet—they used stilts to reach the trellised hop buds. Hopping for hops. She preferred picking pears and prunes to hops. Hop picking season was short, at the end of summer. In 1940, when his hop pickers went on strike, Florian Dauenhauer of Santa Rosa invented a mechanical hop harvester that is used to this day.

During the 1990s, I was at Kat & Boz WIlliams' home on Peaks Pike Road in Graton and they served me steamed hop shoots and buds for dinner—they tasted like asparagus—and I was even given a furry feisty hop vine to take home, but it just wouldn’t grow under an oak tree in Forestville. It needed more sunlight. Or I was a lousy hop grower.

Hop-picking at Healdsburg, Cal. photo: MD Silverstein —Healdsburg Shed

AS YOU SETTLE INTO THE LIGHT, Burning a path towards the sun, NaPoWriMo, PAD Challenge, Day 6

NaPoWriMo make a transliteration from Poetry International tricky for me, because I can sort of read Dutch, so I extrapolated and stretched it.

AS YOU SETTLE INTO THE LIGHT

Note the steps of the ladder, not the stories of the lost children.
Note the house, not the starry night. Go ahead, drink the wine.

Remember the house is dark. The windows with their eyes shut
doubt the light, they are learning to sing the ways of the wind.

The house speaks of memory and there is no stopping it, 
with its hard wounds and proud flesh and angst it wants…

It wants you to climb into the attic of the psyche and dream
behind closed doors and dwell in the sunlight plaited in gold.

It will make everything seem like new again.
Stand there with the door open wide, your hands trembling,

greet the wind as you settle into the light.

4/11/23

2023 April PAD Challenge write a poem about odor. I misread an earlier prompt, wrote this, wrong piece.

Burning a path towards the sun

The odor of acacia reminds us that spring arrived. But the cold air severs us from beauty. Chilblains become a real thing as cruel April rolls up its trousers. The coastal mountains are still holding onto last week’s unseasonable snow, Cobb Mountain, dressed in a lace gown, is draped in a shawl of clouds and darkness like a grande dame waiting for the opera to begin. Mustard and chamomile brave the elements as if last week’s snow laid down in the deep ravines, was waiting to sleep it off until the morning comes. I admire the bravery of daffodils and tulips, they harbor no grudge against the vagaries of spring, yet rise up from the darkness like phoenixes, burning a path towards the sun. 

4/3/23

As you can see, I wrote this earlier, but it fits.

SUNRISE OVER MT. HOOD

     —for Rick Coyston 1963 - 2023

The sun rises over Mt. Hood, a golden cowl 

of mist and fog painted in crimson hues 

and delicate lavender pastels to greet the dawn.

I can’t help but think of Rick on his motorcycle, 

the old woman who foolishly pulled out in front of him

has to live with the aftermath of her choice.

I can just hear him saying in his broad Essex accent 

Oh my God, before his life ended on the old Bolinas road.

I’m obsessed with the moment he left us 

and that sublime beauty he left behind.

4/5/23 one of the few times that the title led the poem.

During flood season

During the flood, herons and egrets dine on amphibians, crustaceans, and rodents. A whole new smorgasbord of surf and turf. Colonies of egrets line the temporary shores of the vernal pools. At some of the pools, the stately great egrets gather as if Congress were in session, and at others, small egrets bicker and dine on leftovers. The seagulls do their worm dance in the mud to hunt for earthworms. Fording a seasonal stream crossing Todd Road, the underbelly of my car has never been so clean.

3/13

Never build a house in a floodplain

During the decades of long drought, suburbs grew like weeds. Now the floodland reclaims its ancestral homeland. All those houses built on the hundred-year flood plains, and in those old riverbeds and washes, during a time when it was easy to bribe the planning commissioners, are now vast inland lakes. Water coming home to roost, takes all hostage in its wake. Thoughts and prayers won’t stem the tide.

3/13

All backroads flooded, 3.5” of rain, hail

 

GRAUPEL

At the summit of Wilson Hill, 

a pale wing of snow slurried over Chileno Valley, 

turned to graupel, painted my windshield & the road white, 

then melted back into darkness.

And then a stray rainbow 

pointed an accusing finger

at Mt. St. Helena and Sonoma Mountain 

blanketed in snow.

3/1/23

Musing on mallows (photos)

Abutilon ssp., Indian mallow, wild cotton—but the shiny leaf is wrong—a Hybridum? 
I searched the web to credit the photographer, nope. Oldest v. was 2021. From Facebook.

An old friend from the Cazadero days, Marc Nassar, now living in Lisbon, posted a photo of a gorgeous globe mallow of sorts on Facebook. In his author photo, he wears a T-shirt that proclaims, in art we trust. He often posts images of pure beauty. 

So I often leave comments on his page, in part, to acknowledge the post, a habit of acknowledging the other, developed during the height of the pandemic when we were all so isolated from each other. But I also cannot resist the fleeting tangibility of beauty. (See Breakfast of campions.)

We stumbled upon each other on Facebook via old photos I had posted of a poetry reading, ca. 1998 at Marc’s house in Cazadero, of poets Mike Tuggle, Jim Dodge and Elizabeth Herron—this, after decades of isolation. It was something like 2 to 3° of separation, but Facebook often works in mysterious ways, telescoping time and distance into time present.

Driving to work in floodwaters

Looking north on 101, at Petaluma Blvd. & Stony Point Rd. Used by psrmission, Scott Hess photo

How was your commute dear? Well, deep subject, I know. Laguna de Santa Rosa and Atascadero Creek were already flooded up to the berms of Occidental Rd. A few more feet and we’ll need amphibious cars. Lots of kayakers and Canada geese out cruising among the snowy regrets… 

Luckily Irwin and Llano crossroads were open—to a point. All the other smaller feeder roads are pretty much underwater. Todd Rd. was the only road—erm, make that a causeway—open, but just barely as you need to ford a lively stream by the slaughterhouse. Luckily I didn’t have to backtrack. I literally zigzagged my way across the llano, like a big game of water Tetris.

Best flooded road strategy is to ride the middle hump of the road, where you can see the dotted, or yellow line, which also requires playing chicken with oncoming cars. And when they pass you, it’s a ferme lá douche wall of water if your window was open like mine was.

Stony Point Road from Santa Rosa to Hwy 116 at Cotati was clear—but not the Rohnert Park Expressway. You’d need a snorkel. Maybe some fins too. 

But Stony Point Road south is an inland sea, a brothy mess well seasoned with eau de cow-cow. We were above waterline at the Redwood Penngrove exit, the offramp was innundated, but doable. However Petaluma Boulevard North was completely underwater. Lots of kleig lights. The cops were lined up, saying You shall not pass! One guy thought he’d try anyway. Didn’t get far.

Growing up in West County (both Marin and Sonoma), I have a large backroad database, which paid off during the wildfire evacuations. I wove in and out of flood zones via Highway 101, as I needed to get to Petaluma Hill Road, the fastest way to work. 

I slalomed my way back on the freeway again, running a newly obsolete red light, to navigate toward Washington Street. For the first time, I was grateful for all the massive retrofitting that Highway 101 underwent. Above the floodplain. The Petaluma River wasn’t too high, but wait for high tide, and Washington, and 116 would be real river roads.

Most of the small feeder roads are flooded in West Sonoma County and in West Marin too. Luckily, D Street-Red Hill Petaluma Hill Road was a breeze. Small landslides were rerouting water ditches. Why did the water cross the road? Because it was cross when the ditch ditched it.

At least the road south was clear, in a manner of speaking, but the potholes are so big, they’re stoned. Or the road is a vast jigsaw puzzle with several pieces missing. Especially in Hick’s Valley. Don’t hit those potholes, you’ll either bite your tongue off or get a whiplash.

But the Hick’s Valley chickens at Petaluma Hill Road looked like they were half-drunk, all piled up in a corner as if they were at a rave grunge concert. Not enough sense to come in out of the rain. 

There are three special renegade chickens that fly the coop (and the fence) every day. Every night they’re put back in the hen palace, a sort of Taj Mahal for chickens. Repeat this scenario the next day.

The escapee hens were happily commuting their sentence on the wrong side of the road. They like to hit up the tourists for free food. One of these days they’re liable to be flattened, or will have to answer the age-old question with their lives. Meanwhile the opportunistic vultures were lined up along the road waiting for the party to begin.

Alternate route via Hick’s Valley Road has fewer potholes. Watusi cattle with their massive horns, on the ridge of Wilson Hill Road were like prehistoric silhouettes holding up the skyline. What epoch was I in, anyway? Chileno Valley Road is in good shape. But it had flooded near Helen Putnam Park. Spring Hill Road and Pepper Road were dry as was Meacham Road, but there are a few low spots that too will flood.

From the top of Wilson Hill you can see the old Laguna de San Antonio is back—stretching from the Laguna School to the far end of the valley. Yeah, about the name: don’t call it Lake Laguna, that’s an embarrassing Anglo cartographer’s error. See my segue below.

Nicasio reservoir is so full, it looks like it’s going to pop. Nicasio school was closed—no power. My last bottleneck hurdle, Nicasio Valley Road, under the redwoods, was open, TG. Otherwise I was fresh out of alternate routes. Some acacia branches are leaning on power lines across from 2100 Stuart Ranch at the old McBride place where the old fire truck lives.  

Made it to Forest Knolls in record slo-mo time, the potholes out there are the size of hot tubs. All the roads are flocked with tree limbs and pine/cypress/fir carpets. Power was out everywhere, I did what I could at work—at leas the stove worked. Chainsaws, and gas generators were sonorously whining their little hearts out everywhere. It was as if the little valley was collectively snoring or purring in unison. Like a big cat.

About Laguna Lake….

I think this is an 1890s map, lookimg for date.

An aside. I know that I’ve written about this before, but it bears repeating. As I was navigating my way back north on an alternate route as the traffic was slow on Petaluma Hill Road, as I crested Wilson Hill Road, I noticed that the old Laguna de San Antonio was back from the top, so you know I had to go there. 

The once massive Laguna de San Antonio, California’s largest vernal pool, and a major flyway, used to span all of Chileno Valley, from the vast distance from the Laguna School to Chileno Creek, at the other end of the modern day Laguna. But all the old waterways were recently drained off in the name of progress.

Google map, and the silly name, most of the wetlands were drained in the 1960s-70s,

In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, I remember the Chileno Valley shining with a series of gem-like pools, and in spring, the wildflower carpets were amazing. But someone decided they needed to live right across from the school and they did a massive hydrology rerouting. That kind of thinking would never fly now. Now, no more massive Laguna, and no more wildflowers. That’s how we measure progress. 

We began messing with the Laguna by calling at Lake Laguna. You won’t find its full name on Anglo maps. What a stupid honky mistake. Or was it a slight? Laguna and Lake mean the same thing in two languages. Its original name—and I actually looked it up—is Laguna de San Antonio. So I am all for bringing the original name back. Besides, we also call the Laguna de Santa Rosa, the Laguna. We need San Antonio, which is also the name of the creek that probably once drained the laguna, also divides Marin from Sonoma, to differentiate between the two massive lagunas.

Laguna de San Antonina, ©️ScottHessPhoto.com 2023

The water level at the Laguna proper is about three feet from Chileno Valley Road West. Way over its banks. There were only two wild swans. I wondered about the rest of the flock. I didn’t want to go all the way out that end of Chileno Valley Road because it is gnarly and another storm was threatening.

So I headed back towards Helen Putnam Park and then, on a lark, I went out Spring Hill Road. OMG. They paved it! I was on a roll. Intricate laced waterways and reflecting pools everywhere. Beauty times beauty. But I was racing daylight. Not time to stop. And my drive-by car photo shots were an epic fail.

The oddest thing I saw was a line of swans in a field with black cows near the old creamery. I could not figure out why they weren’t at the laguna just on the other side of the hill. So I got out to investigate, and it looks like one of the swans got caught by a wire in the water trough and drowned. Then I realized the swans were holding vigil for their fallen comrade. Since there was nothing I could do, I put my hand on my heart, wished it well. And continued on my way.

1834 map shows a large body of water, Laguna y Arroyo de San Antonio

AT THE LAGUNA DE SANTA ROSA

The drained lakebed, 

long since converted to vines and crops,

as if remembering its ancient shoreline, 

fills the basin with tule fog,

water seeking its own spirit level.

4/21 NaPoWriMo

Four quick paintings

Thinking my painting for the SGV Spring Art Show was due on Tax Day, and wanting to test run my newish Gamblin oil paints, I banged out four quick canvases sitting in my car. They were wet when I took the photos. Mt. St Helena from Sonoma Mountain is glistening, it's so wet. I haven't touched oil paints in 50 years, an allergy to turpentine made it impossible to breathe. Now there's Gamsol, a mineral oil opens up possibilities. Larry Rippe said no, you have two weeks. Reprieve. Sneaky Larry. I'm always late turning in my assignments.

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus! A daffodil for Dewi Sant, photos

I'm not sure how the tradition first began, but about 40 years ago, daffodils, sold at a buck a bulb, were planted along Sonoma County roadsides to raise money for cancer research (the tradition may have begun in Canada as early as1965.) However it started, it was a wild success story. And daffodils have been used to raise money and promote cancer awareness ever since. Because daffodils have a chemical, esemastine, that kills breast cancer cells, they have become an international symbol of hope. (Narcissus pseudonarcissus, Amaryllidaceae family, are native to Northern Europe). 

In Sonoma County it has become a tradition that when someone dies of cancer, family and friends plant daffodils in remembrance—like the transplanted Mexican tradition of roadside memorials for car crash victims. The two traditions are beginning to merge in West Marin—shrines with la virgin de Guadalupe, trinkets and toys—even baby shoes—now include a stand of daffodils or narcissi. Most North Bay county roadsides are a riot of daffodils—a living reminder for those who have died. 

Historic mercury mines in the North Bay

 

Note bene: Under construction. Any info on mercury mines would be appreciated.  FWIW, every time I make an edit, Blogger keeps taking this post down, claiming it "violates community standards."but it doesn’t specify what it wants me to remove. I don't see how historic information from public sources violates any standards. All the research, and the writing is my own, and the photos too. Most of the information and maps were created via government funds, and should be copyright free or fair use. Plus I've provided the links. 

A Facebook reader posted a comment that there was cyanide runoff in Halleck Creek, under my Facebook post on the Nicasio dairies that were drowned during the construction of the Nicasio reservoir in the Lost Marin group, and I was off and running—right off the proverbial cliff. Was there any truth to that rumor? Or did he conflate mercury with cyanide? (According to WHO, low levels of cyanide are in our drinking water— usually related to mining activities, not naturally occurring sources.) 

My uncle, who was a surveyor, had some survey mining maps from long ago. I would give my eye teeth right about now to have them back. But the storm of 1984 took out my storage shed. I decided to go with the mercury interpretation instead of cyanide, because mercury mines have a tumultuous history in California.

What  I have mercurially uncovered so far:

According to the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), there is an fish advisory or warning that Nicasio Reservoir mud contains methyl-mercury, as does Bon Tempe Reservoir on the slopes of Mt. Tamalpais, which hosted several historic mines, including mercury, copper, gold, and even a nickel mine. 

And I assume that all the rest of the Marin Municipal Water District (MMWD) reservoirs (our drinking water supply) also contain trace amounts of some form of (inert) mercury too as they’re all downstream of Bon Tempe dam and empty into each other, exiting via Kent Lake into Lagunitas Creek that drains into Tomales Bay. Naturally occurring mercury oxide does not enter the food chain the way methyl-mercury does.

But at the Nicasio Reservoir methyl-mercury pollution is significant enough to trigger OEHHA advisory warnings about cumulative mercury poisoning from carp, sunfish, black, and large-mouth bass species (apex predators such as bass contain the most cumulative methyl-mercury in their systems). Why Nicasio? it doesn’t butt up against any known mercury mines, not like the unrelated Solejoule Reservoir watershed to the north (there’s an OEHHA advisory warning for black bass and crappie. There’s more on Solejoule dam methyl-mercury pollution below.)

I don’t know if Halleck Creek, a tributary of Nicasio Creek that feeds the reservoir, also has mercury in it. If so, then there’s probably an old mine shaft or two somewhere up-canyon on Big Rock Ridge. There is Lunny’s (LaFranchi?) gravel quarry across the way, but I don’t think they use cyanide for rock blasting! Nor are they transporting mercury ore for their gravel business as it wouldn’t be very good for business.

Note the MMWD mercury warnings are in English, Spanish and Vietnamese.

The fish warning signs along the Nicasio Reservoir serve as a grim reminder that mercury poisoning is cumulative. Mercury oxide is a naturally occurring inert mineral in the soil, but there are numerous cinnabar mine tailings throughout Marin and Sonoma counties that have added to the mercury levels of our reservoirs, not to mention, Tomales Bay. (Why I won’t eat Tomales Bay oysters….)

Red earth is often a sign of the presence of cinnabar (Remember Napa’s Silverado Mine on Mt. St. Helena, made famous by Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1884 novel, The Silverado Squatters). And if there were heat-processed mine tailings to extract the mercury, then the leftover mercury particulates leaches out of the rock tailings whenever it rains. 

But some of those old red earth mine sites were hematite, a type of iron, not cinnabar—like the Sausalito mine and the prehistoric site on Mt. Burdell. Inert red dirt. Sometimes a red rock quarry is just a red rock quarry. 

That said, there are also several historic cinnabar mines in Novato (an unnamed claim, the Mazza Ranch Prospect, and Gaul mines), and other mine sites in West Marin. I remember seeing an old mining map of Bolinas Ridge dotted with several old cinnabar (and copper) mining claims. And another potential cinnabar site is on Elephant Mountain near Black Mt. Ranch and Platform Bridge, though only a gravel quarry is listed on the other side of the mountain.

Mercury ore mined in California, originally used for silver and gold extraction, was processed in high-temperature smelting ovens. Those unstable leftover tailings are what has caused the mercury runoffs into our watersheds, including in the San Francisco Bay. But Tomales Bay has higher mercury levels than San Francisco Bay—and not from naturally occurring cinnabar deposits, as the mineral mercury is inert unless it’s been heated and extracted.

The methylmercury is coming from somewhere. Question is, where?

Moving north to an adjoining Tomales Bay watershed (Walker Creek), on Hicks Valley Road, as you make the turn past Lincoln School, there’s a rock quarry at the top of the ridge to your left, (Hammock Hill) the exposed Franciscan rock is as red as can be. It looks like mine tailings galore. But not even a rock quarry is listed on that hill, though I can clearly see it from the road.

Rancher Sam Dolcini said it was a historic gravel pit used for making roadbeds. However it’s also a fair distance from Hick’s Mountain (see mining list) and Hick’s Valley Road. And it’s pretty darned red for Franciscan strata. It could also be an old Native American hematite mine. 

Question is, why did the Marin County road builders go all the way up that mountain for gravel? Surely there were more accessible rock outcrops? Maybe it was a speculatory dig that didn’t pan out—the entire northern Marin region has several mercury mines.

Sweetwater Springs mine on Mt. Jackson. Michael Kiesling photo

A little retrospective on reusing mine tailings, which was viewed as an easy source of cheap gravel. In Sonoma County, ca. 1974, the Guerneville sewage plant used mercury-laden tailings from an abandoned mine on Mt. Jackson for roadbeds. (I once hiked up to the Sweetwater mine via an eroded mule trail off Sweetwater Springs Road.) Luckily, it was a tempest in a teapot, the tailings were found to be inert, there was no leeching mercury. (See Mercury Rising 1999). The unlisted Hicks Valley rock quarry on Hammock Hill could be an old prospector site, and a gravel pit for road bed material. Both.

Hammock Hill, Hick’s Valley Road c Maureen Hurley 2020

There’s another rock outcrop that was probably also mined for roadbed material at the Point Reyes-Petaluma/Red Hill Road and Nicasio Valley Road junction at the old Gallagher Ranch. Geoff Davis said there was also cinnabar present there too, but it looks like it’s a limestone outcrop, or a ribbon chert reef, not cinnabar. Half the rock outcrop is gone, and other outcrops were left untouched. Apparently the host rock for mercury ore is serpentinite from the Upper Jurassic period. So, wherever there’s serpentine? All of West County!

This outcrop was twice as big, was it used for gravel or a mercury prospect?

Also within the Walker Creek watershed, the worst (and latest, 1970) mercury mine offender of all was the Gambonini Ranch mine complex on Walker Creek Road. The Gambonini Ranch family was not the problem, PG&E was, as they, or rather a sub-contracted mining company, Buttes Gas & Oil Co., leased at least four mines—the Gambonini, Turner, McFarland and Buena Suerte mines. When the mercury ore ran out, and the mines were “closed,” Buttes Gas & Oil Co. got off scot-free by claiming bankruptcy in 1985, leaving the state of California holding the bag, and liable for a massive Superfund cleanup. 

You can explore the types of mines at Minedat. Most are mercury mines.

(You can explore the types of mines in the North Bay at Minedat. Most are mercury mines. See also the the Cycle, and Franciscan mines. I know they exist, but can’t find supporting data, the adjoining Edwards  mines (Panco No. 1; Chileno Valley; Bueno Chilano; Chileno Valley), and Bently Ranch.) And there is the mercury Bivalve Mine, near Soulajule Dam, and another mercury mine, Petaluma Mine (Superior Gypsum Company Mine), on Red Hill Road.)

Not only was liquid mercury useful in extracting silver and gold ore from mine tailings during the gold rush, it was used for barometers, thermometers, clock pendulums, dental amalgams, auto parts, batteries, plating silver mirrors, fluorescent bulb filaments, and delicate electronics. The military also used liquid mercury for calibrated gauges, ammunition primers, and detonators, so it was a valuable restricted resource. (Military mercury uses PDF.) 

Until recently, liquid mercury was also used in the construction of legacy PG&E electrical transformers. Later, PCB laden oil was used. (Sources of PCBs and Mercury contamination). Curious, I can’t find information on how PG&E used mercury. I found this downloadable PDF from Internet Archive Scholar, The Needs of Miners: Political Ethics, Mercury Abatement, "The need for a global mercury pollution reduction strategy emerged from scientific revolutions of the 1950s and 1960s.” Mercury was becoming increasingly scarce during the 1960s, which drove its value through the roof. 

Cool old trucks at the Gambonini Ranch c Maureen Hurley 2019

Back to the Gambonini Ranch story, in 1964, a PG&E subcontractor, Oakland-based Buttes Gas & Oil, did a blitzkreig open pit mining job and in 1970, when the price of mercury dropped, they folded shop and left the open pit mercury mine tailings exposed to the elements behind an earthen dam that epically failed during a series of storms in 1982—they never sealed the mines, nor capped the tailings. 

Meanwhile, in 1977, Buttes Gas & Oil claimed bankruptcy and suspended operations in California, leaving the ranch owner Alvin Gambonini holding the bag—environmentally speaking. When methylmercury began showing up in Tomales Bay, it triggered a $3 million Superfund cleanup in 2000. The company had leased the land from Alvin Gambonini’s father from 1964 to 1970, and no one ever disclosed to the Gambonini family the potential dangers involved.

San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, 2012 A state funded agency

Few knew about the danger or full extent of the mercury pollution in the North Bay until significant amounts of methylmercury began showing up in Tomales Bay in 1999 after a series of back-to-back severe storms created a deluge runoff.

“The mercury, in a particularly toxic form called methylmercury, was discovered in a test of Tomales Bay fish conducted in 1999 by the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board.…The mercury is believed to have infiltrated Tomales Bay from an open-pit mercury mine located 6 miles upstream from 1968 to 1972. The mine is now an EPA Superfund site.” —Mercury Warning For Fish / 7 Tomales Bay species show contamination, 2000

Since 1964, every time it rained, it means that methylmercury spilled into Tomales Bay. Soulajule Dam, constructed in 1980, conceals an environmental atrocity. Luckily, Soulajule is a reserve reservoir not used for drinking water. The old mines are above waterline, but the lethal tailings around the reservoir are the real problem. And dare I ask the question: what actual earth was used to build that dam?

"If you take a sample of soils anywhere in this county, you will find mercury in it, but in the form of oxide, so it's not a dangerous element," geologist Dylan Whyte says.“The mine site, leased to the Buttes Gas & Oil Co. by Gambonini's parents, is across Wilson Hill Road from the ranch house six miles southwest of Petaluma, and up a steep ridge.” Mercury Rising 1999.

From MMWD: “The District also can transfer Soulajule Reservoir water to other District locations, as needed.” How? I don’t imagine that MMWD would transport water from Solajoule to Nicasio via truck. Someone suggested the water can be moved overland via stock ponds. If mercury oxide is inert, then it suggests that the methylmercury isn’t coming from natural sources. So where is the mercury coming from?

Vultures falling from the sky

When I posted this falling vulture meme on my Facebook page, I took a lot of ribbing. It could’ve been worse. Was it an omen, portent of things to come. At least no naked ribs were showing. Just naked fear. Though it was a rather spectacular accident to have a vulture fall from the sky onto my windshield while driving down the road. 

Judith Gips said, you lead a very interesting life. I don't think I know anyone else who has been hit by a falling vulture. True, that. It’s not every day you get clobbered by a vulture falling from the sky. His wings completely covered the windshield, I could not see where I was going, I had to pull over. But I couldn’t even see in order to pull over. I had to do it driving blind.

Luckily I was driving on Pepper Road slowly going around a road crew, so it was no big deal. There was a wide shoulder, no ditches. I think a power line was down, and he got electrocuted. Maybe he was the reason why the lines were down. There were tree and power line trucks all over, we're having a red flag fire warning, high winds and no rain in a bone-dry December. Drought weather. It all could go up in smoke again. Another utility pole near the Two Rock Coast Guard Station had already set the grass on fire last week. 

I got out of the car to make sure the vulture was OK, but I also didn’t want to stress him out any more than he already was. Poor creature was hopping around because he couldn’t fly. And I was wondering how the hell I was going to try and rescue a vulture, they’re enormous animals. Much bigger than you’d think. The animal rescue place was right down the road on Meecham, by the dumps.

Katherine Hastings said, Gee, you could at LEAST have given him mouth-to-mouth! Well, considering that their nostrils go right through their skull to the other side like a hollow cave, it would be really a challenge to give mouth-to-beak to a vulture. For a moment there I thought I was going to have to add vulture wrestling to my animal rescue resume. Opossum nanny was bad enough.

Rich Arik wanted to know, Is that a poem or a true story? Were you clobbered, or, was you car clobbered by a vulture? I said yes, my car. Yes, a true story. You can’t make this kind of shit up. It’s too weird even for me to craft this bizarre event into a poem.

Apparently the poor thing got a shock from the power line. He was careening around so I had to pull off the road because when he hit my car, his wings covered my entire windscreen. And I couldn’t see a thing. Can you imagine explaining to the CHP how you got into the accident? But officer, I was driving down the road and out of nowhere this vulture fell out of the sky on top of my car. A breathalyzer test for sure even if it was early morning.

 

Luckily I was already driving slow because of roadwork. PG&E guys fixing the powerlines, and also electrocuting vultures, apparently.

The vulture sat in the front yard of the farm house for a quite a while, stunned (he wasn’t the only one) with his wings outspread, as if he was sunning himself. Eventually he was able to lift off the ground, but his navigation was for shit, and so he careened and crashed hard into the side of the farmhouse several times. BAM! Like a drunk kamakazi pilot.

By this time he had an audience. We watched him flounder around, trying to get his bearings. I suspect he will be fine, other than crashing into random things during liftoff. I’m sure he is muttering under his breath right about now about lost dignity and whatnot. Apparently 2020 is for the birds, it really sucks. Even for vultures. 

In defense of California Bay Laurel

Today’s rant is brought to you in defense of bay trees. On a friend’s Facebook page, someone was trash-talking California bay laurel trees, saying, among other things, they were an invasive species and should be completely eradicated. Well, to say I lost my mind, was an understatement—more like ballistic. He was confusing our native bay tree with the Mediterranean species, in the same family, with the same common name. So was everyone else on the thread. This is why we have Latinate names, folks—family, genus, species. That’s FGS, fergawdsakes.

I wrote: Well, I see it’s time to pull out the big guns and invoke the Latin names here. Most Californians have always called Umbellularia californica a bay tree, the Mediterranean cousin was also called bay laurel. Then someone a little too wordy for his own good, decided to call it a longish mouthful—California Bay Laurel—to clarify the name and distinguish it from the Mediterranean Laurus nobilis, aka sweet bay laurel, noble laurel, true laurel, Greek laurel—thus confusing most of the people most of the time.

I was on a roll. During the Miocene era, the entire Mediterranean basin was covered with lush bay laurel. Even the Sahara. In ancient Greece, the plant was called Daphne, after a river nymph Apollo had the hots for, who was turned into a bay laurel tree by her father. Misdirected love is why the bay is an evergreen. Now sweetbay, or bay laurel only survives in small pockets at high altitudes in the Mediterranean and the Middle East, so it’s considered rare as love.

Back to our bay tree. There is only one sole species of Umbellularia. During the Cenozoic era, aka the age of mammals, there were three other Lauraceae relatives in California, Nectandra, Ocotea, aka sweetwood, and Persea—ancient avocados. Bay nut pulp, if eaten young, taste a lot like its avocado cousin. The persea, with its giant seed, had a unique seed distribution system, giant sloths. 

The giant sloths, aka the Lestodon, were the only mammals who had intestines big enough to pass the giant avocado pits. Lesser mammals croaked from terminal constipation. So when the giant sloths, who slowly ate ancient avocados went exstinky, the ancestral avocados’ shinola propagation game plan was up to your neck in schitt creek without a sphincter of hope. See, the only way the Persea coalingensis could propagate from seed was when the giant sloths took a giant dump. Geologist Garry Hayes said joshua trees were also a favored snack.

“The original avocado found in the area now designated California can be related to prehistoric times, namely the middle Eocene and Pliocene epochs which have been determined by geologists to be approximately 10 to 60 million years ago. The history of these progenitors of the modern avocado and close botanical relatives in our current Persea species is recorded in fossil remains embedded in rocky outcroppings and in formations exposed comparatively recently by the work of man as he sought gold in California. ...Persea praelinque, P. pseudo-carolinensis, P. coalingensis were scattered throughout California in prehistoric times and are represented today only by botanical relatives found in Sonoran Mexico. —from Prehistoric Avocados in California

Adds a whole new level of meaning to gold digger. The persea pit could only sprout after a dark, wild journey through the giant sloth’s intestine—a weird, ill-fated symbiosis. Needless to say both tree and sloth went by the wayside. Civit coffee move over. I, for one, could’ve survived life without knowing the circumference of a giant sloth’s asshole. No shit, Sherlock. I guess I should say, Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Let’s talk about overpriced avocado toast, pass the guacamole, please. You do know that avocado means testicle in Náhuatl, right? I’ll let you guess what guacamole means.

Settlers used our native bay leaves for seasoning—they’re much spicier and pungent than their sweetbay relatives in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. I used the last of Nevada County poet laureate, Molly Fisk’s piquant bay laurel leave wreath in the turkey soup. It was resting on its laurels in the back seat of her car.... It’s a long story. Chris Olander is the current Nevada County poet laureate, in case you’re wondering. Just don’t confuse wordsmith Olander with oleander sometimes used as a bay leaf laurel crown, though they do look alike, as oleander is very toxic, but Chris is a long, cool drink of water.

California bay was an important food source for Native peoples who ate the pulp of young bay nuts, roasted and powdered the mature nut, used the young leaves as a green, as a tea. Deer adore young bay shoots—high in protein. Mature leaves were used as a seasoning, a medicine, and an insecticide to get rid of lice, and to keep grubs from their acorn granaries. Squirrels, jays, and rodents like the nuts, and woodrats also use bay leaves to keep their dens pest free. No more fleas.

But I digress, the noble laurel, from whence we get the word and the shrubbery to crown for our poets Laureate. Joy Harjo is our current/third term US Poet Laureate), and the Nobel prize, not to mention those laurels for ancient Greeks to rest upon, is a shrub, a small tree—not the big monster tree that our native bays can become. Swedish chemist who invented TNT, Alfred Nobel, cleverly coined the Nobel Prize, which was also a pun on his name. Dynamite! 

The  largest bay tree in the world is in Mendocino, an official Big Tree. The Big Tree on Graton Road in Sonoma County is at least 600 years old. Sonoma County has the highest concentration of CA bays in the world. There’s a monster tree in Santa Clara, but it split in two. I know of another monster in Las Gallinas/Lucas Valley (photo—can you find West Marin poet Brian Kirven in the tree? He’s six feet tall, and he should be a poet laureate).

I said to the FB poster, Please don’t call our native bay tree a generic laurel tree, that’s another series of shrubbery altogether. All those other laurels by any other name, other than the noble laurel, are loaded with cyanide. Especially the English laurel. The California bay is endemic to California, meaning it grows nowhere else in the world except here, in riparian zones wherever both types of sequoias were found—the coasts and the Sierra foothills to 5000 feet. And it likes to grow with oak trees.

There are a few bay groves in southwestern Oregon too, where they inexplicably call it Oregon myrtle. Another non-California common name is headache tree. Early pioneer settlers called it pepperwood because of the odor. Most of the Native names are lost; in Yuki, it is called pōl’-cum ōl. In Humboldt County, near Weott, Avenue of the Giants, there’s a wide spot in the road, a hamlet that changed its name to Pepperwood from Barkdull. A town swept away in the 1955 flood, and finished off in 1964. But the name persists. All that’s left today is a giant corn cob monument commemorating the spot where the village of Pepperwood once stood on the Eel River floodplain.

Who remembers the Pepperwood Restaurant on Mark West Creek in Santa Rosa? Sort of a bland Zim’s joint. The nearby Pepperwood Preserve was donated to the Academy of Sciences in 1979, and turned into a preserve in 2005.The old Knight’s Valley cattle ranches, last owned by the Bechtels, were once part of the 1843 Rancho Mallacomes land grant. Before that it was Wappo country, but it curiously doesn’t have massive bay tree stands—mostly oak woodlands burned by myriad wildfires. There are two small isolated pockets of bays in Tacoma and BC, so California bay laurel may have been once more widespread. Or someone planted them.

Though baywood is terrible to use as a main source of firewood as it’s too wet, it hisses like a snake, and makes a huge sooty mess in the stovepipe, it’s an excellent source of wood for fine carving, and it’s also a superb tonewood, sought out by luthiers. Great guitar backs. During the 1970s, I was in a southwestern Oregon art gallery admiring a lovely hand-carved wooden salad bowl, and the propieter made a big fuss about how rare myrtlewood burl was. I was quite miffed when I realized he was talking about baywood. Oh, for fucksakes, California bays are common as weeds. 

The unnamed FB poster further maligned bay trees saying they were forest thugs choking and strangling other trees. He said it would better to eradicate them all. By that point, my ears were steaming. I must’ve been channeling Edward Abbey who said, "It is no longer sufficient to describe the world of nature. The point is to defend it." 

I said, Bays don’t have an invasive root system that kills other trees. But they do grow big and create a huge root crown, or lignotuber base—a kind of tree larder—so they can regenerate after a fire. Their dead leaves release termines, like oak leaves release tannin, which does discourage undergrowth—but they are not the bullies. Once again, here we are, with our myopic three-second soundbyte masquerading as critical thinking skills.

Yes, bay and tanoak are host to Sudden Oak Death, the bay is wounded, but doesn’t die from it, however to the tanoak, it is nearly always lethal. SOD is a waterborn pathogen introduced from China via imported rhododendrons, the bay did not introduce it to oaks, the rhododendrons did. Blame that Marin nursery that imported diseased rhodies.

The fungus, Phytophthora ramorum, similar to the potato blight, is transmitted by water, and well, bays like water, and to make things more complicated, bays and oaks often prefer to grow with each other. It’s a symbiotic thing. Bays and oaks are BFFs People maligning and madly killing bay trees in order to to save the oaks, are sadly misinformed. SOD harms bay trees too, leaving spots on bay leaves. The pathogen is waterborn. Might as well try and stop the rain. Speaking of which, we could really use some rain to end this mega-drought.

I prefer to call it a bay tree than by any other name. I’ll put my laurels down now. Step away slowly from the keyboard. Now.

 

There are still a few massive heritage bay trees in California. And from Graton/Occidental Sonoma County we have:

That massive lignotumor suggests the crown is not first growth. 

Fire journal 15, Wilson Hill Road, dragon’s eye sunset (photos)

 
Sunset, I’ve never seen such dark beauty, such a dark red sun balancing on the last ridge before the coast like a ruby drop of dragon’s blood. I had to darken the image to match the color of the sun. What the eye can see. What the camera can’t see. So strange to see the red flare on the eastern horizon matches the color of sunset. As if it were a simultaneous dawn. But the ravens aren’t fooled, they’ve gone to bed. I miss their dark presence, and their darker call. I’ve never used the word dark so many times in a single piece of writing. 

Hick’s Valley Road. It was so hot today, that my car overheated and I had to park and let it cool. Not easy to do when it’s hot as an anvil oven outside. My battery water levels were low which may have been part of the problem. But then I remembered that when the fanbelt broke, the car overheated, and I refilled radiator with a pint of water. So, not enough coolant, a hot day, a heavy load, AC running full blast, and my car said Wot? An added level of stress, as my cargo was a friend who was in hospital for two weeks. Driving home last night, I saw encampments of trucks and trailers, people sleeping by the side of the road.

I wonder how much more of this I can stand. But we need to stay vigilant for something called embercast.  Such a beautiful word for something that is so horrifying. Ashes and pine needles drifting on the wind still carrying the secret heart of the wildfire across the Santa Rosa Valley, landing on my parked car in Sebastopol. The fire’s across the valley. It hasn’t crested the ridge yet. When it enters the great Santa Rosa plain, then we really need to be worried. I’m sleeping with the window open a crack so that I can keep track of that distance of the fire.

The oppressiveness of the smoke/cloud ceiling is like the weight of the world, the compound prayer and carbon sorrow of trees unleashed in the skies. This is the color of my world. the fire that sheds no light.

I’m so tired. We must remain vigilant for each other. Multó love to you all. Calistoga is evacuating. I want to cry. Useless drought tears for those who’ve lost everything—tonight nearly 70,000 evacuees from Santa Rosa cannot sleep in their own beds. I want to weep but I needs must sleep.