COYOTE MOON

The chickens were clucking up a storm at sunset

when the coyotes began plotting

under a waning hunter’s moon—

the chickens fell strangely silent.

2019 CAC Artist panel application

I’ve taught artist-in-school residencies in rural & urban schools in California since 1979. I’ve received 7 individual CAC AIR grants in Sonoma & Napa counties; & the Montana Arts Council. I’ve participated in CAC multi-artist residencies, received a PBS/KQED AIR grant, & two Oakland Cultural Arts Council grants. I’ve led arts workshops in the Western US & Florida, as well as in the Bahamas, Netherlands, & the former USSR. I’ve won fellowships and awards for my writing, art, and teaching residencies. I worked for alternative newspapers, writing news, & arts feature stories. I’ve trained artists and teachers through arts organizations, including California Poets in the Schools, Artists in the Schools of Sonoma County, Rural Arts Services, 

I’ve taught in a diverse range of communities throughout California. My ongoing work brings me in contact with a wide and diverse range of artists. I’ve photo-documented artists—especially poets—since 1979. I volunteer at the San Geronimo Valley Community Center, working with elders, and I have had art displayed at several of the the art exhibits at the art center. I was a featured poet at the latest Petaluma Poetry Walk, & am a coordinator & emcee for the Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival.

I have worked 20 years in Bay Area schools, teaching poetry and art to historically underserved schools including Oakland, and Hunters’s Point, in San Francisco, developing culturally relevant arts programming to meet their specific needs. Before that, I coordinated arts programming for 20 years in rural Sonoma County. I have worked with all ages, and demographics, including inmates at Napa Stare Hospital, and elders as well. How needs were determined was by meeting with the host client before the residency and creating an arts program to meet their specific needs.

I got the CAC grant!

Spirit Rock (pastel and paintings), White’s Hill for a show, Where We Call Home

Today’s experiment for a show, Where We Call Home, chalkboard paint on canvas board, stabilo pencils, and Nupastel, wet pastel drawing. I quit working on it when I got too cold to work. My nose was running like a sieve. I wanted another piece for the upcoming art show. Maybe this one will work. I used chalkboard paint for gesso.

Because everything is so compromised, I’m amazed I can function at all. A tooth whitener applicator brush was my paintbrush. Working on canvas board was more successful than working on canvas. But I still can’t rework areas very much. So, it’s all or nothing. And detachment. A lot of detachment.

Just past White’s Hill, Flanders’ Ranch, Loma Alta Ridge. Wet pastel. It took me three days of angst, to get started, and 45 minutes to draw....nothing like a looming deadline. I used wet prismacolor pastel, mostly conte crayons, some carb-othello pastel pencils and wet construction paper. Looks painterly, huh. The secret is water, the pastel becomes buttery. You get the best of both worlds: painterly, and a drawing.

They took all three pieces, the two versions of White’s Hill (acrylic, wet pastel), and this one (wet pastel & stabile pencil). They may hang all three, if there’s room, tho two pieces are the limit. SGV art center, Where we call Home. Benefit for the Center. Opening Oct 5.

So if two pieces sell, then I can buy either the big bolshoi Nupastel set (96 colors), or the Carb-Othello stabile pencils in the wooden box. Decisions, decisions. I’ve made a deal with myself, to enter every show I am offered, and to try to sell enough art to cover my basic materials. So far, I have been in 4 art shows at the San Geronimo Valley Community Art Center. This is after decades of not showing any art at all.

A couple of failed pieces

Asbestos angel, assemblage

I made many pieces for the upcoming Where We Call Home, this assemblage exists only in a photo as the particleboard I used turned out to be asbestos. It was the living room wall that was destroyed when the meth head crashed into it on the 4th of July.

Petaluma Poetry Walk schedule

13 cool things about the Petaluma Poetry Walk
September 12, 2019 | Argus-Courier (Petaluma, CA)
Author: David Templeton | Section: Entertainment 

PETALUMA POETRY WALK
Sunday, Sept. 15, 11 a.m.-8 p.m.

One of Petaluma's most distinctive and unique annual event, the Poetry Walk steps out for its 24th consecutive year. Here's what's going to happen.

11 a.m. - Hotel Petaluma, 205 Kentucky St. - Sonoma County Poet Laureate Maya Khosla, plus local poets Barbara Swift Brauer and Camille Norton, Hosted by Terry Ehret.

12 p.m. - The Bank, 199 N. Petaluma Blvd. - Poets Terri Glass, Martin Hickel and Erin Rodoni. Hosted by Kevin Pryne.

1 p.m. - the River Front Café, 224 B St. - Readings by Diane Frank, William Greenwood and Jeanne Powell. Hosted by David Magdalene.

2 p.m. - North Bay Café, 25 N. Petaluma Blvd. Poetry readings by Arnoldo Garcia and Nina Serrano. Hosted by Daniel McKenzie.

3 p.m. – Copperfield's Books, 140 Kentucky St. - Forrest Gander and Maxine Chernoff. Hosted by Gwenn O'Gara.

4 p.m. - The Phoenix Theater, 201 Washington St. Lucille Lang Day, Ruth Nolan, Susan Cohen, Barbara Quick and Jack Foley will read from "Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California." Iris Dunkle hosts.

5 p.m. - Petaluma Historical Museum and Library, 20 Fourth St. - Phyllis Meshulam and student poets from Cal Poets and Poetry Out Loud. Hosted by John Johnson.

6 p.m. - Aqus Café, 189 H St. - Poets Raphael Block, Albert Flynn DeSIlver, Maureen Hurley, Michael Koch and Gail Mitchell. David Magdalene hosts.

For more information on this event and these poets, visit PetalumaPoetryWalk.org.

Let's face it.

Whether or not you have ever personally attended Petaluma's legendary Poet Walk event, which has taken place annually for nearly a quarter of a century, you have to admit, it is a pretty remarkable thing. Dozens of poets from student to professionals, some pretty famous, all reading their poems out loud in eight different locations (cafés, bookstores, theaters, museums and banks) for a total audience of up to 1000 poetry-loving pedestrians over the course of eight glorious hours on a sunny Sunday afternoon in downtown Petaluma.

Folks come from all over to experience this entertainingly literary movable feast, some just dropping in for a reading or two, other's following along to catch every single syllable. This year's event will begin at Hotel Petaluma, and conclude with a two-hour poetry party at Aqus Café.

And of course, it being a poetry WALK, there will be brief moments of ambulatory conversation and curbside camaraderie as the group moves from one location to another. It's basically a great big blast, and though no one's giving out scores or anything, the folks who actually know something about some of the featured poets, and the history of the walk itself, do find that knowing a few extra tidbits can prove useful, especially when first-timers have joined the fun.

Here then, to give you some assistance, are 13 cool things to know (so you can share them, when appropriate) about the 24th Annual Petaluma Poetry Walk and some of the poets who will be participating.

1. The Poetry Walk was founded by Petaluma poet and artist Geri DiGiorno in 1996. Sonoma County's fourth official Poet Laureate, DiGiorno has been a tireless supporter of poetry throughout the Bay area. She once conducted an experiment in Petaluma's Putnam Plaza, where for one hour she approached passersby to offer them their choice between a crisp dollar bill and a book of poetry. After one hour, she'd given away twice as many books as she'd handed out bucks.

2. This year's opening acts of poetry, kicking off at the Hotel Petaluma at 11 a.m., will feature readings by Barbara Swift Brauer ("Rain, Like a Thief"), Camille Norton ("A Folio for the Dark") and Maya Khosla ("All the Fires of Wind and Light"). Khosla is the current Sonoma County Poet Laureate, serving though 2020.

3. The first Sonoma County Poet Laureate was named in the year 2000. Many of the past Sonoma County Poet Laureates have participated in the Poetry Walk. Just in case you have the opportunity to weigh in, the County's past PLs are as follows - Don Emblen (2000-2001), David Bromige (2002-2003), Terry Ehret (2004-2006), Geri Digiorno (2006-2007), Mike Tuggle (2008-2009), Gwynn O'Gara (2010-2011), Bill Vartnaw (2012-2013), Katherine Hastings (2014-2015), Iris Jamahl Dunkle (2016-2017).

4. Martin Hickel, who will be reading at noon at the day's second venue, The Bank (corner of Washington and Petaluma BLvd.) - along with Terri Glass "The Song of Yes") and Erin Rodoni ("Body, In Good Light") - assists Poetry Walk founder Geri DiGiorno with the organization of the event. He has served as organizer of the Marin Poetry Festival and Sunset By the Bay Reading Series. He is a member of the Revolutionary Poets Brigade in San Francisco.

PETALUMA POETRY WALK

Sunday, Sept. 15, 11 a.m.-8 p.m.

One of Petaluma's most distinctive and unique annual event, the Poetry Walk steps out for its 24th consecutive year. Here's what's going to happen.

11 a.m. - Hotel Petaluma, 205 Kentucky St. - Sonoma County Poet Laureate Maya Khosla, plus local poets Barbara Swift Brauer and Camille Norton, Hosted by Terry Ehret.

12 p.m. - The Bank, 199 N. Petaluma Blvd. - Poets Terri Glass, Martin Hickel and Erin Rodoni. Hosted by Kevin Pryne.

1 p.m. - the River Front Café, 224 B St. - Readings by Diane Frank, William Greenwood and Jeanne Powell. Hosted by David Magdalene.

2 p.m. - North Bay Café, 25 N. Petaluma Blvd. Poetry readings by Arnoldo Garcia and Nina Serrano. Hosted by Daniel McKenzie.

3 p.m. – Copperfield's Books, 140 Kentucky St. - Forrest Gander and Maxine Chernoff. Hosted by Gwenn O'Gara.

4 p.m. - The Phoenix Theater, 201 Washington St. Lucille Lang Day, Ruth Nolan, Susan Cohen, Barbara Quick and Jack Foley will read from "Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California." Iris Dunkle hosts.

5 p.m. - Petaluma Historical Museum and Library, 20 Fourth St. - Phyllis Meshulam and student poets from Cal Poets and Poetry Out Loud. Hosted by John Johnson.

6 p.m. - Aqus Café, 189 H St. - Poets Raphael Block, Albert Flynn DeSIlver, Maureen Hurley, Michael Koch and Gail Mitchell. David Magdalene hosts.

For more information on this event and these poets, visit PetalumaPoetryWalk.org.

5. One of the earliest Poetry Walks, in 1999, featured a performance by actor-poet Roberts Blossom, best known for playing Old Man Marley, the spooky, snow-shovel-wielding next-door neighbor of Macauley Culkin in "Home Alone." The late Blossom (he died in 2011), then a resident of Berkeley, read his poems from the second-floor balcony in the former Reade Moore Books.

6. Among the readers at the 1 p.m. event, at the River Front Café, is poet Diane Frank ("Letters From a Sacred Mountain Place"), who is also professional cellist, performing with the Golden Gate Symphony in San Francisco. Also reading at the River Front are William Greenwood and Jeane Powell.

7. Arnoldo Garcia, one of two poets performing at North Bay Café at 2 p.m., is the founder of Poets Against War & Racism, using poetry and performance to counter the normalization of war and racism. Performing alongside Garcia will be 84-year-old Nina Serano, of KPCA and OZCAT.

8. The Poetry Walk is free to attend, but is not free to produce. Currently, there is a GoFundMe campaign in operation, hoping to raise $2,000 to cover the bare bones of expenses. Additional money raised will go to supporting next year's 25th annual Poetry Walk. You can contribute at GoFundMe.com/f/petaluma-poetry-walk-2019.

9. The 3 p.m. session, at Copperfield's Books, will feature two major award-winning writers. Maxine Chernoff is a 2013 National Endowment of the Arts Fellow and a professor of creative writing at San Francisco State University, and the author of more than 20 books of poetry and fiction. Forrest Gander, of Petaluma, in the 2019 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Poetry, for his book "Be With." The reading will be hosted by Gwen O'Gara.

10. At the Phoenix Theater, the 4 p.m. reading will include five poets – Lucille Lang Day, Ruth Nolan, Susan Cohen, Jack Foley and Barbara Quick - whose work appears in the collection "Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California." This even will be hosted by Iris Dunkle.

11. Student poets from the Cal Poets and Poetry Out Loud programs will be presenting their works, along with poet Phyllis Meshulam. The bilingual programs encourage personal expression and appreciation of the arts. Poetry Out Loud, a program of competitive poetry recitation, was created in 2006 by the National Endowment for the Arts, under Sonoma County's own Dan Gioia.

12. Albert Flynn DeSilver, one of the five poets reading at the day-ending party at Aqus Café, was Marin County's very first Poet Laureate, serving from 2008-2010. The other poets will be Raphael Block, Maureen Hurley, Gail Mitchell and Michael Koch.

13. Each of the eight events at this year's Poetry Walks will include a "host." Three of them – Terry Ehret at 11 a.m., Gwenn O'Gara at 3 p.m., and Iris Dunkle at 4 p.m., are former Poets Laureate of Sonoma County.

Autumn Roundup: Fall, the 'mellower season' officially begins
August 26 - September 12, 2019 | Argus-Courier (Petaluma, CA) PETALUMA POETRY WALK (Sunday, Sept. 15, 11 a.m.-8 p.m.) – One of Petaluma's most distinctive and unique annual event, the Poetry Walk steps up for its 24th consecutive year. Here's what's going to happen. Beginning at 11 a.m. in the ballroom of Hotel Petaluma (205 Kentucky St.), where host Terry Ehret will introduce readings by three local poets (Barbara Swift Brauer, Camille Norton, and Sonoma County Poet Laureate Maya Khosla), the movable feast will then move to The Bank, 199 N. Petaluma Blvd. There, at noon, you can hear readings by Terri Glass, Martin Hickel and Erin Rodoni, hosted by Kevin Pryne. At 1 p.m., at the River Front Café (224 B St.), hosted by David Magdalene, there will be readings by Diane Frank, William Greenwood and Jeanne Powell. At 2 p.m., at North Bay Café (25 N. Petaluma Blvd.), host Daniel McKenzie (that's technically still tentative) will introduce attendees to poets Arnoldo Garcia and Nina Serrano. Copperfield's Books is the location of the 3 p.m. session, hosted by Gwenn O'Gara, and featuring poets Maxine Chernoff and Petaluma's own 2019 Pulitzer winner Forrest Gander. Iris Dunkle hosts the 4 p.m. session at The Phoenix Theater (201 Washington St.), where poets Lucille Lang Day, Ruth Nolan, Susan Cohen, Barbara Quick and Jack Foley will read poems from the recent collection "Fire and Rain: Ecopoetry of California." At 5 p.m., the whole shebang moves to the Petaluma Historical Museum and Library (20 Fourth St.), where host John Johnson will introduce Phyllis Meshulam and student poets from Cal Poets and Poetry Out Loud. And it all comes to a close with a two-hour block of poetry at Aqus Café (189 H St.), hosted by David Magdalene and featuring Raphael Block, Albert Flynn DeSIlver, Maureen Hurley, Michael Koch and Gail Mitchell. You can follow along all day, or pick-and-choose, but do enjoy some live poetry in this unique literary celebration. PetalumaPoetryWalk.org.

A day in the life

Knackered—I lost hours promoting the upcoming CPITS/CalPoets Symposium, Poetry Flash Watershed reading, & the Petaluma Poetry Walk. While getting poems for my PPW set, and I fell down a rabbithole. I will emcee with Brennan DeFrisco at Watershed. We still need a poet-teacher list and everybody is beyond late getting back to me. Feeling overwhelmed. While promoting poetry events, I discovered my Brownie Mary photo was stolen, and shared 32,000 times, sans permission on Facebook and Instagram. Oh, and the thief removed my copyright and name. Still don't have my poetry set organized. I need to do it ASAP because I won't have a printer after tomorrow. Then, I need to nail down some airline tickets, and also knock out two pieces of art in the next few days for an upcoming art show. Things are going too fast. Where’s Alice? said the Rabbit. It’s later than you think. Now if only I got paid some actual money for all this work. Or my Brownie Mary photo.

On the ambling gait of horses

About 20 to 30 breeds of modern horses carry what is referred to as a "gatekeeper" gene which produces gaited pacers, or amblers—a trait highly prized during the Middle Ages. The jennet and palfrey were considered prized amblers, noted for their smooth rides. Good for traveling long distances.

 

Medieval ambling palfrey. Folio 8r of an Apocalypse. British Museum—Wiki

If you've ever ridden a horse any distance at spanking diagonal-legged trot, it's a jarring staccato of a ride that's murder on the spine and the innards. The smooth ambling, or pacing gait, where one foot never leaves the ground, overstepping, and/or front and back legs moving, not diagonally, but laterally as one unit on each side, like the four-beat walk, but much faster—softens the blow, so to speak. 

Ambling is like having a horse with good shocks and extra speed gears. Think four on the floor, plus two or three extra overdrive gears in car terms. Most horses have three or four gaits: the four-beat walk, the two-beat jog and the faster trot (some horses are unclear on the idea of jog, other can't grok the idea of canter), the three-beat rocking horse canter, and the faster gallop where all four feet leave the ground. Amblers have one or two more gaits similar to a lateral trot. 

Amblers will rarely canter or gallop. Their gallop gear is wonky. Helgar, the Icelandic pony we rode, would begrudgingly gallop, and he preferred trotting to tölting. It was like riding a jackhammer on a knifeblade. But when he tölted, it was like riding on clouds. 

Not all amblers will naturally amble—some need tune-ups. But you can't train a non-ambling horse to amble. Amblers make up for a lack of a working galloping gear (in Icelandic terms), by tölting, or when they really burn rubber with the faster lugskeið or flying paces which is full blast tölting at 30 mph. That's almost as fast as a thoroughbred racehorse. But Icelandic ponies are not the only gaited horses, there are many old or isolated breeds that retain this archaic gene. Where did it come from?

(See Edward Muybridge's photo animated gif of a flying pacer).

During the Middle Ages, there was no such thing as the idea of a modern “breed” though hominids have been cross-breeding plants and animals for eons; selective inbreeding for specific dominant genetic traits is a modern concept. In the past, body “type” was used as a genetic breeding criteria. The Old English word breed comes from bredan which means to "bring young to birth." Not terribly enlightening or specific. The definition of the word breed has changed considerably since the Middle Ages.

During the agricultural revolution of the 18th c., farmer Robert Bakewell of Leicestershire, England, methodically bred superior sheep (Lincoln Longwool), Dishley Longhorn cattle (double the weight of other cattle), and strong workhorses (the Black Cart horse, ancestor of the Shire), by inbreeding livestock for specific traits via artificial selection vs. letting nature take its course, to strengthen and enhance certain traits. His animal husbandry experiments influenced the thinking of Charles Darwin in Origin of Species.

The Celtic horse/pony, with ancient Celtiberian origins, was a probable ancestral carrier of the ambling gene; still present in the surviving indigenous wild horses of Iberia, the Sorraia (a scrawny Guadalquivir marsh horse dubbed Marismeño by Columbus), and other rare breeds including the Garrano, Gallego, Asturcón, Pottok and Losino. (I use the word Iberia loosely vs. Spain and Portugal as the Iberian horses, whose shared ambling DNA traits predate the foundation of those political entities.)

These Iberian wild horses were also the probable ambling ancestors of all the New World gaited horse breeds including the Florida Cracker, Missouri fox trotter (the ambling gait was called the fox trot), Saddlebred, Standardbred, Tennessee Walking Horse, and the Puerto Rican Paso Fino—and the myriad related Latin American ambling breeds. 

In the British Isles, the ambling gene was carried by the extinct Irish hobby, (foundation bloodline of the Connemara pony and the thoroughbred); the Dartmoor, Exmoor, Fell, Highland, and Shetland (but not the Fjord horse), all carry the ambling gene. 

During the early 19th c. like the beleaguered Kerry Bog pony, the tiny Faroe Island pony, a distinct breed related to the Shetland, and the Icelandic pony, was extensively exported to the UK, used as troglodyte pit ponies to haul coal—never to see the light again. The need for pit ponies was so great that almost none were left in the Faroes. 

The term, Irish hobby/hoby has an interesting linguistic lineage, hobin/obann in early Irish, or hobynis in early Scots (the preferred ride of Robert the Bruce), came from the French haubini and morphed into hobbeye; which is cognate with palfrey (Latin, paraveredus, a courier horse, from the Gaulish vorēdos. The German Zelter, or ambler is cognate with Icelandic, tölt.)

And one amang, an Iyrysch man, (he's referring to a hobelar)

Uppone his hoby swyftly ran... —John Barbour, The Brus, 1375

Sweyn Forkbeard on a dappled palfrey.  Life of King Edward the Confessor, 13th c. Wiki

Oddly, two indigenous horse breeds in Northwest India—those weird-cross-eared horses of Marwari or Malani from the Jodhpur region of Rajasthan, and the Kathiawari, a desert war horse of the Gujarat, both have genetic ties to the Mongolian horse (not a pacer), and they are also gaited. Which considerably widens the origin of the ambling gene pool. Northern India, Iberia, Ireland, Iceland.

The native Northern European horses, including the Dartmoor and Exmoor ponies along with the Kerry Bog pony (all have a genetic link to Mongolian horses) are considered to be among the most ancient of breeds, possibly even Neolithic breeds, dating back to the Pleistocene era, along with the Sorraia and Garrano of Iberia, and all carry that gatekeeper gene. Convergent evolution? I think not.

Sadly most nations nearly slaughtered their ancient horse breeds, considering them superfluous and obsolete—especially after WWI, once the combustion engine was developed. Many countries actively slaughtered those horses carrying this rare ancient gene, for dogfood, or for eating the very grass their valuable blooded livestock needed. Those persecuted feral horses that escaped to the fens and bogs of Europe managed to survive, keeping the rare genetic pool alive, but just barely. Once a population gets too low, a genetic bottleneck occurs—which means lost gene variations.

Now here's the mystery: the recessive gatekeeper ambling gene DMRT3 is NOT present in most modern horse breeds, including the venerable Norwegian Fjord Horse breed (which throws a huge spanner into the notion that Icelandic horses and the nearly extinct Faroe ponies (related to the Icelandic horse) are solely descended from fjord horses. (I cannot fathom a chonky fjord draft horse tölting, let alone, traveling to Iceland on a tiny wooden Viking ship).

Pict on an ambling pony, with his carnyx. Bullien Stone, 9th c. Wiki

And yes, you read that right, the Irish Celts inhabited the Faroe Islands as well as Iceland long before the Vikings—and the only reason why the Icelandic pony is called a horse, is that there's no word for pony in Icelandic. Besides, all those island horses were diminutive. Think of Shetlands.

Nor is the recessive pacing gene present in the ancient Przewalski’s horse species. So where did it come from? Mongol horses? Tarpans? Who's on First? Since the ancestor of horses were once a New World species... nah.

The Mongol horse, an archaic breed and foundation stock for all Asian horses, including the Outer Mongolian Tuvan horse, has the most genetic variability of any horse, vs. the extreme bottlenecked Przewalski's horse, a distinctly separate species with extra chromosomes, saved from extinction because of ten horses found in European zoos. (The Botai horse of Kazakhstan may have been a Przewalski's horse, or a hybrid, but it's the earliest reference we have to domestication of the horse— if you consider eating them a form of domestication.)

It is surmised that some wild Mongol horses still exist alongside their more domesticated kin. They are all considered feral or semi-feral, somewhat like the American mustang. But, not all Mongol horses are one homogenous breed; there is the desert horse with big feet, the agile mountain horse, and the Steppe horse—which is used for racing. Has anyone looked at the other Mongol horses for that primitive ambling gene? 

There is some conjecture that the ambling gene might have been inherited from the Eurasian Tarpan, thought to be the original wild horse, Equus ferus ferus. There were two subspecies of tarpan, the forest, and the steppe horse. The Eurasian forest tarpan was the probable ancestor of the European horse of the Pleistocene era, made famous by the paintings on the cave walls of Las Caux, and Altamira. 

Herodotus described pale (dun?) wild steppe horses in what is now the Ukraine in the 5th c. BC. Sadly, the last tarpan, a diminutive grullo with a full falling mane (not a standing mohawk like the Przewalski's horse), and primitive markings, including a dorsal stripe and shoulder stripes, died in a Russian zoo in 1909. The last wild tarpans had been extirpated between 1875 and 1890. And "the last free-ranging mare was accidentally killed during an attempt at capture." (Wiki)

The name "tarpan" or "tarpani" derives from a Turkic language name meaning "wild horse". The Tatars and the Cossacks distinguished the wild horse from the feral horse; the latter was called Takja or Muzin. ... Most studies have been based on two preserved specimens but research has not positively linked the tarpan to Pleistocene or Holocene-era animals.—Wiki

Primitive wild horses still roamed free in Europe and Russia until the 16th century. There were captive wild horses in Russian and Polish zoos ca. 1750s, that were "small and strong, with robust limbs, a large thick head," small eyes, pinned ears, a shaggy dun, or mouse-colored coats with a light belly (primitive pangaré markings), "short dark manes and tails, and a beard." Their whinny was more like a donkey bray. And "They were also absolutely untameable." (Wiki) And no, they weren't wild asses, the European wild ass went extinct during the Pleistocene. 

It seems that the tarpan and Przewalski's horse shared the untameable gene, along with the equally vicious Syrian onager of the Middle East. (Untameable is the main difference between wild and domestic animals—and why zebras can't be domesticated).

So, it's possible the forest tarpan may have carried that ambling gene, but at this point, it's all pure conjecture.

According to Wiki:

In 2012, a DNAstudy found that horses from several gaited and harness racing breeds carried a mutation on the gene DMRT3, which controls the spinal neurological circuits related to limb movement and motion. In 2014, that mutation was found to originate in a single ancestor to all gaited horses....Ambling was described as early as the Hittite writings of Kikkuli. (Kikkuli was a Hurrian charioteer and "master horse trainer of the land of Mitanni.")

Unfortunately the Wiki article does not expand upon that single ancestor to all gaited horses.* But Kikkuli, that master horse trainer, who recorded the presence of amblers on his training regime treatise inscribed on cuneiform tablets. 

Kunga draft hybrids, 'Standard of Ur' mosaic, 3rd m BC, British Museum

While everyone else in the Middle East were using hybrid kunga asses to pull cumbersome war carts, the Hittite charioteers with their superior (Kabarda or Circassian?) war horses, quickly supplanted the kungas, and forged an empire that included Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Northern Iraq. 

The ousted kunga asses were a hybrid between the large Syrian onagers (among the fastest of land mammals—at 40mph, they could easily outrun horses) that were bred with more tractable donkeys. (The hybrid kungas predated the horse-donkey hybrid mule by 1500 years. Imagine what could've happened to warfare advantage if horses and onagers had been crossed). 

So the perhaps the ambling gene arose somewhere in the Middle East. Back to the homeland of the Tarpan. The last known Syrian onager was shot in 1927 in Jordan, and the last captive onager died in a Vienna zoo that same year.

And here's an aside: it seems that ambling, a trait duly noted by the Hittites, would go a long way in ameliorating the origin of those odd amblers of northwestern India. From the Middle East to Iberia is an easy enough connection to understand, but to the bogs of Ireland? I guess we will never know the gene's origin, or why certain isolated horse populations retained the gene, despite the meteoric rise of the modern horse. But we're glad they did.

The oldest known horse sculpture found in the Vogelherd cave, Germany, was carved ca. 32,000 years ago. —Wiki

Kiger mustangs carry rare Iberian Sorraia mtDNA

A chalk drawing on a broken school desk I made for an art show.

Someone posted on Facebook a photo of dun-colored Kiger mustangs, a horse that carries a rare mtDNA recessive dun-color gene from Iberia, and I fell down the Google rabbithole. I noted the phenotype was similar to the endangered Iberian horses related to the Gallego, and Sorraia breeds. The Southeastern Oregon Kiger mustangs were originally flagged as being unusual because of their dun coloring. Instead of shooting the mustangs for dogfood, someone thought to sequence their mDNA. So, being a horse of a different color literally saved a rare genetic pool from extinction.

BLM photo of dun Kiger mustangs in southeastern Oregon

The BLM photos of the Kiger mustangs made me think of the autochthonous, or Neolithic CeltIberian Sorraia (closely related to the Marismeño) horse, also with rare mtDNA markers. Coat coloration was the clue. Horses that are dun colored (a bay, or chestnut dilution gene), or grey-dun grullo (an even rarer black dilution gene—neither roan, nor grey) not only carry a primitive recessive coloration gene, they often have dark faces and points with pangaré markings, body mottling, zebra-striped legs, and dorsal stripes—a primitive dun horse trait similar to those tarpan-like horses represented in paleolithic cave paintings. Their manes and tails are often bi-colored with white guard hairs and black upright manes like that of the feral Polish Konik horse, and the Heck. The wild Przewalski's horse has a solid black upright mane and tail.

Many equines appearing in prehistoric cave paintings such as in Chauvet cave are dun, and several closely related species in the genus Equus show dun characteristics. These include the Przewalski's horse...and an extinct subspecies of horse, the tarpan. —Wiki

Chauvet, Ardèche, France, 31 000 BP —Wiki

Contrary to popular belief, Spanish and Portuguese explorers didn't ship their prized Baroque Andalusian horses to the New World. Instead, they sent primitive native horses on long ocean voyages that lasted two months or more. Hardy and resistant, unlike the valuable blooded horses preferred by the nobility, those diminutive horses captured from the fens and marshes of Portugal, were practically breathatarians, and  could survive the harshest of conditions, and subsist on little food or water.

Paleolithic artwork in Lascaux II, note the horse is pacing, not trotting—Wiki

Because the native ponies weren't valued as blood animals, they also nearly became extinct in both the New and Old Worlds via neglect and distain. The Sorraia was once hunted for food, and the Exmoor ponies of Britain was used for target practice during WWII, they were a source of illegal meat in the cities. During the 1970s, the BLM was infamous for slaughtering entire herds of mustangs for dogfood. And their nearest ancestor, the native American wild horse was probably also hunted to extinction during the Ice Age.

Scanning old negatives of the Napa Poetry Conferences 1981-1986 (photos)

I've added more photos under the Comments section on Facebook. Check it out.

While scanning old negatives of the Napa Poetry Conferences (1981-1986), I didn't realize how profound a sense of community there was with the Napa Poetry Conferences (NPC), a tribe of poets, similar to California Poets in the Schools, that met once a year, and included poets from the Americas, and beyond.

Founder Dave Evans began the NPC with a group of Berkeley poets in 1981, the original series, where no one was ever turned away for lack of money, and the series ran until his death, in 1987, The late John Leggett, who retired from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, developed the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference (NVWC) fiction portion of the workshops in 1986, and the NPC took on its present form. Not the same. That's my uncredited photo on their web page (albeit a terrible copy). I hope to rectify that soon.

I'm still friends with many of the original NPC poets, among them, I treasure my long-term friendships with Donna Hilbert, Florence Weinberger, Kathleen Lynch, Sharon Doubiago, Sandra McPherson, Carolyn Forché, Bob Hass, Robert Pinsky, and others. I just found Joan Maiers on Facebook and I'm thrilled to connect with her after all these years.

I found in my Napa Poetry Conference negatives from 1983, a photo of Susan Herron Sibbet! I didn't realize that I knew her way back then. So many poets are gone, founder Dave Evans, Susan Sibbit, Maggie Meyers, Mary Rudge, Carolyn Kizer, Galway Kinnell. So many writers whose names I've forgotten. Let this scanfest be the beginning of an homage to our extended writing community, to both the living and the dead. In some small way, what I can give back to those who have nurtured me, are these old memories, photos chronicling the past. 

So many people I wish I had kept in touch with: Tess Gallagher, Diane Glancy, Laurie Deusing, Jess River, Cindy Frank, and more.

This is a sneak preview. I’ve scanned all of the 1983 negatives, and am about 2/3 through 1984. Need to clean them up before I post (mostly artifacts, or dust embedded in the negatives). Still to do, 1985....and I’ve only found a few 1982 negatives. Hope they turn up.

If you can figure out a way for me to get funded for doing this work, a grant, a scholarship, a residency, please let me know. Also, I am daunted by how I can present these photos, so many of them. I made a Facebook prototype where I used one photo as a main subject and the comments section to post related photos.

Here is a link to the NPC Bahamas poetry conference on Facebook, it's open to the public. A gathering of poets, Orange Hill, Nassau Island, The Bahamas, 1985. There are many more photos posted as comments below each main photo, which you may not see on a smartphone or tablet unless you click on the comments. You might notice the photo has three comments, that’s three more hidden photos.

— with Dave Evans, Robert Hass, Marcella Taylor, Glenna Luschei, Nathaniel Mackey, Carolyn Forché, Gary Sange, Kris Lauritsen, Sharon Doubiago

See A gathering of poets, Orange Hill, Nassau Island

More poet scans from National Poetry Week: Poetry Flash marathon reading, 1983, Fort Mason. With Gene Ruggles, Herman Berlandt, Mary Rudge. QR Hand, AD Winans, Max Schwartz, Darrell Gauff, Diana Sainz.

Mystery poets, 1980s, early 90s? National Poetry Week. Fort Mason. Herman Berlandt is the only poet I could identify.

A gathering of poets, Orange Hill, Nassau Island, The Bahamas, 1985. )photos)

The Bahamas, 1985 more photos posted as comments below each Facebook photo

A gathering of poets, Orange Hill, Nassau Island, The Bahamas, 1985. There are many more photos posted as comments below each main photo on Facebook (the link is public), which you may not see on a smartphone or tablet unless you actually click on comments. You might notice that a photo has three comments, that’s three more photos embedded in the comments.

I arrived in the archipelago of some 700 atolls and islands spread across 550 miles, a week early to help set up the conference. Dave Evans, founder of the Napa Valley Poetry Conference, was the brainchild and midwife of an exotic adventure into poetry. The cast of poets is pretty extraordinary too. With the underwriting of a famous novelist's wife, we managed to relocate the entire conference from the Napa wine country to the Bahamas. We drove to the tiny airport to welcome the poets. Nearly all the poets were from California, and a few from New York, to attend this first international Bahamas writers' conference.... —from Monster from the Deep

Sharon Doubiago, ? Kristine Lauritsen, ? Nathaniel Mackey, ? Robert Hass, Carolyn Forché, ? Marcella Taylor; Dave Evans,??? me.

I’m so tickled I was able to finally get a clean copy of the group shot. This is where going digital really pays off. I scan the negatives in color @ 3200ppi, to get wider range of greyscale, then reduce the saturation level so that there is only the greyscale band left, no RGB. That's what gives them depth. (The richness and depth of the background makes me all drooley. Also the crosslight on faces. Or the way the presence of light can create the framework for the photo. It's a Vermeer thing.)

The original photo was Tri-X 400 ASA, probably pushed to 800 ASA. I never could get a decent print of it. By digitalizing it, I was able to bring out the details. Something I never managed to do in the darkroom. Ilford glossy paper (vs. matt paper, which had a wider range of greyscale) gave the best overall results but much was lost in the stark contrast between black and white. Paper choice was always a juggling act.

Scanners don't do well with B&W negatives, part of the problem is that the silver bromide left on the film reflects back light to the lens. I'm using an Epson Perfection v550, which has a single lens. I really should use the Epson Perfection v850 scanner with its dual lens system. It handles the reflected light much better. I realize this is all Blah blah blah Ginger to most of you (WTF is she nattering on about?)

For the Bahamas (scans from 1985) (photos)

For the Bahamas. That fragile strand of atolls, jeweled necklace of the sea. We were in the Bahamas in 1985 for a writers' conference, and became friends with many local writers. I hope they are safe, especially Gareth on Cat Island, near Freeport, and Eleuthera, or Cigateo, the birthplace of the Bahamas, home of the Arawak/Taino. To see the related photos posted as comment son Facebook visit my page. I found and scanned the b&w negatives of the poetry conference. I will post them later after I’ve cleaned them up. I'll be posting some of the B&W photos of us soon.

Scored an EpiPen

Epic EpiPen battle story from 2016, updated: I went out and fought all afternoon with the old juniper hedge, more dead than alive, cleaning out the understory, decades of debris. Now I am having trouble breathing and remembering how allergic I am to juniper, and cursing the man who stole my car along with my last expired, but still usable EpiPens in it.

When I tried to replace it, I was told the price was $800 and change, nearly double the insurance value of my car. Talk about sticker-shock, it costs pennies to put together your own kit with a syringe and needle but you can’t buy adrenaline over the counter unless you go to Canada. My last EpiPen cost me $15, I am so pissed off at that cock-eyed Mylan woman who raised the price of adrenaline to the stratosphere. Because she could.

Stop price-gouging the millions of people who need an EpiPen to save their lives if they have a severe allergic reaction. UPDATE: The company’s “solution” in the face of overwhelming public outcry is to offer more coupons. But it has not lowered the price ONE CENT. So keep the pressure up!*sign the petition. Millions of children and adults in the U.S. are at risk of fatal allergic reactions from common occurrences like getting stung by a bee or accidentally consuming peanuts. 

May she one day be in need of an EpiPen and may none be available at any price, because no one can afford one—she who raised the price 800-fold because of nothing other than greed. Meanwhile I'm swigging liquid Benadryl, and taking lots of cold showers, cultivating cold thoughts, but I am steaming mad and I want to kick some shins. But first, I want to be able to breathe normally again.

Update: I now have an EpiPen again, thanks to Jack Glider. I’ve an EpiPen all decked out in a wasp color-themed in a stripy black and yellow case. Was a time when I carried two EpiPens. I once was attacked by an entire hive of enraged paper wasps, my donkey stepped in a gopher hole, where they had their nest hidden, so I’m overly sensitive to stings and insect bites. My favorite part of this updated story with Jack, is that his wife never used hers, but once saved a person’s life with her epic EpiPen. Now that gave me goosebumps. May I never need to use it. Odd how old Facebook memories pop up in such a timely manner.

About those pesky typos

Head's up, since I've been somewhat itinerant, writing bloggy-bits on my iPad has some serious limitations—especially when it comes to editing. I can only see a few lines of what I write at a time and I literally can't access the the bottom halves of my blogposts. But I can read the typos on the finished page  just fine! Please excuse my typos. I literally can't get to them in order to fix them unless I'm on my laptop. In other words, I can’t fix the typos. So, stand down.

Climbing Mt. San Jacinto (photos)

Swimming in the headwaters of San Andreas Creek, on the upper slopes of Mt. San Jacinto, where the San Jacinto and San Andreas faults meet. We wallowed in a pool sheltered by house-sized boulders that created a cave. The water was icy cold, while the ambient air outside about 119°. The gap of sky between the massive boulders created a visual tension that made bathing worrisome.

I once climbed Mt. San Jacinto in the late 1980s. It took us all day to climb the 2nd highest peak in SoCal on what is now called the Cactus to Clouds Trail that begins on the desert floor in Palm Springs, and rises up through granite scree to the summit at 10,834 feet. That's one mother-tough 10,700 ft. climb through five climate zones. The only climb more arduous than Mt. San Jacinto was Mt. Whitney, and that hike took us three days. (Not counting Machu Picchu, that was the mother of all climbs.)

Thought I was gonna die by the time John Oliver Simon and I reached the lodgepole pine timberline. I hardly even remember being on the summit. I remember seeing some sort of bog orchids and corn lilies, but not the summit. John was a stickler for things like that, so I know we reached the summit. I probably tried to die right there. Or take a nap on the geodetic marker.

The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway sure saves a lot of time. But that wasn't an option. We descended down the mountain in near darkness and camped on San Andreas Creek, beneath the native CA fan palms (Washingtonia filfera palms) whose fronds clacked and gurgled like creek waters. And we slept and slept and slept in the oasis. I have no photos to commemorate the event. Only a memory triggered by another memory.

But on this day captured in the photo, the 4th of July, 2007, we merely hiked up the San Andreas Creek until we could go no further. I was hiking in flipflops, and I blasted my knee...but the water was so cold, I never even knew it was injured until we came back down the canyon. Then it swelled up to the size of a basketball. But my wrist, which I had strained from an excessive pruning bout, was fine (note the wrist brace.)

Eons of snowmelt carved a deep gorge in Andreas Canyon. The canyon wall looks like the trunk of the native California Washingtonia fifera fan palm. I felt like a child caught between giant elephant legs. Native California palms are like redwoods, they need to keep their feet cool. Both have an extraordinarily small range and specific micro-climate needs. They favor the fissures caused by the San Andreas fault.

To the Cahuilla Indians, the peak was known as I a kitch (or Aya Kaich), meaning "smooth cliffs." It was the home of Dakush, the meteor and legendary founder of the Cahuilla. Naturalist John Muir wrote of San Jacinto Peak, "The view from San Jacinto is the most sublime spectacle to be found anywhere on this earth!" —Wiki

Marin watersheds

1898 tourist map of Marin replete with trails and creek names.

The creek where I grew up one has many names, and I even wrote a poem about all the name changes. I realize that all those names represent a slices of history. Who came first who came second who came next. Of course the Miwok names are lost. The creek I grew up on, was once called the Arroyo de San Geronimo, which runs from White's Hill/Woodacre to Shafter's/Inkwell where it joins Lagunitas Creek. We called the whole thing from Woodacre to Shafter’s, Lagunitas Creek. But we were wrong.

The headwaters of Lagunitas Creek is Lake Lagunitas on Mt. Tam. All those Marin reservoirs including Kent Lake, are filled by Lagunitas Creek, and its sibling, Carson Creek.

Was a time the old name of Arroyo de San Geronimo Creek was applied all the way to Pt. Reyes Sta. and Tomales Bay. I found it on an old Rancho map.

After Samuel Taylor set up the paper mill, the bit of creek that ran from Shafter's pool to White House Bend was eventually called Papermill Creek, and just to confuse things, also Lagunitas Creek.

A. Van Dorn’s 1860 map of Marin labels the stretch of creek that goes from Woodacre to Pt. Reyes Sta. in its entire length, as Arroyo de San Geronimo. The paper mill is marked on the map but the creek wasn't yet called Papermill Creek. Probably Arroyo de San Geronimo morphed into Papermill...but Lagunitas Creek was one ridge to the west, not in the San Geronimo Valley.

The creek that ran from Woodacre to Shafter's was NOT called Lagunitas Creek though it runs through the town of Lagunitas (more on that later). As kids we called the creek San Geronimo, Creamery, Forest Knolls, Lagunitas, even Papermill Creek, depending upon where we were located....same creek, different names, depending on one's whim.

The map above predates the construction of the reservoirs, and you can see that the long north-south creek following the San Andreas faultline, where Kent, Alpine, Bon Tempe, Phoenix, and Lagunitas are all located, is clearly marked as Lagunitas Creek.

Today's town of Lagunitas didn't yet exist, it was a 1910 subdivision. Some say that the real Lagunitas was where Shafter's RR spur and water tank, along with the Log Cabin were located, at the sharp bend where Arroyo de San Geronimo joins Lagunitas Creek. Lagunitas Canyon had several logging camps, hence the name, Lagunitas. But there’s more to that story because there was also a Lagunitas above Ross. Kent Lake wasn't yet there....

1875 NPCRR picnic and campout at the Shafter's RR spur and water tower at the Inkwell,
where San Geronimo Creek joins the MOUTH of Lagunitas Creek. Note the use of the word "mouth." As in terminus.

Facebook friend, Steve Tognini wrote: Don’t forget that the section from the inkwell to Pt Reyes station was called Daniels creek after it was arroyo San Geronimo and before it was Papermill creek. Also, early on Lagunitas creek in Lagunitas canyon ended at Carson creek and that junction down to the inkwell was called Big Carson. Lagunitas canyon and the community of Lagunitas in that canyon consisted of Lagunitas ranch, Lagunitas dairy, Liberty ranch and resort, Lagunitas gun club, Malliard cabin, Kent cabin, Masons cabin, shafter/Howard sawmill, possibly a Malliard saw mill and the logging community.  It’s this community that voted for Lincoln in 1864. This is also the area where the little lakes existed and where the Lagunitas name originated from. Once the dams pushed this community out the name migrated down into the area it occupies today.

I said, Niice Steve. Yes, my family used the Big Carson name, and though I know where it is, I didn't understand why. Makes more sense now.

Pretty much all of Marin voted for Lincoln.

It seems our concept of where creeks begin and end is on really shaky ground. It sounds like our definition has also shifted. And that there is a huge uneasy conflation of all the Lagunitases into one thing. 

A revelation that Lagunitas Creek spilled into Big Carson creek that ended at Shafters, and another creek name was introduced at that junction. Daniels creek. I guess it didn’t last long before Daniels Creek succumbed to Papermill Creek. Who was Daniels anyway?

I always found it puzzling that some kids called San Geronimo Creek—Papermill Creek—as there was no papermill in the SGV. So renaming the Forest Knolls Lodge Papermill Creek Lodge is a weird misnaming that happened in the 1970s. It was always the FK Lodge, founded in 1907, when I was growing up in the 1960s.

I suspect June Berensmeyer, who, to the consternation of local valley folks, often muddled valley history, is ultimately the source for renaming the Inkwell as a plural entity.

According to my grandmother, the San Geronimo Valley, there were vernal pools from Flanders field and at the Woodacre turnoff, and at Dickson Ranch, and the Dougan/French Ranch, and on the back side of the golf course for starters. Even more pools during my grandmother's time. So we do come by the name fairly.

But I’d bet in Lagunitas Canyon there must have been another string of little lakes where the dams are now.

Steve said I read an article from the magazine Outdoor Monthly, 1875, I think, it’s on the SGV Stewards page, that describes hikers dropping into Lagunitas canyon from above and walking past the “little lakes”. If the name originated in Lagunitas canyon, and I believe it did, then it follows that the little lakes would be in the Lagunitas canyon. Our town of Lagunitas did not exist in the SGV as a place until much later so I feel that likely removes the valley from consideration for the location for the lakes. Pretty evident that names changed and moved from place to place. I think it key that we remember that Lagunitas canyon was the first place that held that name.

I said, Steve Tognini  yes, that story makes sense....except there were also many vernal pools, my granny loved seeing them from the train. And of course, she said that’s how Lagunitas got its name....
Some modern map resources on watersheds, since some people don't know their watersheds, or where their local creeks drain to:

http://www.marinwatersheds.org/resources/maps

Full-sized download, here: 33 megs, 6165x4904 pixels -- which works out to 16x20 inches if it were printed at 300 dpi.

From a Facebook post

VERB AND NOUN

While scanning old negatives

I accidentally reversed one, 

& then when I posted them, 

I was startled by a mirror image

heart made of granite and snow. 

So that's why his smile looked all wrong 

in the photo, because it was reversed.

A stranger was grimacing at me.

Maybe if I had seen the flip side, then,

I might have saved myself some grief.

I literally scaled mountain peaks—

even the heights of Machu Picchu with that man—

it was a short, fierce relationship, 

lasting only a few years, 

but it came with a lifetime sentence. 

Sometimes the sentence is all there is: 

all verb & noun. The temporalness of snow 

and the endurance of granite.

8/13/19 & 9/11/19

Tule elk and eco-justice warriors rant

A half-baked opinión piece posing as journalism published in the Fresno Bee and the Sacramento Bee plays on sentiment and manipulates emotions through half-truths, or half-lies, depending upon whether your cup is half empty, or half full. People will read the article on the culling of a handful of Point Reyes tule elk will just assume it's a well researched story, when in fact, it's an incitement, armed with half-facts and partial truths.

This kind of exploitative journalism is exactly why we were all so concerned when Kevin Lunny's Drake's Bay Oyster Farm (formerly Johnson's Oyster Farm) came under scrutiny by eco-justice warriors, and it snowballed into an imbroglio with the NPS and the GGNRA falsifying bogus scientific reports to prove their claims.

Once DBOF went down for the count, in 2012, we knew it was merely a matter of time when the ranchers would be next. Few people remember that the ranchers are the key reason why there’s even a park in the first place. Not only that, the ranchers were assured that they could preserve their way of life via leases. Looks like there will be a trail of more broken promises ahead.  Kind of like Trump stomping on our national parks. Welcome to the future where missionary zealots from afar, armed with half-truths, and fabrications, are hell-bent on changing our county to fit their ideals.

FWIW, yes there were once tule elk in Marin, BUT these transplanted elk are from Tejon Ranch in SoCal. The native elk also once had predators but we've removed them from the conversation. So if we destroy the dairy ranches—we also kill Stornetta-Clover, and Straus dairies. Ironic in that Albert Staus' mother also founded MALT to preserve the West Marin ranches. She’d be rolling over in her grave.

Just out of curiosity, how many of the eco justice warriors were there to protest the NPS slaughter of Old Man Ottinger’s imported white deer, and fallow deer to make room for the tule elk? When I was a child we used to go out and visit him and all his animals. One time we camped out at Wildcat Beach and there were white bucks in the moonlight. Magical.

See Oystergate

Here’s the article in question.

"Feds plan to kill elk at Point Reyes to protect ranches. Here’s why they might start killing tule elk at Pt. Reyes
New legislation may give the National Park Service authority to kill tule elk so dairy cows can graze at Point Reyes National Seashore.
The majestic tule elk that lock antlers and lazily graze on the hillsides beside the Pacific Ocean are a popular attraction for visitors to Point Reyes National Seashore in Marin County.
There’s just one problem: the elk in an area of the park known as Drakes Beach are eating too much grass, taking feed from the cattle that are grazing the family farms and ranches that have been in business inside the park’s boundaries for decades, well before the park was owned by the federal government.
The feds now plan to shoot a few of the elk each year to reduce the conflict with ranchers — a move that infuriates some environmental groups who’d rather see the cattle operations gone from the park.
On Thursday, the National Park Service opened up its draft environmental documents for 45 days of public comment. According to the documents, the government’s preferred plan is to limit the Drakes Beach herd to 120 adult animals.
If the plan was in place today, that would mean the Park Service would kill around four adult elk, since at the end of 2018, the Drakes Beach herd was made up of an estimated 124 total animals.
But due to the rapidly expanding size of the Drakes Beach herd, which grew to 112 animals in 2017 from 76 in 2014, the Park Service estimates that as many as 10 to 15 adult elk would likely be shot annually, the venison to be donated to local charities.
It wouldn’t be the first time the Park Service has conducted a cull of antlered animals inside the park, outraging the animal rights activists who are a powerful force in the Bay Area.
In 2008, the park hired a wildlife management company to kill a herd of hundreds of nonnative fallow and axis deer that had been living on the park for decades and were competing with the native tule elk.
Opponents put up a “wailing wall” at park headquarters. Around the park and nearby towns, activists hung “wanted” posters featuring a photo of owner of the sharpshooting operation. They also hired helicopters to harass the gunners during their aerial sharpshooting operations.
Point Reyes spokeswoman Melanie Gunn said Thursday that the Park Service wouldn’t need to go to extremes under this plan. Park employees would likely kill a few elk at various times throughout the year, carefully selecting their targets for a proper ratio of males and females to ensure the herd stays viable.
Other alternatives
The Park Service ruled out other alternatives to limit the elk population as being impracticable or unsafe, according to the documents.
The Park Service nixed using contraceptives on the elk or sterilizing them, saying it would be too labor intensive, expensive, the drugs aren’t very effective and handling the animals to administer drugs or perform surgeries would put the elk under dangerous stress.
Moving the elk also is out of the question because some Point Reyes elk are infected with the microbes that cause Johne’s Disease. Because of the risk of infecting other livestock and wildlife, state wildlife authorities wouldn’t allow them to be moved to new habitat outside the park, the documents say.
Bringing in recreational hunters to shoot the elk was deemed too impracticable. Due to safety concerns, the park would have to invest too much staff time and resources to train hunters and conduct a hunt safely, the documents say.
The documents outline a range of other alternatives to address the conflict between elk and livestock, including eliminating the dairies and ranches outright, and Point Reyes spokeswoman Melanie Gunn said the park is open to suggestions during the comment period.
Tule elk are North America’s smallest elk species (though males can top 800 pounds), and are only found in California. Once numbering close to 500,000 animals, they were nearly hunted to extinction during the Gold Rush. Thanks to reintroduction efforts such as the one on Point Reyes, there are now 21 herds totaling 3,800 animals in the Central Coast and the Central Valley.
In the early 2000s, groups of tule elk moved into the farms in the Drakes Beach area after splitting off from another herd that roams the park’s wilderness area. In total, more than 600 elk roam the seashore in three separate groups, whose numbers have steadily climbed since a handful were released to the park in 1978.
A liberal congressional ally
While killing elk to keep ranchers happy outrages environmentalists such as the Center for Biological Diversity, keeping the livestock operations in the park has strong support from the region’s congressman, Rep. Jared Huffman, a top environmental advocate in Congress.
Huffman argues that the ranchers are a key reason why there’s a park at Point Reyes in the first place, preventing that part of the Pacific Coast from being devoured by urban sprawl.
In the 1960s, Congress passed a law that paid the original landowning families $50 million for their properties. The ranchers were allowed to lease them back and keep working their acres.
Currently, two dozen dairy and ranching families have leases on the national seashore and on the adjacent Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which is also managed by the Park Service. In total, agriculture takes up about 28,000 acres – around a third of the federal parkland.
“From the very beginning, Congress talked about this as ‘the pastoral zone,’” Huffman told The Bee last year. “It was always envisioned as this mosaic (of land use), to preserve the character of what was there. It was partially agriculture. It was partially wild lands and wilderness. That’s what parks do. They preserve this.”
Gunn, the Point Reyes spokeswoman, says a final decision is likely to be made early next year, and, barring lawsuits or other challenges, officials could begin shooting the elk before the end of 2020.

Granite heart (photos)

An accident while scanning negatives last night, I reversed one, and when I loaded them onto FB, I was surprised to see the images made a heart of granite and snow. I also realized the reason why John's smile looked all wrong, because it was reversed! It was as if a stranger was grimacing at me.Maybe if I had seen the mirror image, then, I might have saved myself some grief. I literally scaled mountain peaks—even the heights of Machu Picchu—with this man. It was a short, fierce relationship, it lasted only a few years, but came with a lifetime sentence. But sometimes the sentence is all there is: verb and noun. The temporalness of snow and the endurance of granite. We had decided to forego following the trail (we don't need no stinkin' trails) and traversed a narrow bridge from one summit to the next, a "Thank God" ledge no wider than our feet, we inched along the crest of a sheer wall, I was terrified. Even Edwin Drummond had never taken me out on a ledge like this. I nearly fell off that mountain because I forgot to hug the wall with my hips. John reached over and shoved my ass back to the wall. I hugged that wall with my hips for all I was worth. I damned near made love to that blasted rock face and lived to tell the tale. I'm not too sure what happened to my pants. I seem to be wearing only longjohns. Awkward family photo mpment. Desolation Wilderness, near Echo Summit, 1986. Pyramid Peak stands at 9,984′, but soon it will be 10,000'. The Sierra Nevadas are young mountains still growing.

RIP John Oliver Simon. Gone little over a year. I still miss him. (John was Ansel Adams's cousin—scaling mountains was in the bloodline).

Broken homes do not create mass murderers

Broken homes do not create mass murderers, letter to a 2nd cousin who is a Republican

I was raised without a father. Or a mother, for that matter. And I’m hardly intellectually disabled. I don’t feel an overwhelming urge to go out and massacre a bunch of people! Broken homes do not necessarily make criminals or assassins. The shooters are young white males who support the far right, not the far left. And they seem to all be racist. And while you’re painting things in stark generalizations, most liberals, myself included, do not advocate taking guns away from everyone.

But assault rifles do not belong in the hands of the general populace. There should be background checks before someone purchases a gun. There should be gun licenses. The mentally unstable should not be allowed to buy guns. And someone buying a lot of ammo should raise red flags somewhere. Just common sense. Americans make up 4.4% of the world’s population, yet own 42%of the world’s guns? That’s not the second amendment, that’s stockpiling for Armageddon.

Clearly making a generalization that terrorists come from broken homes is far too simple an explanation. Many of these shooters are not from broken homes, and were raised in a traditional households. Of course, the other absurd extreme is that video gaming creates these terrorists. But only in America. Nowhere else....

Time would be better spent by looking at ways to regulate gun control. The root cause is not fatherless sons. But racism seems to be the main motivating factor. Teaching tolerance would be a place to start. Many feel that gun ownership should be like owning a car—with a license, insurance, registration, etc. that’s a start. But how do we even begin get guns out fo the hands of those who are irresponsible, crazy, etc., that’s the real dilemma.