Airplane, leaving me to my own devices
I started writing this on an airplane about to take off. In the time between my outbound flight and return trip, United took advantage of new FCC rules to draft a new policy allowing passengers to...
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Musings on LA, Light Pollution, and Water Management
The city of Los Angeles recently finished replacing all of its streetlights with high-efficiency LED lights. They use less power, last longer, and require less maintenance than even the sodium vapor...
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Lawn Gone
Since speculating idly on replacing roadside and median grass with more drought tolerant landscaping, I’ve started noticing spots around town that have done just that — some of them on my daily...
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California Drought Sim, Water Use, and Preserving Open Space
Researchers simulated a 70-year mega-drought and came up with ways that California could survive without the economy collapsing, emptying out the state, or even abandoning agriculture. We’d have to...
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Exploring the Creek (Two Photos)
It was a late-summer heat wave, and while the picnic itself was spread out in the shade beneath some trees, it was over 100 degrees. Still, a preschooler can’t be terribly interested in his parents’...
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Hanging around the beach after a Halloween storm
Late Halloween night, the first rainstorm of the season blew through town. By morning, it had mostly passed over us, but there were enough clouds around to make things look interesting after I dropped...
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Constructed Wilderness: A Tale of Two Parks
In the last few weeks I’ve visited two “wilderness” parks in the South Bay area near Los Angeles. Both are islands of nature surrounded by suburbs, but they have opposite goals. Madrona Marsh Preserve...
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Glass, Steel, Rails and Wildflowers: A Walk in Manhattan Beach
Lately whenever I take my car in for maintenance, I end up taking the car-free morning away from home as an excuse to walk down to the Manhattan Beach Pier. The last time was right after a Halloween...
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Back to the Marsh (what’s left of it)
At the end of August I returned to the Madrona Marsh Preserve. It’s a fragment of the seasonal wetlands that used to dot the western edge of the Los Angeles basin, just inland from the coastal hills....
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Seasonal Wetlands: Before and After the Summer
Finally put together a before-and-after shot! On the right: May in Madrona Marsh, after winter and spring rains filled up the low-lying areas of the preserve. On the left: Late August in the same...
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Seasons of Madrona Marsh
Last weekend I returned to the Madrona Marsh Preserve to see what our late summer/autumn heat wave had done to the place. The fields of sunflowers I saw in August have gone to seed and dried up, and...
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Winter and a Drought-Friendly Fountain
It’s been a relief to have (relatively) cold weather this winter. Last year I think I wore a sweater once. While the rest of the country was caught in the frozen grip of a meandering polar vortex,...
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Coastal View: Before and After the First Sunset of the Year
Del Cerro Park sits atop a hillside overlooking the Pacific Ocean and, in the distance, Catalina Island off the coast of California. Suburbs surround it on the inland side, but the hills rolling down...
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Back to the Marsh (what’s left of it)
At the end of August I returned to the Madrona Marsh Preserve. It’s a fragment of the seasonal wetlands that used to dot the western edge of the Los Angeles basin, just inland from the coastal hills....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Seasonal Wetlands: Before and After the Summer
Finally put together a before-and-after shot! On the right: May in Madrona Marsh, after winter and spring rains filled up the low-lying areas of the preserve. On the left: Late August in the same...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Seasons of Madrona Marsh
Last weekend I returned to the Madrona Marsh Preserve to see what our late summer/autumn heat wave had done to the place. The fields of sunflowers I saw in August have gone to seed and dried up, and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Winter and a Drought-Friendly Fountain
It’s been a relief to have (relatively) cold weather this winter. Last year I think I wore a sweater once. While the rest of the country was caught in the frozen grip of a meandering polar vortex,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
City Park Going Brown to Go Green
As near as I can tell they’ve stopped watering the grass in the back half of this park. The grass around the edges, near the playground, and near the clubhouse is green but scraggly. I’m not sure how...
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Wildflower Superbloom in the California Desert – Anza-Borrego Spring 2017 Photos
The kiddo had a day off from school in mid-March, so I took a vacation day and we all drove out to the desert to see the spring wildflowers. After the endless suburbia of Los Angeles, northern Orange...
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California Burning
A fire is raging in the hills and canyons of Orange County. It’s nothing compared to the devastation in Northern California, where 160,000 acres have burned, killing 21 people and wiping out whole...
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