Family portrait with headless dog, near forbidden Mt. Umhunum, originally uploaded by mslaura.

We went hiking near Mt. Umunhum two weeks ago. It was gorgeous, but slightly spooky.

Mt. Umunhum is the tallest peak in that area of the Santa Cruz Mountains (4th tallest overall), and the most visible from our little slice of the world. It appears to almost hang over Los Gatos, and has a big "box" clearly visible at the top.
You are not allowed to hike to the actual peak. There is an abandoned and crumbling military base there with lots of lead and asbestos contamination. The "box" visible at the top of the mountian is actually a seven story concrete building. Click the photo below to see some outstanding night photos of the base.




The property surrounding the peak is privately owned, and by notoriously hostile individuals who don't take kindly to trespassers. There are even rumors of a secret group of albinos living in the forest nearby.

You can read reports from people who have been to the top and encountered the property owners along the way, and even hear from a few of the property owners themselves in this thread.
I wish they would clean it up, but it will take millions of dollars and the Open Space District doesn't have that kind of cash. Not sure why the military wasn't required to clean it up. Backwards, don't you think?

Anyway, we didn't try to go to the top, we just hiked out to a nearby peak and kept it legal.

Our dog had a head when we started out, but lost it shortly before this photo. Yet another of the mysteries surrounding Mt. Umunhum...

Posted by msLaura at 03:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

OK, I'm not in the Sierras, or in a house at the bottom of some wildfire ravaged canyon, but so far the recent storm system making all the news as the latest "disaster" to strike California has been pretty tame, at least in our neck of the woods.

Yes, the winds have been strong. Yes, there has been a boatload of dihydrogen monoxide falling out of the sky. But eh...it's pretty mild overall. I mean, it's WEATHER, which we usually don't have here in California. Freaks everyone out. But compared to a Noreaster, or a hurricane, or even a tropical storm...this is nothing. We haven't even had a *single* peal of thunder, OK? Julian has been asking excitedly about lightning, and I've got nothing for him. No thunder, no lightning, just rain. We looked out the window and watched the bamboo blow around in the wind on Friday morning. Big whoop.

I've heard people talk about stocking up on food, and taking cash out of the bank. Come on....these are people living in Silicon Valley, for crying out loud. Not some isolated snowbound cabin.

Hell, we need the water. Reservoirs are empty after the drought year we just had. I'm personally glad to see it rain, and the harder the better. I want to see a FAT Sierra snowpack come springtime. I hope all the recent snow up there doesn't melt too fast.

When I was about 9 years old, we lived in the Florida Keys. There was a tropical storm on the way and the wind was REALLY strong outside. Strong enough for me and my brother to play "motorcycle"...we took our bikes down to the end of the street, pushing and straining against the wind with heads down, then turned them around and got on. Once on, the wind was so strong that it pushed us down the street on our bikes as fast as if we were riding motorcycles. No pedaling necessary!

As my bike was racing down the street with the wind, me whooping, the pedals were spinning around wildly. I had on flip-flops (sensible footwear for bicycling in a tropical storm, no?) and at some point the spinning toothed pedal on the right jaggedly tore open my foot, right between my second and third toes. I didn't even notice, what with all the fun. I just noticed that my foot got kind of floppy as I was pushing my bike.

Once I noticed that my foot was torn open, that was another story. I got home FAST, my mom threw me in the tub to try to clean out my wound, and my Dad ended up sewing up my foot in two layers, with lots and lots of stitches. By candlelight.

He's a doctor, so that's not as bad as it sounds. And I even got a numbing shot of Novocain before the stitching, although that injection right in the bloody meat between my toes, in the dark, with a storm howling outside, was pretty freakin' traumatic in itself.

Compared to stuff like THAT, this weekend's storm system is ridiculously puny and uneventful. I'm just hoping that the rain holds out long enough for Julian to wear his rainboots and splash in the puddles a bit.

Posted by msLaura at 12:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My new Solar Fly Trap KICKS ASS, originally uploaded by mslaura.

There must be a hundred flies in there. Jesus Christ, I didn't even know we had that many flies in the neighborhood! Totally gross.

I put in the nasty-smelling yeast bait that's been fermenting in a plastic gallon milk jug for the past week and they went NUTS this morning. They must have called up every relative for miles around to come and check out the new vile smelling brew in the Baker/Hamilton backyard.

I can't even find any flies in the chicken run now. I think they are *all* in the trap.

DIE SUCKERS! YES!

I am fighting this battle on another front too...I put the maggot-hunting gnat larvae in the soil around the run the other night (after Henrietta went to bed, so she wouldn't immediately dig them up and eat them).

So not only am I trapping every adult fly in a mile radius, I am going after their kids too.

Victory is mine, I can smell it.

Posted by msLaura at 02:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Heat wave, originally uploaded by mslaura.

All winter long I thought I was living in Seattle. Forty-five days of rain straight without stopping? Where am I?

Now I believe I've been transported to Baja. Today was supposed to be cooler than the past two days, and I think it is, but right now *in my house* it is 99 degrees F. Julian is napping in a pool of his own sweat. I can barely move. OK, 99 degrees is cooler than 103, but it still sucks.

Yes, we really should turn on the airconditioner, this is insane. But we've had it on for the past two days, and today was supposed to be the beginning of a cooling trend, so figured we should just open every window and door and turn on all the fans and deal.

Until I saw that it's 99 degrees in here. Yeah, I think I'll go turn on the AC now. Or maybe I should just go wake up J and go to the pool.

I picked all the plums off our tree, and I really need to get started making jam with them, but the idea of boiling a large pot of water on the stove for 35 minutes, NEXT to another large pot of bubbling jam for 25 minutes, and having to stand near those two large hot boiling pots on a hot stove billowing steam...not very appealing. I even turned off the stereo today because the receiver almost burned my hand when I touched it.

Thank goodness we have a barbecue with a standalone burner. I've been making all our meals outside lately because it's unbearable to turn on the stove or oven. But even then, it's right next to the chickens' new home under the big sycamore tree, and I don't want them to have to endure any extra heat, poor things.

I can't even imagine what other people are enduring right now. Our house is shaded by big trees and bamboo and very open and well-ventilated. If it's 99 degrees in our house, it must be *well* over 100 in other homes, and I shudder to think about people living in upstairs apartments. The upstairs in our townhouse was an absolute INFERNO on even mildly hot days when we lived there, and our AC in that place was worse than useless. It just blew hot air around. Yikes.

OK, what's the craziest thing ever? I keep seeing joggers go by. Geez, it's over 100 degrees out and blazing sun, I think I'll go for a nice jog right now. Why bother waiting until later when it cools down a bit? Nuts!

Tomorrow we're headed to the beach, where I'm sure it will be lovely. Those refreshing icy Pacific waters are going to feel GREAT.

Posted by msLaura at 04:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We are having a massive heat wave, very unusual for coastal Northern California. It has been unbearably hot for the past two weeks, which is abnormally long for a heat wave. And I'm someone who *likes* heat, too, but this is too hot even for me.

Today it hit 103 degrees. At 11:00am it was 92 degrees inside our house, which is well-shaded by trees, open to the breezes, etc. Not that there have been any breezes lately, which is very unusual as well, since normally it's quite windy in the afternoons here all year round.

Our air conditioner is running full blast right now. It's a good central air conditioner, but it can't get the temperature down under 84 degrees inside. Just too friggin' hot.

This is only the second time we've ever used the air conditioner since we've lived here. It just never got hot enough for me to think about turning it on. As I said, I like it hot. But lately I've felt like my brains were going to melt out my ears. Like I'm going to go crazy if I don't get some cool air moving across my body PRONTO. So on it went. And thank goodness we have it too, because even a few minutes outside right now is too much. I feel like I'm living in Florida again, it's that hot. Humid. Still. Tropical. Airless.

What's even stranger is that after today it's supposed to slowly cool down to a normal 80 degree range, and then possibly even RAIN next week. OK, this is California, people. It does not rain in the summertime here, especially not in August. Believe me, I'll be thrilled to see it, but what the hell?

Posted by msLaura at 04:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I suppose a few people have wondered where I got the name of my mom/baby hiking group, Go Baby Go! Truth be told, I got it from the opener to one of the best movies ever, Russ Meyer's "Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!"

Um, maybe it's not a critically acclaimed movie, but for sheer entertainment value, it can't be beat.

You probably wouldn't think that a quote from this film makes an appropriate name for a mom/baby hiking group, but I find it perfectly appropriate, and most apt, too.

Dang if YouTube doesn't have just about *everything* catalogued and available on their website. I went there on a whim yesterday and bingo...there it was. Instant satisfaction. I was singing the theme song all afternoon while I sewed wraps. "If you want wild livin'..."

Then I had a vision of bringing up the rear on a hike and yelling at slow-moving moms "GO BABY GO! WORK IT ON OUT! HARDER! FASTER! Come on, let's GO!!! WAIL!"

Hahahahahahaha! Whew, I cracked myself up.

Posted by msLaura at 01:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)