Beth Dean shared this on NextDoor:
Owls. Now that I’ve been working from home I noticed there’s a pair of owls who hang out outside my bedroom window during the day.
One was obscured by leaves so I couldn’t get a good photo but here’s the other one. A good reminder not to use poison for vermin as the owls might ingest it!
(This is published here with permission. Thanks for sharing them, Beth!)
I love that I can walk late at night in Forest Knolls. I’ve always enjoyed these magical (though infrequent walks). Now, with social distancing, they’re better than ever; there’s hardly anyone around.
Last week, I was out a couple of times. The first night was as still and quiet as if someone had turned off the world’s sound. On my way home I saw a dark shape on the sidewalk ahead. At first, it was so still that I thought it was a small abandoned suitcase or something. But as I came closer, it moved, and the light from the street-lamp showed me a raccoon. It looked at me and dived into the roadside shrubs. I went out to the middle of the road to give it enough room. Though I was pleased to see it. With all the precautions people (including us) take with their trashcans, I thought raccoons had abandoned our neighborhood for lack of food.
Another night, the quiet was broken by one of my favorite sounds: a Great Horned Owl up in Sutro Forest. It sounded like a lone owl, and stopped after a few hoots. Later in the year, perhaps I’ll hear the duets of a pair talking to each other.
And the same night, the best sighting of all: a coyote, out on Oak Park Drive near the staircase called Glenhaven Lane. When it saw me, it retreated up the staircase, and then onto the hillside so it could escape into the bushes if I pursued it. I didn’t, of course. I gave it a wide berth, and took a few blurry pictures with my cellphone.
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Some of you may remember when I wrote about our trees being poisoned?
This was the grove on the corner of Christopher and Clarendon, and was itself what was left of a lush dense grove that was cut when the pumphouse was built in 2009 (as shown in the poster visualizing the pump station):
Here’s what it looked like in 2013, when I was concerned about *two trees*!
Well, the trees have all been cut down, I think by UCSF.
There’s no grove between Clarendon and the pumphouse, just a couple of trees left.
These were beautiful old trees – maybe around 125 years old. All that is left are stumps.
Meanwhile, the planned trailhead from Clarendon is being built. It’s going to look *very* different from the charming visualization presented by UCSF.
CLARENDON LOSES ITS CENTURY-OLD TREES
Also gone – the tall trees that lined Clarendon Avenue in front of the Aldea San Miguel UCSF student housing.
I remember a time when you couldn’t even see the fence from the street. When UCSF thinned the vegetation there many years ago, they promised plantings that would conceal the chain link fence. Well, they planted some vines, but the concealment didn’t happen.
The chain-link fence is more prominent than ever.
And across the road, a swath of trees adjacent to the homes on Clarendon have been felled too, I think by SF Rec and Parks (or possibly Sutro Tower, not sure).
Over the last decade, we have lost a lot of the glorious trees that made Forest Knolls a community surrounded by forest. I’m glad I had a chance to see them in their former beauty.
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They’re replacing sewer pipes on Woodhaven, right here in Forest Knolls. If you’re an aficionado of big machines (or have kids who are!), there are plenty.
I took these photos over the last week.
Every day is different and fascinating.
This was today!
Here’s the notice about the Sewer Replacement Project. It’s 5-6 weeks, they said, and started Aug 6, 2018. The first of many, from the sound of it. The big machines may be coming to a street near you!
Of course, it’s a lot of noise and dust and access/ parking limitations for the homes on Woodhaven and nearby, but hopefully it will prevent plumbing problems in future. Like this broken water main from 2009. That wasn’t even a sewer line, which would be more insidious!
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We’ve known for years that coyotes are all around us in Forest Knolls – I wrote about it here when a couple of neighbors reported seeing them. (LINK: Coyotes Among Us)
But this time, neighbor Michelle Lukban got this really neat picture (published here with permission). For everyone who’s been jealous of Bernal Heights coyote pictures, we got ours! [Edited 3/27/17 to correct attribution of picture]
BEING CAREFUL AROUND COYOTES
Janet Kessler, the Jane Goodall of SF’s coyotes, has for many years been observing, photographing, and reporting on our San Francisco coyotes. Her website is at CoyoteYipps.com. She’s also involved with Coyote Coexistence, an organization that helps people and coyotes to co-exist safely.
For guidelines on staying safe – and keeping pets safe – around coyotes, click on this LINK: Coyote Coexistence Guidelines
And here’s a 30-minute video on the subject.
Coyotes are not very concerned about people, and are generally quite shy of them. But they are very interested in dogs. Coyotes are territorial animals, and dogs could be considered interlopers. Also, some dogs chase coyotes, and so coyotes may feel threatened. Often the coyote will remember which dog it was. Don’t let your dog do this. It could be dangerous for both animals. Finally, really small dogs – and cats – may be viewed as prey. This is rare, but it has happened. If you have pets, the video above may be useful.
The moon was rising beside Sutro Tower, behind the eucalyptus forest. I tried for some pictures. I love that digital cameras can actually get something under these conditions! It’s not the best picture, but it’s something. Of course it was much more dramatic and beautiful than this.
The picture below is from a year ago (June 2014, actually). It makes a nice contrast to the night view. I love the way the trees soften the base and contrast with the tower.
Around midnight, it’s usually quiet in Forest Knolls, the only sounds coming from the house itself. Outside, you might hear the wind soughing in the trees and humming in Sutro Tower. But tonight, a bird chirped tentatively in the backyard. At first I thought it was just a songbird disturbed on its perch, or responding to the bright moon.
But it continued, growing louder and insistent. Opening a window to listen, I wondered if a raccoon had caught a bird. It sounded distressed. I could see nothing in the dark, my yard was in shadow.
I ran down to turn on the garden light. And then I saw it – not a bird at all, but a skunk, right up against the back fence in a corner. When I shone the flashlight on it, it emerged from the shrubbery. And then, out came another one. Mating season!
They stuck around for a while, but annoyed by my watching them, they left through a hole under the fence. There was mildly skunky smell. Love was in the air.
The clouds that bring the very welcome rain have an additional benefit: Lovely sunsets. Here’s one from a few days ago.
(If anyone has pictures they’d like to share here, email me at fk94131 at yahoo dot com )
It was such a clear night that we could actually see the stars – and they were brilliant. Orion floated right beside Sutro Tower, reminding me of a quote from Fritz Leiber’s book, ‘Our Lady of Darkness’: “The constellation of Orion was shouldering into his window… its nine brightest stars made an angular, tilted hourglass, challenging the smaller slenderer one made by the nineteen winking red lights of the TV tower… When he’d first seen the tower, he’d thought it worse than grotesque, but now — how strange! — it had become almost as reassuring to him as starry Orion.”
Of course this picture doesn’t do it anything like justice. But for a little point-and-shoot camera, stabilized only by resting it on someone’s car – it’s captured something!
We walked up Crestmont to Christopher. The picture below was from the head of the stairs there. (The staircase is actually called Blairwood Lane, as I discovered when I wrote about them here a few years ago – See The Stairways of Forest Knolls )
Today I’m thankful for our friendly neighborhood with the magnificent and mystical Forest above us, and splendid views only a few minutes’ walk from home.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
We’ve always known it’s a landmark… but look, Sutro Tower is an airmark too!
Recently, I made a trip to Seattle. As the plane took off over San Francisco, a layer of fog covered the city, and I got these cool pictures through the window.
Thanks to Sutro Tower, I knew exactly where we were.
There’s Mount Sutro Forest under there, functioning as a cloud forest and catching the moisture from the fog. And of course, Forest Knolls, enjoying a typical San Francisco summer.
One of the charms of our neighborhood are its stairways – or “lanes.” We’ve written about them before, HERE. Recently, hiker Tony Holiday who blogs at Stairways are Heaven posted about a walk that started with Forest Knolls. His photo essay is partially republished here with permission and minor edits.
PARTIAL SUTRO STAIRWAY WALK by TONY HOLIDAY
San Francisco’s Mount Sutro has several stairways with over 100 steps. The Medical Center Way stairs that ascend from behind the hospital buildings on Parnassus total about 136. Farnsworth Lane: 149. Around on the south, east, and west sides, the Forest Knolls neighborhood has Ashwood (109 steps), Blairwood (337), Glenhaven (167), and the longest, Oakhurst Lane (353-ish).
It’s 17 steps down from Clarendon and a walkway to start.
Ashwood climbs between homes and a school [Clarendon Elementary]…
… and leads up to Warren in Forest Knolls.
That’s the school to the left.
Nearing the top here…
…Looking down from near the top of Ashwood.
At the top of Ashwood Lane, Glenhaven Lane, my next to-do stairway, necessitated a short walk to the east. Here’s Glenhaven in distance at the end of Oak Park Dr.
It’s a garden by the steps.
Glenhaven climbs to Christopher & Crestmont.
Here’s Sutro Tower viewed from Glenhaven Lane.
At the top of Glenhaven, I was planning to descend Blairwood Lane from its top at Crestmont. However, before reaching this, I got distracted by the rough dirt trailhead from Christopher & Crestmont and went up into Sutro Forest .
[You can see the rest of Tony’s hike – and more photographs – on his blog, HERE.]
The moon shines bright, which isn’t so usual in San Francisco. Very often, we have fog instead. It’s moody and wonderful but doesn’t give a clear look at the moon. Tonight’s clear (if you’re still up, take a look!)
I couldn’t help pulling out my camera. It’s a little Canon point-and-shoot, maybe just a notch above an iPhone in ability, and it doesn’t much like low light conditions. In fact, my late lamented Nikon Coolpix did a better job with moon pictures. Like this one, from April 2010.
I even learned to get full-moon pictures with that (point it at the moon, make sure there’s nothing else in the field, and – for some reason – set it to flash).
This camera doesn’t do it. Here’s what I got tonight.
It was the more galling because binoculars that show the moon beautifully, down to the Mare Imbrium and the Crater Copernicus. So it was frustrating not to even get the markings one sees with the naked eye.
Until I tried taking a photograph through the binoculars. I lined up the camera lens and the eyepiece (which matched pretty well in size), focused and clicked. Here it is – not a sharp brilliant shot like those on Flickr, but probably the best moon picture I’ve gotten so far. I’m pleased. I think it’s okay for a PAS camera without an actual telephoto lens.
A few days ago, I posted a photo of a painting someone had mounted on their fence. And soon after, neighbor Nola sent a message on Facebook saying that by the time I posted the photo here, the original picture had been vandalized. Today, I went to have a look – and sure enough, someone had scrawled glasses and a Hitlerian mustache and forelock on it in runny paint.
I’m sad. Why would someone do this? (Unless it was the artist himself doing a Marcel DuChamp tribute.)
Here’s the original:
The other night, going for a walk, I was intrigued to see this picture on a neighbor’s fence. Since it was dark, my photos didn’t come out well, with a splotchy white reflection from the flash. But a couple of days ago, I actually made it during the day.
It’s a rather dramatic painting, with something deleted and the artist’s signature: Richard Vejmola, dated 1/8/14. Wonder who the baby is?
Thanks, whoever put it up – It’s a quirky addition to our beautiful neighborhood.
So I recently posted here about how one bungee cord was not enough to prevent raccoons from getting into the trashcans… it took two per trashcan. That worked well.
Or so I thought. I was out of town recently when I got this message: “Double bungees are no match for these strong clever critters!“
Yowch. See this photograph? That’s what accompanied the message.
Maybe the black bin had overflowed and some of the garbage was left on the side in vulnerable garbage bags?
Nope. Here’s another picture. The raccoons had managed to push the bungee cord out of position, open the corner of the can, get in, and drag out the contents.
So we’re developing new solutions. (The easiest would be to put it in the garage until Garbage Morning, but with two cars and three garbage cans, that doesn’t work.)
Until we do, we’ve invested in a box of disposable rubber gloves for clean-up. And maybe we’ll add more bungee cords.
Stay tuned, and if you’re losing (or winning!) the Bandit Battle, I’d love to publish your experiences and photographs. Email at fk94131 at yahoo.com or leave a comment here. (Comments are moderated, so it may take a day or two to come through.)
Michaela Byrne, who lives in our neighborhood, sent in this photograph with a lovely tribute to our weather. Her website is at michaelabyrne.wordpress.com
The fog has been rolling in this week in great white sheets, rolling over the hills. My neighborhood has such a tangible relationship with fog. We embrace each other, work into the depths of each other. Fog swirls around our streets and wisps through the corner of our chain link fences. Sunlight fights the buildings to reclaim its hill top territory, and the fog races through the terraces, desperate to flee. Forest Knolls, Crestmont Street, Diamond Heights, Golden Gate Heights, we are the first thing the fog truly touches when it rolls in from the ocean. We provide the surfaces and the touch for mist to coalesce, dropping off the moisture gathered a thousand miles away. We are the islands where blue butterflies still roam, the sanctuaries for coyotes and the smell of eucalyptus dust, foxes and jasmine. And we are also the final resting place of San Franciscan latitude fog.
The bright Noe, Castro, Mission owe these standing hills a debt of gratitude. We pay with our drenched sweaters and drenched in sweat climbing to our ear-popping homes to enjoy a view that fifty percent of the time is erased from sight by fog the color of a blank page, like an erased world, so that those bright districts can have shadows and open air cafes. We are the inhabitants of this cool piece of landscape.
– Michaela Byrne
Some time ago, I’d written about meeting Earl and Connie Martin, original residents of Midtown Terrace. Earl had taken a lot of photographs of Forest Knolls and Midtown Terrace in the 1950s and early 1960s, when they first moved here. When I asked permission to publish them, he kindly invited me over to their home.
That article (with some of his pictures) is here: Historic Forest Knolls Pictures from Earl & Connie Martin, Midtown Terrace Original Residents
Today I was saddened to learn that he passed away last month, soon after my May 2012 interview. My thoughts go out to his family. I was honored and fortunate to meet him.
Edited to Add (July 2012): I was sorry to hear that Earl Martin passed away last month, soon after this interview. I am honored that I had a chance to meet him.
Following the warm response to the 1961 picture of Forest Knolls I posted in Forest Knolls, Then and Now, I called Earl Martin to ask if I could post some more of his pictures here, rather than just linking them. He did better than just give permission: He kindly invited me over for a chat to the Midtown Terrace home he and his wife Connie have shared since 1957. Earl is 91, and Connie is 95, a gracious and engaging couple who were fascinating to talk to. They’re among the original residents who bought in while the homes were still being built.
“We come from manual labor,” Earl said. He was a carpenter when he bought the house, and Connie was an occupational therapist working at a hospital. For mortgage purposes, though, Connie’s income wasn’t considered part of the household income. “Because I had a Union job,” Earl told me, “We could buy this house, and Connie could stay home with the children.” (Those daughters, of course, are all grown up: One is a doctor of optometry, the other a nurse specializing in neo-natal ICU care.)
Connie didn’t stay home very long. First she started teaching at a Sunday School, then preschool two mornings a week, then eventually she became a preschool teacher “until I got too old.”
Earl was an armorer in the USAAF during WWII, stationed in the UK with the “Bluenosed Bastards of Bodney.” (Click HERE for a 3-minute video featuring this airforce group.) Later, he was a carpenter until the 1970s, when a company take-over pushed him into retirement. After that, he worked with machinery, both research and development, and sales and repair. “He’s naturally a Mr Fix-It,” Connie said.
After he finally retired, his father-in-law interested him in the stock market. “I made more investing than I ever did working,” he said.
When they occupied their home, Forest Knolls was a barren building site. “They had heavy machinery out there, building the terraces. Then they planted rye-grass to stabilize it.”
Here are some more of Earl Martin’s photographs. I asked him about permissions: Anyone may reproduce the pictures, but with attribution to him.
In this picture, a few houses have been built…
TRANSFORMATION
I found another cool 20-second snippet of video: It’s an aerial view that shows the transformation from 1938 – when the forest was only about 40-50 years old, but much more extensive – to the neighborhoods there now in 2012.
Click HERE to watch that.
Thanks to the realty website JacksonFuller.com who made it.
MORE INTERESTING PICTURES
And I’ll end with a few more pictures from Earl Martin: Of the newly-built Clarendon School –
and the old golf driving range…
… and one with a bit of the old Sutro Tower – much slimmer than its successor.
Here’s the view across to Mount Davidson, with its forest on the west and the bare East side where Leyland Stanford thought he’d develop housing.
A few residents of Forest Knolls may still remember what it looked like back in 1961 after the hillside was scraped bare and graded and covered with homes, some still under construction. When I happened upon this picture (taken by Earl Martin) on the Western Neighborhoods Project website, I immediately asked them for permission to reproduce it here. Woody La Bounty was kind enough to agree. It was taken at the dedication of the Midtown Terrace Playground, around 1961.
[Edited to Add: For more historic pictures of Forest Knolls and Midtown Terrace, click HERE.]
Here’s what it looks like today. Time and Nature and the green thumbs of residents over fifty years have transformed it from a building site to a green hill. This really looks like Forest Knolls.
Here it is again with some labels… (if you want to send in more, I can edit them in).
And here’s what the building site looked like, only three years earlier. Forest Knolls would be the bit labeled DEVELOPMENT.
A bright pink card from our neighborhood organization appeared in my mail today, thanking me for “making the holidays brighter in our Forest Knolls neighborhood by lighting up your home.”
Yes. Though we decorate for ourselves, we’re really decorating for other people… and in the process, creating a sense of celebration. So I’d like to continue what has become a tradition* here and publish a selection of lights around our neighborhood. (It’s a selection and not comprehensive; I may have missed some homes, and my camera missed some others, giving me only a bright blur…clicking on a picture takes you to a larger version.)
And here’s wishing everyone a wonderful year ahead in 2012. Happy New Year!
[*This website has been around long enough to actually talk of a tradition! This is the third holiday season.)
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FOREST KNOLLS NEIGHBORHOOD 