The intense storms of the past week did a number on the park. As of yesterday there were about 60 trees down. One Monterey pine crashed down on a Tesla as it was driving by; luckily no one was injured. The roads and paths are littered with branches, ribbons of eucalyptus bark, pine cones, leaves and pine needles. The meadows are muddied and in places, flooded.
When I asked a gardener about the storm damage, he seemed unfazed. He said the same thing gardeners told me last year: many of the trees that came down needed to come down. They’ll be replaced and the fallen trees mulched to go back into the park. The circle of life and all that.
The rains make a mess but they also bring the park to life. It’s at its lushest this time of year, with new bursts of color everywhere. The ground is a thick carpet of green —much of it oxalis clover, and new tendrils of English ivy. (I know, the oxalis and ivy are invasives that could choke the park to death, but on a dank, dark winter day it’s hard not to enjoy their hint of spring.) A pack of tall calla lilies wave from a space that I could have sworn was empty just days ago. Mushrooms pop their umbrella caps up overnight. The magnolias are coming into bloom -- did they always bloom this early? — piercing the gray chill with their pink and magenta blossoms.
The storms have dumped enough water into Middle Lake that even though it’s still under construction, water fowl are settling in. On a drizzly morning, I watched a couple of mallards swim around, while a merganser plumbed the lake-to-be for food, diving under and bobbing back up over and over.
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During a lull in the rains on Saturday, I came across a group of birders at Blue Heron Lake, who were gathering for Queers of a Feather -- the name alone made me want to tell you about it. It’s an LGBQT event hosted by the Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society and the Peninsula OpenSpace Trust to “provide a fun opportunity to get out in nature, gain a bird’s eye view of species found locally, and find your flock.”
“It’s a really great morning for songbirds,” said one of the three event facilitators Carolyn Knight. “Right after rain there’s going to be a lot of bugs for them to eat.” As if to prove the point, yellow-rumped warblers and a robin hopped around in the branches of a nearby tree. (I know this only because another of the event facilitators, Mike Atwood, was pointing them out.)
I asked the three facilitators to name their favorite bird. They paused. ”That’s a deep question,” Mike said. The other two agreed.
“Give me some parameters,” said Daniela Sanchez.
“Okay, city birds,” I said.
Their answers were interesting. Carolyn said her favorite was the peregrine falcon. She loved seeing “these fantastic predators living in completely artificial habitats.” Daniela said Stellar jays, because they’re talkative and are amazing mimics. They will mimic a hawk’s cry to protect their territory and scare away other birds from food resources.
“I’m going to go with pigeons,” said Mike. “If you ever look at them up close there’s ridiculous amounts of color variance. They’re deceptively smart. They have fascinating behavor. I think loving the common birds makes you appreciate the everyday even more.”
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There’s nothing like rainy weather to drive home the difference between inside and outside. During the worst of the storms on Saturday night, as wind and water whipped at my windows, I thought about the people I’ve gotten to know who are living outside in the park. On Sunday, I went to check on a few.
C, who I wrote about recently, was huddled in the little shanty he’d built by the lower Great Highway. The high winds the night before had torn off some of the tarps that covered it. Still, he said, “I’m dry. It’s just that I’ve got this little water feature here.” He laughed in a way that wasn’t a laugh and pointed to the river running along the gutter straight through his house.
Ronnie, who’s been living in or around the park for more than 15 years, was standing outside his sagging tent, trying to get a fire going in a beat-up Weber barbecue he’d scavenged somewhere. He has asthma and congestive heart failure and had just come back from his umpteenth trip to the hospital. He still had on the hospital bracelet.
The Rec and Park ranger who does homeless outreach, Amanda Barrows, had long been urging both C and Ronnie to get housing. The string of storms was maybe the final straw. Separately, they each had finally decided it was time to go inside.
They were slated to move into the Monarch Hotel, an SRO downtown that serves as a short-term transition for those on their way to permanent housing. The two, along with Ronnie’s dog, Joi, would be sharing a room.
Barrows was happy that they would be inside. She worried about them a lot. She knew both were not well. She’d seen Ronnie overdose last fall and had performed the CPR that brought him back to life. She was sure they’d be better off in housing.
The two men seemed less sure. C had already tried transitional housing once and left because so many of the residents were OD’ing and dying. He wasn’t sure The Monarch would be any better. Plus, he didn’t want to share a room with Ronnie. “We’ve never been that close. So it’s going to be interesting.”
Ronnie wasn’t convinced the move would even happen, given the many times he felt the system had let him down. “They say, don’t put all the eggs in one basket. Always have alternative planning cause most likely from their track record, they’re gonna disappoint me.” I told him I hoped it worked out.
“I do too, “ he said. “But if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. I ain’t stressing.” He poked at the fire which sputtered and smoked as it began to drizzle again.
The unhoused are often not “seen” and I love the way you see them. The wariness about promises made and not kept is legit. There are simply not enough permanent spaces for the number of unhoused. Plus it’s really hard to go from open park to roofed. And I try to imagine what it would be like to have to have a roommate. Who you don’t particularly like. At his age.