Tag Archives: San Jose

August 5, 2008 · 5:40 pm

Morning Sun Termites

Some months ago, I saw some black stuff on the white lid of my washing machine. I brushed it off but it was back the next day. Eventually, I looked up and saw a little hole in the ceiling. A piece of clear tape looped under the hole soon filled up with black and brown granules. Termite crud!

We had two inspections – by Terminix and Killroy Pest Control (Campbell, CA), resulting in two reports and different recommendations. The Terminix inspector recommended a full-house tenting “just in case”. The Killroy inspector recommended spot treatment because he found just the one infestation. We went with the spot treatment which was much less expensive (and we didn’t have to move out with plants and pets for several days).

Unfortunately, soon after the treatment, I lifted an ornament on the windowsill in the same laundry area and saw under it another little heap of termite crud. I pushed the crud heap away from its center and saw a tiny hole. A new crud pile heaped up above the hole over night. The Killroy inspector was out again this morning and we will have another spot treatment soon.

It is interesting that we had the deck above the laundry room treated for termites about 6 years ago. (We replaced the deck with Trex, so no more problems there.) The Killroy inspector said that termites prefer to infest where the morning sun first shines and, indeed, the laundry room is on the eastern face of our house here in San Jose, California.

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Tagged as insects, San Jose

July 3, 2008 · 12:59 pm

Obsessed Towhee

We have an obsessed California Towhee attacking our car mirrors. A Towhee is a middle sized brown sparrow. For months, we have found our car side mirrors all dirty and bird poop down the door under each mirror. Our Willow Glen neighbor Jamie Lynch has the same problem. He said he saw a Towhee attacking its image in his mirrors and spoke sternly to it. Today, I am working from home and finally caught the crazy little culprit on film:

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Filed under Home & Family, News & Reviews

Tagged as birds, San Jose, Willow Glen

May 20, 2008 · 12:23 pm

Matilija poppy

On June 3, 2005, I wrote about the two matilija poppy plants (Romneya coulteri) going into my garden. Matilija poppies are a Southern California native plant that can grow to eight feet tall. Matilija is probably a Chumash Indian word but many people pronounce it as if it was Spanish. The flowers look like big fried eggs balanced on top of long grey-green stems. Matilija poppies are mostly grown from cuttings and, once established, can take over large areas. I have dedicated a whole section of our river bank to matilija poppy colonization.

One of my 2005 poppies died in its first year but the second is strong and now in full bloom. When I was taking photos of the flowers, I caught a bonus image of a yellow butterfly pretending to be a poppy leaf.

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Tagged as garden, San Jose, Willow Glen

May 5, 2008 · 6:08 pm

Caboose Work Update

Last weekend, John was wearing his OpenSolaris Governing Board hat at the 2nd OpenSolaris Developer Summit on the University of California at Santa Cruz campus. Today, he is at the CommunityOne event at The Moscone Center in San Francisco and JavaOne starts tomorrow, also at Moscone.

So, I have been gardening but we haven’t gotten much done on WP668, our backyard caboose. However, four caboose projects which depend on other people’s work are creeping toward completion:

The metal roof should be installed on within a week – I am waiting for the
exact date to be set.
I ordered the Western Pacific Feather River Route replacement decal today
(from the Western Pacific Railroad Museum in Portola, they had extras). The metal
plate on which the decal will go is is 23-1/2″ tall by 25-1/2″ wide.
The new subfloor and linoleum go in on 19-20 May.
Vince Taylor may have the stained glass panels done this month. He came by on Saturday to show me the scale drawings and more glass samples. He would have been done sooner but had a big show at Filoli which changed his schedule.

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Filed under Caboose Project and Other Trains

Tagged as garden, John, San Francisco, San Jose, WP668

April 29, 2008 · 4:12 pm

Cottonwood Fairy Fuzz

The female Cottonwood polar trees along the Guadalupe River behind our house are now filling the air with fuzzy seeds. Sometimes when the wind blows, it looks like a snow storm or a great invasion of tiny white fairies. We know where all of the spider webs are on the house, garden, and our backyard caboose, WP668, because they are full of cottonwood seeds. This happens every year but the volume of seeds is still awesome. Some photos:

Windowsill with seeds

Seeds in window web

Seeds in caboose web

Seeds in Aloe Web

Seeds in cactus web

Seeds on geranium buds

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Tagged as garden, San Jose, Willow Glen

April 1, 2008 · 12:41 pm

New Fence in Willow Glen

January’s storms blew down the 94′ fence which runs along the side of WP668, our backyard caboose. On the other side of the fence, one of the San Jose community gardens and Guadalupe River embankment land belongs to the Santa Clara Valley Water District. It took me many weeks work, including getting a formal permit document from the SCV Water District, to arrange for a new fence. Last week, it was finally installed. Today, SCV Water District inspected it and found it good.

John and I picked galvanized steel mesh with brown plastic slats for the fence fabric instead of the wood used in the old fence. Not only was a metal and plastic fence less expensive than wood but, while the new fence is not pretty, it is very durable and will never look worse.

During the 3 day installation, we were surprised to find that the fence runs on top of what was once the concrete foundation of a chicken barn. We already knew that our home was on land that was a chicken ranch in the 1920s but we didn’t know just where the barn was until the new fence posts hit concrete. One of the community garden old timers told John that the gardeners there often hit barn concrete. We ended up paying extra for Duran Fencing (San Jose, CA) to pound holes through that foundation. Duran did a good job (and squashed as few of my border plants as possible in the process).

While the fence was down, we got to visit the community garden plots and take pictures of the side of WP668 we don’t usually see from a distance. Photos follow.

Blown down old fence

Old fence gone

John raking debris

Fence line

WP668 caboose

New posts

Wetting new concrete

New posts standing

Rails and Fabric

Unrolling fence fabric

Unrolling new fence

Last fencing roll

New fence!

Community garden

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Tagged as garden, House Work, San Jose, Willow Glen, WP668

March 28, 2008 · 3:56 pm

Certify Your Habitat

My backyard is now a Wildlife Habitat certified by the National Wildlife Federation. I found out about this program from our new neighbor, Linda, who is also an enthusiastic gardener. Linda is delighted to have moved in so close to the Guadalupe River here in San Jose, California. According to Wikipedia, the Guadalupe is the only known salmon spawning river running through a major U.S. downtown area (outside of Anchorage, Alaska). The Guadalupe is not only a river of water and fish but also of ducks, geese, song birds, humming birds, hawks, vultures, racoons, opossums, cats, squirrels (grey, black, and gold), snakes, lizards, Jerusalem crickets, and homeless people. John and I own to the middle of the river along our back property, so providing a wildlife habitat means not messing up what we already have.

To provide certification, the National Wildlife Federation asks that elements from each of the following areas be provided:

- Food Sources. For example: Native plants, seeds, fruits, nuts, berries, nectar
- Water Sources. For example: Birdbath, pond, water garden, stream
- Places for Cover. For example: Thicket, rockpile, birdhouse
- Places to Raise Young. For example: Dense shrubs, vegetation, nesting box, pond
- Sustainable Gardening. For example: Mulch, compost, rain garden, chemical-free fertilizer

Here is my new certificate: