Tag Archives: San Jose

April 10, 2006 · 5:40 pm

Gardening Around the Homeless

tree aloe and prickly pear cactus on Guadalupe River San Jose, June 2016

We found that there is a camp of homeless down at the edge of the Guadalupe River on our back property line. Last week, one of them came along the top of the bank carrying a lawn chair when I was pulling weeds nearby. He ignored me and walked down the bank to his waterside tent. This camp is of great concern because the water level can rise quickly and it is very dangerous for them to be so close to the waterline of a deep and fast river.

This weekend, we went down the bank to check out the (uninhabited) camp. We found that they had been digging into the embankment – not good for the structural integrity of an earthwork that keeps hundreds of homes dry – and had built a home with a brick walk, an outhouse over the river, a portable TV with battery, plus lots of bicycles, chairs, and stuff. Our neighbor recognized some of the stuff as having been taken from his property. The homeless have been getting in and out by creating a new trail along the waterline. If they walked on the top of the bank, either we or our dogs would see them.

We and our neighbors have been alternating calling the San Jose Homeless Abatement Metro Unit (which is in charge of illegal homeless camps) and “911” (which is in charge of dangerous homeless behavior and stealing by homeless) every few days for several weeks. We talked with the water company about the damage to the embankment. The police came out twice last month but no one was in the camp so they didn’t do anything. They haven’t come out lately that we know of. The Metro Unit is supposed to “tag” a camp, move them out after 3 days, then clean up the camps once a month. No action yet.

Since we had some tree and dracena trimming to do anyway, we dumped the brush onto the new riverside path in the hope of discouraging foot traffic. After this, I am going to drop all of my prickly pear cactus trimmings down the bank rather than putting them out for the weekly yard waste pickup. I feel badly that these people are homeless but I don’t want them drowning in their sleep or stealing things to furnish their home.

6/9/2016 Update: San Jose has evolved its way of managing the homeless.  The current City of San Jose webpage is called Ending Homelessness which offers a Homeless Helpline (at 408.510.7600) to express concerns for homeless persons or encampments.  Current photos of my prickly barrier:

prickly pear cactus and agave on Guadalupe River San Jose, June 2016

cactus on Guadalupe River San Jose, June 2016

Images Copyright 2016 by Katy Dickinson

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December 22, 2005 · 1:18 pm

Silicon Valley Christmas

Christmas is only a few days away. It is raining and cool but not nearly so stormy as earlier this week. We have been working through our usual list of Christmas activities and events:

  • Advent Lessons and Carols service with tea after at church
  • Shopping in Chinatown
  • Christmas party with the Silicon Valley Lines model train club
  • Baba and grandkids making fruitcake
  • A day at the Dickens Christmas Fair at the Cow Palace
  • Christmas caroling with family and friends on the Cable Car in San Francisco with dinner after (we took the Powell-Hyde line to and from Ghiradelli Square). My Mother said she has been doing this for 50 years!
  • Wrapping and shipping presents to out of town relations and delivering presents to friends and neighbors
  • Finding little stocking stuffers and sneaking them into the stockings hanging from the mantle when no one else is looking
  • Decorating the house, putting up lights outside, buying a Christmas tree, putting lights on the tree and decorating it, setting up the model train line around the base of the tree
  • Christmas services at church

It is good that I am on vacation today so that I have time to do everything! We just finished decorating the tree. There are themes among the ornaments for each member of the family: fish, trains, Shakespeare, frogs, tea cups and tea pots, Hagrid and Norbert (from Harry Potter), cats, knights and ladies, and many other favorites. It is very bright and glittery.

Last night, I went to the ordination of the Rev. Ruth Casipit Paguio at Holy Child church in San Jose. Holy Child is one of the missions I work with in the Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Real. It calls itself the “First Filipino-American Church in Silicon Valley”. Ruth was ordained a Deacon by the Right Reverend Sylvestre Romero and the Right Reverend Bartolome Espartero. Most of the service was in English but some was in Filipino. It was very moving and a powerful and inspiring addition to this Christmas season.

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June 23, 2005 · 3:21 pm

Guadalupe Opossum

We accidently caught a half-grown opossum in our feral cat trap last night. This is the second time we have caught this same guy and he was not happy about it. He caught his jaw in the cage mesh and John had to drive him to the Wildlife Center of Silicon Valley to get detached. They don’t open until 10 a.m. so John actually had to drive there twice. When he released the opossum back on the Guadalupe River bank, the opossum waddled off a few steps, then turned around to glare and hiss angrily at John, then waddled a few more steps and turned to glare and hiss again before disappearing under the dracenas.

John went back to the truck to take out the tarp he had put under the cat trap and found a large, scared alligator lizard hiding in the corner. Apparently, the lizard had been hiding in the tarp before it went into the truck and had been stuck under an angry opossum since then.

Nobody had a good morning: the opossum was mad at being trapped and driven all over, the lizard was frightened by the opossum and the truck, and John was late to work.

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June 22, 2005 · 4:13 pm

Feral Cats on the Guadalupe River

Our yard has recently become the home of a small colony of feral cats. It started with one mostly-white calico female and then of course she had babies… We have always had indoor cats of our own. The residents for many years now are Garbo and Valentino, two grey fur persons whom we love. We adopted them many years ago from a road stop at Donner Pass where they had been abandoned as kittens. Now, dealing with this small furry invasion to our yard has caused a crisis of sorts. The little cat poops on the lawn, cats digging in my flower pots, cat fur on our porch chairs, the white flashes of fur scrambling to get away as I round the corner are all new and unwelcome additions to daily life.

We first called the local San Jose Animal Services and at their recommendation we rented a humane trap. The idea was to catch the kittens so that they could be put up for adoption. We also hoped to catch Mama Cat so that she could be spayed and vaccinated and returned to defend her territory. We have learned a great deal since then!

It turns out that the Guadalupe River may have water in it but it is really a river of cats moving around San Jose. Also, this is kitten season. Also, the animal agencies and societies run out of money at this time of year and there is a 2 week waiting period to fix ferals. (Who ever heard of holding onto a feral cat for 2 weeks to wait for an appointment?) The reality is that if you take kittens in to an agency at this time of year, they almost certainly get killed. There are just too many tame and healthy cats available to adopt.

We have talked with (or tried to contact) many organizations: Pets in Need, Fix Our Ferals, Silicon Valley Friends of Ferals, the Peninsula Humane Society, and Itty Bitty Orphan Kitty Rescue, among others. The most helpful was Itty Bitty Orphan Kitty Rescue and Silicon Valley Friends of Ferals. Some offered good timely advice. Many don’t respond to email or voice mail. We have trapped 5 kittens and 1 adult (not the mother) and taken them in. Yesterday, we drove about 80 miles round trip before work to the only organization we could find that would take feral cats in right away. Most of the kittens were sick and underweight and the adult was too sick to spay – they said she would not survive anesthesia. Probably all are dead now. It is sad and very discouraging.

We still hope to be able to have one or two healthy-and-unfertile feral cats as permanent residents on our bank of the river but this is harder to arrange than we thought.

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June 3, 2005 · 3:10 pm

Gardening on the Guadalupe

After many months of searching, I am excited to have just placed a order with Yamagami’s Nursery for two matilija poppy plants (Romneya coulteri) and two Silk Trees (Albizia julibrissin Durazz. ‘Rosea’). Matilija poppies grow really big. At my old house, I had one that reached seven feet tall every summer. Each grey-green stalk bears large white flowers with yellow centers that look like fried eggs.

We live on the bank of San Jose’s upper Guadalupe River. Our big home improvement project last year was to replace the falling-down wooden embankment wall with a 170 x 4 foot wall made of concrete architectural blocks which look like old stones. For several weeks before Christmas, our yard was invaded by lots of energetic young men with loud radios, shovels, and Bobcat excavators. The resulting wall looks wonderful. It helps keep the Guadalupe out of our house. Better yet, the existing prickly pear cactus, broom, crape myrtles,and oleanders survived the construction.

Once The Wall was done, I had a big new area in my garden. All Spring, I have been planting prostrate rosemary, cotoneaster, various colors of ice plant, lavender, and other hardy plants that like it hot and dry on top of the bank. From the start, I wanted to focus the new plantings around matilija poppies but I had to find some first. These “back of the border” plants are very hard to grow from seed or transplant. Matilija poppies are not a popular nursery item because they require lots of space and they misbehave by sending out invasive runners. Our river embankment is the perfect place.

The silk trees are going into the planting strip between our driveway and our neighbor’s where they will provide a lovely source of shade. They should arrive next week. Hooray!

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