The Santa Cruz Sentinel follows a Cabrillo College archeology class digging for artifacts at an excavation site off Whitehouse Canyon Road, north of Año Nuevo State Reserve [map].

What they found was pretty prosaic: stone flakes, broken obsidian spearheads and shell fragments. But they are believed to be artifacts of the local Quiroste tribe from 250 years ago:

The Spanish described a valley with one large house in the middle of the village, spacious enough to fit the entire tribe of 200. The remnants of this house, known as the “round house” or “casa grande” by the Spanish, is the “Holy Grail” for the archaeologists searching the area, Hylkema said.

The Coastside Infant Toddler Center will be holding its annual 45-family yard sale on August 7. Our daughter goes to CITC and it’s a wonderful resource for the coastside, so I’m a big supporter of the event.  Because most of the donors have young kids, it’s a great place to score baby and toddler clothes and toys. They’re collecting donations beginning July 23.

CITC is located at Highway 1 and Redondo Beach Road [map], just south of downtown Half Moon Bay on the west side of the highway. All items must be clean and in good repair; no junk please. Make sure all clothes are washed and on hangers or folded. They’re not looking for old computers or large appliances. For more information, contact Karen Corzine, 650.726.7416.

A California red-legged frog, a federally-recognized threatened species, has been found on the property planned for the Wavecrest Village development. The location seems to be part of the open space area in the current version of the Wavecrest development plan. The frog was found on June 7 by Chris Giorni, a biologist associated with the herpetology department of the California Academy of Sciences.

Photo by Chris Giorni

A california red-legged frog, photographed on the Wavecrest property.

The approximate location of the sighting is circled in red (based on the topographic map), near Smith Field and south of the proposed Wavecrest Village and middle school site.

In 1994, Giorni contracted with San Mateo county Parks & Recreation to survey the coastside for the San Francisco garter snake. He happened to be passing through Half Moon Bay last month and decided the re-visit one of the sites of his earlier survey. He heard what he thought might be a frog, and returned June 7. After a careful search, he was rewarded with a sight of the frog resting in the shade of a coyote bush on the property. The location is marked with a cross on this topographic map. "I haven't been involved in development in Half Moon Bay," says Giorni, "so I didn't know that it might be of so much interest."

Butano Creek has been restored to eliminate flooding near Pescadero and other problems, according to the San Mateo Daily Journal. The restoration required the removal of a man-made bridge and dams built by non-native beavers that were introduced in the 1940s for reasons that remain obscure.

The result has been a 90% reduction in flooding. The Journal doesn’t mention whether the beavers are still around.

If you haven’t pored over Kenneth Adelman’s beautiful photos of the California coastline yet, there’s a new reason to do it. He’s added an amazing trove of 5,000 coastal photos from 1972 and taken on the staggering labor of fixing decrepit old slides and matching them to current photos taken from different perspectives of the same places. The result is miraculous and seemingly what the Web was designed to do. I thank the HMB Review for bringing this update to my attention.

The changes are remarkable. The 1972 photos show a world where half of Montara is empty lots, Princeton has no industrial zone, the McMansion estates at Miramar is empty fields, Half Moon Bay has only begun to sprawl across Highway 1, and there is no Ritz surrounded by its own Ritzy gated community.

The 5th annual Relay For Life is in Pacifica, 11am Saturday, July 31 to 11am Sunday, August 1st, at the Terra Nova High School track. This is a 24 hour community gathering to raise funds for cancer research, education, and patient services.  You can walk as much, as you wish.

Ginny McShane will be walking the track honoring her best friend, Maxine Gonsalves, whom she lost to cancer this year. Cancer survivors will also be walking, along with those battling the disease.  Ginny’s seeking sponsors.

The sound of chainsaws is becoming as common as that of the surf in Montara.

In ones and twos and threes, Montara’s big trees are sprouting yellow signs and disappearing. Our treeline is moving steadily inland and is now mostly past Acacia.  In the last year, we’ve lost about seven huge trees just a block from our house.

I took a camera with me on my walk with the dog today to record some lost trees. I realized I should have shot them when I knew they were doomed so you could see the before and after views. Walking around Montara, taking pictures of these soon-to-be-missing trees also made me realize how ugly and unavoidable our overhead powerlines are. I could’t keep them out of the pictures. Trees may damage these lines, but they also mitigate their visual impact.

I know that there are often reasons for removing these giants. Most of the big cypresses are nearing the end of their projected lives. A couple of years ago, a big cypress landed in our back yard, flattening our trampoline and nearly flattening the afforementioned dog. Our insurance agent told us we should sue our neighbors to get them to cut down the rest of the trees within striking distance. One neighbor had his huge cypress pruned, which should preserve its life.

I’m not sure what Montara will look like when all its big trees are gone.

The Federal Communications Commission is holding a hearing on July 21 at the Monterey Conference Center, 1 Portola Plaza.  The FCC’s Monterey hearing is the only event on the West Coast for members of the public to testify to the FCC on how well local broadcasters are fulfilling their public interest obligations and how the regulatory agency can encourage better service to their communities.

There are a couple of ways for you to participate, either in person or by sending in an evaluation of local news broadcasts. 

Remember those explosives stolen from a bunker near the Crystal Springs Reservoir a few days ago? They were recovered from a storage locker in Hayward late Wednesday. On Thursday, the San Mateo County bomb squad blew them up near Pescadero.  One of our readers just happened to be in the area when this happened:

A photographer was here yesterday from HMB Review to shoot Catherine Peery and myself [Lynne Bowman] for the [Pescadero Visioning] Workshop story. We were going up to the Warheit site, a possible location for affordable housing, and found the usually locked gate open, so drove right in, up the hill toward the microwave tower. At the top of the hill, we were greeted by several cop cars and 3 or 4 Bomb Squad vehicles. Nobody seemed concerned about our being there, but one of the uniformed guys said, yeah, the road was closed today. We did quick u-turns and were outta there.

Back in town, a friend said, “Did you hear the sonic boom?” I said no. Back at home, husband said, “Wow, just before noon, the dog went nuts and came inside, really scared, and got under my desk.”

Then when I saw the NewsAlert this morning about Pescadero being used to blow up that stolen stash of explosives, it all added up. Thought it was interesting that the photog from HMB didn’t bat an eye or a camera shutter. Thought it was interesting nobody in town gets notified of such things. Thought it was interesting they left the gate open for folks like me to wander in.

The Pescadero Municipal Advisory Committee is holding a town-wide planning and visioning workshop to look at the community’s vision of its future, with an emphasis on affordable housing.

The meeting will be Saturday, July 17, from 10 am to 2 pm at the Pescadero IDES Hall on Stage Road. If you’re interested, you’re invited. Bring a potluck dish to share.