A nationwide solidarity event, Hands Across The Sands, will be taking place at local beaches Saturday, 6/26. The attached link provides the opportunities to both participate in local beach events 6/26 and to easily allow constituents to voice their opposition to offshore drilling to their appropriate political servants. Please check the website in coming days as other beaches may be added to the list soon.

http://www.handsacrossthesand.com/

See you on the beach!

Denny Marshall
Modesto

Jazzy listening set and dancing second set to Soul/Funk/Blues with singer, songwriter, producer, musician Fred Ross has toured the world with the legendary funksters Pee Wee Ellis and Fred Wesley (formerly of the James Brown band.)

Fred has also recorded with Aretha Franklin, whose CD went gold, Narada Michael Walden, members of Tower of Power, Santana, Chakra Kahn and The Commodores to name a few. Currently Fred is touring the US and Europe as lead vocalist with Everyday People performing a tribute to the music of Sly & The Family Stone and more.

Memorial Weekend Sunday
May 30, 2010, 4:30, $30
A Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society presentation
Douglas Beach House on Miramar Beach
307 Mirada Road, Half Moon Bay, CA  94019
650 726-4143, www.bachddsoc.org

San Mateo County has closed down two farmworker labor camps housing more than 50 individuals because nitrate levels in their drinking water were six time the federal limit, reports Julia Scott in the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

The families are tenants of "Red" Marchi, their employer and owner of Marchi’s Central Farm. The farm grows 300 acres of Brussels sprouts, leeks and other vegetables in and around Pescadero. [...]

[County health director Dean] Peterson and Marchi say no one is living at either labor camp anymore. But Kerry Lobel, executive director of Pescadero-based community nonprofit group Puente de la Costa Sur, says most families are still there because they have nowhere else to go.

[...]

The Bay Area News Group reported Monday that nitrates have been found in the wells that supply drinking water to more than 2 million Californians over the past 15 years. Yet government regulators have failed to make controlling nitrates a high priority, even as it has become the most common groundwater contaminant in the country.

Nitrates are linked to blue baby syndrome, which cuts off oxygen to essential organs in infants. It can also affect pregnant women and immuno-compromised adults.

Lobel estimated that between five and eight infants are living in both labor camps and possibly some pregnant women as well.

The county has known that the labor camp has a history of nitrate contamination and the farm has a "long history of housing safety violations", reports the County Times.

This is a short summary of a much longer story that should be read in its entirety.

The Coastside Film Society proudly presents a family friendly movie night the way it used to be—featuring live piano music.

Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last (1923)

It’s arguably the most famous image from the silent film era. Harold Lloyd in horn-rimmed glasses and straw hat hanging precariously from a broken clock face.

The film is hilarious with breathtaking stunts. The story is quite simple. Lloyd’s bespectacled character wants to get married but needs money. So he endeavors to win a prize by climbing a skyscraper. At each ledge Lloyd encounters new difficulties including flapping pigeons, windows opening, and mice running through his clothes, and yes, a clock face hanging precariously.

"Where Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton made their stunts look effortless, Lloyd got laughs by making the things he did look nearly impossible…. And because vertigo-inducing camera angles put audiences in the roughly the same spot he was in, they identified big-time." Bob Mondello, All things Considered

When the silent film era ended Lloyd retired and pulled his films from release with no apparent concern that his legend was gradually fading. Now that his granddaughter has started re-releasing his films that may well change.

The film will be accompanied by live music scored and played by pianist Shauna Pickett-Gordon.

Friday May 21, 2010 at 8:00 pm
$6.00 adult donation, $3.00 children
Community United Methodist Church Sanctuary
77 Miramontes & Johnson, Half Moon Bay

More info: www.HMBFilm.org

During Saturday’s Gardens of the South Coast Garden Tour, the will be a a book signing at the Country Roads Antique store, 320 Stage Rd. in Pescadero as follows from 10:00AM-5:00PM 

The book, Plants and Plant Communities of the San Mateo Coast, is a guide to the most common plants found along the San Mateo coast—mainly between Highway 1 and the ocean. It has photographs of over 100 of the plants and photographs and descriptions of the different coastal plant communities where they can be found. 

The book was written by Toni Corelli, a local botanist and author of several books on the plants of San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, and Avis Boutell and Nancy Frost, who saw a need for such a book while working as California State Park volunteers and trying to answer questions from park visitors about the local plants. Working as volunteers, the three authors have surveyed public lands along the entire coast to develop a complete list of the plants that grow here. A plant list included in the book has more than 600 different species, and the list has continued to grow to over 750 species as the authors have continued their work. 

Profits from the sale of the books go the San Mateo Coast Natural History Association (SMCNHA)—a non-profit organization that raises money to help state parks on the San Mateo coast through donations and sales at stores at Año Nuevo, Pigeon Point Light Station, and Half Moon Bay State Beach. Money raised by SMCNHA pay for state park educational programs for young people, the Junior Lifeguard program, volunteer training, educational exhibits and signs, park visitor centers, and state park programs that help preserve biological diversity and cultural integrity. More information on SMCNHA and its work can be found at smcnha.org. 

Our neighbors across the street invited us over the see these beautiful moths in their yard. A little later we received this email. Caterpillar and coccoon photos after the jump.

If you look closely in the second photo, you can see that there are two moths.  Look for 2 sets of antennae.  One moth (male) is larger and has larger antennae.  The other has a larger abdomen (female).  They were mating on our Ceanothus shrubs for at least 12 hours the other day.  We named them Sting and Trudy. 

The adult moths do not fully develop mouths, so they cannot feed.  They die shortly after they mate.  How sad.  The moths are huge, at least 3 inches long.  The larvae (caterpillars) are also huge.  These were 4 inches long and we took pics of them last winter. 

We saw about three of their cocoons sometime after that.  They are also really large.  The caterpillars feed on the Ceanothus and then make cocoons, pupate and become moths.  Who knew?

Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST) is offering a free hike of Rancho Corral de Tierra in Montara on Saturday, May 15. Explore one of the most dramatic landscapes along the San Mateo CoastThe hike is open to the public and will begin promptly at 10:00am. Space is limited, and advance registration is required.

POST President Audrey Rust and Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) Acting General Superintendent Frank Dean will help lead the hike along the lower portions of this majestic 4,262-acre property, currently owned by POST and destined to become the southern gateway into the GGNRA. Learn about Rancho Corral de Tierra’s rich history and extraordinary natural features, including its rare and endangered plants and animals, vital wildlife habitat, critical watershed and valuable agricultural resources.

Protected by POST in 2001, the vast majority of Rancho Corral de Tierra is not yet open to the public and accessible only by requesting a permit from POST. The property is slated to transfer from POST to National Park Service ownership within the next year as an addition to the GGNRA. POST and GGNRA staff will be present at the hike to answer questions about the protection of this magnificent Coastside landscape located just 7 miles south of San Francisco.

Reservations required. Details after the jump.

The Granada Sanitary District closed a deal to buy 6.2 acres on the Burnham Strip in El Granada from the San Mateo County Harbor District for $800,000 on Tuesday afternoon. This is the first step in the district’s plan to build a wet weather storage system under the strip.

The project will locate two large storage pipes under the land, which will act as a buffer system during wet weather, accepting high-than-average sewage flow until it can be routed to the Sewer Authority Midcoastside plant in Half Moon Bay. This will greatly reduce the chances of sewage overflows in wet weather, which have been a problem in the past.  Overflows could result in fines to SAM.

GSD bought the land, and will join with the Montara Water and Sanitary District in building the actual project, according to GSD board member Ric Lohman. The full cost, with land, is estimated at about $2 million. GSD has applied to Congresswoman Anna Eshoo’s office for a stimulus grant of $500,000 for the project.

Once the project is completed, the land can be restored to its current state. But Lohman said he’d like to involve the community in deciding how the land could ultimately be used.

The Harbor District had been listing the property for $1.3 million as a potential development site, but it was less than certain that the county would permit building on the site.