Corraled Black Cattle

Little Lake Valley offers wide swathes of pastureland, but I read recently that the dry winter we've been having has slowed the natural growth of grass on the fields and hillsides. What currently look like putting greens ideally should be full of lush grazing by now. At a season not normally requiring it, ranchers have had to purchase supplemental feed for their herds. It's a clear indication of the fragile balance of nature with local economics. The Willits Action Group is exploring what it would take to revive local grain and legume farming, and have started by investing in small scale storage facilities, and offering shares in the commodities to the local population. If the capacity and demand can be put in place, the our area's own farmers might be willing to fill the void.

Deco in Blue

Moving away from the Craftsman Challenge set forth by Laurie in South Pasadena, this house is a rarity in Willits. Although it's without much of the embellishment associated with Art Deco, this building includes many of the elements that followed on from the post-Craftsman era. Extremely simple and lean in comparison to the woody struts and and natural materials of Craftsman design, and even further removed from the lacy Victorians, the glass brick flanking the front door was a huge leap in visual ideas. Also note the oval curve of the front step overhang. This is located across the street from the Van Hotel, under several big redwood trees. The booklet that told me about Churchill staying at the Van tells me this was constructed on the site of the old Hiram Willits farmstead in 1936. That must have been a shock. The former Willits house was a two-story Victorian dating back to the pioneer's settlement of 1857. Now, in its turn, this house is historic as well.

Winter Bee

Willow catkins are opening up these days, offering plenty of pollen for bees to gather in their leg pouches.

The Preparations

A former industrial site, developed by Little Lake Industries once upon a time, now leased for storage by a horticultural/agricultural supply retailer called Sparetime, was the location for the memorial ceremony. Jeff Smith had died Monday afternoon, and by Tuesday his fire department colleagues launched forward with one of their many professional skills: logistics. Calfire work camp inmates came to move out tons of sacks of fertilizer, etc., along with department and community volunteers, who then cleaned and arranged warehouse spaces, installed temporary toilets, etc. Word went out to schools and churches for tables and chairs, as well as other community networks for staging equipment, food, beverages, waste management, etc. Decisions had to be made quickly about what would happen, who would do what, and where, and when.

With the ready stand-in assistance of other regional fire departments, the Little Lake/Willits crew were all able to participate in the event. None of them wanted to miss honoring their former Chief. A matching ladder truck was brought up from Ukiah to hoist and bear the huge flag, along with the Willits ladder, which was suspended over the entrance to the industrial grounds. Brooktrails fire trucks were positioned at the Main station in case of any alarms.

By the end of the procession from the south end fire station, winding up Highway 101 (Main Street) to the headquarters station, then west to the Little Lake Industries site on Commercial Street, the Percherons had pulled the heavy steamer pump for about a mile, with a couple of inclines, and were dripping with sweat even on this very cool day. Click here to see more photos of these events on my Overflow blog.

Dog Walk

Finally a little rain broke the dry spell on Friday, and while it wasn't enough to contribute to the municipal reserves (less than an inch predicted), at least we are somewhat damp again. But while the sun still shined, people could walk their dogs without much suffering. My camera couldn't resist this recumbent tricycle rider with his gorgeous husky strutting by Recreation Grove.

Birdwatching Horse Watching Bird

Or is it a horsewatching bird watching horse? In either case there's a bird on the fence seen through the barn, and the two could be having a stare-down. (Even if you enlarge the photo, it's hard to see.)

It's easy to imagine that only humans take any pleasure in observing the fauna around us, but I suspect more than a few creatures size each other up, determine the level of threat, watch for patterns of behavior, and might even become amused. Certainly we must be the prime objects of such sport, with the One Who Brings Food garnering a very different reaction than the One Who Walks By or the One Who Shouts. But there's a time for observing, and a time for munching hay.

Deer, Deer, Deer...

Black-tailed deer are very common in our coast ranges, and one of their favorite things to do is cross rural roads at dusk. Smart drivers take blind turns at more moderate speeds in the evenings and nighttime, knowing that to damage a "deer-in-the-headlights"* is to damage your vehicle as well. You can drive past them pretty closely, but if you stop and get out, they "high-tail it" (run away), because you're doing something unexpected.

They can sometimes be seen grazing in the valley pastures alongside horses and cattle, but they mix in a lot of browsing of tender new shrub growth and low hanging tree leaves into their diet as well. Often, an old orchard looks as if someone pruned all the limbs and twigs about five or six feet from the ground, but actually the work is done by deer. In the autumn, they love to eat fallen apples, and rural gardeners need to protect their rosebushes from being completely stripped of leaves.

*This phrase is often used to describe someone staring wide-eyed in confusion in an overwhelming circumstance.

Abundant Lichen

A wooly fleece of lichen clothed a winter-bare stand of hardwood trees just east of town. I thought the horses set off the color of the lichen to great advantage, don't you?

And don't miss this great page of ten things you should know about lichen.

A View More True

The forecasters promised us snow on Sunday, but down in Little Lake Valley we only got drizzles of rain and plenty of gloom. This squirrel perched on the stub of a redwood branch, making chung-chung noises while sheltered by the evergreen canopy high overhead. The flock of birds beyond just waited and endured.

Scroll down here for the Willits forecast from NOAA.

Tippy Toes

I've featured quite a few dogs among the animals on this blog, but I find and photograph more of them than I can reasonably accommodate here, given the scope of what I want to do with Willits Daily Photo. This gal patiently waited outside a downtown shop, without even being tied up. I envy her long, shapely legs, but it wasn't in my genes. I've posted some more canines that I've collected over the past many months, on my Overflow blog.

Today is an indulgence, and I recommend that dog lovers seek out Jilly's Riviera Dogs blog for a wonderful gallery of pooches she finds in her fabulous corner of the world. Jilly, it should be noted, is a world-class judge at the most prestigious dog shows, and conveys her love and respect for them beautifully. While you're in the area, take a look at her spectacular Daily Photos of Monte Carlo, Monaco and Menton, France.

Another dog-lover who often features her beloved Boz, Petrea of Pasadena gave tribute yesterday to the parallel universe they seem to inhabit, gently beside us.

The One that Got Away...

Comfortably past the Thanksgiving holiday, and the nationwide hunger for turkey meat, this wild bird happily scans the ground for its own feast. Turkeys are native to the United States, but I have only spotted them on the local scene in the last decade or so. John James Audubon wrote about his observations back East, in the early 1800s. Apparently, the tasty bird was so successfully introduced to the Old World around the 16th century, that confusion arose over its origins. Europeans gave it the name of the Turks, and the Turks gave it a name meaning "of India" (hindi)!

Okay, it wasn't just one on the hillside along Highway 20. They look a bit like something from Jurassic Park:



All right, so maybe it was more like twenty that got away. This appears to be a flock of gobblers (males), all done with breeding for the year (I read that in the Audubon link):

Forever Lost

With daylight shrinking here in the northern hemisphere, I have little time after work to catch outdoor scenes. I ventured up the Highway 20 vale to find some autumn color, but didn't manage to get the kind of light I wanted. However, in one roadside turn-out, someone had placed this bleached old jaw bone on top of a low fencepost. It's about six inches long, and looks like it was a dog, from the shape of the front and side teeth.

Mendocino county is small enough that the community radio station, KZYX & KZYZ, includes lost pet announcements during much of its broadcast cycle. Sometimes pets just go for a wander, and sometimes they try to follow their owners' cars and trucks into town, but can't keep up. Unimagined hazards lurk for even the hardiest ranch dogs in unfamiliar territory.

Jawbone Jigsaw Puzzle

Pink Puppy

Sometimes, when times are tough and you don't know what to do or where to turn, you just have to hope someone will give you a coat and keep an eye out on things.

Lovely Surprises

Some readers of this blog may recall a post I did in August, where I finally scrambled after a horse and rider who I very often saw on weekends downtown, and was able to photograph a few times on its steady trek through our fair summer streets. Yet, the photo I really had in mind still eluded me.

It would be through the window of Ardella's Downtown Diner, as I had seen it so many times before, but passing too quickly to turn on the camera, frame the shot, hold still, and press the button, all in time for it to be directly opposite from me at the dining counter. I had told the diner owners, who had told the staff, what my vision entailed. So for months, they would share a chuckle every time the horse went by and I wasn't there, or even better, after I had just left. But I blogged what I got, and had pretty much forgotten about it.

Then, on a recent Sunday, I had finished my late breakfast and lingered over coffee even as the "Closed" sign was turned, and the table settings put away. The boss always keeps everything sparkling clean, and I suddenly noticed the interesting effect of the lights reflected on the black granite she had just wiped down. She has gotten used to me taking pictures of my food, or other people's food (yes, I ask first... mostly), so it was unremarkable that I was once again taking more pictures inside her establishment. The waitresses were tallying up their tickets and counting their tips and catching their final meals before heading home.

And then, like a miracle, the horse appeared, and I was ready. Completely unplanned, but there it was. We probably gasped, and said a few disbelieving "Nooooh"s. And as if to give me even more time, the horse balked as it started to pass, so the rider had to turn it back out of view before insisting that it proceed back to the south past our window. I snapped her riding away, thinking that would be as good a view as would be coming. But as she came back around, I tracked her progress with my viewfinder, saw her appear in the targeted window, and pressed the shutter button.

"I got it," I said. "I think I got it."

I never know for sure with any of my pictures if they turned out well on the spot, because I can't really make out the quality of the focus on the tiny screen on the camera. So the true test would be how it would look on my computer screen. I paid my tab, and hurried home.

The problem with pictures that are imagined is they usually can't be created by an amateur like me. The contrasting light between the outdoors and the indoors leaves you sacrificing one for the other, or compromising both. I could see that I got the shot, but realized the horse and rider didn't loom quite as large as I thought they would, and the signs and back window reflections interfered more than I anticipated, and the background was all overexposed. But when I looked at the photo before me, I adored it. Not for what was outside, but for what I wasn't even paying attention to on the inside. Not only had they cheered me on, but some of the staff were right there in my picture frame! Completely absorbed in the culmination of my quest, I was oblivious as they looked on in wonder, knowing how much I had wanted that moment! Their faces tell the story. That's why I love this shot.



Hi, my name's Elaine, and I'm a City Daily Photo Blogger. This is my town.

Some Close, Some Distant: Half a Year Done

Half a year has passed on Willits Daily Photo, with a mix of details and wider vistas. Like these friendly but silent cattle pictured here, more folks seem to be watching what goes on here than when I started out. In the beginning, I tried to keep my descriptions to a minimum, just wanting the snapshots to stand on their own. I thought this would just be my secret little "thing" to do. But as I began visiting some of the other City Daily Photo Blogs, the pleasures of interacting revealed themselves.

My special thanks today go to some of my first comment-leaving visitors. Jana of Susanville started her City Daily Photo Blog around the same time I did, and it was nice to hear from someone in another small northern California town, but she developed computer challenges, and doesn't seem to blog any more. Benjamin Madison of Victoria, Canada has been an encouraging spirit from very early on, and because our blogs started within days of each other, I consider him my Blog Brother. His photography is really not to be missed, and I am humbled by his kindness. A couple of Kiwis were quick to make me feel welcome; Sakiwi of Hamilton, and Ben of Nelson. They also served to show how unlimited the geography of a blog audience can be. And here I thought the interest in Willits would be limited to the few people in Willits who know me. True to his spirit as the Ambassador of Blogging, Abraham Lincoln (yes, related to that president) came around with generous comments for this new kid on the block. He struggles with the pain of arthritis, yet his comments grace City Daily Photo Blogs the world over, and like everyone, I welcomed his kind notice. Gerald England, of Hyde, England, was also quick to come by and notify me that he was including me in his vast archives of daily photo bloggers old and new. Someone mysteriously named iBlowfish stopped by with good wishes, and when I followed his profile to Cleveland, I was blown away by his stylish photography. I'm sad to see he has stopped, even as he was listed as a Blogger of Note by the folks at Blogger.

I am grateful to all visitors to Willits Daily Photo, and I realize many of you don't leave comments, but check back to see new posts once in a while anyway. My little visit counting widgets tell me that I get around 50 or 60 visits a day, most days now. A good quarter of those are probably just me, but still that's more than I expected when I started. We'll see if I can can keep this up for a full year. Thanks again!

Some more pictures of hay are on my Overflow Blog.

Trotting Poodle

I have to interrupt the Miracle Mile series to bring you a photo I just captured yesterday. It is very dear to me, because, much like the girl riding her horse through upper Main Street, I have been hoping against hope, for months, that I could capture this poodle being exercised by his bicycle riding owner. And like the horse, he has always been a moving target; that elusive, obscure object of desire, so to speak. Well, finally, I saw him coming, at close range, my camera out, the light good. I prepared the focus for the spot they would pass through, and bam. I got it. Yay!

I wish you could see this dog in motion, because he has the most beautiful, graceful gait. His owner knows just the right speed that is comfortable, and they can be found perambulating the northern part of town quite regularly. This was out at the Roots of Motive Power work yard, early on their annual show day (more of that later).

Goat Greetings

This blog is a great motivator to get out and explore Little Lake Valley, through all its nooks and crannies, and not just to drive around, but to stop and get out even more. I found a convenient turnout across Holland Lane from a corral of goats. I walked over to take a few pictures of the fair sized herd, and was greeted by a few bleats from among them. They didn't seem particularly alarmed, or even attentive to my presence. But all at once, more than half a dozen of them crouched and evacuated their bowels and bladders. Was this reflexive of feeding anticipation? Or a quirk of goat culture, unknown to me, offered in friendly obeisance? I was downwind. I didn't stay long.

Elusive Sorrel

I have been trying for months to get a good shot of horses being ridden downtown, after someone mentioned they thought that would be unusual to see. I have especially wanted to get a picture of a horse going by the window of Ardella's Diner, and that has become a standing joke, for the many times I've missed it. Well, today when I finished breakfast, and the diner had closed down, I got in my little truck and started away, when Behold!, there was the beautiful sorrel (red) horse and rider I wanted to catch!

The horse always continues at a pretty steady walk, which I discovered is quite the moving target when you have my limited skills. The gal asked me what the photo was for as she passed by, but then she explained "He doesn't stop for anyone...." So I answered her question as she rode away. "It's for my Blaaaaaaahg! My Blaaaaaaahg!" I hollered over the sound of passing traffic, as I watched her and her horse shrinking into the distance. So I didn't get the name of the horse or the rider. I could not decide which shot to put up front here, but ultimately this one made it to Daily Photo because it shows Highway 101/Main Street at its most starkly urban self, contrasted with the horse. The other contenders are in my Overflow. And yes, for the Animoto fans, the Sorrel in Animoto.

Lamb On a Stroll

That's right, fleece on a leash. I'm a glutton for mutton, but I wonder if this means this pet has a name. I see a week of chicken dinners ahead of me.

In Residence Since 1916

I wandered down a street I had not explored since starting Willits Daily Photo, and found an unexpected sight. The strip of white trim-board over the front steps says members of the same family have been in residence there since 1916. Modern American life is usually full of grown children moving away to jobs in other towns, and even other states. Somehow this family has maintained a steady economic foothold for at least one offspring in each generation over the last century. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you may even see somebody on the porch.