20070927 Live at The Buttonwood Cafe

20070927 Live at The Buttonwood Cafe

Another memory from the Everglades in tribute to Ranger Steve.

The Buttonwood Café is the place to be when Steve and Amelia perform. The Two of Us, as they are known professionally, pack ‘em in, especially the park service staff. As the Buckleys, the Haapalas, the Van Adders, the Toths, the Temples, Laura and Steve, Tony and Tina, Ellen, Craig, law enfocement, and the current year’s campground and interpretive staffs arrive, one round plastic table is shoved against another and another in string of pearls that esses from one end of the room to the other. The pizza is lousy but hey, who can mess up a pitcher of beer? Really, it is all about community.

The Flamingo community includes not just staff, but many, many visitors who come year after year. We come to be a part of the rhythms and the harmonies, not just in the music but in the place. The waters of the Everglades, the lungs as Steve calls them, breathing in and out with the wet and dry seasons. The tides coming in and out of Florida Bay, marching under orders from the moon unless countermanded by the wind. The wind clocking around from the southeast to the south to the west and eventually to the north as a January cold front passes, bringing chill and maybe even a freeze until it eventually continues on around to the southeast once again. The white ibis flying out from Eco Pond to the mangrove islands every evening at dusk. Wading birds in general moving from one forage opportunity to the next, currently using the one due to expire first like the oldest milk in the refrigerator [another Steveism]. The mosquito populations rising from pleasant to bearable to panic then thankfully falling. Through songs like "Seminole Wind" and "Big Yellow Taxi", The Two of Us challenge us, as members of the Everglades community, to live in harmony with these rhythms.

Steve and Amelia are always up for ‘open mike’. Anyone who has talent can join in on a song or two. Allyson plays flute, Jeanette plays violin, Chris beats the drums, and various other people sit in from time to time. Donna regularly sings "Down in the Everglades". Sundae laments "Desperado". Rob reminds us, "There ain’t no bears in Bear Lake!"

Okay, so I’m not musical. I’ve owned a guitar for nine years and can play three songs, none of them well. I can play six or seven chords, correctly about forty percent of the time. C, D, and G I pretty much have down. B7 is stretching it. I harbor no delusions of rock stardom.

In addition to a lack of musicianship, I’m not a singer. At least not a singer anyone wants to listen to and not a singer who wants anyone to hear me. Still, I love to sing. For years my only regular public performance was to shout "Ring!" at the appropriate moment during Steve and Amelia’s rendition of "Oh Bla Di Oh Bla Da". After years of repressed desire, I finally decided to act. If CJ has the guts to get up and wail Neil Young’s "Pocahontas", then I guess I can do something too. After all, I’m still working on my fifteen minutes of fame.

At the time, and geez, this must have been early 2004, Oh Brother Where Are Thou? was popular. CJ felt he could sing "Man of Constant Sorrow" but needed backup. In addition to backing up CJ, I would sing lead on "In the Jailhouse Now." Our work with Steve was minimal, but Steve needed little. "Just give me the chords." CJ and I mostly rehearsed by singing to the recordings in the Taj. Rob Temple, captain of the schooner Windfall, joined in with no rehearsal at all.

The night of the show CJ and I were both nervous. Like Steve I don’t drink, so Rob and CJ’s choice of sedative was unavailable. I just visualized. One comfort was that I knew Steve would be there as a steadying hand, playing the right chords. Another was that by the time we sang at the end of the show, the audience consisted of mostly friends who would applaud no matter how bad I was.

And bad I was. And bad into a microphone! Still, I did it. I sang backup. "In constant sorroooow, for all his days." I sang lead. "I told him onst or twice, to stop playin’ cards and a shootin’ dice…" I even yodeled.

Predictably, my friends clapped and cheered. They did so not because I was good, but because I did it. I consider this night one of the cherished accomplishments of my life, right up there with running two marathons and keeping my sanity. The Two of Us made it possible.

20070927 Idle Time

20070927 Idle Time

Generally I accept responsibility for myself and my actions. I pay my bills and taxes, don’t file nuisance lawsuits, and as a government employee give the government its money’s worth.

That same government fires me twice a year.

Everglades National Park is happy to see me in November but in April they force a good-bye.


Katmai National Park welcomes me in early May. Four and one-half months later the party is over. This means that I have no income for about three months of each year. No earned income, anyway. I am paid for not working. I am on the dole.


How do I justify taking money I did not earn? The park service needs seasonal workers. The seasonal nature of visitation dictates the seasonal nature of the work. For some positions, especially in maintenance, local candidates could fill positions. It is my opinion that not enough qualified local residents could be found to fill interpreter positions. Thus people travel from all over this vast land to work the relatively low-paying 4-6 month jobs as naturalists and historians, tour guides and trip planners in our nation’s national parks.

The government that hires these people does not pay transportation costs. An interpreter from, say, Michigan, must come out of pocket for travel to south Florida to work in the Everglades. In 2007 I paid my way from Florida to Alaska, recently paid to fly myself and my belongings from remote King Salmon, Alaska to Oakland, and will shortly be paying to drive my truck and small trailer from California to Florida.

No one forces me to move twice a year at no small expense. I choose this lifestyle and I enjoy it. Still, I believe that receiving unemployment compensation between my park service seasons helps me to defray the costs of relocating for the benefit of the Service [and me].

20070925 Day Trip to the Farallon Islands

20070925 Day Trip to the Farallon Islands

Oh Dark Thirty and we have already arrived in San Francisco from Fremont in the East Bay. Our destination, on land anyway, is the Marina District with its well-known Safeway. We are Tina, Ingrid, Sara, Jordan, and Rob [interns at the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge], Tia [my bud and an Environmental Education Specialist at the refuge], and me in my capacity as Refuge Volunteer.

Tia has arranged for me to tag along on an excursion to show the Farallon Islands to the interns and to expose a few teachers to an environmental education program the refuge offers. Not bad, a free trip to an amazing place for birds and marine life. Expertise provided by Joelle Buffa, the refuge manager, Melissa from the Point Reyes Bird Observatory, and Rob [not the intern], a biologist working with birds and living on the southeast island.

I’m told the fall is the best chance of clear warm days in the San Francisco Bay Area, and this day is one of them. You could ask forever and not have better weather for the trip. No clouds could block the sun because no clouds appeared all day. No wind-driven waves could make us lean over the railing because no wind blew. To be sure, the day was warm.

Our trip on the 55; Butchie B would take 3-3 ½ hours, depending on the swell. Immediately after leaving we could see the Golden Gate, really kind of a rust color but what the heck. Poetic license allows it to be precious. For someone like me who likes to take pictures, ideal light shone on the bay side of the span.

After a few minutes heading west, we came across a weather buoy that served as haul out and in-water resting spot for a few California sea lions. As we approached, the sea lions became active and seemed to frolic. Melissa explained that the boat captain, moving in too close to give us a view, forced the sea lions to cease resting. Where have I seen this before? Fishing guides in Katmai? Visitors in every national park where I have worked? I felt a bit guilty even though I was not in charge and had no idea of what the captain would do.

The sea lions would not be the only wildlife on the outbound trip. Harbor porpoises leaped occasionally, but not often enough to set up for a picture. Three humpback whales surfaced for a few minutes. I managed to get pictured of the hump backs but nothing more. Still, wonderful to see and hear them.

Birds on the way out were Brown Pelicans, Western Gulls, Common Murres, a couple of different shearwaters, and Brandt’s Cormorants. Melissa saw a Rhinoceros Auklet that no one else did.

The islands themselves came into view in less than two hours as we made terrific time over the mostly-flat water. Dry, rocky [the word farallon means rocky in Spanish I’m told] and covered with guano, in and of themselves they do not impress. What lives on and around them do.

Over 400 bird species have been recorded here over the years, including sightings of a number of songbirds that have been observed nowhere else in California. At the time of our visit a Gray Catbird was visiting also. Land birds regularly ‘fall out’ here during migration, as they may be tired and disoriented. The aforementioned gulls, murres, cormorants, auklets, and others nest here, though this is not that time of year. Somewhere among the Brandt's Cormorants is a Brown Booby. I think it is just out of view.

Five species of pinniped live here as well. California sea lion, Steller’s sea lion, elephant seal, and a couple of others. While a few female/juvenile elephant seals sunned on shore, the big males were yet to arrive for the fall molt. They should be here soon. Timed with their arrival come the white sharks.

We did not see a shark attack during our visit, but some of the island’s human residents have over the past few days. How do they know? The gulls gather in large numbers over the attack area to feed on scraps and blood. Blood and oil cover a piece of the water. While we were there a cage-dive boat served divers wishing to safely view the big scary fish.

No dock serves the southeast island, where the people are, as the shoreline is completely rocky, is pounded by constant surf, and drops off steeply. While one side of the island has an alternate landing site, generally a crane hoists boats into and out of the water.

To minimize disturbance to the natural residents, the Farallons are off-limits to the general public. Even the US Fish and Wildlife Service limits their visits. Our group had no compelling reason to land so we stayed on the boat. Rob the biologist was shuttled to us via inflatable boat.

As I said, the island are covered with bird guano, not to mention pinniped poop. Not surprising, the droppings produce large numbers of flies. Some of them decided that our boat was a nice place. They plagued us all the way back to the mainland. While not biting, they landed on any exposed skin. What a nuisance!

On the return leg we encountered a giant container ship. Evidently there was some confusion about right of way and we came much too close for my comfort. The captain claimed he had the right of way, but something tells me that, like a big Brown Bear boar meeting a subadult, a ship of this size does pretty much what it wants in an interaction with a boat the size of the Butchie B.

Nearing the entrance to San Francisco Bay we could see a couple of the WWII-era bunkers that at one time housed artillery to protect the harbor. We could also see the city itself, a city I like enough that I would be willing to live in it for a while, nestled under the protective wings of the Golden Gate. What a fine way to end a truly rare day.

20070923 A Greener Part of California

20070923 A Greener Part of California

The bumper stickers tell me I am no longer in generally-conservative Alaska, and not either in also generally-conservative southern California. I am in one of the greener parts of the state, the San Francisco Bay Area. Some of the areas more ecologically-minded citizens, none of whom arrived in an SUV, along with representatives of involved organizations gathered today for a couple of walks to watch birds and to examine ongoing restoration projects along the northern part of San Francisco Bay. I guess to be more precise I should say San Pablo Bay. You can learn more about what is going on by visiting this overview:
http://www.baynature.com/v07n03/v07n03s_flywayhighway.html

or by visiting the websites of some of the partners in the projects:

Bay Nature http://www.baynature.com/home.html
Point Reyes Bird Observatory http://www.prbo.org/
Save the Bay http://www.savesfbay.org/site/pp.asp?c=dgKLLSOwEnH&b=474297
Sonoma Land Trust http://www.sonomalandtrust.org/
U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service http://www.fws.gov/sfbayrefuges/
Your Wetlands http://www.yourwetlands.org/

My friend Tia signed us up for this walk, where I believe I was the only non-local participant. We learned a lot about marsh ecology from Dr. Peter Baye and about birds from Melissa and Missy of the Point Reyes Bird Observatory. On the subject of birds, we watched a peregrine falcon swoop in on shorebirds only to be driven away by a pair of northern harriers! Quite amazing.

Just as amazing is the amount of effort being made to preserve/restore wetlands around the gigantic San Francisco Bay. As I mentioned in an earlier post, this is an area with skyrocketing land values that could be developed for beaucoup bucks. Yet people are organizing to save parts of it from death by bulldozer and bring back to life other parts killed by valves and levees. Essentially, they work to trade one green for another. There is hope.