Washed Ashore

My friend Trina and I checked out the Washed Ashore exhibit at the Marine Mammal Center today.

The Washed Ashore community project aims to educate and create awareness about marine debris and plastic pollution through art. Washed Ashore is sponsored by Artula Institute for Arts & Environmental Education whose mission is to provide opportunities to express and teach environmental issues through the arts.

Community members are working together to clean-up our beaches and process the debris into art supplies to construct giant sculptures of the marine creatures most affected by plastic pollution. This has resulted in thousands of pounds of debris cleaned up from Oregon beaches and an educational touring art exhibit to showcase the sculptures.

Meanwhile, we're dreading the arrival of Japan's tsunami garbage in a few years.





















The relatively simple bleached coral reef made from styrofoam looked very real.





There are a half-dozen more pieces on display at the Marine Mammal Center in the Marin Headlands now through October 15. Admission is free. For those of you who don't know about the Marine Mammal Center:

Our mission is to expand knowledge about marine mammals—their health and that of their ocean environment—and to inspire their global conservation. Our core work is the rescue and rehabilitation of sick and injured marine mammals, supported by state-of-the-art animal care and research facilities, a corps of dedicated volunteers, and an engaged community.

Marine mammals are not infrequently found with gross injuries, even gunshots. When the COSCO Busan tanker crashed into the Bay Bridge in 2007 and hemorrhaged fuel into the Bay, oiled birds and animals found around the Bay Area were brought here for rehabilitation. When you come, you can see some of the animals currently under care from an observation deck. This is all located just a few minutes north of Point Bonita Lighthouse, by the way.

Santa Cruz Roadtrip

We got up early today for a little road trip down to Santa Cruz. After breakfast at the 3-Zero Cafe in Half Moon Bay (where, because I spent too much time consuming the news after Proposition 8 passed, I am always a little bit sad in the back of my mind because I know the vile Yes-on-8 people ate dinner there), we stopped in Pescadero to visit Harley Farms, a goat dairy with some petting opportunities.





The gardens are lovely too.



You can buy cheese, honey, olive oil,



or fresh eggs. Guy bought a dozen. We'll have chickens in the suburbs. Yes, yes, yes. I know people have chickens in the City too, but we do not have room in the current garden.

You can have dinner at Harley Farms. They serve it once a month, it costs $150, and reservations fill up a year in advance. They start taking reservations for 2012 this November. Alternatively, you can rent the dining room for ~$3k. Guy suggested that we do it for our 10th anniversary, since we eloped.





Looks like a fun place to dine.



In Santa Cruz, we visited the Arboretum. The garden has taken some big hits in the current economic climate, as gardens tend to do when things aren't going well.



If you live in the Bay Area, or if you ever come visit, won't you please make it a point to come here? Buy a plant or two, or put a few dollars in the iron ranger. Public gardens need your support now more than ever.

UCSC Arboretum has one of the largest public collections of Protaceae outside of South Africa and/or Australia. If you grow proteas, leucospermums, leucadendrons, or grevillea in your garden, or if you admire these beautiful, fascinating plants in other gardens, you have UC Santa Cruz to thank for that. They pioneered efforts to bring these plants in to our horticulture. Today, they had healthy 1-g pots of Banksia marginata, B. spinulosa, B. menziesii, B. baxteri, B. baueri, B. attenuata, and B. lemanniana for sale for $10 each!! I know I hardly ever see Banksia for sale anywhere, and I'll bet you don't either. Think about it.















I couldn't help doing some weeding around this little Mimetes cullatus.



There were a few Protea blooming today. Come Nov-Mar for the big show.



We did a quick drive through the UCSC campus. Lots of new construction since I was a student here, oh, back in the 1980s and 1990s...ahem. The campus' beauty and ardent conservation ethic makes any construction here incredibly problematic. Well, I think it all looked good.

This is Parrington House, my freshman dorm at Cowell College back in 1987.



The Cowell dining hall... oh, the memories!



Note: UCSC is made up of several small colleges to give students that small college feeling along with the benefits of a large research university. I was a Cowell student. There were 8 colleges when in my time, and I don't know how many there are now.

UCSC is a great place to walk. You won't find a lovelier redwood forest anywhere south of Humboldt County. Parking is easy on the weekend. Print out a map to bring with you.





Kresge 327 was one of my favorite classrooms. I had my first quarter of organic chemistry in there, and it changed my life.



Porter College...if these walls could talk. Do not climb the totem pole. That will get you expelled.



The Porter Wave, also called The Flying IUD, like anyone knows what an IUD is anymore.



As a garden-lover, the Porter koi pond is one of my favorite water features.



We had lunch downtown before heading home.





Lots of street musicians.



This is the Abbott Family.



There's a cool art gallery next to Caffe Pergolesi now.



Loved this fountain...



Loved the Millennium Falcon bass guitar...probably wasn't supposed to take a picture of it.



We bought something here. I'll show it to you later after I hang it up in the garden.

And on that note, I'm going to abruptly stop because this blog post is already on the long side...