Tarantula Season

Look at this handsome fellow. About the size of my palm, I spotted him crossing the trail about two miles from my house, on the west side of the Diablo foothills. I was gobsmacked; I had never seen a tarantula in the wild before. Aphonopelma iodius are a fairly well-known entity around these parts - many people flock to Mount Diablo in the fall to see the annual tarantula ‘migration.’ This is a misnomer. The spiders do not migrate; the males leave their burrows in order to find a mate. Tom and I (and the kids, and my parents) have been on several tarantula ‘hikes’ which are held every year on the east side of the mountain. We’d seen burrows, we’d seen webs, but never an actual spider.

And then, today - Tom and I saw two (!) on another trail on the west side of the mountain, this time in a canyon before we started heading up a steep section. These two were also males (naturally, because it’s only the males that travel to find mates), but they were younger and smaller than the one I saw a week ago. Tom was just as giddy as I had been when I saw the first one. We really didn’t know that we’d be able to see them in broad daylight, on well-traveled trails.

This annual ‘migration’ used to happen later in October, coinciding nicely with Halloween and giving everyone some seriously spooky vibes. But due to climate change, it’s now happening earlier and earlier each fall, and in fact, now in late summer. I don’t know if our recent heat wave had anything to do with our seeing them so frequently (acting as some sort of trigger, maybe?), or if this is a typical occurrence on these particular trails, and we just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

I wrote my final college paper on our local tarantula population. It was a study design; my imagined study would make a definitive count of the number of female spiders in one particular section of the park. I thought you might be interested to read it, or at least the first third of it, which explains more about the biology and behavior of Aphonopelma iodius, and the conclusion, which discusses the phenomena of earlier mating seasons.

Heat Dome

You know, it’s already been a hot summer here in the Bay Area.

Actually, it’s been a hot summer all over the world, with new records being set all the time. The NOAA’s July report was, frankly, depressing.

And here we are again, on Labor Day weekend, about to experience another heat dome - and this one will create hotter temperatures than we’ve seen in a long time. What’s really bad about this particular event is the length of time it will be present (over a week in some places), and the fact that it won’t cool off overnight.

Southern California has already been baking for days; the Central Valley has been terrible; and it’s only going to get worse for all of us. Usually, the Bay Area tends to experience more moderate temperatures, since we are situated near the lovely cooling effects of the Pacific Ocean. That won’t be true this weekend or next week, unfortunately. And where we live in Walnut Creek, about 20 miles east of San Francisco, it’s generally hotter anyway (the fog rarely reaches us). It’s looks like we’re in for it.

The thing that makes this kind of heat bearable for humans is that it is extremely dry. Don’t get me wrong - we still have to be careful, especially if we’re outdoors (people die all the time hiking in hot California weather, thinking it’s not that bad). But heat plus humidity? That’s when things get really dangerous. Wet-bulb temperatures are deadly for humans. So in many ways, we are very lucky.

But the bad thing about the dryness is that our vegetation is at record low levels of moisture. That means fire. Many new fires have already started, unfortunately.

Most likely there will be more before this heat dome moves off the West Coast.

Due to the heightened risk of fire, most of our regional and local parks have been closed through Labor Day.

This means that everyone is out walking in the neighborhood, on the sidewalks, and on the streets, and most of us are doing it very early. Tom and I certainly got started early, and it wasn’t long before a fire truck passed us, siren blaring. We looked up, all around, at the open space hills that surround our neighborhood. No smoke, thankfully. We noticed that an older couple walking near us did the exact same thing. It wasn’t long before we heard more sirens, and a family with kids who was near us at the time also did the neck-crane. I realized that this has become normal, when you live in the West. It’s hot? Dry? Windy? You hear sirens? The head starts to move, warily eying the sky. It’s a chronic stressor, in late summer and early autumn.

Our family is lucky. We have air conditioning, and as long as the power stays on (another stressor), we’ll be ok. These sorts of times make me think a lot about the folks that aren’t so lucky. And about the folks who are being told to evacuate their homes, due to approaching fire. All we can do is hope that will never happen to us.

The Trickster

Tom and I are having an ongoing discussion regarding some of our observations while hiking. This discussion involves things we see a lot of, and our continuing debate takes two sides (which either one of us takes arbitrarily at any given time), both of which seem probable.

Side 1) We’re seeing a lot of (insert practically any item here) simply because we are logging more miles. The fact that we hike so much more than we used to naturally means that we see more of the item.

Side 2) We’re seeing a lot of (you name it) because there is actually more of it. This is because of greater drought, or heat, or specific conditions that cause the thing to proliferate.

As an example, earlier this year the item in question was lupine. For maybe two months we saw lupine en masse during every hike. Was it a particularly good year for lupine, and if so, why? Or was it just that we were on trails that always have lots of lupine and we just never noticed before? (Hiking long distances leads, sometimes, to really evolved conversation; other times, it just leads to perseveration.)

Another example - quail. It seemed like we used to see quail a lot in the 90s. Then in the 00s and 10s, hardly ever. And now - thrillingly - quail everywhere! Were we just completely checked out during our kid-raising years? Or is it true that quail were in jeopardy, and are now making a comeback?

I can’t answer these questions, or more accurately, I don’t have the time to do the research that would give me an answer to these questions. Maybe you know. In the hopes you do, I present to you the latest thing that has me constantly dickering with myself while I hike. That thing is Toxicodendron diversilobum, more commonly known as Poison Oak. Remember binomial nomenclature? In this case, the genus, Toxicodendron, means ‘poison tree.’ The species, diversilobum, means ‘diversely lobed.’ Yeah, we know about the poison - no surprise there. But the diverse lobes is interesting, and refers to the fact that the leaves are irregularly lobed, resembling oak leaves. Hence the common name, poison oak.

I’ve been seeing SO much poison oak this year. So much. It runs all along the trails and often even reaches a delicate branch out into the middle of the trail, causing me to anthropomorphize this poor opportunist plant and screech “NOT TODAY, SATAN” around every curve. You will forgive me for my hysterics, because poison oak is supremely tricky.

To wit:

Poison oak can be green…

… or it can be red, or a combination of green and red.

Poison oak can be a loner plant…

… or hang out in a group (or a freaking hedge).

Poison oak can be a bush, or a vine…

… or a ground cover.

Poison oak can have tiny, finely lobed leaves…

… or big, blowsy, looks-like-a-pear-tree leaf.

In spring, poison oak has really pretty flowers…

… which later on, turn into berries. Birds love the berries, which is one way this plant spreads.

Poison oak can have glossy leaves….

… or dull leaves.

Every part of the plant is ‘poisonous’ and can cause a skin reaction. Don’t go gathering those pretty leaves by the side of the trail! For heaven’s sake, don’t make a pile and jump in! And if you must pee on the side of the trail, by all that’s holy, drip dry!!!

And what you might think is a dormant tree might actually also be poison oak.

The stuff that we react to in poison oak (or ivy, or sumac - they are all in the same family) is called ‘urushiol.’ In most people, it causes a blistering, itchy rash. I once knew a woman who sat by a campfire on which, unwittingly, someone had thrown some poison oak branches. Because all the people around the fire breathed in the smoke, they had a reaction in their mouths, throats, and lungs. So it can even affect your insides.

At my school garden, I’ve been finding poison oak entwined with invasive Himalayan blackberry in just about every corner. The other day, I watched some bare-legged athletes who were headed to the field behind the garden take a shortcut behind our barn - you guessed it - right through one of these thickets. When I said, dismayed, “you just walked through poison oak!” the athletes said, “how do you know it’s poison oak?” So we had a little lesson, right then and there. I also told them to go to the bathroom immediately and wash with cold water and soap. It’s best to use cold rather than hot water, because hot water opens pores and that can cause the poison oak to spread rapidly.

Since poison oak is so tricky, and so prevalent (especially this year???), I have taken to keeping rubbing alcohol wipes in my car.

If I think I’ve had any contact at all, I rub my legs (or arms, or face, or shoulder) with one of these wipes. Then, as soon as I get home, I wash with Tecnu, the miracle cure.

I swear on this stuff. I put it on, rub it around, wait a few minutes, and then hop in the shower and wash with cold water. Works every time. (OK, 99% of the time. I still get a spot of poison oak every once in a while.)

I love being outdoors so much, and I love hiking, and I especially love side trails, the narrow ones that take you places other people don’t often go, the ones where you seem to find a secret around every corner. My daily hikes keep me physically healthy and mentally sane, and there’s no way I’m giving them up, even if there is a plethora of poison oak this year (???). So it’s good to recognize this trickster in all its forms, so that it can be avoided, and it’s good to know how to treat it, if you accidentally come in contact with it.

Now, if I could just figure out if there really is more of it this year…

Wasps: One Sign of a Healthy Ecosystem

When I started teaching at Merritt College, I was “given” the Environmental Center property as a place to hold my labs - basically, as a place to grow a garden. In years past, it had been used for that purpose (though, I would argue, not to its full potential), and even held a few remnants of the old raised beds. But it had long been abandoned and unused; my co-workers had several truckloads of junk and trash hauled away, which revealed a rather shabby and sad space. The ground was either rocky, or covered in weeds. The outbuildings were mostly being taken over by nature, with mushrooms growing out of roof tiles and critters nesting in walls. Invasive Himalayan blackberry vines covered every corner. The first lab I held there, I had the students spend an hour just being in the space, mapping it out, taking an inventory of what was there, noting how the sun might move across the sky, how the wind moved through the space, and what they thought could be done with the property to make it a ‘real’ farm. On that day, I watched them move through what would eventually become our garden, and took my own inventory of the space. And I realized something that day. I realized that there were no bugs.

A female (identified by the curled antennae) tarantula hawk-wasp taking a break in the Environmental Center garden, on my newly formed paths

Actually, no birds either, except one curious scrub jay. No scuttling lizards. Nothing zooming past, not even a pesky fly. Now, sure, it was late January, but that’s no deterrent in coastal California. If it’s above 50 degrees (and it was, that day, as it is nearly every day of the year in Oakland), bugs are generally out getting some stuff done. But not at the Environmental Center.

My feeling was that the space had been abandoned so long, and was so full of invasive (rather than native) plants, and was so crowded with non-flowering weeds (mostly exotic grasses), that nothing really wanted to live there. This is not an uncommon thing. Urban spaces are increasing across the globe, destroying valuable habitat for all kinds of creatures. How can an insect live in a place with only concrete, glass, and steel? Urban spaces not only lack flowering plants, they also often devoid of any kind of slow-moving water, crucial for drinking but also for many insect nurseries. Cities trap heat to become even hotter than their surroundings, becoming ‘urban heat islands,’ uninhabitable to many species. Vehicles rush around, creating dangerous circumstances for any surviving insect just trying to get from here to there. And people are fearful of insects, generally, and are quick to squash and kill anything they don’t understand.

As I’m sure you’ve heard, insects are absolutely vital to our human lives. Not only do they provide pollination services, they are a critical food source for so many animals that live further up the food chain. Many, like wasps, are also important biological controls, keeping a check on other insects, feeding them to their young. And others, including yellow jackets, are valuable detritivores, cleaning up dead animals and other organic matter so that we are not buried in refuse.

A common blue mud-dauber wasp dragging a spider to its nest to feed its larvae, at the Environmental Center

I know that over the (almost) ten years I’ve been writing this blog, I’ve given some mixed messages regarding pests. I have used yellow jacket traps in the past. I mean, yellow jackets are annoying as hell, there’s no question about that. Eating outdoors is one of the absolute joys of summer, and some yellow jackets make that next to impossible. They also bug my chickens and my honeybees, which I don’t like. So for many years, I rationalized my trapping, until I started to read more about general insect decline and the way that decline affects us. (By the way, if this is something you’re interested in learning more about, I’d recommend checking out Dr. Dave Goulson, or Dr. Doug Tallamy.) Now, I make it a practice not to kill any insect on purpose, and rather to learn as much about them as I can. I find that when I learn more about something, I become fascinated with it, and that in turn leads me to appreciate it fully.

This point was driven home to me when my folks shared that they’d recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal about how beneficial yellow jackets really are. I had been talking about insects in a positive light for years, but it wasn’t until my parents read an article for themselves that they had greater fascination for the subject. This made me realize that, though I’ve written on this subject before (here, and here and here, among others) it really bears writing about again.

There are several different kinds of yellow jacket wasps in California. They are generally either in the Vespula or Dolicovespula genera. Some nest in the ground, in old rodent burrows, and some nest in walls or trees; some that are strictly insect-and-nectar eaters, and some which are scavengers. The scavengers are the ones that annoy us at picnics. They are also the ones who generally will enter a trap. However, the others are great for ecosystem health, and deserve our respect and admiration.

A yellow jacket pollinating at Poppy Corners

And there are many other interesting wasps, such as the ones in the photos near the top of this post. Many wasps, such as the tarantula hawk-wasp and the common blue mud dauber wasp, take other bugs home to their nests to feed their young. The tarantula hawk-wasp, for instance, stings a tarantula between the legs (!) and drags it back to the nest, where it then lays one egg on the spider, takes pains to keep the spider alive until the egg hatches into a larva, which then feeds on the living spider until it pupates. I mean, the stuff of nightmares, yes? And yet also intriguing. Other predatory wasps do this with the very caterpillars that threaten to eat our crops.

In fact, in a 2021 study by the University of London, it was shown that “predation by insects -- as biocontrol to protect crops -- is worth at least $416 billion (US) per year worldwide,” and that wasps actually regulate populations of agricultural insects. This is a priceless service.

Another priceless service that wasps perform is pollination. Many wasps use nectar for their primary source of daily energy (the ‘meat’ is for larval development only), and the study states, “pollination by insects is vital for agriculture, and its economic importance has been valued at greater than $250 billion (US) per year worldwide.” These are not small numbers. Our food supply is already under threat, for oh so many reasons - so let’s use any and all of the free ecosystem services that nature provides us, shall we?

an old paper wasp nest in the eaves of our train shed at Poppy Corners

With all of these services firmly in mind, at the Environmental Center, one of the first jobs I gave the students was to plant a pollinator garden. I had obtained a grant for seed from Pollinator Partnership, and they sent us a large bag of various native California wildflower seeds. We knew that our vegetable and fruit plantings would attract pollinators, but we wanted to ensure as much diversity as possible, and that seed grant gave us another 30 species of flowers with which to attract and feed insects. (Also deer, but that’s a story for another time.) And once the goldfields started coming up, and the tidy tips, then the gilia and the poppies, the bugs started arriving - hover flies came first, then honeybees, then butterflies, and finally now, on these hot summer days, I’m finally seeing the wasps. I’m delighted. Now that there is the buzzing and zooming in the air, I’m starting to see lizards, and skinks, and snakes. Birds of all kinds have found us. Each of these species brings a new set of challenges, but that’s ok - we know that having a healthy ecosystem brings far more benefits than it does problems.

As the garden evolves, my plans for it does, too. I intend, this fall, to have one class build an herb spiral and plant fruit bushes and trees, which will attract even more pollinators. Another class is going to create a garden full of traditional, cultural crops, which should bring in even more native insects. I look forward to seeing the ecosystem develop and create a closed loop, where everything within the loop thrives, including the humans who eat the food grown there.

A Childhood Favorite

When we moved to this property 18 years ago, we were delighted to inherit a few fruit trees located on the north side of the garden. Close to the fence line were an apple and peach, both gnarled and wonky in form, with old, disease-spotted trunks, and riotous overgrown greenery tufting absurdly out the tops. In another corner was a bushy quince, something neither of us had any experience with (and still don’t use to full advantage). The peach succumbed to disease several years ago; I replaced it with a mulberry that has yet to fruit. The quince, still vigorously bushy despite repeated attempts to contain it, mostly acts as a shady haven for the chickens in summertime. But the apple - well, I’ve worked hard to keep the apple producing. On low fruit years, I calendar a hard pruning for winter, and that always rewards me with a large summer harvest. On bushy years, I summer-prune it to manage its size. And as our garden has filled up with coops and raised beds, I’ve also halfway espaliered it to keep it flatter against the fence, and it doesn’t seem to mind that in the least. It just keeps on truckin’.

We don’t know what variety this tree is, but it ripens in July which is early for apples. The fruits are small and green, with a russet tint where the sun hits the skin, and they have very delicate flesh. They tend to be on the tart side, so it’s likely a variety meant for cooking rather than eating in-hand, but we eat them that way, too. The trunk and some of the larger branches have spots of canker, but I can’t bear to give up on it yet, not while it’s still producing so well.

Today, I was wandering around the garden trying to figure out what to have as a side to our steak and potato dinner. Unfortunately, I have covid, so I’m trying to stay out of the grocery store, and I am also taking a break from my school garden for a couple of days so I don’t accidentally infect anyone (thankfully some members of the Sustainability Club are taking care of the watering for me while I’m recuperating). This means I don’t have access to the produce there, and there’s so much more produce in the school garden (which has surprised me - I’ll be writing a post about that soon) than in the home garden. I don’t have any tomatoes or cucumbers yet at Poppy Corners; the only available peppers are spicy; I lagged in my harvesting of green beans and they all got giant and flaccid. After stripping those off and putting them in the compost (hopefully I’ll get another flush of beans soon), I was basically left with herbs and apples.

To complicate matters, I’ve been thinking a lot about a podcast I listened to recently in which a gut-health doctor/expert explained what our microbiomes prefer to eat. It turns out that the ideal diet for those little guys is plant food (I mean, did we really need someone to tell us that?), and a great variety of plant food at that - apparently they prefer 30 different plant foods per week. Simply put, the more diverse your diet is, the more diverse your microbiome is. Again, not terribly surprising, but 30 different plant foods can sound a little daunting, so I’ve been on a quest to determine if the Boegel diet meets that preference. Turns out, we’re doing quite well (the doctor said that nuts, seeds, and herbs also count, which helps), but it does take a little extra work, especially considering that I have a little… um… tomato addiction, and think eating them every day in season is quite reasonable.

Anyway, back to our dinner dilemma. I snipped some fresh thyme and chives; thyme and garlic could be mixed into softened butter, which would be an excellent addition to both our meat and potatoes, and the chives could be sprinkled over everything. As for the apples, I went down a rabbit’s hole trying to figure out how I could fry apples and onions to make a savory side dish (does anyone do this? If so, please share your recipe), but eventually decided to make that old childhood staple, applesauce.

I have good memories of my mother making applesauce every year in my youth. Actually, she still makes it every year. Growing up, we had a large vegetable garden, but not a lot of fruit. So we’d take several trips to a local farm called Butler’s Orchard to pick from their fields of berries and fruit trees. Then we’d eat some of it fresh, and mom would preserve the rest. She made jams with the berries, and sauce with the apples. She’d water-bath can these, often during the hottest days of the year, so we could eat them all year round. I must say I never appreciated that properly at the time! (Sorry, Mom, and thanks.)

My mother was an excellent steward of fresh produce and believed that nothing should be wasted. I remember her cooking the apples down in a little water, pits, cores, skin and all, to get as much nutrition out of the apples as possible. Then she’d put them through a food mill, add a teensy bit of sugar, and we’d have fresh applesauce sprinkled with cinnamon for supper before she canned the rest.

Reading this, it would be reasonable to assume that I too have been doing the same every year - I mean, how delicious! But I must confess that I have not been good about making applesauce in my adult life. Honestly, I’d rather have apple pie, or apple crisp, something firmly in the dessert camp (I do have such a sweet tooth). But today, I decided that applesauce could be a decent nutrient-dense side dish, standing in for a salad in my covid-housebound state. Also, supremely easy. I figured I could wing it, but just for kicks, I went through my cookbooks.

Years ago, Tom and I spent a ‘stay and cook’ weekend at The Apple Farm in Philo, up near the Mendocino coast. It was a revelatory weekend; we learned so much about cooking using ingredients from the farm and garden, and came home with so many recipes that we use frequently, like sorrel soup and rhubarb clafoutis. The Apple Farm is also a very beautiful place and the little cabins extremely cosy and comfortable, and the meals were just so delicious (duck! ribolleta!) . We also got to meet Sally Schmitt, a bit of a hero in the world of California cuisine. Sally Schmitt was the original owner of The French Laundry before they sold it to Thomas Keller. Before Chez Panisse even existed, Sally was one of the un-sung pioneers of farm-to-table cooking.

In retirement, Sally and her husband bought The Apple Farm, and along with their daughter and son-in-law, operated a farmstand and cooking classes. At the time of our visit, Sally and her husband were quite elderly and largely out of the day-to-day operations, but we saw them at mealtimes, which was a thrill.

Sally’s cookbook was published earlier this year, just after her death in March. I immediately bought a copy. It’s full of fun stories about the early days of what would become ‘California cuisine,’ and great pictures of ‘70s clothes and hair, and of course, wonderful recipes.

Being owners of an apple farm, naturally there is a section in the cookbook for apples, so I consulted their applesauce recipe. It wasn’t at all how I remembered my mother making it. Sally used apple juice instead of water, a full cup of sugar (to 4 cups juice and 8-10 lbs apples), a knob of butter, a tablespoon of salt, and no cinnamon! Also, she peeled and cored the apples first!

Well. I was torn. I called my mother, just to check in and see if I remembered her method correctly. That was a fun conversation, leading mom to later go look in her own files and books to see where she learned to do it that way, only to come up empty-handed. A mystery! I decided to go ahead and try Sally’s recipe this time, for a change. However, I didn’t have any juice on hand, so I used water. And I added several tablespoons of lemon juice. And I omitted the salt. Ok, maybe I just basically made up my own recipe.

Gotta say, it’s delicious. Creamy and sweet, but also tart, and full of the memories of childhood.

What’s your favorite applesauce recipe?