Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Baby Alligator Lizards

Alligator lizard eggs hatch in late summer and early fall and it is about this time each year that I see these young alligator lizards with their amazing tails.  


Unless eaten by a cat, hawk, snake or another lizard, these young alligators will grow to maturity in about 18 months and reach possibly 16-20 inches long including their tails.  They'll eat a lot of insects along the way and will develop markings on their back.  They will probably lose their tails, grow a new tail, and grow up to look like this:

So, there's my 2011 lizard post.  

Monday, September 12, 2011

Mother Moo Creamery Opens In Sierra Madre

  
A small crowd gathered Saturday afternoon for the grand opening of Mother Moo Creamery.   Located on Kersting Court in downtown Sierra Madre, Mother Moo Creamery is the latest effort of local gourmet and master canner, Kathy Klemens, who is better known as Mother Cluck.   The new store will be offering her ice creams, preserves and classes (this Saturday's class will be canning peaches).   

Here's the ice cream menu.   I had the fresh mint with chocolate flakes and the triple joe.  I sampled the cinnamon, ginger and salty chocolate.   All were incredible.  But, if I had to choose one, I'd probably go for the fresh mint and chocolate flake.   I've had mint ice cream before, but never mint ice cream made with fresh mint.  Wow, was it good!   We'll be back.

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Now, here's the thing about Mother Moo Creamery -- in every sense of the word, this is a local effort.  Mother Moo-Cluck is a local talent who makes the gourmet products she sells and offers them at events around town, including the Altadena Urban Farmers Market.    She hires local folks --  my wife and son both knew people working behind the counter.    And, as much as possible, she's using locally produced ingredients.   On that score, the menu tells the story -- fresh mint and oranges from local farms and honey from Leona Valley in northern LA County.

Mother Moo has great ice cream.   And, they've got a strong Local Factor too.   I hope you'll check it out.     
 

Friday, September 9, 2011

The Oldest Existing In- N- Out Burger

The In-N-Out on East Foothill is the oldest existing In-N-Out restaurant.   This landmark neon In-N-Out sign was taken down a few weeks ago and apparently hauled off to HQ to be refurbished.   The refurbished sign was reinstalled this afternoon and tonight it looks pretty good. 

The compact red and white In-N-Out drive throughs, the palms and, of course, the signs have become classic southern California images. 

East Pasadena's In-N-Out was built in 1952.   There were a few In-N-Outs built before this one.  But, the earlier restaurants have been torn down and rebuilt leaving this East Foothill location as the oldest standing In-N-Out. 

Memo to In-N-Out corporate:    It is time to take the banner sign down from the roof..   

Monday, September 5, 2011

Pasadena Blogging and the Pasadena Sky

 The last two nights have given spectacular views in the Pasadena sky.   The photo above is of the international space station as it orbited over us Saturday night about 8 pm.  It was fascinating to watch. I was surprised at how fast it moved and how different it was from stars or planes or anything else in the sky.  Pretty amazing stuff when you think that there's a crew of six orbiting the earth and living up there.  The  NASA website has a nice little feature that allows you to find out when the space station passes over a particular town.   The station will pass over us again tonight (Monday) at 7:47 pm.

Because of the heavy cloud cover and rain, we could not see the space station last night. 

Which brings me to our weird weather.   The weather started changing late yesterday afternoon.  A few raindrops fell and I spotted this rainbow to the east.   We don't see a lot of rainbows around here, so I ran to grab my camera and got this shot before the rainbow was gone.  Within an hour, rain was falling and then came some good rounds of thunder and lightening.    Thunderstorms are forecast for today.  Strange weather for us.

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With all this talk about sky, it seems an appropriate time to say thank you and best wishes to a departing Pasadena blogger -- Ben Wideman of the sky is big in pasadena.   I followed his daily photo blog for much of its four year run.  His blog frequently showed me aspects of my city that I hadn't seen or appreciated.  In particular, his photos of City Hall were spectacular as were his shots of the Colorado Street Bridge and, of course, the local sky..   In his blog's last month, he listed his top 20 positive and top 10 negative things about our fair city.  It was interesting to see the final perspective of this young Canadian who spent four years here preparing for the ministry.   Friends and City Hall were his top two positive things; disparity between rich and poor and smog were his top two negatives.  I'll miss Ben's photos and commentary and wish him and his family well.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

The Bears and the Bees

Every summer bears venture down from the mountains into our north-east Pasadena neighborhood.   They are looking for food and every year there are reports of trash cans overturned or fruit trees raided.   From what I've heard, few people in the neighborhood ever actually see a bear and even fewer seem concerned about the animals.  Until this summer, I had experienced only one real bear encounter.  Early one morning a couple of years ago, our dog surprised a bear who scrambled up a tree and then watched me while I took his picture.  It was a fascinating morning. 

Well, this summer I had another bear encounter.   Actually, our bees suffered the encounter and I just watched.   Last year we kept bees without any incident.  No such luck this year.   Above is a photo of our little five-box high bee hive.  The hive had been healthy and happy all summer buzzing along and making honey.   At about 2 am recently I heard our dog barking and watched out the window as a bear stood on its hind legs, put its paws against the top of the hive and knocked it over.   The frames spilled out and the bear gorged itself on honey.  It was a sad, sad sight.

Amazingly, though, the hive survived, was put back together and moved to a new home.        

      

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Anonymous Comment Leads to New Information About Pasadena's Lost Lincoln Portrait

President Abraham Lincoln by William F. Cogswell
White House Historical Association (White House Collection)

Three years ago I posted a short biography of East Pasadena pioneer and famous artist, William F. Cogswell.   I followed that with a post titled Mystery of the Missing Lincoln Portrait.  You see, Cogswell had bestowed upon the City of Pasadena a replica of his most famous work -- the official White House portrait of President Abraham Lincoln -- but the City had somehow lost the painting.   Just what happened to the painting is a mystery.  

Since the post, I've pursued the mystery with others.   Sure, some know about the missing Lincoln portrait.  But, no one has any theories about what happened.
 
Then, a couple of weeks ago, I received an anonymous comment to my three-year old post.   Anonymous reported that the Albion Castle in San Francisco has a replica of Cogswell's famous Lincoln portrait.   Turns out Anonymous is right.   I found photos of the Lincoln portrait hanging in the Albion Castle at flicker and foundsf.   And, the portrait sure seems like a replica of the White House original (above).  

The Albion Castle was home to a less than successful brewery and seems an odd place for a Lincoln portrait.  Could  this be Pasadena's missing Lincoln?  Anonymous -- What do you think?

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I reviewed my records and poked around the Internet to see if I could learn anything new about Cogswell's Lincoln portraits.   How many replicas were out there?  Certainly Cogswell was an enterprising guy and I knew he painted replicas of his famous Lincoln portrait for the Hawaiian Royal Palace, the California State Legislature and City of Pasadena.   Were there more?
  
It is hard to know how many Lincoln replicas Cogswell painted.   The Pasadena PL has a 1961 letter from the Library of Congress stating that there were no records of Cogswell's Lincoln portraits.   A 1932 LA Times article stated, without source, that Cogswell painted 13 Lincoln replicas for states and three additional replicas for individuals.   But, I doubt the report.   If there were really 16 replicas, it seems like I could locate more than three with a basic Internet search.   Plus, Cogswell was a busy guy.  Seems unlikely he would take time to do 16 replicas.      

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So, is Pasadena's Lincoln hanging in the Albion Castle?   Yeah, I'd like to know how the castle acquired the painting.  It could be our painting.

But, it is going to be hard for Pasadena to point much of an accusing finger.   You see, Pasadena has a pretty strong track record of misplacing this painting.

We know from Cogswell's obituary in the Evening Star that, as of 1903, a replica of Cogswell's famous Lincoln portrait hung in the Pasadena Public Library.
  
But, we also know the painting was later removed from the library walls and placed in storage.  Seems the library had trouble finding a suitable place for the life-sized portrait of the 6"4" tall Great Emancipator.       

Then, a February 7, 1932 LA Times article reported the painting had been found.  The article, titled "Rare Lincoln Portrait Found -- Rare Oil Painting Discovered in Pasadena," reported that the portrait had been found in the library's storage loft.    The article stated the painting was in perfect condition and in a heavy gold frame.   The article announced that the painting would be displayed at the opening of the new Pasadena Civic Auditorium.
  
A 1961 letter from the Pasadena PL states that the Lincoln portrait was in the collection of Pasadena Historical Society.    That is the last word I've found on the whereabouts of Pasadena's Lincoln portrait.

Now, the painting is lost again.

Hard to say how you misplace a life sized portrait of Honest Abe.  But, Pasadena has managed to lose the portrait not once, but twice.   My guess is the portrait is not hanging in the Albion, but probably still somewhere in the city.    Maybe it is stacked in storage or hanging on a dark wall.  But, most likely it is here --- waiting to be discovered yet again.

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Summer Scenes along New York Drive

There is a short stretch of fairly wild hillside land that runs along the east side of New York Drive directly across the street from Earthlink and the Eaton Wash Reservoir.   I am often surprised at what I see there.  I've seen deer enough times that I am always on the lookout for more.  And I regularly see interesting and colorful plants and trees.  Above is a cluster of Matilija Poppies pictured above.   

 Buckwheat. 

Dodder or Witch's Hair - a colorful but destructive parasite that is draping parts of the hillside..  

Elder tree with yellow-white flowers.  There are a number of Elder trees growing wild along New York Drive.  I'll have more on Elders in my next post.