Water Walk, 4

Let's finish up our Water Walk with Bellis today, by continuing south along the path below Devil's Gate Dam. There are other wonders to behold, some not easy to see--100-year-old rusted pipes with rivets at their seams, stone walls embedded in the path--but this--what is this?

At last, it doesn't matter that I don't know because Bellis didn't know either, and apparently neither doesPasadena Water & Power.

To give you an idea of size, I'm 5'4" and I'm about as tall as the top of the graffiti on the west side of the tower. You can see a slim window at the top on the south side. It wouldn't be wide enough for an adult to fit through, though maybe a small child could do it.

On the east side of the tower, at the top, there's a sign:

I respect your superior web searching skills. Have at it. I found nothing.

Movie set?

Many thanks to Bellis for a fantastic tour, and to Pasadena Water and Power for the water, and the power.

Update: Here's a nice post on the Zanja walk Bellis took before she took me.

Tomorrow, Zen Monday!
Tuesday, news updates!
After that, I have no idea!

UPDATE: I spoke with Brad Bowman of Pasadena Water and Power, who told me this is a "surge tower." There's a pretty good explanation here. This tower is the "point of release."

Theme Day: Water's Edge

 sometimes the watershed is wet

Conveniently timed with City Daily Photo's theme day, Pasadena's Department of Water and Power**, in collaboration with the Pasadena Museum of History, is launching a free exhibit at the Central Library entitled, Celebrating Pasadena's Water Centennial.

We live at the "water's edge" in Pasadena and that edge is receding, so I'm grateful for this extended opportunity to learn about where we stand.

  sometimes the watershed is dry

City Daily Photo has a new website! I used to give you a count of our worldwide members, but when we lost our previous site we lost our main way of staying in contact. And apparently many of those blogs were not active. Right now, Julie from Sydney, Australia is working with Peter from Sunshine Coast Daily Photo (also in Oz, thanks for the corrections, folks) to put it all back together. As of today's count, they had re-recruited 211* active blogs.


*see Julie's comments
**see Ann's comment

We Are Old!

Big, big doings today for the Pasadenish because it's our 126th birthday.

We're having our party from 12-4 pm at the Pasadena Museum of History (free admission, free parking). There will be art, music, antique cars and more. In honor of this year's Olympics, the Synchronized Cake Cutting will be held at 3pm, officiated by Mayor Bill Bogaard.

Many organizations sponsor the event. A big co-sponsor is Pasadena Water and Power (a super important entity in this part of the world), and this year the cakes (also super important) come from Vons.

Everybody gets a free piece of cake. Everybody. You are Pasadenish. Come and get your cake.

Cut Your Grass

Apparently I'm not the only one in Pasadena who wants to kill my grass. The big room at the Pasadena Convention Center was packed last Saturday for Pasadena Water and Power's "Cut Your Grass" workshop. The morning was led by the energetic Tim Wheeler, horticulturalist extraordinaire, who I remembered from an irrigation workshop I attended a couple of years ago.

Well, damn. Two years. It's been that long and I still have the most terrifying back yard on the block.

Tim can keep a crowd interested for three full hours. He's knowledgeable, dynamic and fun. He can answer almost any (relevant) question you put to him. It was a fascinating workshop and they're going to have another one August 20th (keep your eyes on Pasadena In Focus). And watch PWP's website August first for information about financial incentives for killing your grass.

But I'll never make it by August first. I'm beginning to think I won't make it at all. Yes, I want to kill my grass--which is not grass, but weeds--but once I do that I have to remove the dead stuff, and once I do that I can't just leave the dirt, I have to plant something, or put in a hardscape or a pergola or something, and it's a big yard, and all that takes planning and effort and labor and moneymoneymoney and I'm just overwhelmed. I have no idea where to start.

I want someone else to do it.

Nature, Doing Its Job

The whole world burst out of its proverbial house house yesterday and enjoyed the sun. Hahamongna Watershed Park was flooded with bikers, hikers, horses, dogs and mountain runoff.

The other day on The Sky is Big in Pasadena (not a misnomer, by the way) there was a discussion about whether or not the past week's weather was unusual. Seemed like it was, but one commenter reminded us that a winter deluge is the norm. It's just that during our years of drought we've become accustomed to winters bereft of rain. Last week's storms weren't enough to end our drought, but they helped.

The flooding at Hahamongna Watershed Park is severe enough to have permanently altered the landscape. Trails we knew are gone and will not be back. What remains in their place is as beautiful as what we'll miss.

And the infrastructure held up. The Devil's Gate Dam did its job. So, I'm told, did the Pasadena Water and Power workers who've been running the joint in 12-hour shifts. Kudos.

Inspiration for the photo: John Sandel.

Debris at the PWP Corral

In yesterday's comments the Altadena Hiker reminded us of the high waters behind the Devil's Gate Dam after a storm in spring of 2005. Greg Sweet wrote of the debris that builds up behind our local dams after big storms. That gave me the idea to post these pictures from spring of 2008 to show what Pasadena Water and Power does with storm debris behind Devil's Gate Dam.

In the first two photos you can see JPL in the background. I didn't know what the line of connected logs was for at first.

But as the water recedes it becomes clear that the logs are in place to corral the debris that has gathered in the flood.

A lot of the debris is twigs and logs. But if you enlarge this photo you can also see plastic bags, styrofoam cups, a flashlight and a lot of unidentifiable stuff. If the water gets high enough, plastic bags and all sorts of weird junk hangs in the trees.

Sprocket and Boz find it absolutely delightful.

I'd say the PWP does a fine job. But I have no idea where they put it all.

Smitten, Not Smote

With my little camera, I couldn't get the angle I wanted on this building without standing in the street, so we're going to have to miss out on a bit of the lower part. If it was a quiet, out-of-the-way street I'd stand in the middle, sure. But it's Altadena Drive, just north of Colorado Blvd., and not everyone who drives along there is paying attention.

For at least a year, I drove by this building over and over again without noticing it. Now that I know it's there it plagues me. (See? There's one non-attention-paying driver right there.) The building looks abandoned, and it's so beautiful.

I messed with the contrast and sharpening so you can read the lettering at the top: "MUNICIPAL LIGHT AND POWER." I'm sure the place is owned by Pasadena Water and Power; behind it is a full block of electrical grid. But the building itself looks empty.

It's not a complete mystery, thanks to the Building Biographer, Tim Gregory (and thanks to Google). The building was designed by architect Robert H. Ainsworth.

I'd go peek in the windows but there's an iron fence around the lot. It wouldn't stop some people but I was brought up to be scared of breaking the rules, which is another reason I don't stand in the middle of busy streets.

Have I Got the Dirt

Pardon my weeds. I'm being soil-ly tested.

When I blogged about Tim Wheeler's free Irrigation Workshop last week (sponsored by Pasadena Water and Power), I mentioned I'd learned how to test my soil type. Some of you asked how it's done. It's called the jar test. Let's play along.

In the first photo, we put two cups of dirt into a common jar.

Well--it's kind of a nice jar, but if yours is common don't worry.

The next thing we do is fill the jar most of the way with water. Then we shake it all up. Shake it real good. Don't be shy, you gotta mix that dirt and water like it's a mud margarita.

Then leave it. Yes. Just leave it alone for a whole 24 hours. I said so, don't mess with it. Let the dirt settle. It's not an actual margarita.

What's supposedly going to happen is your dirt's going to stratify into three layers. That's what they told me, anyway. It's going to layer itself according to particle size. The biggest particles, sand, will form the bottom layer. The middle layer will be silt (medium-sized particles). On top will be your lightest particles, or clay. When you see what percentages you have of each of these soil types, you can compare your soil to a soil triangle and figure out your soil type.

What do you think? How many layers do you see? Is that sand on the bottom or silt? Is that silt on the top? Clay? What kind of soil have I got in my back yard?

Irrigation-Wise

Last Thursday night I attended one of the free Lawn and Garden workshops being offered this year by Pasadena Water & Power. I began with the Efficient Irrigation workshop. If we're going to have to ration water, then dammit, I'm going to be water-wise.

I was afraid I might get bored, but irrigation contractor and horticulturalist Tim Wheeler is anything but dull. With charm, humor, and visual aids like charts, nozzles and hoses, he turned dirt and water into three hours of fascination. Everybody likes water, but who knew dirt could be so cool?

I learned why I should never water at night. (It contributes to plant diseases.)
I learned why it's better to use a machine to aerate your soil than it is to use the little shoes with spikes on them, and why it's a good idea to mark your sprinkler pipes and nozzles clearly before you accidentally aerate them, too.
I learned about MP rotators, timers and the new "smart" controllers that can make watering decisions for you based on the weather.

My favorite was learning about different kinds of dirt. I might have sandy loam, but I've never been sure. Now I know how to test it. What I'm feeling about dirt right now could be called excitement.

I'm going to the California Friendly Landscaping Class next. By then I ought to know what kind of soil I've got. Maybe this will be the year I don't kill every other thing I plant.