New Year's Day in Mendocino

The main building

I have wanted to go back to Mendocino ever since I attended the 3-day Mushroom Camp back in 2010. A couple months ago I happened to see a great deal on Travel Zoo for 2-night stay at Mendocino Hotel & Garden Suites, which allows dogs for a small extra charge. I purchased a voucher for it and made my reservation for January 1st through 3rd, 2013. I wanted to start the new year by taking a relaxing trip in a small town next to the coast, where time seems to stand still.

The Victorian style hotel was established in 1878 and located on the Main Street of Mendocino facing the coast.

The ocean view from the main building

For people traveling with their dogs, they get to stay in the garden suites behind the main building. I was delighted to see a little garden outside of my room. Inside of the room, there's a fire place, a walking closet, and Victorian style furniture and decor. It's like stepping back in time.

Garden suites behind the main building

The hotel also has a Victorian style dining room, which is beautiful and romantic. Since I was only traveling with Kelsey, I didn't want to leave her by herself. I also didn't see the point of having an expensive fancy dinner all by myself even though the menu looks quite delicious.

My room

After settling in, I took Kelsey for a walk around town.  According to 2010 census, Mendocino had a population of 894. The town is very small. I walked around the corner and found Harvest Market which was open on New Year's Day. I bought some clam chowder, dinner rolls, and pasta salad back to my room for dinner. Tomorrow I will go explore some of the state parks in the area.

Kelsey immediately made herself home

What to Do on a Rainy Christmas Day in San Francisco

People waiting to enter Contemporary Jewish Museum on Christmas Day

My friend S and I have been talking about our tradition of hanging out on Christmas Day. She is a modern Muslim, and I am an atheist. Naturally we just hang out and do whatever on Christmas Day. I have wanted to go hike in a regional park but it's been raining cats and dogs for days in the Bay Area. At 1 a.m. on Christmas morning, we decided that we would go help out at San Francisco City Impact's Christmas Day Block Party. S has just moved to San Francisco a few months ago, so I met her at her new pad in the Mission.

By the time we arrived at City Impact's office, the event was winding down already. S and I each carried a box of hot meals to hand out around the block. This was in the Tenderloin district, an area just around the corner from downtown where all the designer shops are, but it's night and day in comparison. The Tenderloin is full of homeless people, drug addicts, alcoholics, and people who are just down on luck. It didn't take us long to hand out all the hot meals. We went back to City Impact to help clean up the facility before we headed over to our next stop, Contemporary Jewish Museum.

It was the only museum that's open on Christmas Day, and it was generously offering free admission for everyone. As soon as we got inside, we got some lunch at its cafe, which was serving Indian food for the day. These are some of the reasons I love the Bay Area. We could all go to the Jewish Museum and eat Indian food in the same building on any given day.

After lunch, we stayed in the museum reading up the history of Jewish communities in the Bay Area until the museum was closing at 4 p.m. I was in full rain gear, so I stepped outside in stride. My friend S unfortunately had to walk around in her soaking wet tennis shoes. I knew exactly how that felt and couldn't help not to tease her about the squishy wet socks. We headed over to one of the movie theaters nearby to catch a lighthearted comedy, Silver Linings Playbook, before heading back home.

Heavy rain resumed at 4 p.m.

San Francisco Green Festival 2012

It has been more than 10 years since I attended last Green Festival. I wasn't planning on going when I saw the admission being more than $10. A few days ago, I got an email from Goldstar offering free admission to Green Festival. It was just my luck that I checked my email the minute I received the free offer, so I grabbed a weekend pass for $4.75 of "service charge." I have been a member of Goldstar for many years, and I receive discount and free offers around the Bay Area on a weekly basis. For free offers, they are limited quantities and Goldstar charges a "service fee." That was why I had to pay $4.75 for my free pass.

I was amazed at the huge turnout of participants. I don't remember this being such a huge event last time I attended it. People lined up outside all the way around the corner before 11 a.m.  Once inside, there were countless food samplings and product samples free for the taking. I got many dog food and treat samples including 4 packs of different dog food varieties from Spring Naturals.  I also got a pack of vegetarian dog food. I am curious to find out whether Kelsey will like that.

At 4 p.m., I sat down in front of Main Stage to listen to California's non-GMO leaders talking about "Beyond Proposition 37: What's Next for GMO Labeling."  Last Tuesday was election day, and to my surprise, proposition 37 didn't pass. I couldn't fathom how it didn't pass. Today I found out that heavy advertising campaign opposing 37 was on TV and radio just a couple weeks before the election day. Apparently, every commercial break during World Series was "No on Prop 37." I would have never known since I don't watch TV nor listen to the radio. It's just shocking to me that majority of Americans would rather not know what they are eating. On second thought, there are still plenty of people eating McDonald's hamburgers everyday, so I guess majority of Americans just want cheap food. 

Ford was one of the event sponsors, and many of their electric and hybrid cars were on site for test drive.  They were even giving away SustainU (100% recycled apparel made in the USA) T-shirts just for test driving the cars. I rode in Ford's 100% electric car and was quite impressed. I wonder whether electric pickup trucks will become available soon.

Around 5 p.m. I headed home with bags of samples. Perhaps next year I'll sign up as a volunteer for Green Festival.

Hummingbirds Love Mexican Bush Sage

I planted a bunch of Mexican Bush Sage when I hired Backyard Food Gardens back in November, 2010. I like these plants because they are drought tolerant and have colorful flowers in tubular shape which hummingbirds love. Even though these flowers are not edible to me, they provide a food source for the birds and bees, and I like having the birds and honeybees in my garden. Hummingbirds do indeed visit Sand Village Farm frequently. Sometimes they get trapped in the garage, sometimes they just rest on the clothes lines I put up.

Yesterday morning, I saw two hummingbirds resting on the 2 clothes lines, one on each line. One bird had a red head while the other was all green.  I wanted to take a photo, but I knew that they would just get startled and fly away, so I went outside to take photos of my passion fruit vines instead. Suddenly I heard this noise that sounded like a giant bumble bee zooming pass me.

Sure enough it was a hummingbird. It was the red head. I snapped a few pictures of it, but it was move quite rapidly and always behind some flowers. As it flew away, the green head hummed its way over, so again I tried to take a few shots. This time I had much better luck. As the tiny bird feasted on the nectar, I got many clear shots although it stayed in the shade most of the time.

Isn't it cute?

Baby Chicks Are Getting Big

I visited the 3 chicks next door on October 12th. Today I went to see them again, and they seemed to have doubled in size once more. They are starting to look like chickens although they still make the cute baby chick noise. As usual I picked one up and held her on my chest. It has so much more feather now. She's warm and fluffy.

As soon as they saw me, they just stood in place staring at me. As soon as I stepped away further, two of them started to run around in the small coop and playing with each other. They can make big noise as they jumping up and down in the wooden coop and pecking on the metal heating lamp. The owner of the chicks are planning on moving them outside into a bigger coop this weekend because they are just getting too noisy and messy in the small confinement.