High Line

In NY, we walked the fabulous, newly-opened High Line . . . only a portion has been completed (12th-20th street)

Note the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island across the river:

NJ

Andrew and I arrived in NJ last week in time to celebrate Jessi's 11th birthday and to hang out with Michael, Sue, Dylan, and Sue's mom and brother.

The uncles (Glen and Andrew) torturing Nephew Dylan at his request:
Jessi and a melting Carvel ice-cream cake - yum:
We got to watch Jessi pitch in her semi-final softball game:


And, we managed to get in a requisite walk in the Celery Farm in Allendale:

Andover, NYC, Cape Cod, NYC

We are back in the NorthEast. Leigh is vacating for 2.5 weeks; Andrew is here for almost 7 weeks. When Leigh returns to CA, she'll post an update. Til then, happy Summer Solstice?

Scrub Jay fledglings

While looking into the backyard on Saturday morning, an adult Scrub Jay was feeding a small fledgling as it clung to the palm tree.
Two scrub jays had claimed our backyard area and its surrounding trees as their territory for some time now, but we were completely ignorant that there was a nest nearby. As we watched the little one hopping/hobbling around the backyard, we realized, there was also one in a tree.
Eventually, the second fledgling hopped out of the tree and into the backyard to join its sibling.
Over the day, we watched the little guys improve at hopping around the yard, and even attempt to fly on their short, stubby wings:
The adult Scrubbers squawked and kept a close watch on them anytime we went outside.
In fact, Andrew got dive-bombed at some point when he felt a close look at the little fledglings was in order.

We hypothesize that these fledglings left the nest too early as they couldn't really fly and were having some difficulty even moving around. As dusk came, we watched the two as they failed to get some elevation. One chose to sit on the compost bin all night and the other took shelter in the ivy. Cats often wander through our yard at night and we were a little worried about how the chicks would fare. . .

This morning at 6AM, we awoke to find one chick clinging to the ivy:
But, its sibling (who chose to hang out on the compost bin) was sadly not so fortunate:

We hope that today is a better day for the surviving fledgling. . . we'll let you know how things turn out.

SF Tourists for a Day

Nele, a Met School staffperson from the Netherlands is visiting the Met Sacramento for five days. She is staying with us and we thought it would be fun to be tour guides for the weekend.

On Saturday, we visited the Bogle Winery, had dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant in Sacramento, and showed Nele the lab (while Leigh imaged some cells).

We went into San Francisco on Sunday. After a little meandering around Chinatown, we managed to find the dim sum restaurant that Leigh and Jeremy had enjoyed a while ago. . . It did not dissappoint - a full house, incredible food, and we were the only Caucasians too.

We then walked up to Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill. The parrots were easy to find due to their loud squawking and flying around. From Pier 33, we picked up the ferry to Alcatraz. Leigh had been there as a young teenager and neither Nele nor Andrew had gone before.
An extant sign of the Native American occupation of the island that occurred 1969-1971:
There were beautiful flowers all over the island...
... and many nesting Western Gulls:
It was a beautiful day to be out on the water as well: