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Fire Circle: Foxtails, Food Fun and Feedback

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Today I'm writing from the Fire Circle. It's time for a makeover...because danger ! This sometimes sunny meadow was a soft green in the spring, but now it's full of dry, flammable foxtails, surrounded by trees full of tinder. Fun fact: The Golden Gate is not the bridge, but the hills the bridge connects. Before The Spanish arrived with their cows, those hills were green all summer, like this meadow would be if the native grasses weren't choked out by foxtails. The cows pooped out the Spanish hay, full of foxtail seeds, which are persistent hitchhikers with an incredible life force. Soon those hills were browning off in the summer. Or I should say blonding off. Turning that sort of soft gold that is not to be confused with the brilliance of California poppies. (Which really did used to crowd these here hills.) The picnic tables and concrete barbecue/stage were built, I learned recently, by none other than the devoted Juanita Miller, Joaquin's youngest daughter, a.k
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The Fountain: Tadpoles and a Tree Swing

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There was some bad news about the fountain at this months FOJMP meeting: it's busted; another part failed. "But on the bright side," president and Park Sprite Dale Risden reported, "there are tadpoles in the fountain." I grabbed a friend who was long overdue for a walk with the me a.k.a. The Writer (and transitively Joaquin) and climbed the stairs. She gushed over the landscaping and I bragged on the volunteers who plant, prune and weed with such consistent love and care.  And there, at the top of the stairs, were the wee wiggling wonders, their legs sprouted and kicking them upwards for gulps of air with round mouths. Hundreds of them! How these babies appear in concrete ponds amazes me. I hear rumors that they are tree frogs and live near the cascade, singing their hearts out for summer sunsets. Before the plumbing was put in on this hill, were there frogs? If not, how did they get here?  there is a super tiny frog floating on this wood chip, checking out that
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Sequoia Point: Sogora Te' Land

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Today I went walkin' with Johnella LaRose, co-founder of the  Sogorea Te' Land Trust , an urban Indigenous women-led land trust that facilitates the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people. Several years ago, when I first heard about Sogora Te', I was inspired by the whole idea of Indigenous land trusts , which create a breathing space in the madness around owning property. I'd been wanting to meet Johnella since I heard she was on the FOJMP board. Sogora Te' has been a member of FOJMP since 2020, and the Ohlone people who they protect were here, of course, long before Oakland, before Joaquin Miller, for some TEN THOUSAND YEARS. She was dressed in a bright orange vest so it was easy to spot her as I pulled into the Sequoia Bayview parking area. She carried a garbage grabber and a big plastic bag, and I thought for a minute she'd put them in the car while we walked...but instead I began seeing what she saw. She pointed down the hill where bags of trash bla
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