On Bernal Hill

We walked up to the top of our hill recently. It was a beautiful day. Here's a very orange wagon.

Big bird?

Spikes.

Find the bee.

Stump eye.

Very yellow house.

Backyard Birds

There are always ravens. Please click.

Action!

It's the time for migrating.

These are too.

And then there are the whirlybirds. There are two major freeways to the east of Bernal Heights and whenever there's a police chase or a big rig jackknifed on the blah-blah, the local news shows have to send out helicopters. The local affiliates of the three major networks seem to each have their own helicopters and they tend to hover over the bureau, which can be annoying.

 I have no idea which chopper belongs to which station.

I'm just happy that, so far, they've managed to not fly into each other.

Japanese Animals

Recently the bureau chief was given a gift of rice crackers which had been bought in Japan. The crackers are very tasty and the packaging is wonderful. Apparently the animals depicted are racoons. This menacing looking guy is reminiscent of the racoons who sit on the back deck of the bureau and stare in at us.

These guys are way too happy and goofy to be Bernal Heights racoons.

Doggie Diner Doggies Yarn-Bombed!

I posted images of the Doggie Diner Doggies on this blog in 2010. I did not explain at that time that each doggie once stood above a restaurant of the long defunct Doggie Diner chain. At the demise of the chain various collectors snapped up the doggies. A collector named John Law got three of them and put them on a trailer so that they could attend various events around town. Madame Le Chef and I spotted the doggies this Saturday past in front of a house on upper Folsom. They had been wonderfully yarn-bombed.

We stopped the car and I took several pictures. Other people were doing the same.

It turns out the doggies were there for a big Halloween party that was happening that night.

News of them spread around the hill and they came to the attention of Bernalwood, our neighborhood blog. They scooped me by a day and had lots of additional information and a photo of the Doggie Diner which once stood in our neighborhood.

Fiesta on the Hill

Bernal Heights had its annual street fair on the Sunday just past. Several blocks of the main drag, Cortland Ave., were closed to traffic and all the usual street fair things were there. Yes there were pony rides for the kids, food stands, bands, merchandise and information. The bureau chief got there later in the afternoon after a cold wind from the sea had thinned the crowd. It's interesting that some people make a living by traveling all around the state from fair to fair.

These stands have the classics.

These are more diverse.

It's all new to the kids.

This was new to me also.

Local Pride

The invaluable neighborhood blog Bernalwood has again posted the news that, contrary to received wisdom, the steepest street in San Francisco is in our stomping ground of Bernal Heights and that the block of Ripley St. where the bureau is located is the 6th steepest street in San Francisco.

I'll repost a couple of photos that would make you suspect that our street is pretty steep.

Further Oddities

There is now an electric bicycle shop on our hill. Apparently one of the reasons they moved to our neighborhood is to demonstrate how good electric bikes are for going up hills. In front of the store they have installed a "solar pump" which is powered by the solar panels above it. I have yet to see anyone actually charging their iPhone or electric bike but it's an interesting idea.

Another view.

So we have the cheerful, future oriented electric bike store and then six blocks down the street we have this.

Another view.

It's like a physical manifestation of a very dark frame of mind. The posters for The Children's Creativity Museum, on the pole in front, seem wonderfully ironic. The most disturbing architectural element of the building is this.

It appears to be a stuccoed over window. It seems to have been checked out from the Department of Easy Metaphors. I don't think I want to see the interior of the house.

Oddities of Bernal Heights

The bureau is located on a street so steep that there is no street cleaning. The force of gravity moves any trash, leaves etc. down the hill. Since there is no street cleaning, there are no parking restrictions, which is an obvious plus. The down side is that the cars park perpendicular to the curb and if you don't take care when you open the driver's door, the same force of gravity will snatch it from your hand and smash it into the passenger's door of the next car downhill. Cars that habitually park on our street tend to have battered passenger sides. Somebody recently parked an apparently greatly cherished Ford Falcon on the street and went to this amusing but inelegant extreme to protect it..

A few years ago, a large crane was needed to get some I beams  into a backyard across the street. This was what they had to do.

The crane's owner/operator showed remarkable sangfroid but admitted he had made many trips to the bathroom. Remarkably, this frightening jury-rig worked.