East Bay Home and Gardens

Eighty-one years ago Joseph Grinnell, director of UC’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, sat in his corner office at the edge of Faculty Glade watching a crew of arborists at work on a venerable coast live oak. Or, as he put it in his essay “Tree Surgery and the Birds,” “ ‘tree surgeons’ … under directions of a ‘landscape architect.’ ” His contempt is evident. Over the years, Grinnell had observed 46 species of birds in that oak. And he noted the removal of bits of the tree that had attracted particular species of birds: the decaying stub where the downy woodpecker drummed, the white-breasted nuthatch’s favorite foraging ground, the flycatcher’s perch. -more-

Around a North Berkeley bend, quickly by-passed by those busily headed someplace else, there’s a gem of a creek side house. The architecture and setting embody much of what gives residential Berkeley a special sense of place. -more-

One of our own is on her way to Washington DC to receive a long-deserved award. Kathy Kramer, who founded and runs the annual Bringing Back the Natives garden tour, will be honored on Nov. 1—appropriately enough, All Saints’ Day—along with Bill McKibben (The End of Nature), Al Gore, Rev. Richard Cizik (who has stirred up a hornets’ nest with the Evangelical Climate Initiative’s “Call to Action” statement, insisting on Christians’ responsibility toward stewardship of the earth), Steve Curwood (host of NPR’s Living on Earth show) and others including more dubious company like Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. -more-

More Earthquake Tidbits -more-

The other day a recent inspection client of mine called up and asked if I could help answer a few questions. She proceeded to ask if her new house had copper piping. -more-