Rowan's Round of Days

We had a great lunch catered by Panera. I'm impressed by the level of recycling the conference is doing - not just aluminum & plastic but also composting. Yay.

Citizen Water Quality Monitoring by the Clean Water Team, Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program (SWAMP). There is lab equipment here for testing as needed by De Anza College students.

Restoring Urban Rivers by Jim Fiedler of SCVWD. He described the District - 10 local reservoirs, historic runs for steelhead trout, 400,000 acre-feet of drinking water and thoughstand of miles of creeks in a 1,500 acre county. 70,000 parcels in flood prone areas. 18 species of interest in tidal, riparian and aquatic habitats. And then talked about various projects. I'd heard most of that before.

Then I bugged out before the Q&A and introductions of the various groups who were tabling so I could get on up to the AMUH At Home. I had talked to most of the grouops during the poster session and the breaks. In particular, I talked to Citizens for A Livable San Jose (CalSJ) who are working on riparian policy enforcement. I will probably do something with them down the road. And it was nice to see friends from Friends of Coyote Creek and take my turn talking about our work. It was good day of conferencing.

It was odd to be at an At Home and not be working on necklaces. Though my hands are better, I'm still not stringing beads. *sigh* But we had some good discussions of the Orixa and after the At Home Mama & I went to dinner at Asmara. It has been way too long since I was there. Yum.

Our current Senior Pomba head has retired from the House. That puts me, as unprepared as I am, as Senior. Eep. Mama (and Pomba) both think it is a great idea, but I do wish I wasn't so far away. I spent the 1980's commuting to a coven in the East Bay and the traffic has gotten worse with the passing years. I really don't feel in a position to commit to drive up there all the time. Luckily many of us are inworld and also we are having chorus practice at my house a fair amount of the time so I'm managing. But Eep!, did I say Eeeeep!