Newland Park, Huntington Beach

Newland Park is another nice little pocket park. It has what I suspect is a slightly older model of the red-and-yellow play area (more metal), plus a really nice wooden bridge and walkway. I know that when I was a kid, the bridge would have become all sorts of grand imaginary places, and my adult self still enjoyed walking across it while I admired the curve of the path.

There was also a good-sized flat field where kids (from the school next door?) were practicing soccer, and plenty of nice trees. There were the usual suspects and, as I'm starting to see more and more, it looked like there were at least three plantings. I do love the way the city park department keeps the sizes and ages of the trees different. It makes for a much more appealing park.

Wardlow Park Trees

Whatever its other limitations, Wardlow Park has a lovely lot of trees.

Wardlow Park, Huntington Beach

Wardlow Park is both a well-tended Huntington Beach park and a somewhat scraggly, unloved, leftover Fountain Valley school property. There is no clear fence, so the boundaries are only apparent when one looks at the ground and notes the beginning of the sprayed, dying weeds.

And, with no clear boundary, they look like one unit, so I treated as one on my visit (I did not find out about the Fountain Valley part until later). So: The front side is mostly a nice, smooth green lawn with just one little hillock near Magnolia. There is also a good portion devoted to baseball diamonds which is both well-tended and confusingly labeled as school property, so I do not actually know who owns which or why. The articles I ran across in a web search when I was trying to clear things up were not entirely helpful, either: Fountain Valley sold at least some school property to Huntington Beach and that became part of Wardlow Park. I can't tell whether or not they sold all the property, so I don't know how the unloved part is categorized.

Anyway, the Wardlow Park that I saw is a long stretch of property along Magnolia and Adams that extends back quite a distance. The first part has the baseball diamonds and also a nice, sandy playground (standard yellow and red climber) with swings and lots of room to play.

It also, unusually, has a drinking fountain, but I wouldn't count on it as a source of water. When I was there, the fountain had been stopped up and looked distinctly gross. Also, there was a brown widow web on the underside of the faucet with four egg sacs. This really isn't a problem, in a lot of ways, since widow and drinkers are unlikely to come into contact, but, despite my general love of spiders, it did contribute to the "Ick!" factor.

The restrooms may or may not have been connected to the park and may or may not have been open; they were sort of "eh" looking so I got all picky and finicky and didn't try the doors. Sorry, folks. It happens.

They were in the unloved area, near the school, in a place where the grass is mowed and herbicide occasionally applied, but where the maintenance has clearly been dialed down to near-minimal. There's a sad-looking basketball court back there, and the day I visited, several someones had clearly spent quite some time amusing themselves by breaking glass on the asphalt. No one had been by to sweep or to clear up the trash accumulated in the leftover (soccer? Look, I don't do sports) goal nearby. There was a really attractive tree back there, but someone had been draping stuff in it, and the school yard had been turned into a makeshift dog park (Can't blame anyone there. What else is it being used for?)

The nice, clear, pretty green of Wardlow Park proper.

The first look at the park stretching back and back.

A phoebe keeping an eye on things.

The old, boarded-up school, looking very sad and out of place.

The park department generally takes very good care of things, so I wonder who is meant to be looking after this?

Moffett Park, Huntington Beach

Moffett Park(1), on the wonderfully named Meander Lane, is a nice little pocket park next to a school. That means that, right after school gets out, it's full of kids and parents enjoying the chance to rest after a busy day.

On the other hand, it stretches back quite a bit further than I'd have expected, so even after school, there was a nice, shady corner near the wall suitable for quiet contemplation of the view and sitting down to take notes on the park in general.

And, yes, it was shady. There are plenty of tall, well-grown trees in the park. Some of them even have flowers, which may account for the fact that there were plenty of bugs and birds. Hummingbirds and butterflies both seemed to appreciate the chance to snack.

In addition to the jacarandas, Moffett park had a lot of those lovely, knobby trees that grow strange and wonderful trunks (I have got to get the names for some of these plants!), plus some of those twisty-trunk conifers, so it scores high on my trees-of-character scale.

The park is also made interesting by not being completely level. There are several little hillocks that keep it visually interesting and also help separate one section from another without forming absolute barriers. All in all, one of the better parks I've visited so far(2).

Drinking fountains: No. Restrooms: Does a fenced-and-locked port-a-potty count? That was weird. I mean, who builds a port-a-potty-sized fence? And why? Surely the point of the things is that they are portable?

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(1)Yes, I do watch too much Doctor Who. I keep wanting to spell it Moffat and thinking that is a much better name.
(2) I am pretty sure I've said this before, but just in case: All parks are good parks. Any park creates a zone of good-ness just by existing. However, ones that is established, there are shades of greatness, and Moffett is higher up on the scale than some.

Because Nothing Says Merry Christmas Like a Vampire Hippo!

Merry Christmas!

McCallen Park, Huntington Beach

McCallen Park is both a park and the headquarters of the Boys & Girls Club of Huntington Beach(about which I know zilch). It's pretty much a pocket park, a nice bit of green tucked between streets. By the way, both appearance and the website linked above indicate that that tempting parking lot is for the club, not for people visiting the park, so streetside it is, if you're driving.
It looks like there's a setup for soccer, and there are a couple of picnic tables, though those are unusually beat up. I'm not sure I'd want to set food on them, or sit on the benches, without a certain amount of extra covering. The phoebes like them, though. In general, phoebes seem to find picnic tables to be useful for bug-watching. I've seen them on bench or table in several parks now. I suppose they do provide a clear, branch-free view and height at the same time.

There is a playground, but it is behind a fence. The gate was open and the walkway free and clear when I went through, but I have no idea how normal this is or is not.

Rstrooms? No. Water fountain: Likewise, no. Possibly people coming for the Boys & Girls club have access to both (I'd be surprised if they didn't, given that there's a whole building there), but it doesn't look like people just walking through do (Then again, I've never actually tried going through those impressive doors)

Discovery Well Park Tress

I decided the trees in the Discovery Well Park deserved their own entry.

Discovery Well Park, Huntington Beach

There is a park commemorating Huntington Beach's first oil strike. I don't know why I find this odd, but I do.

Strange origins or not, Discovery Well Park is one of Huntington Beach's more impressive pocket parks. It is a long, narrow park, stretching quite a bit further than it looks like. There's plenty of flat ground for running, tumbling, or playing various sports. There are picnic tables.

Also, there's a nice little rise to keep things from getting boring, and it's planted with a small grove of trees. I didn't notice any particularly outstanding trees of character (You know, like the one in Lake Park that always looks like it's thinking of eating the guests), but a mini-forest is not a bad substitute. Also, there's some nice palm trees growing at the edge.

The playground was impressive, too. It had a different design of playground equipment and was set up over a large mat of that nice, spongy stuff they put playgrounds on. In fact, this is one of the first playgrounds I've seen where it looks like any falls really would hit the mat, no matter what direction they were in.

It was raining the day I walked by, so all sensible critters were tucked away, out of the wet. It looks to me, though, like there wasn't anything that would make Discovery Well Park more appealing to them than any other park, so I'd guess that there are more birds and bugs there than in the neighboring suburbs, ubt not by much.

Worthy Park, Huntington Beach

I had thought Worthy Park a small park. The bit that shows by the street looks like an afterthought bit of green, added to rest the eyes but not much for visiting. It proved deceptive, however, as the park actually extends back quite a way.

In addition to that little pocket area by the streets with the picnic tables, there is a playground area for the kids, racquetball courts, baseball diamonds, and some other sports-like fields.


The playground equipment is the standard red-and-yellow model, or rather, models: One for the little kids, one for the older ones. Plus, there are swings.

There were, as I'm beginning to think normal (and good), plenty of trees--at least three kinds planted at at least two different times, plus a rather forlorn looking sapling all on its lonesome. I like the way Huntington Beach does trees: They seldom seem to go for the popsicle-stick  model, but instead allow the trees to spread and twist a bit. It's much more interesting.

The good news is that the picnic tables in the park are actually in the shade. The bad news is, the park is at the intersection of Main and 17th, so your view is going to be less "bluebirds and butterflies" and more "SUV's and minivans." At least you'll be comfortable while you have it.

You might spot a squirrel or two while you're dining, and maybe a few small flying things, though I scuffd up fewer than I expected of those. Maybe they didn't like the fact that the ground was sopping wet?

Bring your own water. There's no fountain. On the other hand, there don't seem to be any restrooms, either, unless you count a very old, smelly port-a-potty that will probably be gone by the next visit.

Another Look at Bartlett Park, Huntington Beach

I can't decide if Bartlett Park is the ugliest beautiful park or the most beautiful ugly park in the neighborhood.

A Spider on the Stairs by Cassandra Chan, a book review of sorts

Short version of the review: The book is not a cozy, Bethancourt is an immature, and Gibbons just never grabbed me.

A Spider on the Stairs is the fourth book in the series featuring Betthancourt and Gibbons. It begins as Bethancourt is glooming through Christmas at his family's estate and Gibbons is called in to investigate a killing that might be yet another in a series of murders by "the Ashdon killer." He judges the murder to be the work of a different killer and is asked to stay on and help the local police force to investigate it since most of the people who would normally do the work are down with the flu. He calls Bethancourt and the two get down to the business of sorting through clues, trying to identify the victim, and figuringe out who had a motive for killing her.

I did not get along well with A Spider on the Stairs. This is not entirely the book's fault. I checked it out of the library because I liked the title and because, on looking the author up, I found an earlier book in the series described as a cozy, and I was in the mood for a cozy.  Excerpts of reviews on the back of the book only furthered the impression that I'd be getting something frothy and relaxing.

As it happens A Spider on the Stairs is not a cozy. The serial killer Sergeant Jack Gibbons is ostensibly not investigating casts a very long shadow over the story. I wouldn't put the book quite in the hard-boiled category. There's very little violence actually shown, but even the off-page torture and murder of a series of victims pulls the book out of the cozy category as far as I'm concerned.

Momentum kept me going to just past the halfway mark, at which point I started skimming. The problem is, in addition to the complete absence of coziness, I didn't find either of the detectives particularly appealing. Gibbons has, likely, been more thoroughly introduced in other books. In this one, he's fairly bland. He watches matters, asks questions, and leaves matters of personality to Bethancourt. Bethancourt is, unfortunately, not terrifically likeable or self-aware. He's a womanizer who has broken up with one girlfriend several times, seems to have had a few others, and is interested in crime for some reason no one, including him, can explain. He does collect gossip for Gibbons, but it hardly seems enough to justify Gibbons hauling him along on cases.

On the plus side: The murder puzzle itself is quite well worked out. While I did not like the constant presence of the serial killer case, I did appreciate the mentions of other, unrelated cases in what was, after all, a fairly large area. The clues were carefully planted and worked out well, leading my post-halfway skim to be a lot more detailed than I had expected it to be--to be honest, I had planned on skipping to the end and calling it a day, in which case, there probably wouldn't be a review here, not even with disclaimers. The inevitable connection between the two primary, apparently unrelated(1), cases was well-thought and not one I would have foreseen. Some of the minor characters stand out well. I was particularly impressed with the sense I got of the murder-victim's personality, the feeling that, yes, she would have been a fun person to know.

I do wonder if this is Chan's usual style and subject matter. Bethancourt spends much of the book being glad he's not working on the serial-killer case because the serial-killer's mind doesn't interest him, and Gibbons, too, is happy to leave that case to Brumby, the detective who specializes in the killers. In fact, the ultimate interrogation and arrest of the serial killer is handed over to Brumby with Gibbons watching admiringly--almost fannishly--as Brumby does his work. Is Chan wanting another, darker, Brumby series? Or is this tone and content typical of her?  The review excerpts I mentioned earlier all reference previous work and sound even less applicable than usual to the book I read. I think, however, I'm that I am likely through with Chan. A Spider on the Stairs has its virtues, but it is not my style.

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(1) I hope I'm not spoiling things too badly here, but I don't think so. It would be very odd for a murder mystery to have two prominent cases that were entirely unconnected in the end.

The Other Side of Huntington Beach Central Park

I don't usually go to the Huntington Lake side of the Huntington Beach Central Park. I should go more often.

The last time I was there, in the end of November, the birds were still busy flying, and there were white pelicans on the lake. There is very little that can surpass quiet moments standing and watching pelicans float.

Shipley Nature Center in November

It's still beautiful. There are even still bees and butterflies flying around, though in fewer numbers than the summer.

I love this tree. The boughs are just open enough to let light in, just close enough to keep things mysterious.

The docent couldn't help us figure out what these were. She has a thick folder full of pictures she's hoping a mycologist can help her identify one day.

I can confirm, however, they are just as slimy as they look. No, I wasn't quite brave enough to touch them, but I was with a child who was (Don't worry: She was also old enough to understand "Don't stick your fingers in your mouth afterward"). The slime pulled away in long strands, much to her delight.

The fritillaries are hanging in there. There were actually even a few straggling monarch caterpillars, though it's hard to say if they will get enough to eat.

By the way, if you want to know where all the chrysalis are, the person you want isn't the docent. It's her grandson. He gave us quite a tour, telling us not only where they were but what kind of butterfly they would be ("It all depends on what color they are.")

The squirrels were feeling very active that day. They were up, down, and all around.

There are even still spiders.

More Mysterious Book Sculptures

The Edinburgh book-sculptor strikes again, leaving what she says is the last of ten exquisite book-sculptures in libraries:

Leftover Adventures: Sweet Potatoes

You know how it is. The sweet potatoes, those delicious, golden, delightful treats, have been taken from the Thanksgiving table and are now sitting in your refrigerator, limp, cold, and oozing sticky liquid. What are  you going to do with them?

Pies, cakes, and sweet breads are out. It's after Thanksgiving and before Christmas. No one needs more deserts.  They don't reheat well, and anyway, everyone is glutted on leftovers, so just re-serving them won't do.

Time to turn to the internet for recipes! And then, if you're like me, to adjust the recipes to suit what is actually in the fridge rather than what else you might add to the bounty.

Last night's main course was Jamaican Red Bean Stew, from the Savvy Vegetarian, which gets bonus points for being a crockpot recipe and additional bonus points for being vegetarian and thus something everyone will eat. Crockpot recipes are good. I can make them when I have the time and other people can eat them when they have the time, and it works out well for everyone.

Variations ensue: I discover that I don't have red beans. The cupboard appears to have every other kind of bean, canned and dried, but not red. So, I cook some pinto beans, which turns out well, but means there's more liquid than the recipe strictly calls for.

Because of that, and because I just don't feel like using them, I leave out the canned tomatoes.

I use the whole can of light coconut milk because a partial can of anything is hard to figure out what to do with. That, also, affects the amount of liquid, but since I'm using bouillon, not broth, it's easy to adjust there.

And I used about 1/8 of a teaspoon red pepper flakes and substitute a yellow onion for scallions. Onion, I always have on hand. Scallions take planning. Besides, the goal is to use what is here, not to add to the collection.

Verdict? Yum! This recipe (alterations and all) is a keeper. It's sweet and creamy with just a hint of a bite from the red pepper flakes and a slight tang from the onion.

On to the side dish:

Sweet Potato Biscuits, from Cooking Light. Alterations: None. Biscuits are picky. Result? A very tasty, golden biscuit. They were slightly tough, which mostly means I handled them too much, but also, given the crunchy bottoms, that I should have baked them for maybe two minutes less.

After dinner, with one-and-a-bit sweet potato left, I decided to make Sweet Potato Yeast Bread, which I made last year. I had to think about this one because I used part of one recipe and part of another and did not make notes. I often forget to make notes when I wander away on my own paths. I know I used one of Cooking Light's recipes to get ideas for the flavoring. I'm pretty sure it was Sweet Potato Bread with Flax Seed, though I left the flax seed out because not everyone likes it. Also, I definitely used less sweet stuff, because this is bread, not cake. Then I put it into yeast bread. This time, I took notes:


Sweet Potato Yeast Bread
1 T sugar
1 T dry yeast
1/4 Cup water
1 1/2 C flour
1 1/2 C whole wheat flour
1 T butter
1 t salt
1/4 C brown sugar

Bake at 375 for 15 minutes and 350 for half an hour. If it sounds sort of hollow when you flick the bottom (Kind of a "thwock" sound), it's done.

The water is going to be really approximate. I thought I'd add 1/4 cup and ended up adding 1/3 because it seemed to dry, and then found I had to add a bit more flour. It might be easier to regulate hand-kneading, but there was a lot else going on, so I let the bread machine take care of that part. The dough was really soft and sticky, even then, so though it worked, I'm back to thinking 1/4 C is a better starting point.

The bread is still good, though, a soft, sweet, golden loaf. It's prone to crumbling, but I don't think it's going to be sitting around very long.