Forest Living: The Praying Mantis Are Back!

One wonder we've enjoyed here is watching the Praying Mantis. We first noticed them in the summer 2007, before our house was complete. We'd see them hanging on door frames and eaves. Then later our adopted-stray Homer would crunch away on them, a handy snack! So far this year we've just seen a few small ones sedately moving around. Then this morning I saw my first large one.

Carnivores, the mantis prey on other bugs and even eat each other. I had thought their name was preying mantis for that reason, but they are named from the way they hold their front legs as if in prayer. Figures!

If you aren't too squeamish to watch a mouse being killed by one, there is an interesting, short video on You Tube. I think that this is a larger species than the ones here, but our cats will attest that the forests here are a rich mouse environment -- the food is plentiful. Click on this link for the You Tube Praying Mantis Versus Mouse video.

The Amador Master Gardeners classify them in the middle between the insects you want and those you don't. Issue is that they will eat any insect, even the beneficial ones. We tend to leave them alone (we excluding our incorrigible cats in this case).




Here's one a year or so ago, eating a yellow jacket. The mantis is on top of a yellow jacket trap – we were having trouble with a couple of nests that were positioned over our lower level sliding doors, and appreciated the help!



When I saw my first good-sized one this season, it was sitting on a Fragrant Cloud rose blossom -- green on red -- I had to grab my camera! The weather here has been odd, mid-70s and overcast, which meant good light conditions for a picture. But there was also a strong breeze, so getting a detailed shot was challenging -- you can't quite see the details of those compound eyes on that scary triangular head, which can circle around to track you almost as if detached.



The mantis was aware of me. They have great eyesight. It didn't leave or threaten me, but it shifted its head as I moved and always seemed to be looking right at me. Then while I was messing around and trying to use my telephoto to get close without getting close, a small flying insect flew around the rose and with a swift angular unfolding movement, the mantis legs flew out and clasped the insect inside those incredible front legs. Wikipedia calls these legs raptorial, which brings forth Jurassic Park images in my mind. I'm happy it is so small (or I am so big)!

Maybe you can see its bug meal if you compare the following 2 shots. After it captured the insect, the mantis just froze there (waiting for me to leave?), and when I look closely, I can see that it is holding something black/brown within those grasping, spiked legs!



The first time I searched the internet for information about the Praying Mantis, my curiosity was focused on their protective coloration. These two are from last fall – when a large Praying Mantis seemed to hang out for several days on top of a large Peace rose, looking pretty-much the same color as the rose.



If you're interested in more, check out wikipedia for information and pictures about various Praying Mantis species -- Wikipedia Praying Mantis.

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Chapter 3: Aesthetics, Aspirations, Art, & Architects: Preparation

Being fired by our architect was a good thing -- it made us stop and think and do some research. I found a guide to selecting an architect on the AIA website. ( I've tried to find the same guide to reference here, but everything has changed -- there are many guides with somewhat different messages.)

Here is what we did, and admittedly, I interpreted and didn't completely follow the AIA guide (not a surprise to those who know me!). We assembled the following information, and then embarked on our search for an architect. In Chapter 4 I'll tell you about that search, this is the preparation. I don't know if it would work for everyone, but it definitely worked well for us.

Design Aspirations
This was the most important thing we did at this stage. The lack of this simple yet hard-to-compose list was central to the debates and disagreements not only with our first architect, but with each other.

We didn't have a definition for what design aspirations were supposed to be, but they seemed somewhat fuzzily clear. Like, we ought to be able to come up with this. And so we did.

To start, we separately worked on our lists, and I remember staring at empty space for a while as I let the thoughts come. These initial lists were like brainstorms – we didn't try to focus on the wording.

Once we had each created a list, we met at our dining room table and shared the elements on our list, and why these were important to us. There was a lot of overlap, sometimes said differently, and there were also some slightly different key elements in each list. Not necessarily things we differed on, but a difference in how important some things were. Understanding these things about how we each saw this was very good to do at this stage, and was continually helpful during the ensuing design and build processes.

Our merged and polished design aspirations were:

• Aesthetically different, not just a box in a forest.
• Energy independence. All electric. Don't even want propane.
• Take advantage of the setting in the trees, the forest and canyon views, and use clean lines and smart design to blend into the setting, lots of windows to blur the lines between inside and outside. Build within the trees and remove as few trees as possible.
• Very open feeling within the house and between the house and the outside, but also the ability to close off areas. I like to be able to shut the door on the kitchen when I want to, and yet not feel isolated in there if I don't want to.
• Use of interesting materials – doesn't mean expensive – can be artistic use of industrial if it also fits the setting, colors, and style. Like the idea of using concrete and metal.
  

Primary Building Goals

• Create a principal residence (not a vacation place)
• Energy independence including active and passive approaches to solve for our energy needs
• Radiant heat (extremely important -- noise, comfort, and health)
• 2500-2800 square feet (prefer smaller end of that range)
  

Property Description

• ~ 12 acres, wooded and hilly, on a gravel road
• 11 GPM well, septic system, on the grid
• gravel driveway access to building site
• 200 sq. foot cabin with bathroom, at end of driveway, want to retain as future workshop

Known Limitations

• Limited level space
• Current septic tank located at widest area in driveway
• Access to cabin needs to remain after construction (can't block driveway without putting in new driveway)
• Build around/within the trees – in particular there is a glade area with large, old trees immediately adjacent to where we want to build – the trees stay

Ideal Features

• High ceilings, walls for hanging art, bookshelves
• Ceiling fans
• Indirect lighting, sky lights
• Pocket doors
• Vehicle turnaround space, extra parking

Concerns or Questions

• Wood stove(s)?
• Future fence location
• Exits from floors
• Trade-offs – know we need to make decisions (can't have everything) and will need help

We also itemized the rooms we would like to have, any unusual furniture or electronic requirements, and the room sizes in our current house as well as which ones seemed like good sizes and which ones were too large or small. After some false starts and learning, we were ready to move forward again with new hope.

Looking back on this list today, I realize we got it all. Here are some shots of our house from the east side, showing some of those aesthetics, and taken about 2 weeks ago. :-)







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Chapter 2: Where Do You Put The Garage?

Switching back to the past (after my last post of weekend photos) ---

It's Fall '99, we own the property, and we think we're ready to consider some designs. We knew some of what we wanted:

• an architectural design – to get that edge in form, function, aesthetics
• modern or contemporary architecture – the clean lines, the utilitarian approaches, letting the actual materials show through
  
• to produce our own energy – expected to use a solar power solution as well as passive design -- hadn't thought about how much we would produce versus buy
  
• to preserve the forest, its character, and particularly the magnificent trees
  

We independently reviewed some contemporary style architecture books and compared our opinions. We walked around the property and seriously considered 3 locations for the house.

We found information about 3 local architects, didn't like one, one wasn't interested, and we met with the other one. (As you are probably thinking, this was not a good process for selecting an architect. And you're right, but we learned quite a bit with this approach -- learning we needed more than we realized!)

The morning we were to meet with the architect, we were excited and tense. Ron was pacing and I couldn't eat. But nothing prepared us for his first words, which he repeated over and over -- Where do you put the garage?

He paced across our property near the potential building sites, and he didn't see a solution. We were dismayed and confused. He identified myriad difficulties, such as building a garage floor overhanging the hillside or building it under the house resulting in a high rise, or blocking access to the cabin (which we had planned to keep).

Yet -- he suggested we look at some of his houses, and we toured several over the next few weeks. The owners of the houses praised their working relationship with him; they were clearly pleased. The houses were solid and we didn't see anything wrong, although they were larger, seemed to have some wasted space in my opinion, and nothing really drew us to his work (but then they weren't contemporary designs). Bottom line -- despite his misgivings about the garage issue, and our lack of excitement about his work, we were all willing to try some designs. I think we were thankful he was willing to work with us. We loaned our annotated architecture books and agreed to his hourly rate (very reasonable) and we were off!

We met with him every few months – primarily because Ron and I were working long hours. We'd take a long weekend to visit the area, stay with my Dad, and meet with him for a couple of hours. Those early meetings were quite exciting and fun as we debated various alternatives. We also completed some work at the property -- cleared some brush, widened the driveway, and arranged for a topographical survey, this latter item providing some answers about those slopes.

Over time I began to worry because we had repeated debates with him about solar power. He pushed us to reconsider, saying he didn't understand why we wanted it and that he wasn't sure it was that effective. In retrospect, I think he wasn't comfortable working with the technology.

Another issue was size. We were a part of that issue, but every time he drew a floor plan (several) the house increased in size until it was over 3500 square feet. I don't think he knew how to push us on the trade-offs, or I'm not sure he heard us about the size (we were expecting 2500 square feet).

We limped along this way for a little over 3 years, which sounds long now but it probably only included 10 sessions with him. It was a very slow pay-as-you-go progress that we were making. We still didn't know when we could afford to build, so this seemed fine.

Then a couple of crises intervened – my Dad's declining health and some financial setbacks caused us to put this work on hold. My Dad died in early 2004. Although he had seen us buy a place near him, and he knew we would build there someday, it is an additional sadness that he never saw our place, and there are so many things about it today that he would appreciate.



So, now, let's move forward to 2005. Our finances have recovered, and we expected we'd be ready to break ground in 2006. We contacted the architect and he agreed to start working with us that spring. Then after delays and rescheduling, he wrote in June and regretfully fired us! Say what?

We were shocked, angry, and depressed -- this was a low point in creating this home. However, as we accepted his decision and reflected on our experience (no surprise to you I'm sure), we realized there was an obvious mismatch between his craft and our wants and somehow we had been so eager for progress that we didn't stop to think.

The time we spent working with him had achieved some benefits for us.

• His arguments and questions, even about aspects that seemed most basic to us, helped refine our thinking.
  
• We abandoned some ideas along the way and thereby became more focused on what we wanted.
  

As I look back today, I realize it is fortunate that he had the courage, self-awareness, and wisdom to end his work with us before we went further. This was a gift that we didn't appreciate at the time, but do now.

Where did we put the garage? There was some grading involved, and we had to remove a few young trees , but for us it didn't turn out to be a major design consideration.

Here are some shots from 2006, before we broke ground, and some taken today.

1) View from looking down the driveway from our house location today
These shots include the same Monterey Pine tree in the foreground. It has continued to thrive, and towers over the garage today. 2006 versus 2009; what a difference!



2) View coming up the driveway
These next 2 show the garage from the other side, coming up the driveway. The multiple trunk oak tree towards the right is the same tree, still there today. You can also see the Monterey Pine further back -- behind the garage in our current picture.



3) Panoramic Shots Across from our House Location
Here are 2 panoramic shots, each produced in Photoshop Elements from a series of 3 pictures that the application pasted together.



Next post I'll describe the successful process we used to find an architect – part of the reason we live here today. It's a process that included so many important and complex facets and one of the quickest solved was where to put the garage. :-)

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Just Photos: Gardens, Cats

Sharing pictures from this weekend.

Behind the house (south side); the garden here is primarily roses, but a few petunias and others. We walk past these in the mornings and evenings when we're here, along with the dogs and often the cats -- we walk in the forest at dawn and in the evening.





One of my favorite roses is Fragrant Cloud. I bought my first one years ago in Morgan Hill, and it spent about 8 years in a pot. It survived the move here and is doing very well. This is a picture of a rose from my second bush -- I love this rose – great color, lots of blooms, and an intense scent. The other is right outside our bedroom window and sometimes I can smell the roses at night -- making it easy to stop and smell them. :-)




Behind the house again, SW corner garden -- and that cat is BCOS (Black Cloud Over Snow) -- he's taking advantage of the nice breeze to cool his tummy.




WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get), in the shade on that same porch.




Homer-Kitty in the driveway yesterday. He is the stray who showed up at our building site about two years ago. He is a superb rodent hunter -- has managed all my gopher problems. I attended a master gardener session yesterday morning and one question was about gophers. The response? The best solution is a cat.




A few shots from the upper garden, or orchard? Most of our fruit/nut trees are up there as well as blueberries, rhubarb, onions, tomatoes, cantaloupe, squash (several kinds), beets, cucumbers, corn, beans, peas, peppers. That sounds like a lot, but it isn't all producing. I was late getting it in and I'm learning a lot about gardening here this year. The onions have been great. The others are just coming in so we'll see.

Today I planted some carrots for the fall, as well as more beets. The garden is a long narrow bench above the garage. The trees are all very young -- new this year -- we have cherry, apricot, apple (3), peach (2), plum (2), nectarine, and walnut. The walnut and one of the apples are not in this garden -- they're behind the house.



That's what it looked like here this sunny late summer weekend. Weather here has been in the low eighties with a mild breeze. Almost feels like a touch of fall in the air, but I know we have many long summer days ahead of us.

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Chapter 1: A Road Runs Through It

Around '92 we made some tentative plans to move north (from where we lived then, in Ventura County, just north of the California LA basin). We refinanced our home and bought a house outside Portland, which we rented, and then we tried to find jobs there, with no luck. This was good luck in retrospect, but we didn't think so at the time, we just felt frustrated.

In '94 both our jobs were transferred somewhat north to Silicon Valley, and we bought a home in Morgan Hill with a green belt area (woods) behind it, below Henry Coe Park. The Oregon dream began to fade.


The back yard of our Morgan Hill house.

Even before all this, my Dad had moved to the Sierras back in '88, and as we spent more time there, we liked the area and decided we could probably get what we were looking for in California.

Then '98 was our lucky year -- it all came together. I received a bonus, and it was a buyer's market for land. Over a period of about 6 weeks, we looked at land on the weekends with our patient real estate agent Susan Jobson, my Dad, and our puppy Ripley. We visited app. 30 properties across Amador County, which has a western border of oak dotted grasslands and an eastern border in the high sierras. We narrowed our search down to the middle of the county – about 2000' elevation -- above the grasslands but avoiding serious snow.

The 3 finalist properties that we seriously considered and didn't buy, each educated us further:

• One had 5 heavily wooded acres, but it was on a somewhat traveled road and we didn't like what some of the neighbors had done (bulldozed too much). If we bought this one, we'd just barely make it into the forest. We decided to look at more than 5 acres.

• The next one had a stunning 180 degree view of the canyon (8 acres). I'm sure there is a gorgeous home there today. But there were few large trees, the owner had bulldozed manzanitas into a ditch below, the neighboring parcel had driveway access through this parcel, and it wasn't yet connected to the grid. Nope, we needed to look further.

• The third had a level building area with a nice western horizon (8 acres again). It wasn't heavily wooded, yet there was a nice mix of good trees. But the building site backed up to BLM land and while that meant a view of open woods, it also meant close proximity to open woods that others could use for recreation. Not appealing to us.

Finally, towards the end of a long Sunday, we found our place -- 12 acres with an interesting variety of more large trees than I have tried to count:

• Oaks (evergreen & deciduous),
  
• Pines (Ponderosa & Jeffrey, a few Sugar Pine, and, unfortunately a few gray pine),
• Cedars,
  
• Douglas Firs, and
  
• Madrones.
  

Here are two panorama pictures taken in the winter, at the location where our house is today.

This first one is facing east/southeast and is the view we see from kitchen, porch, deck and living room today.


Then this one is facing south/southwest, and is the view we see from living room, deck, and guest bedroom today.


The parcel included a 200 square foot cabin, a well, a septic system, and power. The cabin had a toilet, sink, and shower – we could camp out here in comfort before we built!

Here's a picture of that cabin -- uphill from the panoramic shots and where the house sits today. Notice the steep terrain off to the left.


There were 2 issues with this parcel, which also have advantages:

• The slope is pretty steep in most places. We're on a south facing major ridge, with 2 significant drainage areas (seasonal streams? ravines?) running down to Sutter Creek (the creek, not the town) below us. Definitely it was more expensive to build here, and I've tumbled down some of those hillsides!
  
  But without these slopes we wouldn't have the nice views over the canyon and treetops, and we were able to build our lower floor into the hill (great insulation).
  
  Not that we knew the advantages at the time we purchased – our emotions were caught up in the special feel of this place, we decided we would figure it all out – and we were off.

• The road runs through it – pretty much equally bisecting our 12 acres. We have neighbors who live further up and down the road, and the road goes through all of the parcels. We can't see our neighbors – those ravines and ridges are between us as the road meanders across the hillside.
  
  This road concept was new to us, and it surprises people when I tell them about it, yet there are advantages that suit us and that we've learned about as we live here:
  (a) We had plenty of room to build “above” the road, so the road is now a fire break.
  (b) It provides access to the lower part of the property.
  (c) No one will build below us (across the road) because we own that land, so we are in the midst of the forest.
  (d) It is a gravel road, which I appreciate more and more as I talk to others who live up here. It slows traffic (although a few try to race on it) and it probably keeps others from trying it out. Our traffic is typically neighbors and delivery trucks -- app. 3-4 a day.

So, we bought it! My bonus became our down payment, the seller took back a mortgage, we closed escrow in '98, and we sold our Oregon house in '99 to pay off the mortgage. The property was ours free and clear. We couldn't afford to build yet, but we thought we were ready to go!

The road runs through it, and it is the perfect place for us.

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