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CUYAMACAWOODS
CW
NEW
SW I N T E R 2 0 1 9
Tips for Vacation Renting Your CW HomeThere are more and more Cuyamaca Woods homes showing up on vacation rental sites. We are happy to see visitors getting a chance to experience the beauty of our neighborhood. Below are some tips to help your guests and your neighbors enjoy the experience.
MEET THEM OR GIVE THEM CLEAR DIRECTIONS ON FINDING YOUR HOMEWe have met numerous cars lost or unable to enter a locked gate looking for their rental and they have already started their vacation upset. Please meet them outside the gate and escort them in; or if you can’t be there, please be sure they know the gate code and clear directions to your home. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
NO FIRES OUTSIDE!Remind guests that they can NOT have fires or charcoal barbecues outside. Using gas grills and fire pits correctly is a great way to enjoy the great outdoors and ensure everyone’s safety. • • • •
WE LIVE HERE TO ENJOY THE QUIETPlease limit the number of guests and ensure they understand that we live here to enjoy the beauty and quiet of nature. Don’t allow parties and insist on “quiet hours.” • • • • • • • • • • • •
LET THEM KNOW YOUR PROPERTY LINESMany people think undeveloped land is “open to the public.” Please mark your property lines clearly and tell your guests they can walk the roads, but do not walk on private drives or onto land that is not yours. If they have pets, please ask them to keep them leashed to avoid bothering local animals. Often folks from the city see this as “freedom” for them and pets, but they can injure or kill local wildlife or neighbor pets. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
PROVIDE INSTRUCTIONS IN CASE OF EMERGENCY EVACUATIONBe prepared! Ensure they know how to leave in case of fire or another emergency. If you want doors left unlocked or other key actions in an emergency, include that in your post and the evacuation route on your exit doors. CW Fire Safe Council has created an emergency booklet which you can find on their website: www.cuyamacawoodsfsc.org • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
ROUGH ROADS, ESPECIALLY IN SNOW OR RAINPlease tell them the speed limit, once off Engineers Road, is 5 miles an hour both for their safety and to protect our roads. Be sure visitors understand we have dirt roads, and in bad weather they may need 4-wheel drive. During the last snow day we had a few cars stuck on roads. Additionally, let them know there are no street lights, so they should try to arrive before dark. Finally, added traffic (be it renters or commercial workers) impacts our roads no matter how carefully people drive. Please consider increasing your contribution to the road maintenance fund to off-set damage done by increased traffic. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
CWPOA BOARD MEMBERS
Chair Susan Stevenson [email protected]
Secretary Mary Hart [email protected]
Treasurer Mary Hart [email protected]
Roads Joel Morrison [email protected]
Newsletter Editor Terri Groth [email protected]
Website Susan Stevenson Terri Groth [email protected]
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CUYAMACA WOODS POA Business
Call for PhotosWe are putting together the 2020 Cuyamaca Woods Calendar and need your beautiful photos. Set your camera’s resolution to “best” and head outdoors. The final submission date will be later this spring. Send your photos to: [email protected]
Reports from the Board MeetingCUYAMACA WOODS ROADS Reported by Joel Morrison
The roads are holding up after the recent rains. Work on the roads will begin later this spring after the winter rain season. Urgent repairs will be done as needed.
CUYAMACA WOODS GATES Reported by Bill Stowers
All Gate codes have been updated. The new code is 2020 for all gates, and 2020# for the Grandview gate. The older codes will be removed as new ones are added.
CUYAMACA WOODS FINANCIAL
Reported by Mary Hart
General Fund $1,353.21
Gates 4,060.22
Roads 8,120.45
Contingency 4,500.00
CW BALANCE: $$18,034.08
Cody J. Raines passed away on November 11, 2018 in a car accident on Engineers Road near Azalea Creek. He leaves behind his wife Ashley and four young children. The Cuyamaca Woods community sends its sincerest condolences to Ashley and the children. There is a fund set up to help the Raines family: gofundme.com/cody-raines
Cody Raines
CONNECT ON SOCIAL MEDIA
REMEMBERING
Check out these community online groups for info, sharing photos and fun conversation. Both groups are open to all in the neighborhood, just request to join.
n Susan Carter has set up and monitors Cuyamaca Woods Neighborhood Forum @groups.yahoo.com
n Kim Robson set up and monitors the Cuyamaca Woods (Julian Neighborhood) Facebook page
Our website, cuyamaca-woods.org has many great features including our newsletters in COLOR! If you enjoy reading the newsletter online and would like to stop receiving your printed copy in the mail, please go to the “COMMENTS”page of our website, or email us at: [email protected]
WWW.CUYAMACA-WOODS.ORG
Online
WebThe 2019 Cuyamaca Woods Calendar cover photo (above, left) was shot by Gustavo Prado. The turkeys by Mary Hart (above, right) were featured on the November page for Thanksgiving.
You probably buy a lot of things
from Amazon, especially when
you live out here. Have you
heard of the smile.amazon.com
program? Whenever you are
shopping on Amazon, please
remember to start by going to
smile.amazon.com and select
Cuyamaca Woods Fire Safe
Council as your default
charity. When you do, 0.5%
of the amount of your purchases
will go to CWFSC. That won’t be
much at first, but if we all do it
whenever we are shopping on
Amazon, it will add up!
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THE CUYAMACA WOODS FIRE SAFE COUNCIL The rains are back this winter. With everything so wet, we don’t need to worry about wildfires too much. But here is something to think about: all this rain means the weeds and grass will flourish this spring. They need to be under control by the early summer, and it may take more than one trip around the yard with the weed trimmer this year to get it done. Many of us do our own trimming, and others hire outside help. If you need help finding someone in the area to help with trimming then contact us, we can provide you with names of local vendors.
Don’t forget brush clearing for defensible space around your home. Here are three ways to get rid of that brush pile: burning, chipping, or disposal. Burning requires a burn permit from the local fire agency. For chipping there are service vendors locally, as well as no-cost chipping available from the county fire safe council. If you need help with this, please contact us. For disposal, we hope to host a community roll-off dumpster again in May - look for further notices.
We welcome you to join the CW Fire Safe Council. Find out what we are doing to keep our community fire safe. Please attend our meetings even if you are not a member. For meeting dates, check our website: www.cuyamacawoodsfsc.org JOHN GROTH, PRESIDENT
Fire Safe Council Winter 2019 Update
Mountain Lion SightingsSeveral mountain lions were seen in our community in January, reinforcing that we share this beautiful area with these magnificent animals. The Mountain Lion Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping mountain lions safely coexist with humans, has asked that when someone sees a mountain lion, would they please share that information with the Foundation? Their staff, in conjunction with the CA Department of Fish and Wildlife, tracks lion/human encounters to try to head off any trouble before it occurs by understanding the members and dynamics of the local lion population. Sherry Simmons has volunteered to compile this info and forward it to the Foundation.
If you see a mountain lion, please record the info below as soon after the sighting as possible and email it to Sherry at [email protected]
• Name, phone number, and email address of person who saw the mountain lion
• Date, time, and closest address of sighting
• Was the lion an adult or a youngster with spots?
• Did it have a radio collar on?
• What was the mountain lion doing? Was it walking by or was it showing interest in areas where pets or livestock are kept?
• Was the sighting reported to the media (newspaper, TV station)?
• Was the sighting reported to a law enforcement agency or the CA Dept of Fish and Wildlife?
Thank you for your help and cooperation with improving safety for people, pets, and livestock, while also reducing the threat to mountain lions.
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Photo Credit: Dan Potter, Lancaster, California
A little over ten years ago, Gary and I saw a little brown bird clinging to the bark of a large old tree along Mountain Meadow Road. It was a Brown Creeper. I never saw one before or have seen one since in Cuyamaca Woods.
For more info on CW fauna, please see the following on Flickr.
Birds of Cuyamaca Woods: flickr.com/photos/39935474@N03/albums/72157624019373436
Mammals of Cuyamaca Woods: flickr.com/photos/39935474@N03/albums/72157623110428318
BROWN CREEPERS ARE APTLY NAMED due to their habit of creeping, spiral-fashion, up large tree trunks probing for insects in the bark and generally blending brilliantly into their background. It is an easily overlooked species.
Since they prefer deep shady forests with large trees, their numbers have never been really high in San Diego County. They are found most consistently in North America in places where such forests remain, such as the major mountain ranges, the Pacific Northwest, and the northeast.
The San Diego County Bird Atlas (by Phil Unitt) states that creepers prefer building their nests behind large loose chunks of Incense Cedar bark. Our area has few cedars left after the Cedar Fire, so that is one more strike against the species here.
Interestingly, one creeper was reported from Acorn Patch Road in Cuyamaca Woods by Steve Summers on April 13, 1974! This data point was retrieved from eBird, the database supported by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. I have added my observation from 2008 to the database now, as well. In contrast, Brown Creepers are regularly reported from nearby locations like William Heise Park and Stonewall Mine, among others. Part of the lack of data from Cuyamaca Woods is of course the fact that it is a private community not frequently visited by birders, so the seeming lack of creepers here could be a result of this fact.
Brown Creepers normally eat insects found in crevices in the bark of coniferous trees, but have been known to visit feeding stations and consume suet, peanut butter, and seeds. So, if you have a bird feeding area, and especially if you have large trees in your area, watch out for this tiny, delicate little bird getting a free lunch. During the breeding season, male creepers establish territories with singing competitions, and fly in spirals to attract mates. Only males sing, and the song is high, reedy, and delicate – perhaps overlooked if one were not listening for it. Today, it’s easy to pull up bird songs online, so if you want to hear this song, just do a quick search for “brown creeper song.”
If Cuyamaca Woods residents detect creepers, please consider posting your observations to eBird (just enter eBird for a search and it will be the top choice), as it would fill in gaps in our county-wide knowledge of this little denizen of the deep woods. n n n n n n n ROBYN WAAYERS
whereCreepersgone?have all the
Photo Credit: Brown Creeper © Andy Reago and Chrissy McClarren, Wikimedia Commons
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FEBRUARY’S NIGHT SKIES are full of open star clusters, but the Beehive Cluster (also known as M44 or Praesepe, the manger) is one of the largest and most brilliant open clusters. It is located directly in the east (toward the eastern horizon) below the bright stars Castor and Pollux in the constellation Gemini. In a good pair of binoculars, the Beehive will seem to include about 100 stars, but it actually contains over 1,000 stars. Praesepe is about 580 light years away, but it is so large that a sharp-eyed observer can see the effect named “mass aggregation” by astronomers. Mass aggregation means the more massive stars sink toward the cluster’s center and the less massive stars disperse toward the fringes. You can observe this for yourself in Praesepe as this cluster is about 900 million years old. If you are interested in exoplanet studies, Praesepe is the only open cluster known to contain two “hot Jupiter” exoplanets.
Three planets, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn, are visible in the mornings in February. Jupiter rises in the southeast around 4am on February 1st and 90 minutes earlier by the end of the month. You can see Jupiter pass very close to the Moon on February 27th in the south-southeast about one hour before sunrise. Venus rises in the southeast about 30 minutes after Jupiter and spends most of the month in the constellation Sagittarius. Venus will, therefore, pass near many deep-sky objects during the month. Venus will pass very close (within 1.1 degrees) to Saturn on the morning of February 18th about 45 minutes before sunrise. In early February, Saturn will rise about 85 minutes after Venus, but Saturn will move ahead of Venus during the month and rise about 40 minutes before Venus by month’s end.
Mars and Mercury are the evening planets in February. Mars appears fairly high in the southwest after sunset and sets around 11pm. Mercury rises high enough to be seen in the evening twilight after about February 12th, but it reaches its highest point (11 degrees or the width of your fist held at arm’s length) above the western horizon on February 26th about 30 minutes after sunset.
The Winter Triangle asterism is a defining feature of winter skies in the northern hemisphere, so it is an excellent reference point to start your night observations. It consists of the very bright stars Sirius (low in the southeast in the constellation Canis Major), the red-orange giant Betelgeuse (higher from the horizon than Sirius and slightly more in the south in the constellation Orion), and Procyon (east from Betelgeuse in the constellation Canis Minor).
The zodiacal light is a cone-shaped glow of light rising from the western horizon that is visible just after darkness falls. It is formed from tiny dust particles of passing comets that gather along the plane of the ecliptic (the path of the Sun and the planets in the sky). The glow is so dim that you need a dark night to see it, so it will be most visible from February 21st to March 7th this year when the Moon is not in the sky at sunset. The zodiacal light appears in late winter because the angle of the ecliptic with the horizon is very steep. A good reference point to look for is the planet Mars, since it is traveling along the ecliptic, and then drop your gaze down to the horizon.
If you are interested in learning more about what you can see in the night sky right now, visit the
www.astronomy.com website and click on “The Sky This Week.”
If you want more information about astronomy events in the Julian area you can go to
www.juliandarkskynetwork.com
You may email the Julian Dark Sky Network at [email protected]
Winter TriangleAND
GhostlyZodiacalLight
Y Y Y BILL CARTER Y Y Y
Photo Credit: ESO Observatory, La Silla, Chile
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Walking ClubOur informal group meets each weekday morning for a 2+ mile walk along Engineers Road. Our walks are great for the mind and the body and we never seem to run out of topics to chat about.
Please join us any morning you’re free or make it a regular part of your daily schedule.
Susan Stevenson: [email protected]
Book ClubThe Cuyamaca Woods Book Club meets the first Saturday of the month. The requirements for joining the club are that you read the book and show up to discuss it with our lively bunch of readers! The club meets at 9:45am at member’s homes in Cuyamaca Woods.
Contact Terri Groth: [email protected] 760-764-2734
Quilt ClubThe quilt club meets occasionally to explore a fabric store, see a quilt show or just get together at a quilt lover’s home to enjoy the most recent quilting done by members. If you would like to join us please contact Colleen Manzer.
Contact Colleen Manzer: [email protected]
Garden ClubThe Cuyamaca Woods Garden Club December meeting was held at Victoria Keswick and Joan Stabenau’s home. Our subject was raised garden beds and Daniel Castro provided great photos of his garden build, as well as suggestions. But the main event was the annual Holiday White Elephant gift exchange. There was competition for many of the gifts which turned hilarious! If you’d like to join in the fun, please contact Matt Arsena for details on our next meeting.
Contact Matt Arsena: [email protected] 619-643-1133
The Garden Club celebrated the holiday season with a White Elephant gift exchange.
Cat Quilt by Colleen Manzer
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n n n C U YA M A C A W O O D S N E W S - Editor: Terri Groth, Graphic Design: Victoria Keswick, Proofreading: Kim Robson n n n
CLUBSCW
Sale4 CW PROPERTY LAND/HOMES
Borrego Springs Garden TourThe Cuyamaca Woods Garden Club is going on an outing and everyone in Cuyamaca Woods is invited! The Anza-Borrego Natural History Association is hosting the “Borrego Garden Tour 2019” on March 16, 9am – 3pm. The tour includes seven gardens. Given the rain Borrego has had, things should be looking lovely!
Ticket prices are $30 for the general public and can be purchased at abdnha.org/gardentour/index.htm. Colleen Manzer will be hosting lunch for Cuyamaca Woods neighbors at the Manzer/Wilson condo in the heart of Borrego Springs after the tour.
If you would like to join your neighbors in a carpool and/or lunch, please purchase your own tickets and contact Colleen Manzer at [email protected] or Matt Arsena at [email protected]. We plan to leave Cuyamaca Woods at 9am and anticipate lunch around 1pm, returning to Cuyamaca Woods around 4pm. This should be a fun opportunity to see some very different landscapes and enjoy sunshine by the pool over food and drinks. We hope you join us!
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LOTS/LAND
Julian Progressive Activists in the Backcountry
Come for the politics, stay for the friendships!
Contact: [email protected]
5593 Acorn Patch Road 2.65 acres $69,0005750 Forest Meadow Road 5.14 acres $185,000
DISCLAIMER: This property information was collected on 1-23-19 from online real estate sources. Expect errors.
ADVERTISING – To have your ad placed in the next issue of Cuyamaca Woods News, please email to: [email protected]
IF YOU HAVE NEWS of someone in our Cuyamaca Woods community and would like it published in our next newsletter, please email to: [email protected]
Eva’s Eggs
619•540•0782 619•540•0900text or call
ORG AN IC & F REE RANGE
KLR CreationsArt,Antiques & Curiosities
etsy.com/shop/KLRCreationsStore7 6 0 - 7 6 5 - 0 2 1 3
WWW.CUYAMACA-WOODS.ORG
Address Service Requested
CUYAMACA WOODS
CW Service DirectoryARE YOU LOOKING FOR A QUALIFIED PERSON to help with a home improvement project? Check out the Cuyamaca Woods Service Directory and find those individuals recommended by your neighbors. If you have had a positive experience with a service provider, please let us know and we’ll add them to the directory.
Contact Susan Stevenson: [email protected]
TERRI GROTH’S
D I D Y O U K N O WCUYAMACA WOODS POA
P.O. BOX 1993 JULIAN, CA 92036-1993
Freezing Cold on the MountainON OCCASION, THE TEMPERATURES in Cuyamaca Woods drop low enough to freeze water in pipes. Protect your property and prevent costly repairs. Wrap exposed pipes with appropriate insulation. During a cold snap leave water dripping regularly including during the night. If you are gone overnight or longer shut the water off and drain the pipes.
