Kansas St At Caesar Chavez, San Francisco 1950s

Caesar Chavez St (formerly Army St) at Kansas St, Potrero Hill, San Francisco, 1950s

Second Sundays (November) Sustainable planting

Pictures from another successful McKinley Square community workday on November 13, 2011.

This is part of a multi month and year planting effort to improve the hillside with new and improved trails,  cleanup trash & graffiti,   push out non-native invasive species (such as the fox tail weed)  which are unsafe for dogs, and replace with native plants that will help the local butterflies, and other insects, some of which are endangered.

Lunch was sponsored by Goat Hill Pizza & Chiotras Grocery.   Thank You to everyone who made this possible.

Next meet up is in January.  Happy holiday season everybody! Thanks!

Stairs west side of Vermont St, Potrero Hill, San Francisco

A few community members met with  Mohammed Nuru (San Francisco Director of Public Works) last week.  One of the items discussed was regarding installation of connecting stairs on the west side of Vermont St between 20th St and what would be 21st St (if there were a 21st st on Potrero Hill).

This is a adjacent to the curviest street in San Francisco, and the sloped hillside of McKinley Square. There are already existing stairs both at the Top and Bottom. We are pursing to connect these existing stairs to make the neighborhood more walkable, and safer.  This area is somewhat be deemed a hazard, as it can get very slippery, especially in the rainy season.

The are for the needed stairs are roughly marked out in red on the image at below:

We have an architect who has offered to volunteer help with the planning as well as community members who are willing to help with the work.  We are pursing this with SF DPW and Park & Recreation.  If you would like to get involved, or have other thoughts, please email us at:

A visit to San Francisco Botanical Garden

A nice center meeting place, perhaps the hillside trails off McKinley Square can have something similar, with a water fountain & lights.

Catepillar on the Asclepias Fascicularis (narrowleaf milkweed )

Catepillar on the Asclepias Fascicularis (narrowleaf milkweed )

Caterpillars devouring Stinging Nettle

Even the Stinging Nettle plant has its purpose in nature, instead of just providing us painful reminder to stay away, it is a providing food source to local caterpillars. 

These caterpillars look similar to the Peacock Butterfly

Anyone know for sure?

-------------------

After some analysis from Jake Sigg of Nature News and  Liam O'Brien of SFButterfly, 

Liam informed me these are likely Red Admirals. 

Thank you!    :-)

101 Freeway Accident & Helicopters wake up Potrero Hill

Big rig accident on 101, whose most major impact on Potrero Hill was to wake everyone up at 6am with low flying news helicopters.  At least 3 news helicopters were circling Potrero Hill at 6am and continued past 12noon until when the freeway opened.

Reportedly complaints about the helicopters can be made to the FAA

Alameda office (510) 748-0122 

October 16th Planting Day a Tremendous Success

On October 16th,  volunteers from the local community, and SF Park & Recreation planted approximately 600 native & sustainable plants on the McKinley Square hillside.

This is part of a multi planting effort to push out non-native invasive species (such as the fox tail weed)  which are unsafe for dogs, and replace with native plants that will help the local butterflies, and other insects, some of which are endangered.

Lunch was sponsored by Goat Hill Pizza & Chiotras Grocery.   Thank You to everyone who made this possible.

Every flag or pot you see is a new plant planted on Oct 16. 

Every pot in this picture is a newly planted plant

Every flag or pot you see is a new plant planted on Oct 16. 

Thank you Goat Hill and Chiotras for sponsoring lunch!

The plants we started with, supplied by SF Park & Recreation and Community Donations.