Settling back into Santa Cruz

Time is a strange beast. At some moments, it feels like we just left New Zealand, and at others it feels like we've been gone for a long time. In reality, we're just ticking over the four month mark back on American soil. It has been a busy, hectic time and it feels like we are still settling into a routine and finding our new normal. We are back in our house so it seems like the transition should have been easier and faster, but alas. 

We had our first visitors from New Zealand about two months after we returned. Our friends Emma and Martin had been working and traveling in Canada for about seven months and stopped to see us on their way back to NZ. Autumn in NZ doesn't coincide with Halloween, so we took a trip to the pumpkin patch, roasted pumpkin seeds, and let Emma and Martin experience the joy of carving a pumpkin. They did a great job for their first time! I took them for a long walk in a native redwoods forest (there is a big stand of redwoods in NZ in a research forest) and we looked for the monarch butterflies that were just starting to arrive in Santa Cruz. 

venturing into the pumpkin patch

the requisite pumpkin photo

getting stuck in

Jacques-o-lantern

albino redwood sprouts

baby chicken of the woods mushrooms

and all grown up mushrooms

One of our goals when we left NZ was to try to maintain our exploring and adventuring that were such big parts of our lives in NZ. They really added to our quality of life there. I think it is easier to do those things when you are living in a new place because you haven't gotten stuck into a routine and you don't take the local sites for granted. For instance, we probably would not have gone looking for monarchs in October if our friends were not in town. In the spirit of exploring new things, we signed up to go to the open day at the sand quarry two miles from our house. 

Santa Cruz county has a unique sand hill habitat that was formerly under the ocean. There are two marine terraces and we live near the upper one. We've explored these sand hills on other occasions...searching for shark teeth fossils and learning about the endemic plants. On this outing, we learned about the sand mining operation at the Granite Rock quarry. 

The company has been mining sand from the area for nearly 100 years. As scientists have learned more about the plants and animals that inhabit these sensitive sand hill habitats, the mitigation measures for mining sand have become more extensive. As a result, this area will eventually be retired from operations and the whole area will be restored to native sand hill habitat. 

They predominantly use the sand from this quarry to make glass bottles. The company has another quarry on the lower marine terrace near Santa Cruz that is used for concrete. The sand at the quarry near us is higher quality and has the right mineral profile for glass. Seeing the operation was really neat. They essentially push sand off the top of the cliff (photo below), move it to a conveyor belt that leads to a series of filters that are used to separate the sand for different uses. The final step is drying the sand, which happens in a giant rotating furnace. It takes less than five minutes to dry the sand and it is 450 degrees Fahrenheit when it comes out of the furnace.  

dozers push sand off the top of the cliff

If you look closely at this photo, you can see bars at the 

far end of the pile of sand. This is the entrance to the conveyor belt.

conveyor belt

The open day was also a fundraiser for our favorite county park, Quail Hollow, which is just across the road from the quarry. All you can eat tacos for a $10 donation? Yes, please!