July 2023 Homestead Headlines

Volume 67, Issue 7 July, 2023

Download the Headlines here

July 2023 Community Center Calendar

04| 4th of July Parade and BBQ

11| HVLT Board Mtg |

25| Sanitary District Board Mtg |

1st/3rd Weds. | Tam Design Review Board Mtg |

Saturdays | A.A. Mtg | 10:00 AM

Homestead Valley News

Happy Summer to the Homestead Valley community!

Next week is our wonderful July 4th Parade and Picnic and we hope to see many of you in the parade and up at Stolte Grove. Soon after that, we'll all have the annual Homestead Valley Music Festival on Saturday, August 26th to look forward to! More information about how you can support this great community event will be coming soon.

We wish you all the best for a happy, healthy and fun-filled summer in Homestead Valley or wherever your travels may take you. See you soon!

Pool News

Come visit our great crew of lifeguards and gatekeepers at the Homestead Valley Pool this summer! This team has been working hard to keep our swimmers safe and happy. See below for photos of a part of our fabulous group. More photos to come in the August Headlines.

The Homestead Valley pool is currently operating on our Summer schedule. We have snacks available in our new vending machine and ice cream in the freezer. For information on hours and rates, or to purchase a 2023 membership, please visit our pool webpage.

Seth Coulman

Nate Derich

Jack Scalisi

Ashlyn Loiacono

Caitlin Chin

Farhan Zhaliq

Amelie Green

Ethan Heidenreich

Evan Olds

4th of July Parade and BBQ

Homestead Valley 4th of July Parade and Picnic

Join us for our annual Homestead Valley 4th of July celebration on Tuesday, July 4th! Grab your coolers and blankets and join your neighbors as we march through Homestead Valley. Decorate your bikes, scooters and strollers and wear your favorite red, white and blue gear - after all, we are the parade!

Parade Details:

Parade Line up @ 10:30am at Volunteer Park

Parade Starts @ 11:00am

Picnic @ 11:30am in Stolte Grove

(parade route goes up Melrose to Laverne to Stolte Grove)

Picnic Details:

Live Jazz by Laura Weinbach

Food by Hal's Original NY Hotdogs

Mia's Famous Desserts*

*If any community members want to bake goodies to add to the dessert table, you would be welcome!

**Please help keep our beloved valley clean by packing up and disposing of any trash during and after the event

***Bring cash & credit card for food, beverage and dessert purchases

We look forward to seeing you all for a festive celebration!

Homestead Valley Music Festival

Saturday, August 26, 2023

11am - 6pm

We're back! Always the Saturday BEFORE Labor Day, the 2023 installment of the Homestead Valley Music Festival will be held on Saturday, August 26th in the meadow at the Homestead Valley Community Center (315 Montford Avenue).

The family friendly event is free to attend; however we greatly appreciate donations at all levels. If you're able to contribute as a sponsor this year please reach out to Alex Scalisi directly ([email protected]). We'll be releasing the full lineup with poster designs in the coming weeks. And yes, there will be hats :)

See you in the meadow!

Homestead Valley Land Trust Update

Highlights from the HVLT for Spring 2023

By Curt Oldenburg

Extended Spring—Late Spring Cut

Following the very wet winter of 2023, the ground in Homestead stayed wetter than usual throughout the spring. This was followed by a very cool and foggy June. These conditions were welcome from a fire-hazard perspective, but this has allowed grasses and thistle to grow high and thick.

Each year, the HVLT carries out a Spring Cut, consisting of extensive weed-whacking. The Spring Cut targets grass and thistle focusing on areas of HVLT-managed County open space lands that border homes. This year, with the wet ground and cool temperatures extending into June, the Spring Cut was delayed until late June. Users of HVLT trails should be seeing now either the activity of extensive weed-whacking itself or the resulting cleared land that creates defensible space to reduce fire hazard.

Pixie Land Slides

The other result of the wet winter were landslides and erosion, e.g., the two downslope slides on Pixie Trail in the open space area (extending from the western gate to the eastern gate at Janes Street). With such a wet year and slope stability issues occurring throughout Marin County, local geotechnical firms are overloaded with work and the HVLT has had difficulty engaging experts to address these slides. HVLT is currently putting additional resources toward engaging geotechnical support and getting these slide areas professionally assessed and stabilized.

Homestead to Celebrate 50^th Anniversary of Bond Issue

By Curt Oldenburg and the ad hoc 50^th Anniversary Celebration Committee: Marilyn Barrett, Marabeth Grahame, Jim Derich, Diana Flasher, and Mike Cann

Potluck Dinner in September

Save the date September 30, 2023 (Saturday at 5 PM) for a potluck dinner at the Homestead Valley Community Center (HVCC). This event will be a 50^th anniversary celebration of the overwhelming vote in 1973 to authorize Marin County to issue a $600K bond that was used to purchase Homestead Valley open space and park lands, and the HVCC house and property.

Several of the original founders of CSA14, HVLT, and HVCA will be featured guests at the potluck. They will be available to answer questions about how this important bond issue came to occur, who the people involved were, and what their feelings are now 50 years later about how their efforts have shaped Homestead Valley.

More information about food to bring and the format of Q&A with the founders will be provided as we get closer to the date of the potluck.

Informational Posters

The ad hoc committee is working on making two informational posters for initial roll out at the Music Festival and for later posting in the HVCC. The posters will tell the story in a visually compelling way of the $600K (about $4.2M in today’s dollars) bond issue and its significance for establishing the Community Center and the lands managed by the HVLT.

Homestead Valley Vignettes by Chuck Oldenburg

Jack Kerouac

In the early 1900’s, Anton S. Perry and his large family lived at 370 Montford in Homestead Valley. He milked cows on the Dias ranch across the valley. In 1956, the historic Perry house was occupied by Locke McCorckle, a poet/carpenter. He and his family lived frugally, considering themselves refugees from American consumerism. After a shack up the hill was converted into a habitable cabin, Locke invited Gary Snyder to stay there. Gary moved in, named the dwelling “Marin-An” and invited Jack Kerouac to join him there for rent free peaceful living. They both took Buddhism seriously. Beat generation poets and writers who hung out with them there included Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, Kenneth Rexroth, William Burroughs, Peter Orlovsky, Michael McClure, Philip Whalen, and Gregory Corso. There were poetry readings, meditations, serious discussions and co-educational parties, always with lots of wine and sometimes nudity. Jack Kerouac’s book, “The Dharma Bums” describes the scene and his experiences while living at Marin-An. Typical of his writings, real characters are given fictitious names and the site is said to be in Corte Madera. Today, the site is on Homestead’s Open Space Land whose custodian lives in the old Perry house.