Swan Lake

Lake San Marcos Trumpeter Swans

Four new swans arrived at Lake San Marcos on Friday afternoon. Their arrival was bitter sweet. These swans were purchased as a living memorial to long time resident Ken Beall. Ken was a well loved man around Lake San Marcos and was the editor of our community newsletter, Quail Call.

These trumpeter swans, largest waterfowl in America, join the many other beautiful swans that call Lake San Marcos home.  These new swans, two pair, are easily distinguished from the other white swans on the lake by their black bills.

Last year one pair of the Lake’s black swans had 4 babies which quickly and amazingly grew to adult size.  We now have 8 beautiful black swans.  By the way, the black swans have red bills.

If you decide to feed the swans, please do not use bread.  There is a vending machine where you can buy food for 25 cents right near the marina.  This is not to raise money, but to protect the health of these magnificent animals.

 

Lake San Marcos Water Level Update

After the 1/2 inch rain that we received this weekend, thought I would measure the water level in Lake San Marcos again.  The lake was only down 9 inches at the most.  With the large run off basin feeding the lake, a .5 inch rain added almost a foot of water.

Water level in increasing with the last rain.

Bad new is that the first rain of the season is the worst for polluting the lake.  As it cleans the streets, trees, etc., it sends all this filth straight into the lake.  That is why the lake use to be 48 foot deep at the dam and is now only 26 foot deep.  Will be nice to get more rain soon and get some cleaner water into the lake.  When the lake actually starts flowing over the dam, it starts cleaning the debris off the surface and sending it on downstream.

See Lake San Marcos water level photo before the rain.

How Low is the Water Level in Lake San Marcos?

Blue Heron Lake San Marcos

Blue Heron sitting atop the dam at Lake San Marcos.

I took a picture of this blue heron today, Sunday, October 26, 2014, sitting on the dam of Lake San Marcos to put things in prospective. I also measured how low the water level was with a ruler. Answer, 20 inches. I just had to do this post since someone last week posted it was 5 feet down.

Lake San Marcos from the bridge south to Sunrise Point is only about 7 foot deep when totally full. It could never be down 5 foot. The mall coves are about 6 foot deep also. The aforementioned part of the lake is graded pretty much like a pie pan. “Very boring if you are a fisherman.” Going south from Sunrise Point to the picnic grounds, the depth increases gradually to about 14 feet. From the picnic grounds to the dam, it increases to about 26 feet. The original lake was about 48 feet before it became burdened with sediment.

Good news is that it will not take 20″ of rain to fill the lake. Because of the very large water shed area that runs into San Marcos Creek and then into the lake, just a few inches will send our lake over the spillway again as it does every winter.

Picnic Grounds Update

Picnic grounds pavilion should be ready by years end.

If you haven’t had a chance to walk down to the picnic grounds lately, I thought I would share my photo and what little info I have. As you come down the hill from Panorama you will see that the old narrow dirt road has been replaced with a much wider road. Large boulders have been added along the shoreline and a good looking stone retaining wall lines the west side of the road. This road has been widened at the County’s request to accommodate emergency vehicles. Residents and guest using the picnic grounds are still suppose to get to the picnic grounds by boat.

The new pavilion structure is very large and spacious. It is being built in a first class manner with lots of nice upgrades.  Originally, it was to have a tent canvas type of roof. That roof plan has been upgraded. If you remember the old picnic ground structure was cheap and in disrepair (see photo below).  The new picnic grounds structure is going to be special. The new structure is being wired for electricity and also has a large gas fireplace on the back wall. There has not been a decision made as to charcoal grills or gas grills.  I am told this new area should be ready about the end of the year. LLSM leases the picnic ground area from Varadero on a long term lease.

See more about the picnic grounds.

LLSM is doing many improvement projects at the same time.   See Lake San Marcos Boardwalk.  For the moment, glamping has been put on hold.

See photo of old picnic grounds below.

Photo by Gary Harmon

Photo by Gary Harmon

Public Dock Gone?

You may be wondering what happened to the public dock on the east side of the lake off La Plaza park.

Photo by Gary Harmon

Boat Ramp at La Plaza Park.

 

The public dock has been moved over a bit to the north to make way for a boat ramp.  This is a ramp for the use of LLSM (CDC). There will be a fence installed to control access.  The main boat ramp on the west side of the lake is being closed while a section of the new Boardwalk is being completed across the ramp area.

Lake San Marcos Boardwalk

If you go down by the Lake San Marcos marina, you can see that the new boardwalk is coming along nicely.

Lake San Marcos Boardwalk

Photo by Gary Harmon.

It appears that the boardwalk will have several seating areas and lighted steps.  It is my understanding that the boardwalk will go from the marina area through the new Quail’s restaurant and down to St Mark Golf Club.  The pathway north of the hotel has already been completed and is in constant use by the hotel guest.

The picnic grounds structure is also starting to take shape.  The road leading to the picnic grounds has been expanded to two lanes at the request of the fire department.  Construction and design at the picnic grounds appears to be first class.  Glamping is still on hold.

White Pelicans at Lake San Marcos

The white pelicans have returned to Lake San Marcos for the winter.

Photo by Gary Harmon

If you are a boater, you know that Lake San Marcos is rich in audubon wildlife.  In fact, we have over one hundred different species of birds that visit our shores.  None is more beautiful that the white pelicans.

The American White Pelican is one of the longest birds that is native to North America.  Males can be from 50-90 inches in length counting the large bills that can be over 15 inches.  The wing span of the largest of these birds can reach 10 feet.  White Pelicans are for the most part white except for the trailing edge of their large wings.  This edge is black and can only be seen in flight.

For the most part the white pelicans on Lake San Marcos are very shy.  Please keep your boat at a reasonable distance so not to frighten these majestic birds.  While sitting on a dock they appear clumsy, but the minute they hit the sky, they are a thing of aerial beauty.

In addition to the white pelicans, we get an occasional visit from the gray marine pelicans.

To learn more about Lake San Marcos and the great style of life it offers, contact Gary Harmon.    Lake San Marcos offers many different styles and price ranges of homes, some Lake San Marcos homes are right on the water’s edge.

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Lake San Marcos Improvements

As you may or may not know, the Citizens Development Corporation (CDC) is in charge of the facilities and lake at Lake San Marcos.  We have all seen it go downhill over the last few years, but if you are paying attention you can now see very positive things happening.   From time to time I will publish some of the changes in this blog.

Citizens Development Corporation (CDC) has filed a proposed Plan of Reorganization with the Federal Bankruptcy Court.  That plan, if approved, would control how CDC will repay its creditors and eventually exit from bankruptcy.  The next Court hearing on the Plan has been rescheduled for Aug 21. Conditions look favorable for the proposed plan to be approved.

Although approval of CDC’s proposed Plan of Reorganization has been delayed, CDC continues to make needed improvements in the facilities. Attached are photos of the Children’s pool resurfacing which has occurred over the last two weeks. This project, designed to make the pool usable this summer, has been completed, the pool has been refilled, and is again open for use.

Significant capital improvements cannot be started until CDC’s Plan of Reorganization is approved by the Courts and the creditors.  Once that is accomplished both of the pools are expected to see a major remodeling going far beyond the short term fixes required to keep them operational.

To find out more about the Lake San Marcos area or to see great Lake San Marcos homes, contact Gary Harmon, a Lake resident.

Information from “Friends of Lake San Marcos.”

When Daylight Savings time Ends 2011

Just a friendly reminder to set your clocks back one hour,  Sunday morning at 2:00 am,  November 6, 2011.  That means we fall back and gain an extra hour of sleep.  This is the end of daylight savings time for us here in San Diego North County.  Back to standard time.  If you would like to know a little history (or a lot of history) about the time change, read on below the slide show. 

See Current Real Estate Listings of San Diego Homes for Sale.


More than you ever wanted to know

Airzona and Hawaii do not observe daylight savings time.

Although not punctual in the modern sense, ancient civilizations adjusted daily schedules to the sun more flexibly than modern DST does, often dividing daylight into twelve hours regardless of day length, so that each daylight hour was longer during summer.[12] For example, Roman water clocks had different scales for different months of the year: at Rome’s latitude the third hour from sunrise, hora tertia, started by modern standards at 09:02 solar time and lasted 44 minutes at the winter solstice, but at the summer solstice it started at 06:58 and lasted 75 minutes.[13] After ancient times, equal-length civil hours eventually supplanted unequal, so civil time no longer varies by season. Unequal hours are still used in a few traditional settings, such as some Mount Athos monasteries[14] and all Jewish ceremonies.[15]

Benjamin Franklin satirically suggested firing cannons at sunrise to wake ParisiansDuring his time as an American envoy to France, Benjamin Franklin, author of the proverb, “Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise”, anonymously published a letter suggesting that Parisians economize on candles by rising earlier to use morning sunlight.[16] This 1784 satire proposed taxing shutters, rationing candles, and waking the public by ringing church bells and firing cannons at sunrise.[17] Franklin did not propose DST; like ancient Rome, 18th-century Europe did not keep precise schedules. However, this soon changed as rail and communication networks came to require a standardization of time unknown in Franklin’s day.[18]

G.V. Hudson invented modern DST, proposing it first in 1895.Modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Vernon Hudson, whose shift-work job gave him leisure time to collect insects, and made him aware of the value of after-hours daylight.[2] In 1895 he presented a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society proposing a two-hour daylight-saving shift,[19] and after considerable interest was expressed in Christchurch, New Zealand he followed up in an 1898 paper.[20] Many publications incorrectly credit DST’s invention to the prominent English builder and outdoorsman William Willett,[21] who independently conceived DST in 1905 during a pre-breakfast ride, when he observed with dismay how many Londoners slept through a large part of a summer day.[22] An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk.[23] His solution was to advance the clock during the summer months, a proposal he published two years later.[24] The proposal was taken up by the Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) Robert Pearce, who introduced the first Daylight Saving Bill to the House of Commons on 12 February 1908.[25] A select committee was set up to examine the issue, but Pearce’s bill did not become law, and several other bills failed in the following years. Willett lobbied for the proposal in the UK until his death in 1915.

Starting on 30 April 1916, Germany and its World War I allies were the first to use DST (ger.: Sommerzeit) as a way to conserve coal during wartime. Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed suit. Russia and a few other countries waited until the next year and the United States adopted it in 1918. Since then, the world has seen many enactments, adjustments, and repeals.

Now is a good time to buy San Diego Real Estate

Anytime is a good time to buy San Diego North County homes. Contact Gary Harmon, your top North County Realtor, to see homes today. Gary services all of the San Diego North County real estate areas including Carlsbad homes, Oceanside homes for sale, Encinitas homes, Vista, San Marcos, and Escondido real estate.

San Marcos Homes Market Statistics

Current Real Estate Listings of San Marcos Homes for Sale

The median San Marcos Homes value in June 2011 is $389,900.  The median value for San Diego North County homes  for the same period is $388,700.  We love our weather here in San Diego and we pay dearly for it.  The National median home value is only $175,100.   San Marcos home appreciation has decreased by -2.4%  with San Diego County homes being about the same.    Nationally, homes have gone down in the same period by -3.2%.   See the chart below for a ten year average of median San Marcos homes values and how they stack up against the City, County and the Nation.  There is also a chart of  San Marcos homes appreciation for the same ten year period.

If you would like to see San Marcos CA homes for sale and take advantage of this great San Diego North County real estate market, contact Gary Harmon, your Real Living Lifestyles Real Estate agent.

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