Fiddlers Green: Fosters

Not the Fosters that has hamburgers and soft serve ice cream cones, but the Fosters that has BIG horns. In Rio Vista there's a restaurant/bar called Fosters Bighorn which is a local landmark and unusual attraction. From the outside it didn't look much like a place that Jim and I would go, but we had heard about it from other folks and decided to go.

Fosters Bighorn was established in Rio Vista in 1931 by a bootlegger and great white hunter called Bill Foster (actually, he was Bill Frates who changed his name to Foster to evade the law). He was living in Alameda and Earl Warren was after him, so he came up river to Rio Vista to hide out. Bill was actually from Hayward and became interested in big game by working with Henry Snow, the first African hunter to show movies of African wildlife in the US in 1918 (in addition to his bootlegging). Bill was so fascinated by African wildlife that he decided to go on a safari, which was the first of many.

Today there are over 300 wildlife trophy heads in Fosters - one of the most amazing collections and some of the most unusual - giraffe, elephant, rhino, hippo, monkey - The elephant head is the largest mammal trophy in any collection in existence. The giraffe trophy is one of less than a dozen in the world. Supposedly, Bill shot 95% of the animals himself. He travelled with a taxidermist to make sure all the game was meticulously preserved.

The restaurant has a decent, but limited menu if you can get yourself past being watched :>). Sitting there it seems all eyes are on you - all 600 of them. Having dinner was definitely an interesting experience. Animal rights activists probably shouldn't go.

Jim and Marc are playing golf . They've been planning this for some time, and thankfully, the rain has held back. While they're gone I'll do a little house tidying and laundry. We have a cleaning service coming in on Friday. Since Jim's been ignoring his share of the chores - he'll be buying :>).

Yesterday we bought more potting soil and a trellis for some snap peas I want to plant. We grew them a couple of years ago and the pods were great in salads. We also figured out how we're going to hang the flower baskets so we'll probably get that done Monday if it doesn't rain.

Not much else is going on today - just another lazy Sunday in paradise.

PICTURE(S) OF THE DAY

Here's some pictures from Fosters. These don't come close to showing the whole collection of animal heads in the place. I was torn between being fascinated by the enormity of the collection and horrified at the number of animals who were killed to create this.