Californians call This ‘Being Neighborly’

Not long ago, the path up this hill led to a feral cat colony, where Johny and his dad lived (the younger kitty now has an indoor home and the older one passed away of natural causes). In June 2022, I saw a police cruiser chasing a coyote, which scrambled up the path and disappeared to where the putty-tats gathered (eh, could that be why the colony collapsed—chased away or, ah, eaten).

Today, for the first time, I saw the two “Private Property” signs and barrier that are essential elements of the Featured Image. I manually focused Leica Q2 Monochrom on the upper warning marker. Vitals, aperture manually set: f/5.6, ISO 200, 1/1000 sec, 28mm; 12:21 p.m. PDT.

There are no ferals to feed, so none of the community cat caregivers would have reason to trespass. Coyotes can’t read—and wouldn’t be stopped even if they could. Homeless encampments are popping up all about the area; maybe the residents want to prevent squatters or warn off somebody who already camped out. Perhaps, the place has new homeowners whose habit is to post such signs. I will never know.