In a serene meadow in the Willow Creek hinterlands, where wispy pockets of early-morning moisture hang just overhead, a raucous cry cuts through the dreamy stillness: "Man rammin’!" This is the All Hallows Heave, Humboldt County’s premiere disc golf tournament. We are at Ammon Ranch, a lush piece of National Forest Service land about a […]
Life + Outdoors
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Bats!: A Colloquy
It was just another typical evening in the Stewart-Brown household. ME: Honey, would you like to hear some fun facts about bats? SCOTT: Actually, I was just wondering if there were any fun facts about bats I hadn’t heard already, so your timing is perfect. ME: Did you know that there’s a guy at HSU […]
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Wave Power
Our corner of the world is on the verge of becoming famous in a new and unprecedented way. The State of California has adopted the most aggressive goals in the country for developing renewable energy and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Here in Humboldt County, plans are underway to make us a leading player in one […]
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The Summer Triangle
The Autumnal Equinox is a few weeks behind us, the nights are getting longer and cooler, and it is a good time to go outside and see some interesting things in the sky. If you go outside around 9 p.m. in the next few weeks and look directly overhead, you will see one of the […]
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A Book For Us
Those of us who garden on California’s North Coast tend to live in a state of denial about the fact that we are actually gardening in the Pacific Northwest. We like to think of ourselves as California gardeners. You know, California. Santa Barbara. Monterey. That sort of thing. But the fact is that we have […]
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Hidden Biodiversity
In the coastal forests of Northern California, the most abundant vertebrates are amphibians such as salamanders and frogs. "Abundance" refers to the total number of animals in a given area, but Northern California is also home to a rich diversity of amphibian species. With around 30 species of amphibians inhabiting the area, one might think […]
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The Gundersen Verdict
You could have cut the air with the edge of a manila folder inside Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Bruce Watson’s courtroom last Wednesday. It was about 10 minutes to 10 a.m., and everyone waited with held breath to hear the jury’s verdict. The defendant, former Blue Lake Police Chief David Gundersen, leaned forward in […]
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Bomb Threat
Once again — what, the last time was just in May? — a bomb threat had Humboldt State University all bound up and tense last week as men and women huddled in bright vests near the danger zone and others — campus security and campus housing staff hastily stuffed into yet more bright vests — […]
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The Straw Bale Affair
As the Summer That Never Quite Was draws to a close, I submit to you my final report on the state of my straw bale garden. Thanks to all of you who keep inquiring about it — actually, I’m surprised that the idea has sparked so much interest. In the last few weeks several people […]
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Rough Life on a Rocky Shore
Have you ever spent an afternoon exploring the rocky intertidal zone of the Humboldt coast at low tide? If so, you may have wondered to yourself how a thriving ecosystem can exist in such a seemingly unfavorable habitat. Inhabitants of the rocky intertidal include marine invertebrates, which spend their entire lifetime exposed to an extreme […]
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Hoppin’ Pipe Organ
Saturday night, while you were at the hip hop hoedown or whatever at the Mateel — or did you decide to go to that punk masquerade thingy in Manila? — an overflow crowd was enjoying the real-big musical event that night, at Christ Church, Episcopal, in Eureka. I know, you didn’t know about it, or […]
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The Farthest Object
Looking at the Andromeda galaxy is looking back in time to when Lucy and her forebears roamed the highlands of present-day Ethiopia, making it the farthest object we can see with the naked eye. It consists of a trillion or so stars, the twin to our own Milky Way galaxy, separated from us by a […]