"Ever since the first caveman picked up the first cudgel, went to the front door and smacked the first nosy saber-toothed tiger in the snout, mankind has known the atavistic power and pleasure of the bat." — Thomas Boswell, How Life Imitates the World Series Slow pitch softball players in Humboldt County may not exactly […]
Life + Outdoors
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The Road to Digging Dog
A couple of weeks ago, I took the long way home from the Bay Area and drove through Mendocino. Before I left, I made an appointment to visit Digging Dog Nursery, source of all good things in the universe. Well, my universe, anyway. I have been a Digging Dog junkie for years. I keep their […]
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Karuk Leader Arrested
On Monday evening, the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Department arrested Karuk Tribe Vice Chairman Leaf Grant Hillman in Happy Camp. The previous Friday, Aug. 17, the Siskiyou County District Attorney’s office had filed a felony domestic violence charge against Hillman. Siskiyou County D.A. Kirk Andrus said Hillman, who lives in Orleans, is charged with one count […]
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Toy Test
It’s enough to make you want to rip off all your clothes and just run around nekked. And to tell your kids they can play only with … air — or, safer yet, only make-believe friends. We’re talking about poison clothes and toys. There’s the latest toy recall, this time by Mattel, of millions of […]
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Bye-bye kitty
The guy in front of me at airport security in Arcata wasn’t sure what to do with his cat. “Do I put her through?” he asked, eyeing the x-ray machine nervously. “No,” the TSA representative said. “Wait until the last possible minute, then take her out of the carrier. Walk through the metal detector with […]
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Camel Rock rights (and wrongs) — Navigating the waves and attitudes of the North Coast
In Humboldt County, surfing doesn’t exist. Don’t believe it? Go ahead, ask the next guy parked outside Wildberries with a stack of boards poking out of the back of his Tacoma, salt crusted in his hair, cell phone and tidebook splayed on the dash. Ask, “So where’s the best place to surf around here?” He’ll […]
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Humboldt speaks
The day of discussion on health care reform was billed as an experiment in “deliberative democracy.” On Saturday, around 4,500 randomly selected Californians participated statewide in a high-tech teleconference with sites in eight cities facilitated by a group called CaliforniaSpeaks. Humboldt State University’s West Gym was the local site. There were around 470 attendees from […]
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Green team — How backyard gardeners can transform a neighborhood
Last Friday, I got a plane and flew to Buffalo, N.Y., to meet a group of women I met on the Internet. We’ve all been blogging together (at www.GardenRant.com) for over a year, but this was our first time to meet in person. I’m the only West Coast gardener in the group. One of us […]
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Mid-year resolutions — Or, a summer checklist for fall fabulosity
The year is half-gone. The summer solstice is past; the days are getting shorter already. It’s irritating the way time moves inexorably on, especially in a garden. I went on vacation for one lousy week and everything went to seed. It’s time to whack a path through the undergrowth, take stock of the situation and […]
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The chopper
Here it is, Thursday afternoon, and here is Rabbi Les Scharnberg, pawing through the orphaned books on the free-table at the Arcata Community Recycling Center and gabbing with fellow book scroungers. “I’m a compulsive reader,” Scharnberg says. “So am I,” says Rochelle Trochtenberg. They lift books, put them gently down. They seem immune to the […]
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The secret life of cheese
Earlier this month, Cypress Grove registered a 10 on the local gourmet Richter scale after its new cheese, Truffle Tremor, won top honors at the International Fancy Food & Confection Show in New York City. I decided to write an article about the secret life of chèvre. The story was to be a hard-hitting (well, […]
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Last bet
In just two months, the Big Lagoon Rancheria may finally throw in its cards on a big hotel-casino project it has proposed to build in Barstow, in tandem with the Los Coyotes Band of Cahuilla and Cupeno Indians of San Diego County. The tribes’ gaming compacts, signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2005, would allow […]