News
Posted inNews
Cheap and green?
In more than two dozen California communities, city and county governments are seeking to take control of their local electricity systems under a new state public power law. Could it happen here? This weekend, Paul Fenn, the chief architect of the new public power strategy, will share his vision at a conference and open meeting. […]
Posted inNews
Grocers and lifestyles
H umboldt County is a “natural” sort of place. And we’re not just talking forests, rivers, seashores and mountains — when it comes to food, we’re ahead of the curve on the suddenly hip natural trend. We have fruit and vegetable farmers who have been completely organic for decades, dairies and cattle ranchers producing grass-fed […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Press of ages
When Chad Helmonds entered Humboldt State University five years ago, he weighed 315 pounds — a football player, 6’2”, a big guy by any standard. He had lifted weights in high school as a part of his football training, so he took some notice of the weightlifting records on the wall the first time he […]
Posted inNews
The man from Alabama
How Tyrone Kelley’s roots influence his forest management Photos by Heidi Walters Laramie, Wyo., summer 1985. The bus shuddered along at a crawl and then stopped, brakes exhaling sharply — whshhhh . The driver pulled a lever, folding the door in with a thud, and stumped down the steps to the ground. A passenger, a […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Trees and flowers
Like most junior high and high school students in Humboldt County, the teenagers I work with as a tutor are scrambling to finish their homework during this, their final week of school — there are essays on American authors due, presentations about U.S. History to be made, tests to be taken. Unlike most junior high […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Dumper duty
The Kneeland Post Office rests on a tiny scraped-out patch of territory high up the Freshwater-Kneeland Road. It’s tucked next to a solidly fenced compound from behind which the skid and squeal of kids playing issued one recent holiday Monday afternoon. The post office itself is a speck of languid past: wood door propped open […]
Posted inNews
On the Inside
The first thing you notice when you walk inside the Humboldt County Correctional Facility is the smell. It’s overpoweringly sterile. “Pine-Sol,” says Sgt. Dean Flint, walking briskly across the gleaming tile of the booking station. “This place gets mopped three times a day.” As one might imagine, people are not at their best when the […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Orick or bust
Been to Orick, lately? No, not through Orick, but to. Pulled over, parked the car, got out, stretched the legs and grazed on the sights? Certainly we’re not posing this question to Orick’s few hundred residents, nor to the handful of plucky merchants who daily tootle out of the hills to unlock storefronts, kick aside […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Out for blood
The sky above our heads was inky black. But the sky on the horizon was not dark at all. It was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood. — Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier Thankfully, there were no splashes of blood on the Northern California Community Blood Bank’s Bloodmobile last Monday, although blood bank nurse […]