Valley People (April 6, 2022)

DR. MARK APFEL’S RETIREMENT CELEBRATION: If Dr. Mark Apfel has ever helped you out when you or a family member or friend has been sick, now would be a good time to thank him for that. Save the date for May 7th 2-5pm at the Fairgrounds when we will gather for one giant “Thank You Picnic.” Everyone is invited. Food and drink will be provided, the Deep End Woogie Revue and a Mariachi band will play, Dr. Drew Colfax will MC, Captain Rainbow will entertain. Anyone who wants to thank Mark personally will be invited to speak. It is rare in this day and age for a person to devote their entire professional life to one place, but Dr. Mark has done just that. Let him know how much you appreciate his contribution to our community. See you there. (Terry Sites)

AV GRANGE SECOND SUNDAY PANCAKE BREAKFAST

Here we go. It’s becoming an institution again. This Sunday April 10, 8:30-11:00am.

We got it going on. It’s Home, Home on the Grange. Masks are welcome and there is room to social distance, we serve you, so there aren’t too many fingers in the syrup.

But it’s feeling more and more homey. We got secret recipe pancakes, (gluten free on request), maple syrup, fruit toppings, special custom bacon, fresh eggs, juice and coffee or tea. You can bring your own utensils or use our disposables.

Nice to see families with kids coming. And the live music, Leslie, Michael and Franny play a perfect blend of down-home but worldly tunes that make the toes tap and helps the digestion too. Plus it won’t break the bank. Where else can you get a full breakfast for $10 or less? And don’t forget the company, come hang out safely with your friends and neighbors. With the opening of spring flowers we are starting to open up too! 

See you there.

(Captain Rainbow)

SPOTTED ALONG ROBINSON CREEK last week:

A LOCAL ASKS: “Ok. This may sound really dumb…Why does the mailbox in front of the PO look like it has a walker? Lol. Is it a new security thing? It just looks funny.”

THE INSTALLER of the new “walker” around the mail box, Rod Balson, said he and others had noticed that the elderly were using the mailbox to help themselves up the high curb fronting the Boonville Post Office, thus loosening the mailbox's attachment bolts. Solution? Booster bars, molded and welded by ace local metal worker Steve Rhoades. The ingenious Rhoades crafted them from auto exhaust pipes, designing the bars to give elders a handhold for getting up and onto the sidewalk.

FROM RICARDO SUAREZ at the Redwood Drive-in: Keep an eye out for this couple they’re passing bad twenties they came through Boonville this morning. Ukiah, Cloverdale be on the lookout for them. They could be coming your way. Listos con esta señora y su pareja traen $20 falsos listos listos.

MR. SUAREZ is my neighbor here in central Boonville. He owns and operates the Redwood Drive-in, putting in long hours week in and week out. He told me about his encounter with the woman who recently tried to pay for gasoline with a fake twenty. Ricardo spotted it as a fake and kept it, taking two more counterfeit Jacksons from the loudly complaining scammer who insisted that the bills were good. During the argument about the fakes, the faker identified herself as Baylie Blunt, Blunt as in marijuana blunt. “I told her if she would wait for a deputy to get here and he says the bill is good, she could have all three back,” Ricardo told me. At the mention of the cops, the woman bolted from the store back to her GMC and drove off south. A man was in the vehicle with her and, Ricardo said, there was no front license plate.

DANNY PARDINI, EDDIE SLOTTE and I took a close look at the bills, concluding they definitely would have fooled us. Ricardo said he'd been burned before by a couple of fake hundreds (ouch!) but the fake twenties were the first bad bills he'd seen in a while.

BUT DA Eyster called to say that the real Bailey Blunt was tucked away in the County Jail last week and has been in jail for about two months doing a two-year state sentence for car theft. The woman attempting to pass the fake twenties at the Redwood Drive-in last week resembles Ms. Blunt and seems to have been using Ms. Blunt's infamous name as she and her unidentified male companion drove around Mendocino County attempting to pass counterfeit money on small businesses.

POLLY BATES: Hey AV! I'm gonna be in town working at my family's Philo Apple Farm every 1st and 3rd week of the month through the summer and would also like to offer some of my movement coaching in the area. I'm a certified personal trainer, breathing coach, and dancer and I teach group functional fitness classes as well as offering one on one or small group personalized movement/wellness sessions. I'm curious if folks are interested in either of these offerings on a biweekly basis (I can also do virtual private sessions when I'm in Oakland) and if anyone has suggestions about where to hold group classes. Is the yoga studio in Boonville a possible space? Outside at the farm could work too as it warms up. Let me know if you might be interested! … DAM (Dancing Art Movement) FIT (aka Polly Bates of the Philo-based Apple Farm) is offering: Simple Strong, every 1st and 4th Wednesday at 5:30pm. Sliding scale, $10-$20 at the Apple Farm near Hendy Woods (on the dance floor behind the kitchen.)

THE BIG 2022 AV HIGH SCHOOL PLANT SALE featuring Student Grown Plants will be May 7 from 9am to noon at the high school ag buildings this year. Please bring your own box or flat container.

NICK WILSON: The season total rainfall for Little River is 30.11”. I've been the rain reporter for the Beacon/Advocate for more than 30 years.

The gauge location is 3 miles inland from Hwy 1 at an elevation of 622 feet. It's a high accuracy professional Stratus tube gauge that measures to the nearest .01” up to a maximum of 10.00”, and I read and empty it every day. The location, elevation and surrounding topography of a place have a significant impact on rainfall, so different locations will report different rain readings. That's why the newspaper reports rainfall from several different places.

The season total is computed by a staffer at the newspaper, currently located in Lakeport due to the corporate masters sucking every possible penny of profit out of the local papers, closing their offices and firing their staff. I quit reading the Beacon/Advocate years ago because I get better and quicker news from other sources.

In other weather related news, I checked the Navarro River mouth sandbar and water level late yesterday and found the bar still closed, the beach road still closed by flooding, and the water level still very slowly increasing. The water level was about 1 ft. below the edge of the pavement at the 0.18 mile traditional boat launch on Hwy 128. The water has begun encroaching onto the unpaved shoulder about 100 feet east of that spot.

A CalTrans worker told me that the agency put a 6-inch pavement overlay over the highway surface through the short section of Hwy 128 that has historically been most subject to shallow flooding caused by the sandbar. That strategy has worked so far in preventing road closure due to flooding.

No significant rainfall is forecast for the next few weeks. The estuary level increases as long as the river flow into the top of the estuary exceeds the rate at which water flows out through the sand, and that is still the case right now. The sandbar usually breaches and forms a new channel when the rate of water flowing through the porous sandbar increases enough to carry away sand below the surface, causing the sandbar to slump. Efforts by well-intentioned but misinformed people to shovel open a channel across the top of the sandbar usually fail when water entering the channel disappears into the porous sand rather than reaching the ocean side.

BURN PERMITS REQUIRED EFFECTIVE 12:01AM APRIL 4, 2022

Mendocino County, CA- Beginning on Monday, April 4, 2022, at 12:01 a.m. the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) Mendocino Unit will require dooryard/residential burn permits for residential burning within Mendocino County.

Burn Permits are available online:

CAL FIRE: Property Owners can access this website to obtain a  burn permit, free of charge, by watching a short educational video and submitting an application. 

Permits must be printed, signed, and on hand while burning. The process provides the necessary 

information needed to conduct the burn safely, while minimizing the chance for fire escape. 

Permits are valid for the calendar year in which they are issued and must be reissued annually on or after January 1st of each year.

Mendocino County Air Management District: 

Burn Permits can still be obtained at the CAL FIRE Mendocino Unit Howard Forest Headquarters in Willits, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, or at your local CAL FIRE Station. Not all CAL FIRE stations are staffed seven days a week: please call before traveling to your nearest station to assure staff will be available to assist you.

GARDEN STARTS!

Next week I plan to post a list of plant ‘extras’ I’ll have available for anyone who failed to contact me and still has interest in local organically-grown starts for their garden. Some folks apologized for not contacting me early enough to pre-order so I did plant extras of some things.

This week I began planting starts that takes less time, such as squashes and cucumbers. If anyone wants zucchini, spaghetti squash, or cucumber starts they should contact me soon while there’s time for me to have them ready before the end of April.

Geoffrey Pomeroy

Natural Products of Boonville

geoffrey@naturalproductsofboonville.com

FOR MANY YEARS Lucille Estes of Airport Estates has been my go-to garden advisor, plant identifier, recipient of my magazines, and gracious hostess of my many visits to Lucille's showplace garden which, I hope, will continue to be maintained without Lucille's vigilance. 

Lucille has suffered a stroke and is moving to Lake County to live with her son. She called me to say goodbye, speaking in her usual upbeat voice. “I'm saying goodbye,” she said. “I'm leaving Boonville.” That was a call I was not prepared to hear, if one can ever be prepared for bad news from a good friend. But Lucille promised to send me her telephone number when she settled into her new place in Lake County. Update, Lucille did not have a stroke after all, and is just visiting her son for a few days, but expects to be back in her Boonville home, soon.

A BOONVILLE WOMAN WRITES: There is a transient in town (Boonville Hotel area) that followed my little sister and I home on our walk. When we noticed him we started walking faster and he sped up as well so we ran home to get our parents. He went as far as to follow us past our gate, into the property and up our long driveway. When our parents came out they went after him and he turned around crossed the street and walked west to Boont Berry but then stopped turned back around and walked east on the general store side of the road. I’m sure he’s still in the area. BOLO and careful, he has a green/black jacket, shoulder length hair , a beanie and 2 backpacks. I saw him in the afternoon in Yorkville area I guess he made it to town.

ANOTHER LOCAL COMMENTS: The other day I called 911 because there was someone, obviously not sound, staggering down the middle of the road. I did not feel safe to stop, and am really glad I did not hit them.

It does seem that there are more transients than I remember. These are tough times. I will continue to have compassion, as well as caution.

AND AN APRIL WELCOME from Mr. Eliot. Take it away, T.S. “April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers.”

AV SOCCER RETURNS IN APRIL

We are excited to announce an After School Program (ASP) Soccer group for K - 2nd graders run by a parent and High School teacher, Nat Corey-Moran. 

ERNIE PARDINI: I have been informed that the house in Boonville that I'm renting has been put on the market for sale and my landlord called today to say that he has a potential buyer and it looks as though the sale will go through. In light of that fact, I will be in need of another house to rent, so if anyone has a house for rent or knows of a house for rent in the Boonville area, please let me know. I have an excellent reference in my present landlord who will vouch for the fact that my rent is always on time and that his rental has been very well taken care of. Thank you.

HAVEN'T SEEN THE RESULTS posted yet, but Saturday's Fish Rock bike race —

Fish Rock: A road bike race for people who aren't afraid of a little hardcore gravel — drew what appeared to be several hundred very tough competitors.

“The ride was named after the fabled Fish Rock Road. We do a big-ass road ride to get to the base of it, and then we go over it. There are no bail-outs. But we support your journey. Then we celebrate at the finish. (The Boonville Brewery)

There's only one route for Fish Rock. It's 72.4 miles and 9,670 feet of elevation gain. The record is somewhere just under four hours. The course features 4 official aid stations.

We begin in Boonville and head west over the very long, beautiful, low-traffic Mountain View Road. After reaching the Pacific Ocean for a brief period we turn inland to make our return and tackle the one that inspired it all: Fish Rock. Quickly turning to gravel and pitching upward, you'll find yourself in a place unlike any other. For the next 25 miles, you'll have yourself, your legs and your heartbeat to keep you company.”

DR. DREW COLFAX, the refreshingly candid Ukiah emergency room doctor who lives in Boonville and co-hosts with Alicia Bales KZYX’s bi-weekly covid update show, suffered through a long anti-vaxx rant from a “long-time KZYX sustainer” on his Tuesday morning covid update show. The exasperated woman suggested several times that as a station sustainer she should get special consideration to relay dangerous misinformation.

THE CALLER claimed that Dr. Colfax had insulted her and her fellow anti-vaxxers by referring to anti-vaxxers as “idiots” and “Trump supporters.” Worse, show co-host Alicia Bales had allowed Colfax to insult her and her fellow Trumpian idiots without comment or correction. The caller demanded that Bales and Colfax get in touch with a Bay Area anti-vaxx quack to “hear the other side.” The Bay Area crank would be willing to debate Dr. Colfax, the caller said, adding that Colfax and Bales should stop “shaming” the anti-vaxx crackpots.

AS HER tiresome monologue wound down, which she read from a prepared statement probably lifted from some anti-vaxx website, there were only a few seconds left for Bales or Colfax to respond. Bales tried to be nice by saying they’d have to talk about this on a future show. Dr. Colfax got in a final “…Or not.” 

THERE IS NO “OTHER SIDE” to the vaccination question. There's only the international society of hysterics who think their skewed “research” and irrational feelings constitute an argument against the basic principles of immunology. 

HIS WORK in the emergency room undoubtedly has put Dr. Colfax in the terrible position of watching the unvaxxed die from what the caller and her co-dependent nutpies believe is nothing worse than a flu.

STEVE McLAUGHLIN, we hardly knew ye. Actually, I did and do know the redoubtable publisher of the Independent Coast Observer, Steve's weekly newspaper based in Gualala. A mere sprout at age 73, Steve writes this week that he's “considering a path to the future,” and that he hopes to “ultimately find a successor.” Which seems to suggest that the cagey publisher is hoping to sell the paper and live out his golden years free from turbulent readers of his publication.

THE RUB, STEVE, is that paper-papers are about to become history, as you must know, and the only people who read paper-papers are people who grew up with them, people like us, me especially because the paper-paper was the entire daily media in my formative years. In them days (sic, patronizing regular guy usage deployed here ironically), people read newspapers and they read books. Those people are mostly now confined to the eternal library in the sky. The young 'uns are all electronic, and then there's television (where a large majority of Americans get all their info about the world), and movies, and music, and radio, and podcasts — we're daily bombarded with distractions, among which paper-papers are no longer one. Put a fork in us, Steve-o, we're done!

THE ONLY SOLID VALUE a Mendocino County newspaper-paper has is its legal adjudication to publish legal notifications. Which can be quite lucrative and which, in my case, I've had to go to court to preserve when vengeful local authorities tried to avoid placing them with me. Steve says private advertising of all types is the “oxygen of journalism.” More like chloroform or, as Orwell put it, “Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket. “ I'm with George. Catering to the most… Well, Rotary does some good things, I suppose but if you're publishing a newspaper aimed at not offending the Rotary or Chamber of Commerce (or the Mendo supervisors and their CEO office) mentality, you're publishing a snoozer. If Steve manages to find a buyer, good for him. Pretty much a Prufrockian, ol' Steve, but not a bad guy all things considered.

PG&E'S LINE CLEARING, an on-line comment: “I have been hearing that wholesale clearing like PG&E is doing is not even good fire management policy. Trees cleared make way for brush and understory vegetation that is more flammable and grows faster, creating an ongoing maintenance situation and a MORE flammable area if not maintained. Tree thinning is a more balanced approach. What’s more, triple insulating the power lines is far more cost effective and works better in many cases.

PG&E has been completely caught with their pants down by the effects of Global Warming and is now playing catch-up but they seem to be almost clueless about conditions in the field. They are throwing out-of-state contractors at jobs where the actual management is done remotely, just an incredible disconnect and clusterfuck.

I have lived off-grid for 30 years and paid my dues running a light or two for much of that time. I have a modern system now that runs EVERYTHING without a generator most of the time, reliable as hell.

It looks like PG&E will be passing on the heavy costs they are incurring and mismanagement will be a contributor to those costs. The grid will only become LESS reliable in the next few years, with more extreme weather and fire danger and energy demands.

If you can, go solar, baby! Modern batteries and components have revolutionized solar energy in the last few years even as the grid has degraded. When my neighbor was complaining bitterly last summer, “The power’s been out for DAYS!”, I responded “Really?”. I truly didn’t know.

And PG&E? They need to be totally revamped, de-privatized and imprisoned;) just kidding on the last one. They’re caught between a rock and a hard place right now, people screaming at them from every which way, when they shut the grid down, when they DON’T shut the grid down… and then there’s their ham-handed attempts to catch up! Poor PG&E! What a mess they got themselves into!”