Valley People 2/6/2025

ANDERSON VALLEY WINTER WEATHER UPDATE

by AV Fire Chief Andres Avila

So far, so good. We have seen some normal localized flooding and Hwy 128 being closed at Flynn Creek Rd.

As of this evening, the only weather related issue that I am aware of is in Rancho Navarro. Rancho Navarro's Tramway, which is the only access in or out of Bald Hills, has a major downhill slide compromising the road.

Approximately 23 homes are currently inaccessible to emergency vehicles above the slide. We are working on a tempory service plan unitl access can be repaired. In the meantime, the Rancho Navarro road crew is working extremely hard to get limited access established again for the affected residents.

IT WAS A DAY or two before Christmas, 2022. A neighbor, disoriented by Alzheimer’s, drove deep into Mendocino Redwood Company property and, while attempting to turn around, ended up sliding backwards off the road. He left the truck there and hiked a few miles back to Camp Navarro.

The rain persisted through that winter and spring, keeping the backroads slick and muddy, so we weren’t able to go back and extract the truck until late April. Once the roads were dry enough, Camp Navarro (who leases some property from MRC) provided an employee to help me find and recover the abandoned truck. I drove to Camp Headquarters on the designated morning and met with my helper, a fellow named Jake, where we exchanged pleasantries and discussed our plan.

We jumped in our respective trucks and drove up Bald Hill until we found the lost truck, a Ford Ranger of 2010 vintage. The first thing I noticed was how steeply the vehicle had pitched off the road, looking like it was about to stand up on its tailgate. The only thing that prevented the truck from continuing to slide backwards down the steep slope was the chassis resting on the edge. The second thing I noticed was the truck had been ransacked, the front bench-seat gone and the steering column partially dismantled. Jake seemed unbothered by such things as he chained his truck to the Ranger and then slowly pulled it up and back onto the road.

We popped the hood and found the battery missing. Jake replaced it with his truck’s battery, and after a number of tries we got the engine started. Using a plastic milk crate for a makeshift seat, Jake climbed in, and we caravanned back down to the maintenance yard at Camp Navarro. We pulled his battery out of the rescued truck and I shuttled him back up so he could recover his truck. This gave us some time to get acquainted, and when I found out his last name was Waggoner, we talked about Judy (his aunt?), the former postmistress of Navarro.

When we eventually parted ways, I was thankful that Jake had come with me, for he was one of those supremely capable people that gets things done and makes it look easy in the process. Country living can do that for you — teach self reliance — and Jake certainly had the gift. When I saw he had passed last month, I was surprised and saddened. He seemed so young and vibrant when I had last seen him, and Lord knows we need more people like Jake, not less.

— Mike Kalantarian

ROSE ALANNA (facebook):

Local family of three looking for a rental in Anderson Valley. We have outgrown our current tiny home. I grew up in AV and have family here. We would prefer to stay here, though we would consider closer to Ukiah if it were the right home for us. Looking for at least a two bedroom house. We are clean, quiet, and respectful. We are non smokers and do not drink. My partner could be an asset for a landlord looking for someone with a broad skillset in maintenance and repairs. Good credit and references. Please send any potential rentals my way via facebook. Thank you.

MARK ZUCKERBERG, the odd facebook mogul turned neo-Trumper who some say has stolen the minds of many of his customers, has purchased a 100-acre forested property on the Mendocino Coast straddling Caspar Creek, just inland from Highway 1, according to coast neighbors. The parcel, once owned by Ed Powers, was purchased out of foreclosure a while back by an unknown owner who then sold it to Zuckerberg. Reportedly several tunnels have been dug and fencing has been installed since Mr. Z bought the parcel. The parcel appears to have a nice stand of prize spruce trees. No one seems to know what the purpose of the purchase is or whether there’s a residence on the property, so far.

PETIT TETON FARM

Fresh now: Turmeric, chard, kale, broccolini, herbs, mizuna mustard. All the preserved foods from jams to pickles, soups to hot sauces, made from everything we grow.

We sell frozen USDA beef and pork from perfectly raised pigs and cows.

Squab is also available at times.

Contact us for what’s in stock at 707.684.4146 or farmer@petitteton.com.

Open Mon-Sat 9-4:30, Sun 12-4:30.

18601 Hwy 128 - Mile Marker 33.39

BILL KIMBERLIN:

This is the Dutro black smith shop in Anderson Valley. One of my Valley uncles was “Kid Dutro.” He was called “Kid” because he had been a prize fighter in his younger days and his father was a Valley blacksmith.

Kid later became a blacksmith here in Boonville. His shop with his anvil and all his tools at the back of the Rossi Hardware store tank tower still exists.

Kid was also the bouncer at the “Bucket of Blood” saloon in Boonville. You didn’t want to mess with Kid. Don Pardini once told me about my uncle and the local barroom loggers. He had asked “Kid” about what had happened the night before. And “Kid” said, “I had to knock a guy into the “shitter.”

I always thought that this photo was the father’s shop in Philo. But now I am hearing that there was another one just North of the General Store building. I know there were several others at the Missouri House, for instance, but where was the one in this photo?

THE AVA’S ACE CRIME REPORTER Bruce McEwen was monitoring local events from his observation post at the Redwood Drive-In one day when what appeared to be a European Grapevine Moth (EGVM) landed on his sweater. One of many of the wine industry's insect foes seemed to have confused the wine-friendly journalist with the grapevines it is said to destroy. McEwen quickly confirmed on-line that the modest little beast was indeed the dread EGVM. He'd brought the bug into the AVA offices where the jubilant editor had shouted, “Don't kill it, McEwen! Maybe we can breed it!” But the moth had not survived the trip across the street.

THE LAKE COUNTY PASSION PLAY used to “celebrate 30 years of God's choicest blessings” near Lakeport every December by re-enacting the crucifixion, complete with portly Roman soldiers escorting an ecumenically correct black Jesus to the cross. American re-enactments seem pretty tame alongside those of the Filipinos, complete with gaunt little brown fanatics who nail themselves to real wood crosses with real nails hammered clear through their hands to the wood. The latter day martyrs then drag themselves suspended Christ-like through the streets of Manila.

DOES COMPTCHE still do a Passion Play? Many years ago, as I did good works at this fine newspaper, faithfully writing the weekly truth to legions of disbelievers, I was sitting at my office on Anderson Valley Way when it was as if Jezebel herself had suddenly appeared, a voluptuous, heavily made-up woman in a tight-fitting purple pantsuit, ample breasts displayed via a push 'em up bra who'd wafted in the door on a cloud of weapons-grade perfume.

IN A HEAVY Southern accent, and a little excessively basso-Peggy Lee-ish in the context, the miraculous visitation asked, “Are you interested in our passion play?” I was stunned into silence, collecting myself, wondering if someone was pranking me. Flashy, done-up babes seldom appear in Boonville at any hour, let alone at 9am in the grungy office of a chaste newspaper.

PASSION PLAY? What was that? Love at third base? I finally stammered out something like, “I'm, uh, er, ah, all ears.” The lady had made an indelible impression. If the context had been urban, well, odd things happen in the urbs all the time. Odd things happen all the time here, too, but this particular oddity was unprecedented, I assure you.

AS IT DEVELOPED, the apparition was from Comptche, and her name, if memory serves, was Linda Coolidge, sister of the singer Rita Coolidge whose father pastored the church in Comptche, a church that was attended by a lot of re-entry hippies who'd come to repent their participation in all manner of sordidness and minor league sinning. It seem like in about two weeks, the church hippies had gone from, “Ya gotta do acid, man” to “Ya gotta do Jesus, man.”

BUT the hippies still liked a good show, hence a lot of music in lieu of the discipline and sacrifice recommended by JC, and a Realllllly Big annual show called a Passion Play with a hippie-looking dude on a cross, Our Savior, as He's still called by the people who hope He can save them. At the time, I didn't know what a Passion Play was, but I promised Ms. Coolidge I'd get the word out, if not The Word itself. I'd leave that to her.

SMALL BUSINESSES are getting priced out everywhere, and no politician would dare mention commercial rent control. I hope Greg at the Bike Hut down on the Embarcadero near the SF ballpark is still there. The Bike Hut rents and repairs bikes. Before my handmade bike got ripped off on Haight Street, I would take it to Greg for tune-ups. He was one of these rare guys who tells interesting stories while he works, occasionally interrupting his work when the story requires emphasis in a few arm and hand gestures. The Bike Hut also trained “troubled youth” in the practical, marketable skill of bicycle repair. A kid, any kid, would benefit from hanging around with Greg, a smart guy with a sane world view, a rare adult in other words. Greg liked my homemade bike so much he remembered it, and when I told him it had been stolen because I'd assumed it had no value to anyone but myself, he told me he was going to make me another one. The other day when I stopped by the Bike Hut, as always Greg was at work on a repair job. He's overly generous, charging about a third what most bike shops charge for labor. And his bike rents are lower than any place in town at $15 to $20 a day. Greg said, “Listen to this! The lady from Iowa or somewhere just called for me to come and get her bike because she said she's too tired to ride it back here!” ‘Iowa’' is Greg's shorthand for customers who come from any place beyond the Bay Area. “She tells me she's going to leave the bike on the bridge.” I ask her, “Which bridge? And where on which bridge? And please don't do that because it will be stolen. For all I know she could be on a bridge in the Japanese Tea Garden or on an overpass bridge, but it turns out she's underneath the Golden Gate Bridge at Fort Point. I sent a kid out to get it, but what a pain some of these tourists can be. Most people are fine, but once in a while you get someone from Iowa and…”

PEBBLES TRIPPET lived for years virtually at the mouth of the Navarro. One Tuesday afternoon in 2010, Pebs wrote: “About an hour ago, I called 911 to report the wrecked vehicle that went off the road on 128 at the 1.7 mile marker from the coast. A fallen alder caught the vehicle on its slide down into the Navarro River or else the people and the vehicle would be floating down the muddy rushing river to the ocean. No one was hurt; they have the alder to thank. My backyard is starting to flood. The frogs are singing full throat, but the river is now 10 feet lower than last night due to the break in the weather. This is not yet like the Dec 31 2005 true flood that ran me out of my cabin, perched on 5 feet of stilts with 2 feet of water lapping at the calves of my legs and rising. I was rescued at dawn Jan 1 in a neighbor's canoe. Two of my three cats made it through the trauma. It'll take another long ferocious rain before anything like “floodstage” is reached for the people who live along the Navarro River, most of us off the grid.”

A WEEK LATER, we have Pebs' tribute to the river alder. “In my weather report last week from the floodplain, I meant to emphasize the fallen alder that saved the people from falling into the river. The lowly alders, known as the rabbits of the tree world because they reproduce so fast, litter the river area in abundance. They don’t last long — 5-10 years — and when they fall in multiples they take with them a lot of the soil that shores up river banks into the river. This eats away at Navarro River Road, the main artery we are all dependent on. We can plant willows whose long roots solidify the hillsides leading from the river to the road to make up the erosion, but there are too many alders to keep up with. Today’s truth is that the fallen alder saved people from certain injury or worse by stopping the car that ran off 128 two weeks ago. Praise the alders. Everything in Mother Nature has its rhyme and reason.”