Columns

Few things speak levity like Champagne or sparkling wine. How better to raise ones spirits than with a glass of effervescence? Since we are all in need a lift right now, let’s talk bubbles.

Folks are lining up to play pickleball in Healdsburg. There’s a paddle rack and new courts at Healdsburg High School. The bright green and blue colors perk up the tennis facility, now the Pickleball/Tennis facility. Scheduled play and available courts in Healdsburg, both public and...

Over the past month or so, life as we know it has changed. The coronavirus pandemic has been a shock to our systems. The personal and economic impacts of COVID-19 in Healdsburg, Sonoma County, and the world will continue to resonate in the months to come.

I was on the newspaper team that created The Windsor Times in 1987. I could claim to be one of its parents. My parental instincts are kicking in pretty hard right now, as we must make forced decisions about this newspaper’s fate. If you are among those who believe it takes a village to raise a child, then you would agree the same goes for a community newspaper. Unfortunately, a virus, a changed local economy and the loss of too many newspaper readers to Facebook, Google and elsewhere has put this newspaper on unsustainable footing.

For years our beautiful and majestic dogwood tree stood silent. When we first bought the farm 20 years ago, it was like clockwork, and every spring our dogwood would bloom gorgeous white flowers, right in the front of the house. Cars stopped on Yoakim Bridge to photograph it. I think it is the most beautiful tree on our property, and maybe even in the Dry Creek Valley, though others would argue that. Perfect is the shape, shocking white is the bloom. Every spring we would marvel at this gem, and it was always a trigger, for when the dogwood blooms, we know we need to begin thinning our peach trees. 

The worth of any endeavor or establishment should be measured with a triple bottom line of social, economic and environmental outcomes. And, if the year 2017 was to be measured as such, how might we rank its contributions in both a global and very local picture?

Sebastopol’s nationally renowned, MD, Jeff Hergenrather has been recommending cannabis for all kinds of ailments ever since he served as the doctor at “The Farm,” a rural countercultural community in Tennessee 40 years ago.

You’ve heard this message many times, but it bears repeating. A dollar spent at a local business ricochets around the community much more powerfully than a dollar spent online. Amazon.com does not buy tickets to your kids’ school fundraiser. Walmart.com doesn’t buy tickets to your local Kiwanis or Rotary events. Target.com doesn’t sponsor a youth soccer team. Most of them don’t donate to your community food pantry.