Columns

Editor’s Note: This month we welcome Gary Quackenbush to the Windsor Times. This is the first in a series of monthly columns, written by Gary, highlighting the many congregations to be found in Windsor’s faith-based community.

Tax-Aide Program – Thursdays, Feb. 8 through April 12; 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. This AARP program provides free tax return preparation and advice. Preparers are highly trained. Please bring last year’s return and all documentation for this year’s return. No appointment needed; first-come, first-served. There is frequently a line so coming early is recommended. All donations from this program benefit the Windsor Senior Center.

In January we lost one of our most celebrated agricultural leaders, Richard Kunde. Rich, and his beloved Saralee McClelland Kunde, both from multi-generational Sonoma County families, had the rich qualities of the place of which they were born.

Every so often one of my teenagers does something so endearing, it makes me want to cry. This last Thursday, as my husband packed and left for a second business trip in two weeks, I did just that; cried. I know, I know, probably not the best way to start off the day, but I felt deflated.

On Saturday, Jan. 27, the Windsor Town Council held its annual goal-setting workshop. My personal takeaways were that, at a minimum, three priorities were identified and discussed.

Many lessons were learned from the wildfires of 2017. The most important of which is that any fire, with enough fuel and driven by wind can burn through almost anything. It is never possible to protect your property 100 percent, but there are things you can do with your landscaping to provide your family a fighting chance.

Healthy art wall

It has been four months since the Oct. 8 north bay wildfires, and we continue to look both backward and forward. The very early steps of rebuilding and recovery have begun. Resources and strategies continue to be bundled. And the drastically altered picture that is Sonoma County’s future is beginning to come into focus. It is both daunting and exhilarating.

Survey concerns

“We are born at a given moment, in a given place, and, like vintage years of wine, we have qualities of the year and of the season of which we were born.” – Carl Jung.