By Katie Lazor

Boulder County Farmers' Markets

BookCliff wines are made from 100 percent Colorado grapes, grown sustainably near Palisade. (Katie Lazor / Courtesy photo)

Barrels in BookCliff Winery in Boulder. (Katie Lazor / Courtesy photo)

On my list this week: Colorado wine. Here's a little-known fact about Colorado: More than 50 vineyards can be found across its landscape, with two-thirds of the acreage concentrated in Palisade alone.

Where to find it: Head to North Boulder Thursday through Sunday for a wine tasting at the charming BookCliff Vineyards Winery or Settembre Cellars, conveniently located a grape's throw away, with Augustina's Winery just down Broadway. If you can't make it directly to the source or you'd like to taste a different local flavor, ask just about any wine or liquor store to see their Colorado selection. You'll find other local producers such as Jack Rabbit Hill (made with organic Colorado grapes), Blue Mountain Vineyards, St. Vrain Vineyards, White Water Hill Vineyards and many others. Also check out Modena a new wine caf in downtown Longmont with 12 Colorado wines on its list.

A grape-growing story: Two engineers, Ulla Merz and John Garlich, bought 10 acres of peach orchard in Palisade Colorado's fruit-growing capital in 1995, and BookCliff Vineyards was born. BookCliff is one of Boulder Farmers' Markets' longtime vendors, just finishing its 14th year.

Over the years, the vineyards have expanded to 37 acres on four separate properties. Merz and Garlich are not just passionate about grape-growing and winemaking; they also are good stewards of their land.

They practice sustainable operations by using compost instead of chemical fertilizer, refraining from pesticides and herbicides, and growing grass between rows to keep a natural habitat for insects. The season starts for the BookCliff team in February with the pre-pruning of plants. Fine pruning continues into April, as well. Buds push out in early May, and after flowering, the clusters are counted for a crop estimation. Months are spent watering, repositioning shoots for optimal sunlight, thinning the fruit as needed, netting for bird protection and caring for the plants. Grape harvest starts in September and typically finishes in late October.

The winemaker says: "From the start, it was important to us to be in control of the source of the grapes, as the quality of the grapes determines the quality of the wine," Merz says. 'We proudly produce wine from 100 percent Colorado-grown grapes. In a regular year, we sell 40 to 50 percent of our grape harvest to other Colorado wineries."

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Winter Locavore in Boulder

If you hear the tinkling of chimes and see a shimmer on boughs of green near the top of Waterworks Hill, walk a little closer.

Go ahead. George Ybarra, a metal sculptor who does much outdoor installation work, wants you to share in the festivities, the joy of the mountain.

"For this particular Christmas tree, I just again wanted to share in the season of the holidays and be able to give something back to the hikers and people who frequent the North Hills because the trail systems up there are so amazing," Ybarra said.

On Tuesday, he and his little girl, Zora, 10, added some more ornaments to the tree, one Ybarra had selected for the occasion. The small, round pine is a little ways off the trail, but it's not so far away it melts into the landscape.

It's the second year Ybarra has decorated a tree, but the Northside resident and artist has been walking up Waterworks ever since the peace sign was painted on a telephone relay tower on the hill. In 2001, the sign came down, but its footings are still in place on the way to the summit, and Ybarra saw an opportunity in the gap.

"After they took down the peace sign, I was kind of inspired about having these kind of art objects up in the North Hills," he said.

At first, he bolted art to fence posts, and then last year he decided to decorate a Christmas tree. He selected the one at the top of the Orange Street switchbacks, and he and Zora twisted aluminum into metal spirals for ornaments.

"It was real fun for her to work with me on that project 'cause I always like to do a craft project over the holidays," Ybarra said.

A group of ladies who walk Waterworks liked the tree, and they brought up ornaments and added to the display, too. Soon after Jan. 1, Ybarra cleared out the ornaments, and the Christmas tree returned to its simple, unadulterated glory.

A few months later, Ybarra began planning for this year's tree. For at least six months, he and Zora collected the lids from olive cans to use as decorations.

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Metal sculptor decorates North Hills tree for Christmas

Its Nov. 21, 2014, about 10 a.m., and Im heading up the Bill Hill trail in Thetford Center. The morning has been cold and squally, and right now fat snowflakes ride ripples of the shifting wind, settling onto ice that covers this opening bit of trail.

Im here to honor Noel (Ned) Perrin, the New York suburbanite who moved to Thetford in 1963 and taught at Dartmouth and worked and wrote on this 82-acre farm for over 40 years. Though Ned published 13 books, hes probably best known for his Person Rural essay collections, in which he described, often humorously, his experiences as a rural New England transplant and gentleman farmer. He died 10 years ago on this day, and as Ive done many times a year for the last decade, Im heading to the top of the hill, where his memorial is, to honor his influence on my life.

If any single place in the world is most identifiable with Ned, it is the land Im walking through. He loved this farm, put his heart into every acre of it. And his favorite spot would probably be right here: Bill Hill, a place he playfully called his in-house mini-mountain.

The hill was often a central character in his writing. In his 1977 essay, Grooming Bill Hill, he wrote about contributing to Vermonts pastoral beauty by fencing the top of hill, so cows could graze it and keep it open. He enclosed 18 acres with fencelines that still exist today. At the end of the essay he wrote: For the next half-century, at least, there will be one green grassy hill in Thetford Center, Vermont, to contrast with the dozen or so wooded ones. ... It will be no bad legacy to leave.

He was right. It wasnt a bad legacy to leave, and it was the first of many. He placed a conservation easement on his farm in 1984, and one of the last things he and his wife Sara Coburn did before he died was to create this public trail from his sugarhouse, near the Thetford Center covered bridge, to the top of the hill. Managed now by the Upper Valley Land Trust, its a popular Valley Quest destination, too.

All of this the farm, the hill, this trail, his essays had gotten me thinking, in the lead-up to this anniversary, about Neds legacy, the contours of it now, 10 years after his death. I knew how deeply he had affected my life: He had been a mentor and close friend, like a second father to me. And by serendipitous circumstances, Id had the privilege of living and working on this farm for several years after his death. But what couldnt I see of Neds influence that other friends of his could?

A couple of minutes up the trail I stop beside a stone wall overlooking the most beautiful pasture on the farm. Based on what Neds friends have told me, stone walls hold layers of his enduring legacy. Many people mentioned Neds love of walls and wall building, and the beauty that love produced. But the legacy went beyond that. Jeanie McIntyre, director of the Upper Valley Land Trust (UVLT), was reminded of a line Ned wrote about wall building in a 1990 UVLT publication: I love knowing ... that my touch on the land will stay awhile. It reminded her of how mindful he was of his environmental impact. She said, I think about how his touch was more a caress.

Other people mentioned that Neds stone walls provided life guidance. Thetford resident Cynthia Taylor said she thinks of Neds slow-and-steady approach to stone wall building whenever she feels daunted by the size of a new project; the thought helps her get started, or to persevere. Andy Rowles, a college advisee and long-time friend of Neds, has found life wisdom in a stone wall they built together on Andys land in Thetford. Working with Ned, he learned, one can choose any direction for oneself and not just let events and circumstances control our individual futures. That wall tells me this.

From what I heard, Neds influence had saturated the landscape both human and nonhuman elements like a kind of animism. Even though he was no longer around, his presence was immanent in the land.

Read more here:
A Legacy In Letters and on the Land

Harry Hill as Professor Branestawm.

HARRY Hill as a mad professor? Of course! Its a perfect fit.

Hill makes his acting debut as Professor Branestawm in a story taken from Norman Hunters classic childrens books adapted by Fast Show actor and author Charlie Higson.

Branestawm is the original mad professor, an absent-minded inventor oblivious to the chaos his harebrained creations cause when they go wrong. Which they always do.

If it werent for the efforts of his long-suffering housekeeper Mrs Flittersnoop (Vicki Pepperdine) and his dim but loyal best friend Colonel Dedshott (Simon Day), the professor would long ago have blown himself to smithereens.

Set in the picturesque English landscape of days gone by, the hour-long special sees schoolgirl Connie (Madeline Holliday) come to the professors rescue when evil businessman Mr Bullimore (Ben Miller) and local councillor Harold Haggerstone (David Mitchell) unite to have Branestawm kicked out for being a dangerous menace. However, they have their own plans for a giant munitions factory in the middle of the town.

Hill has revealed hes something in common with his character he was a budding schoolboy scientist and inventor himself. I loved that stuff, he says. Me and a couple of friends set up a little chemical industry in Kent when I was about 11. We made smoke bombs, stink bombs and fireworks and sold them to the kids at school.

We were quite good at it but one of our friends resigned because he couldnt cope with demand. He was giving people the produce on credit and not taking any money, so he had to go.

I loved the Professor Branestawm books as a kid, he adds. I was fascinated by Heath Robinsons illustrations too. Its a thrill for me to be playing the prof.

It would seem this classic of childrens literature has found its perfect match in Higsons inventive adaptation and a kindred lead with the warmly hilarious Harry Hill. The result is great knockabout fun.

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The Sentinel published Christmas TV: The Incredible Adventures of Professor Branestawm...

Deaths Grave, Chiura Obata (18851975), Deaths Grave Pass and Tenaya Peak, High Sierra, USA, 1930, Color woodcut, Private collection

When Kimi Hill was in her teens, just turning the corner on self-absorption and curious about her familys history, her aging grandfather, artist/educator Chiura Obata, resorted to communicating exclusively in his native Japanese, a language she didnt speak.

Cut off from Chiura Obata, the then 20-year-old Berkeley resident had little idea of the important role he played in art history, and particularly in the history of Japanese Americans in the Bay Area. Fortunately, Hill became the primary caretaker of her grandmother, Haruko Obata, for the nine years after Obata died in 1975.

Gradually, Hill got to know her grandfather through her grandmothers stories and through his paintings, drawings, photographs, letters and documents. Seeking ever more intimate insights, she visited abstract connections: the memories of people who were strangers to her but had known her grandfather; reference materials in libraries and archives relating to his years as a respected, influential professor of art at UC Berkeley. She found the most profound answers and clues to her grandfathers legacy in the beauty of natural settings Obata had cherished, like Yosemite National Park.

An exhibit, Yosemite: A Storied Landscape, running now through Jan. 25, 2015, at the California Historical Society in San Francisco, offers Bay Area residents the same opportunity.

Struggle,Chiura Obata (18851975), Struggle, Trail to Johnson Peak, High Sierra, California, 1930, Color woodcut, Private collection

Alongside Yosemite stories, and reflections from more than20artists, historians, scholars, ecologists, naturalists and more, a small collection of watercolor paintings, woodblock prints, photographs and artifacts open a window on the intriguing life of Obata.

Obata traveled to the United States and San Francisco in 1903, leaving Sendai, Japan, where hed spent most of his early years. Trained in sumi-e (ink) brush painting, the brash, talented 18-year-old had no intention of immigrating: America was merely a pitstop on his way to Paris salons, the hotbed of artistic creativity at the time.

Temporarily made homeless by the 1906 earthquake, Obata continued as he always had: drawing and painting in a city refugee encampment eyes wide open for the next piece of art he might create. Meeting Haruko, a skilled ikebana (flower arrangement) artist, dreams of Paris were abandoned. The Obatas began a family and established roots in Japantowns local art community.

California in the early 20th century offered an odd embrace to Japanese immigrants: holding them at arms length with national legislation like the 1924 Asian Exclusion Act, prohibiting them from becoming American citizens and simultaneously, at least in San Francisco, mesmerized by, and adoring of, decorative Japanese art. Obata received a number of significant commissions (creating sets for San Francisco Operas production of Puccinis Madama Butterfly beingjust one example) and participating in group shows as part of the East West Art Society, an artists association he helped found.

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Chiura Obata: A story of resilience, a passion for Yosemite

PINELLAS PARK Saying her goal was to help people, Patricia Louise Bailey-Snook volunteered to serve on a Pinellas Park advisory board.

When she retired from political life more than 30 years later, Mrs. Bailey-Snook left behind a series of firsts first woman to serve on the Pinellas Park City Council, first woman to serve as vice mayor and the first woman to serve as mayor. She also served a term in the state House of Representatives before returning to serve on the council.

Along the way, she helped hundreds of people, not the least through the Angel Fund. The fund, which she talked her fellow council members into creating, is a nonprofit organization supported by Pinellas Park residents and businesses to provide emergency help to pay for basic expenses that are critical to financial survival, like rent and mortgage payments, utilities and child-care costs.

Mrs. Bailey-Snook, 78, died Dec. 8, 2014 in Sumterville.

"Pat was a good council member," said former Pinellas Park Mayor Cecil Bradbury, who served beside Mrs. Bailey-Snook for years. "She had a lot of influence on the lives of the citizens of Pinellas Park, especially the younger lives. . . . I just hope the people of Pinellas Park remember her as fondly as I do."

Mrs. Bailey-Snook was born in Harrodsburg, Ky., but spent most of her life in the Pinellas Park-St. Petersburg area. She became involved in local politics in the late 1960s or early 1970s and was first elected to the council in 1972. At that time, the vice mayor and mayor were both chosen by the council and, eventually, she won both positions. (Vice mayor is still an appointed office.) She briefly left the council from 1982-84 to serve in the state House. She returned to the council in 1987 and served continuously until her retirement in 2008. While on the council, she served as a member of many countywide boards including the Metropolitan Planning Organization, Pinellas Planning Council, Pinellas County Cooperative Extension Service, Pinellas Affordable Housing Coalition, and the Family and Children's committees for the National League of Cities.

"She loved it. She loved being involved," her son, Michael Bailey, said. In becoming involved in politics, "she just found her calling. You could tell she found her lifelong love and destiny."

Those early days were rough for a woman in Pinellas Park politics, he said. His mother learned to stand her ground in debates, even when she came home bruised and bloodied from the battle. Literally. Bailey said he remembers her coming home from a council meeting one night with a bloody shin from where someone had kicked her under the table.

"A grown man had kicked her in the shin," he said.

It was a lesson Mrs. Bailey-Snook learned well. When Rick Butler was first elected to the council, he sat next to Mrs. Bailey-Snook.

Excerpt from:
Epilogue: Patricia Bailey-Snook changed political landscape in Pinellas Park

By OLIVIA LAMBERTDec. 17, 2014, 5 a.m.

A CHARRED hill stood out yesterday in what is normally a picturesque North East landscape.

A CHARRED hill stood out yesterday in what is normally a picturesque North East landscape.

Dry, brown grass swayed weakly towards the firefront.

A mob of kangaroos was seen leaving the West Wodonga hill, headed for greener pastures.

About 150 firefighters armed with water took up the fight against the flames, wiping their dusty and sweaty brows in response to the suns intense heat.

The erratic wind gusts were the worst enemy for those attempting to control the blaze and firefighters were hoping they would die down and leave a still summers day.

But not even those in charge of fighting the blaze would make predictions or speculate as to what would happen with the weather, because of the likelihood that conditions would change in an instant.

An air crane, two helicopters and a plane circled above the blaze, dropping water and retardant to deter the flames from spreading further.

A shooting range off Plunketts Road became a staging area for fire trucks and their crews to refuel.

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North East Fires | Firefighters battle intense heat, unpredictable winds

Dec. 17, 2014, midnight

A CHARRED hill stood out yesterday in what is normally a picturesque North East landscape.

Firefighters check trees as they mop up after the fire had moved through. Picture: MATTHEW SMITHWICK

A CHARRED hill stood out yesterday in what is normally a picturesque North East landscape.

Dry, brown grass swayed weakly towards the firefront.

A mob of kangaroos was seen leaving the West Wodonga hill, headed for greener pastures.

About 150 firefighters armed with water took up the fight against the flames, wiping their dusty and sweaty brows in response to the suns intense heat.

The erratic wind gusts were the worst enemy for those attempting to control the blaze and firefighters were hoping they would die down and leave a still summers day.

But not even those in charge of fighting the blaze would make predictions or speculate as to what would happen with the weather, because of the likelihood that conditions would change in an instant.

An air crane, two helicopters and a plane circled above the blaze, dropping water and retardant to deter the flames from spreading further.

Read more:
Wind proves the enemy

Last month, the Santa Clara Valley Water District Board of Directors voted to continue supporting higher rebate amounts for water conservation programs until next June. If you have been considering changing your landscape to make it more drought tolerant, now is the time. In most of Santa Clara County, you could be eligible for a rebate of $2 per square foot of converted landscape. In Palo Alto, Morgan Hill and San Jose Municipal Water's service area, local cost sharing makes the incentives are even larger.

Our landscape conversion rebate program is one of the many conservation programs that are helping us through this drought. More importantly, it will help us manage dry periods for years to come. We are working to save nearly 100,000 acre-feet of water a year by 2030. That's enough water to fill Lexington Reservoir five times.

Fortunately, the response to this program during the drought has been overwhelming. From July through October 2014, about 410,000 square feet of thirsty lawns have been converted. The conversion of another 1.4 million square feet of grass is in process.

Some people mistakenly believe that a drought-tolerant landscape only means a cactus or rock garden. In fact, our program allows a long list of approved plants, shrubs and groundcovers that are lush, flowering and very colorful. More and more, these types of landscapes will become the norm in our region, in place of lawns that requires mowing, fertilizers and frequent watering.

In addition, the water district offers rebates for irrigation equipment that can help you reduce your water use. This includes weather based irrigation controllers, rain sensors, high-efficiency nozzles, dedicated landscape meters and efficient sprinklers. Those rebate amounts have been increased as well. About 90,000 pieces of irrigation equipment have been replaced or are in the process of replacement.

To find out about our water conservation programs and their eligibility requirements, please visit save20gallons.org or call our water conservation hotline at (408) 630-2554. The water district strives to make the application process as easy as possible, but it is important to check the program requirements before starting any project.

The board also extended our call for water use reductions of 20 percent until next June. Despite all the recent rain, our local reservoirs and our groundwater levels are still severely depleted. It will take many more significant storm systems to make up for the three long years of dry weather.

Much of this county's water is imported from outside the county. Those water supplies depend on the Sierra snowpack and the conditions at key state and federal reservoirs such as Lake Shasta and Lake Oroville. State officials estimate that we will need precipitation rates of 150 percent of normal before those reservoirs will recover. As a result, the state has issued an initial forecast for the amount of water it can deliver to our county in 2015 of only 10 percent.

The bottom line is that we will start 2015 with far less water than we had at the beginning of 2014. It is essential that we continue saving, rain or shine, for the foreseeable future.

* * *

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Waterwise: Conservation program incentives extended again

Illustration: Kerrie Leishman.

The Sydney Botanic Gardens and Domain, while a gift from governors Phillip and Macquarie to the people of Sydney, is of its essence, a gift of nature.

Its attractive deep cove, with its two long tongues of green reaching down to the harbour at Bennelong Point and at Mrs Macquaries Chair, is essentially the landform shaped down the aeons. It is broadly as it was before European settlement. That is what is so wonderful about it a place defined by naturalism. But even more than that, a garden space made richer by its developed horticultural heritage.

The Sydney Botanic Gardens is one of the great gardens of its kind in the world. We therefore have a duty of care to maintain and protect it.

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The Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trusthas outlined a plan which fundamentally commercialises this historic garden place. The plan seeks to give the gardens a railway station, a ferry wharf, a hotel, a permanent sound stage and, as inappropriate as these things are, worse than that, three clumsily placed buildings. According to the draft plan, a 100- to 200-seat cafe and function places in each of the very points that the two green tongues touch the harbour Bennelong Point at the foot of the Opera House and Mrs Macquaries Chair and a separate extension of the Art Gallery of NSW jumping the expressway to land in the gardens themselves.

Jorn Utzonset his Opera House and the steps to its podium against the immediate rolling green hill rising from the Man OWar steps reaching to Government House. It is a poetic picture of nature juxtaposed with major architecture. Where that rolling hill meets Utzons steps, the gardens trust wants to erect a building. And a big one. The insensitivity of it is breathtaking. And to what purpose? The draft plan tells us "an orientation centre, associated retail, 200-seat cafe, 100-seat outdoor dining area and public toilets". In other words a mini-mall.

But not happy with that detraction against the site, the trust seeks to repeat it at Mrs Macquaries Point. Here, on what is probably Sydneys most natural and sacred site, with panoramic views from the Opera House and Harbour Bridge to Bradleys Head, the trust intends to construct another building. And that building, according to the draft plan, is another cafe, retail and function space with a terrace under a glass canopy. In other words, a blot on the landscape. But in this case, the most sensitive bit of landscape in the city.

One can only imagine the growth in the tourist bus traffic that will tear Mrs Macquaries Point to pieces as tourism operators pour their clients into the cafe and function space. These tourism operators want to sell the nature that Sydney offers while reserving the right to trash it wherever they think they can make a faster and more convenient buck.

One can understand the greedy and crass tourism industry wanting to build these things, but having them done at the behest of the gardens trust the supposed trustee of this natural domain is what is truly disturbing.

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A blot on Sydney's landscape