LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Lake County Animal Care and Control has four kittens awaiting adoption this week.
Call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278 or visit the shelter online for information on visiting or adopting.
The following cats at the shelter have been cleared for adoption.
Male domestic shorthair kitten
This male domestic shorthair kitten has an orange tabby coat.
He is in cat room kennel No. 96a, ID No. LCAC-A-1871.
Male domestic shorthair kitten
This male domestic shorthair kitten has an orange tabby coat.
He is in cat room kennel No. 96c, ID No. LCAC-A-1873.
Female domestic shorthair kitten
This female domestic shorthair kitten has an orange tabby coat.
She is in cat room kennel No. 96d, ID No. LCAC-A-1874.
Female domestic shorthair kitten
This female domestic shorthair kitten has a gray tabby coat.
She is in cat room kennel No. 101a, ID No. LCAC-A-1945.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Lake County Animal Care and Control has eight dogs ready for their forever homes this week.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of German shepherd, husky, Labrador retriever, mastiff and pit bull.
Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control website not listed are still “on hold”).
Call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278 or visit the shelter online for information on visiting or adopting.
Male German shepherd
This 1-year-old male German shepherd has a black and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 12, ID No. LCAC-A-1892.
Labrador-pit bull mix
This 5-year-old female chocolate Labrador retriever-pit bull mix has a short chocolate-colored coat.
She is in kennel No. 13, ID No. LCAC-A-1769.
Female mastiff
This 3-year-old female mastiff has a short brindle coat.
She is in kennel No. 15, ID No. LCAC-A-1868.
Male husky
This 1-year-old male husky has a black and white coat with bright blue eyes.
He is in kennel No. 16, ID No. LCAC-A-2190.
‘Snuffy’
“Snuffy” is a 1-year-old black Labrador retriever mix.
He is in kennel No. 24, ID No. LCAC-A-2152.
Male German shepherd
This 2-year-old male German shepherd has a black and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 26, ID No. LCAC-A-1903.
Male shepherd mix
This 2-year-old male shepherd mix has a short black and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 28, ID No. LCAC-A-1743.
Female German shepherd
This female German shepherd has a black coat.
She is in kennel No. 33, ID No. LCAC-A-2169.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
With the holiday season underway and people visiting family and friends, the California Department of Public Health is urging Californians to get the influenza vaccine to protect their health, and the health of others, during this flu season.
For Californians who still haven't had the COVID-19 vaccine or are due for their booster, the flu vaccine and COVID-19 vaccine can be given on the same day.
CDPH said influenza is increasing around the country, especially among young adults and children, who commonly spread the disease. The number of cases tends to increase during this time of year.
National survey data show lower vaccination rates for children and pregnant people this year as compared with last year leaving them unprotected and more vulnerable to serious flu illness.
“We continue to see the positive impact vaccines have on our collective and individual health and well-being,” said Dr. Tomás J. Aragón, CDPH Director and State Public Health Officer. “There are many reasons to get vaccinated this season, but the best ones are to keep yourself and loved ones healthy.”
Flu vaccinations in Lake County this year are slightly down compared with last year, according to information provided by Jen Baker, interim deputy director for Lake County Health Services.
Baker reported that from July 1 to date, there have been 10,841 flu vaccinations in Lake County.
Flu vaccinations received in Lake County for the same time period last year totaled 11,611, Baker said.
CDPH recommends the annual flu vaccination for everyone 6 months of age and older. Getting vaccinated against the flu is especially important for people at high-risk of severe disease and hospitalization, including:
• People 65 years and older. • People who smoke or have underlying medical conditions like diabetes, heart disease, asthma, lung disease, neurological disorders and weakened immune systems. • Pregnant women and children under five years of age. • Caregivers and residents in long-term care facilities. • Essential workers who encounter others outside their homes or at higher risk because of their occupation.
CDPH encourages Californians to contact their health care provider, physician's office, or clinic about getting the flu vaccine. Adults and children may also get immunized at the pharmacy where they generally pick up their prescriptions. Pharmacies accept most insurance, including Medi-Cal. Some local health departments may offer low- or no-cost flu immunizations.
If you still haven’t had the COVID-19 vaccine or are due for a booster, the flu vaccine and COVID-19 vaccine can be given on the same day. The state’s My Turn website can be used to schedule COVID-19 vaccination appointments, and also allows Californians to schedule their flu vaccination or find a walk-in clinic.
Besides getting immunized, you can also take preventive actions:
• Continue wearing a mask when recommended or required in high-risk settings. • Stay away from people who are sick. • Stay home when sick for at least 24 hours after symptoms go away. • Cough or sneeze into your elbow, arm, or disposable tissue. If you use a disposable tissue, use hand sanitizer, or wash your hands afterward. • Wash hands frequently and thoroughly with soap and warm water or use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. • Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — An organization that’s working to raise the profile of Lake County as an arts destination is debuting a new series of sculptures in the city of Clearlake.
The Lake County Rural Arts Initiative, or LCRAI, is a small but big-thinking organization that is building a portfolio of public art work projects throughout Lake County.
In recent months, LCRAI has installed two sculptures of bass in Clearlake, with plans for another two to be placed in the coming year.
Martha Mincer, an LCRAI Board member, said one of the group’s main goals is to use the arts for economic development.
“We believe this county could be a dramatic arts designation,” she said.
Studies have shown that a focus on public art isn’t just good for the soul, it has a measurably positive impact on the communities where it’s offered.
There is an understanding that outdoor art and making a commitment to a community “really raises even the community’s feeling about itself,” said Mincer, adding, “which is what we want to do.”
Mincer said that in the group’s three and a half years it has raised awareness in Clearlake and Lakeport of what can be accomplished with an arts destination.
The group also has a mandate to support art in schools. In 2020, they gave out grants to county teachers to cover art supplies. Mincer said fundraising is ongoing to continue that work.
She said they believe strongly that art nourishes a part of the brain that nothing else does, especially for children, citing a Harvard study about how art lights up the brain.
Mincer said putting arts in the school raises scores in every single subject. “I have a real passion for it.”
Mincer, who came to Lake County from the East Coast, said people are looking to retire in places that stay rural, a fact that positions Lake County to attract new residents.
If a community makes upgrades through art, Mincer suggested that people are OK with it otherwise remaining rough around the edges.
She also pointed to places like Taos, New Mexico, that have unique geographic and cultural character. Lake County, similarly, has its own character and natural beauty that lend themselves to art.
Mincer said Lake County’s community members need to celebrate who they are and art is a powerful way to do that.
“It’s been powerful since we were in caves,” Mincer said, noting that art influences how we think about ourselves.
“It’s very additive in terms of its ability in terms of shaping success in a community,” and has a unique ability to drive thinking in ways that are powerful and successful, she said.
The mural trail
LCRAI already has carried out other noteworthy projects, supporting artwork that emphasizes what’s unique about Lake County — including Pomo history and culture, wildlife and Clear Lake, at the county’s heart and center.
One project that already has drawn significant notice is the Lakeport murals project, which is the focus of the group’s mural trail.
Mincer said the city came to LCRAI to ask about the murals, and wanted them to be historic and lake-related. LCRAI additionally wanted them to be “buzzworthy.”
LCRAI pitched the idea of starting a mural trail and the city agreed. So Mincer said the group reached out to local artists and muralists.
Mincer said her favorite mural is the 1949 airplane landing on the lake, painted on a building across from City Hall. Other highlights on the trail are a native Pomo woman on the wall of the Silveira Community Center, painted by Michael and Violet Divine, skiers by Robert Minuzzo and birds by muralist Gloria De La Cruz, whose work can be seen around Lake County.
LCRAI also got donors for murals on fire stations on Lakeport and Kelseyville to pay homage to the bravery of firefighters and how they put their lives in danger to protect us “from the ravages of a pretty formidable enemy,” Mincer said.
A mural of a bass by the Divines can be found at Redbud Park in Clearlake.
Mincer said there are more murals in the mix, some of which will include a focus on history. Hope Rising in Clearlake wants one for its building.
“We’re a little overwhelmed,” said Mincer.
However, that hasn’t kept LCRAI from continuing to move forward with more work.
Bass statues placed in Clearlake
The group’s latest endeavor is the placement of bass statues in Clearlake.
Mincer said Supervisor Bruno Sabatier has been a real supporter of art in the county. He also helped create the bass statue project.
Mincer said he brought the idea to LCRAI, presenting them with the iconic image of a bass that they should start to put around the county after they are made artistic.
“I originally thought of the idea when I traveled through Wyoming and saw buffalo forms everywhere,” Sabatier said. “I’ve seen similar things in Sonoma County and Napa County with roosters and cows. So I thought, what is Lake County famous for, and I thought of our bass. I've never seen our bass really illustrated in our county, so I approached RAI and they took my idea and made it happen.”
Mincer said Sabatier has helped by reaching out to donors, including the cannabis community.
Sabatier said he approached cannabis businesses both in Clearlake and around the county to see if they were interested in donating to the project, and they donated funds directly to LCRAI, “and now we're finally seeing the results of those actions.”
Six cannabis companies donated to the project: Benmore Valley Project, Triple C Collective, Napa Valley Fume, Jed Morris, Lake Investments and Lakeside Herbal Solutions.
Mincer said the project has had a bit of lag time because of the pandemic.
Originally, the idea was to put the bass statutes around Lake County. However, the city of Clearlake wanted all of them, Mincer said.
She said it’s become part of an effort to take an area and make an immersive art destination theme as part of changing the narrative.
“They have a lot going for them,” she said of Clearlake, which also plans to work with LCRAI to extend the concept of Main Street art, noting the city has put a considerable amount of money toward it.
Mincer said they want to make something that’s dramatic and unique, adding that it will be surprising.
The project is drawing on Lake County’s deep and extraordinary amount of artistic talent, which is one of the reasons Mincer said LCRAI felt the project was doable.
Renowned wood sculptor Mark Colp — known for winning chain saw carving competitions — created three large wood fish based on the image designed by D.B. vanSteenburgh and carved out of redwood trees harvested from the Valley fire.
The artists chosen to decorate and enhance the wood sculptured images are Judson Eden and the Divines, with Diego Harris using the bass image to create a full metal sculpture.
Harris, of Upper Lake, is known for his unique sculptures — fantastical creatures, trees and shapes — that look as if they were lifted from a dreamscape.
Mincer said Harris, whose mother Sherry also is an accomplished local artist who works in mediums including basketry, is becoming more well known. His sculpture took several months for the creation process.
Diego Harris wanted to do his sculpture from scratch if he mimicked the image and Mincer said OK. His has been placed in Austin Park, while Eden’s is at Austin Beach.
“They’re glorious looking,” and people love them, said Mincer. “They look at them and find them to be magnificent, which they are.”
Then there are the Divines, whose previous work in Lake County includes the fish mural at Redbud Park and the mural of the Pomo women on the Silveira Community Center.
Violet Divine grew up in Southern California and has connections to the Burning Man festival, and did her graduate degree at UC Irvine. They bought a home in Lake County in 2016.
Divine said she’s hacked on the wooden base made by Colp quite a bit. She’s doing a stone mosaic as part of her creation, using small concrete appliqués and locally sourced obsidian for the kids, with the body of Brazilian quartz.
“It’s very tedious,” Divine said of the construction process.
But she is nothing if not determined.
When she first pitched the project to the Clearlake Marketing Committee, she had a locally sourced obsidian stone and serpentine to discuss her project with them.
At one point, the sharp obsidian sliced her finger and, despite bleeding, she continued with her presentation. Finally, City Clerk Melissa Swanson asked if she could get her a bandage.
Divine is working with her husband on another bass statue, which will be adorned with materials collected off the beach such as driftwood.
Their statues will be placed at Highlands Park and Redbud Park. Mincer said the Divines’ fish are set for installation in the spring.
Like Mincer and the LCRAI founders, Divine sees the chance for economic benefits to emerge from the project. She said he hopes to entice entrepreneurship to come into the area, and is working with a team of people to carry out that goal.
LCRAI also is acting as a strategic partner and helping the city write a Clean California grant that will focus on art and beautification, Mincer said.
Earlier this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the availability of $300 million in grants for the program, with cities, counties, transit agencies, tribal governments and other governmental entities able to submit proposals of up to $5 million to beautify their communities and address trash and debris.
Mincer said the project is expected to include installation of trash cans, creation of a mascot and the potential for more murals, with art development opportunities along Highway 53.
To support LCRAI in its efforts to improve art and life in Lake County, visit its website and reach out through the group’s contact page.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
If you ever wanted to be an astronomer, now is your chance. A new citizen science project, led by researchers at the University of Minnesota with support from NASA, allows volunteers to play an important role in learning more about the Sun by using their personal computers.
Participants will help identify bursts of plasma coming off the Sun, called solar jets, in thousands of images captured over the last 11 years by NASA’s Solar Dynamic Observatory.
The project, called Solar Jet Hunter, is the newest citizen science project under the Zooniverse platform originated at the University of Minnesota. Zooniverse is the world’s largest and most popular people-powered online research platform with more than two million volunteers from around the world. These volunteers act as armchair scientists and archivists helping academic research teams with their projects from the comfort of their own homes.
In this project, citizen scientists will detect solar jets by looking at short movies made from a sequence of still images. They decide if a solar jet is visible in any of the movies and provide information about the jets by annotating the images where solar jets are found.
By building a database of solar jets, the volunteers help narrow down the vast amount of data about the Sun to the most important information for further review by solar researchers.
Solar Jet Hunter is the newest citizen science project under the Zooniverse platform. In this project, citizen scientists will detect solar jets by looking at short movies made from a sequence of still images. They decide if a solar jet is visible in any of the movies and provide information about the jets by annotating the images where solar jets are found. Credit: Solar Jet Hunter, Zooniverse
“These solar jets are sort of like a million hydrogen bombs going off on the star that’s actually not that far away from us, so it is important that we try to understand more about how that happens,” said Lindsay Glesener, a University of Minnesota associate professor of physics and astronomy. “But with our small research team, it would probably take a decade or more to look through all these images ourselves so we’re asking for help.”
The team decided that the project would be perfect for the Zooniverse citizen science platform.
“Solar jets are very difficult to identify in any sort of automatic way,” said Sophie Musset, a research fellow at the European Space Agency and former University of Minnesota postdoctoral researcher who is leading the Solar Jet Hunter project. “You can’t just write a piece of code that will tell the computer to search and find all of the solar jets, but it's very easy to see with human eyes.”
Musset and Glesener said the information they get from the citizen scientists will not only be used to study the Sun but will also help to write a computer algorithm that could speed future identification of solar jets by combining computer help with human expertise.
Glesener also said that the University of Minnesota was the perfect place for solar research and citizen science to come together.
“We have both the expertise in studying solar jets and the Zooniverse team here at the University of Minnesota,” Glesener said. “You can’t just throw some random images up on a website and expect that you're going to get the information from the citizen scientists that you need. It takes people who really know how to make it work.”
Lucy Fortson, a fellow University of Minnesota physics and astronomy professor and one of the founders of the Zooniverse platform, is one of those experts.
“While Zooniverse has been involved in all kinds of citizens projects from the humanities to biology, this project brings us back to our astrophysics roots,” Fortson said. “Our partnership with NASA and the Adler Planetarium has expanded our capacity to take on important projects like this one and increased the acceptance of citizen science as a valid research methodology within the scientific community. This is real proof that citizen science has come of age as a research tool.”
In addition to Musset, Glesener, and Fortson, the Solar Jet Hunter international research team includes co-investigators Gregory Fleishman, a professor in the Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research at the New Jersey Institute of Technology; and Navdeep Panesar, a research scientist at Lockheed Martin Solar & Astrophysics Laboratory and Bay Area Environmental Research Institute.
Other members of the team include Erik Ostlund, a Zooniverse web developer at the University of Minnesota; Suhail Alnahari, a data scientist in the University of Minnesota’s School of Physics and Astronomy; University of Minnesota graduate students Yixian Zhang and Charlie Kapsiak; Mariana Jeunon, graduate student at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.; and Paloma Jol, a master student at Leiden University in The Netherlands.
The Solar Jet Hunter citizen science project is funded by NASA under the Heliophysics Guest Investigators program, and has supported students under a U.S. National Science Foundation CAREER grant.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The city of Lakeport announced this week that it has completed an updated emergency evacuation map.
The city completed the map’s latest version with the assistance of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
The map includes color-coded zones, with each zone containing the ZoneHaven identification.
Officials said the map also is geo-spatially referenced, which allows users to locate themselves without the need of Internet, wi-fi or other network connections, just their mobile device's built-in GPS service. This is especially helpful for users of GeoPDF applications such as Avenza and Global Mapper.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Container ships wait weeks in harbors to be unloaded and unstable supply chains struggle with broken links. During a season of gift giving, this can cause stress. Will presents ordered online arrive in time? Will beleaguered department stores have mostly empty shelves?
Turning our eyes to alternative local sources can alleviate these uncertainties.
Even in rural Lake County, shopping options abound, whether a family-owned storefront, farm, winery, craft fair or artist studio.
Farmers’ markets are another, perhaps surprising, resource. We currently have two in the county, and in addition to seasonal produce, both offer opportunities to find creative and unique gifts.
I spent last Saturday morning perusing stalls at the farmers’ market near Kelseyville, and I can be found most Friday evenings at the farmers’ market in Middletown. Both offer a variety of handcrafted items, from jewelry, birdhouses and works of art to soaps, candles, baskets and jams.
Local honey, baked goods and oils (both olive and walnut) are among the foodstuffs offered and make appealing gifts, especially because they’re handcrafted or harvested locally.
Cornelia Sieber-Davis is the market manager for the Lake County Farmers’ Finest market, and she tells me that this Saturday, Dec. 18, will be a special one themed for the holidays.
The Saturday morning market is now year-round and is back at the old Steele Wines facility on Thomas Lane at the corner of Highway 29 between Kelseyville and Lakeport.
The property has been purchased by Shannon Wines, and a major remodeling of the tasting room, dubbed The Mercantile, is now finished and also offers gifts.
The market is open from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and is located at the winery’s side lot.
The DeJulius family, with a farm near Middletown, spearheaded the creation of Middletown’s Friday night farmers’ market, which opened in the spring of this year.
As a resident of Middletown, it has been a thrill to see the market thrive. It’s held on the massive lawn in front of the library-senior center complex on Highway 29.
I’ve so often reveled in the energy there, with kids running around, music, dinner options and the large number of vendors lining walkways under the oaks. With darker days upon us now, the time for the market has shifted an hour earlier, from 4 to 7 p.m.
This Friday, Dec. 17, is the last market of this season, but I look forward to its reopening next year.
What follows is a pictorial essay of the farmers’ market in Kelseyville to showcase the variety of gift items that were on offer there last Saturday. Some of the vendors are a constant presence, while others pop in on occasion.
The Middletown market offers equally creative options, and a few of the vendors appear at both markets.
Esther Oertel is a writer and passionate home cook from a family of chefs. She grew up in a restaurant, where she began creating recipes from a young age. She’s taught culinary classes in a variety of venues in Lake County and previously wrote “The Veggie Girl” column for Lake County News. Most recently she’s taught culinary classes at Sur La Table in Santa Rosa. She lives in Middletown, California.
Lake County Farmers' Market (2)
Ferrigno's
Denise Ferrigno Flaig of Ferrigno's Italian Baked Goods offers biscotti, cookies and granola at the Lake County Farmers' Finest market in Kelseyville. She hopes to open an Italian bakery in downtown Lakeport with grab and go Italian food and is currently on the hunt for the perfect spot. Photo by Esther Oertel.
The Vollelunga family
Beard oil and hair serum made from Lake County walnuts is sold by the Vollelunga family of Lakeport's Valley Long Farms. Photo by Esther Oertel.
David Burger
David Burger sells handcrafted whistles, bird houses and jewelry at the Lake County Farmers' Finest market in Kelseyville. The 1955 Buick Special accompanies him but is not for sale. Photo by Esther Oertel.
David Burger
David Burger's handcrafted pottery whistles are on display at the Lake County Farmers' Finest market in Kelseyville. Photo by Esther Oertel.
Kelly's Designs
Kelly Moe of Kelly's Designs talks with customers at her booth at the Lake County Farmers' Finest market in Kelseyville, Calif. She sells handcrafted jewelry and other gifts. Photo by Esther Oertel.
Kelly's Designs
Wine bottle gnomes are among the handcrafted items sold at the Kelly's Designs booth at the Lake County Farmers' Finest market in Kelseyville, Calif. Photo by Esther Oertel.
Kelly's Beading
Kelly Sullins of Kelly's Beading creates intricately crafted beaded insects and wine charms. Photo by Esther Oertel at the Lake County Farmers' Finest market in Kelseyville, Calif. Photo by Esther Oertel.
Kelly's Beading
This beaded dragonfly was crafted by Kelly Sullins of Kelly's Beading. She creates spiders, wasps and all manner of insects from beads, as well as wine charms. Photo by Esther Oertel at the Lake County Farmers' Finest market in Kelseyville, Calif. Photo by Esther Oertel.
Brooke's Creative Cards
Brooke of Brooke's Creative Cards is with her trusty assistant at the Lake County Farmers' Finest market in Kelseyville, Calif., on Saturday, December 4, 2021. Photo by Esther Oertel.
The Woodpecker Bird and Bat Houses
John Hathaway of Upper Lake's The Woodpecker Bird and Bat Houses crafts charmingly rustic homes for flying creatures. Photo by Esther Oertel at the Lake County Farmers' Finest market in Kelseyville, Calif., on Saturday, December 4, 2021. Photo by Esther Oertel.
The Woodpecker Bird and Bat Houses
These rustic bird houses were created by John Hathaway of The Woodpecker Bird and Bat Houses and were on display at the Lake County Farmers' Finest market in Kelseyville, Calif., on Saturday, December 4, 2021. Photo by Esther Oertel.
Aromatherapy & Me
Soaps, bath bombs, salves and creams were on display at the Aromatherapy & Me booth at the Lake County Farmers' Finest market in Kelseyville, Calif., on Saturday, December 4, 2021. Photo by Esther Oertel.
The Pepper Portal
Travis Rinker of The Pepper Portal specializes in products made from the wide variety of hot peppers he grows; however, his booth at the Lake County Farmers' Finest market in Kelseyville, Calif., offers a variety of other gifts, from wood carvings to CDs of his music. Photo by Esther Oertel.
Yasmine, Ellie and Annika
Enterprising girls Yasmine, Ellie and Annika sell mistletoe, earrings and other gifts at the Lake County Farmers' Finest market in Kelseyville, Calif. Photo by Esther Oertel on Saturday, December 4, 2021.
Edenberry Farms
Handcrafted balsamic vinegars infused with farm-grown fruits are available at the Edenberry Farms booth at the Lake County Farmers' Finest market in Kelseyville, Calif. Photo by Esther Oertel on Saturday, December 4, 2021.
Yasmine, Ellie and Annika
Handcrafted earrings are sold by Yasmine, Ellie and Annika at the Lake County Farmers' Finest market in Kelseyville, Calif., on Saturday, December 4, 2021. Photo by Esther Oertel.
Art Delmar
Freelance artist John Tyler of Art Delmar sells a variety of creations at the Lake County Farmers' Finest market in Kelseyville, Calif., including jewelry, original photography, and acrylic sculptures filled with pebbles combed on Mendocino beaches. Photo by Esther Oertel on Saturday, December 4, 2021.
Pendeza Creations
Carolyne Lwenya of Pendeza Creations talks with a customer at her booth at the Lake County Farmers' Finest market in Kelseyville, Calif., on Saturday, December 4, 2021. Lwenya sells baskets and other handcrafted items imported from Africa. Photo by Esther Oertel.
Pendeza Creations
Baskets, purses, toys, and other items imported from Africa are sold at the Pendeza Creations booth at the farmers' markets in Middletown and Kelseyville, Calif. Photo by Esther Oertel on Saturday, December 4, 2021.
Pepper Portal
Hot sauces and dried peppers are sold by Travis Rinker of The Pepper Portal at the Lake County Farmers' Finest market in Kelseyville, Calif. Photo by Esther Oertel on Saturday, December 4, 2021.
Lavender Bliss
A wide variety of products made from lavender are sold at the Lavender Bliss booth at the Lake County Farmers' Finest market in Kelseyville, Calif. Photo by Esther Oertel on Saturday, December 4, 2021.
Lavender Bliss
Kathy Harrell of Lavender Bliss poses for a photo along with her grandchildren at the Lake County Farmers' Finest market in Kelseyville, Calif., on Saturday, December 4, 2021. Harrell creates a wide variety of products using the lavender she grows in her front yard, including lotions, balms, shampoo, bath bombs, laundry soap, and sachets. Photo by Esther Oertel.
Lake County Farmers' Finest
Real maple syrup from Massachusetts is sold at the Lake County Farmers' Finest market in Kelseyville, Calif., thanks to a vendor's family. Photo by Esther Oertel on Saturday, December 4, 2021.
Dollar Mountain Apiaries
Honey from Dollar Mountain Apiaries is sold at the Lake County Farmers' Finest booth at the farmers' market in Kelseyville, Calif. Local honey from the No Bull Ranch is sold at the Middletown, Calif. farmers' market. Photo by Esther Oertel on Saturday, December 4, 2021.
Lake County Farmers' Finest
Local products are sold at the Lake County Farmers' Finest booth at the farmers' market in Kelseyville, Calif., including Heidi's Hella Hot Sauce. Photo by Esther Oertel on Saturday, December 4, 2021.
Eleanor and Michaela
Eleanor and Michaela assist at the Lake County Farmers' Market information booth at the farmers' market in Kelseyville, Calif., where local farm products are sold and a variety of information is available, including how to double EBT benefits at the market. Photo by Esther Oertel on Saturday, December 4, 2021.
Edenberry Farm
Pauline Biron of Lakeport's Edenberry Farm presides over a wide selection of her handcrafted jams and balsamic vinegars at the Lakeport Farmers' Finest market in Kelseyville, Calif., on Saturday, December 4, 2021. The products are made from fruits grown on the farm. Photo by Esther Oertel.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — A semi rollover on Saturday morning resulted in a fatality and caused a milk and diesel spill near a creek.
The California Highway Patrol first received reports of the crash shortly after 6:30 a.m. Saturday on Highway 20 about four miles west of Walker Ridge Road, east of Clearlake Oaks.
The semi tank truck had gone over the side of the highway and initially was not visible from the roadway, the CHP reported.
When authorities accessed the truck, they confirmed a fatality, shortly before 7:30 a.m., according to reports from the scene.
CHP separately issued a notification just before 8 a.m. confirming a fatality, and reporting that Highway 20 west of Walker Ridge Road was open but impacted by emergency traffic as work at the crash site continued. The agency asked drivers at that time to use caution or take an alternate route of travel.
The early scene reports stated that the tanker appeared to be carrying a load of milk and that the crash resulted in milk going into Grizzly Creek.
Reports also estimated that up to 100 gallons of diesel fuel could have been spilled had the truck’s fuel tanks been full.
Fish and Game and the Office of Emergency Services were requested due to the hazmat concerns, according to CHP reports.
The recovery efforts required heavy equipment, with two wreckers responding but other assistance needed to remove the fuel.
The CHP also reported challenges with recovery due to the crash being on a blind curve on the highway.
The work to remove the semi continued into the afternoon and evening, the CHP said.
Radio reports stated that the hazmat team cleared the scene at 5 p.m.
At 6:40 p.m., the CHP reported that all lanes of the highway were open and the incident had been cleared.
Additional information will be published as it becomes available.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
During the pandemic, video calls became a way for me to connect with my aunt in a nursing home and with my extended family during holidays. Zoom was how I enjoyed trivia nights, happy hours and live performances. As a university professor, Zoom was also the way I conducted all of my work meetings, mentoring and teaching.
But I often felt drained after Zoom sessions, even some of those that I had scheduled for fun. Several well-known factors – intense eye contact, slightly misaligned eye contact, being on camera, limited body movement, lack of nonverbal communication – contribute to Zoom fatigue. But I was curious about why conversation felt more laborious and awkward over Zoom and other video-conferencing software, compared with in-person interactions.
The first experiment found that response times to prerecorded yes/no questions more than tripled when the questions were played over Zoom instead of being played from the participant’s own computer.
The second experiment replicated the finding in natural, spontaneous conversation between friends. In that experiment, transition times between speakers averaged 135 milliseconds in person, but 487 milliseconds for the same pair talking over Zoom. While under half a second seems pretty quick, that difference is an eternity in terms of natural conversation rhythms.
We also found that people held the floor for longer during Zoom conversations, so there were fewer transitions between speakers. These experiments suggest that the natural rhythm of conversation is disrupted by videoconferencing apps like Zoom.
Cognitive anatomy of a conversation
I already had some expertise in studying conversation. Pre-pandemic, I conducted several experiments investigating how topic shifts and working memory load affect the timing of when speakers in a conversation take turns.
In that research, I found that pauses between speakers were longer when the two speakers were talking about different things, or if a speaker was distracted by another task while conversing. I originally became interested in the timing of turn transitions because planning a response during conversation is a complex process that people accomplish with lightning speed.
The average pause between speakers in two-party conversations is about one-fifth of a second. In comparison, it takes more than a half-second to move your foot from the accelerator to the brake while driving – more than twice as long.
The speed of turn transitions indicates that listeners don’t wait until the end of a speaker’s utterance to begin planning a response. Rather, listeners simultaneously comprehend the current speaker, plan a response and predict the appropriate time to initiate that response. All of this multitasking ought to make conversation quite laborious, but it is not.
Getting in sync
Brainwaves are the rhythmic firing, or oscillation, of neurons in your brain. These oscillations may be one factor that helps make conversation effortless. Severalresearchers have proposed that a neural oscillatory mechanism automatically synchronizes the firing rate of a group of neurons to the speech rate of your conversation partner. This oscillatory timing mechanism would relieve some of the mental effort in planning when to begin speaking, especially if it was combined with predictions about the remainder of your partner’s utterance.
While there are many open questions about how oscillatory mechanisms affect perception and behavior, there is directevidence for neural oscillators that track syllable rate when syllables are presented at regular intervals. For example, when you hear syllables four times a second, the electrical activity in your brain peaks at the same rate.
There is also evidence that oscillators can accommodate some variability in syllable rate. This makes the notion that an automatic neural oscillator could track the fuzzy rhythms of speech plausible. For example, an oscillator with a period of 100 milliseconds could keep in sync with speech that varies from 80 milliseconds to 120 milliseconds per short syllable. Longer syllables are not a problem if their duration is a multiple of the duration for short syllables.
Internet lag is a wrench in the mental gears
My hunch was that this proposed oscillatory mechanism couldn’t function very well over Zoom due to variable transmission lags. In a video call, the audio and video signals are split into packets that zip across the internet. In our studies, each packet took around 30 to 70 milliseconds to travel from sender to receiver, including disassembly and reassembly.
While this is very fast, it adds too much additional variability for brainwaves to sync with speech rates automatically, and more arduous mental operations have to take over. This could help explain my sense that Zoom conversations were more fatiguing than having the same conversation in person would have been.
Our experiments demonstrated that the natural rhythm of turn transitions between speakers is disrupted by Zoom. This disruption is consistent with what would happen if the neural ensemble that researchers believe normally synchronizes with speech fell out of sync due to electronic transmission delays.
Our evidence supporting this explanation is indirect. We did not measure cortical oscillations, nor did we manipulate the electronic transmission delays. Research into the connection between neural oscillatory timing mechanisms and speech in general is promising but not definitive.
Researchers in the field need to pin down an oscillatory mechanism for naturally occurring speech. From there, cortical tracking techniques could show whether such a mechanism is more stable in face-to-face conversations than with video-conferencing conversations, and how much lag and how much variability cause disruption.
Could the syllable-tracking oscillator tolerate relatively short but realistic electronic lags below 40 milliseconds, even if they varied dynamically from 15 to 39 milliseconds? Could it tolerate relatively long lags of 100 milliseconds if the transmission lag were constant instead of variable?
The knowledge gained from such research could open the door to technological improvements that help people get in sync and make videoconferencing conversations less of a cognitive drag.
Each season, the celebration of Christmas has religious leaders and conservatives publicly complaining about the commercialization of the holiday and the growing lack of Christian sentiment. Many people seem to believe that there was once a way to celebrate the birth of Christ in a more spiritual way.
While Europeans participated in church services and religious ceremonies to celebrate the birth of Jesus for centuries, they did not commemorate it as we do today. Christmas trees and gift-giving on Dec. 24 in Germany did not spread to other European Christian cultures until the end of the 18th century and did not come to North America until the 1830s.
Charles Haswell, an engineer and chronicler of everyday life in New York City, wrote in his “Reminiscences of an Octoganarian” that in the 1830s German families living in Brooklyn dressed up Christmas trees with lights and ornaments. Haswell was so curious about this novel custom that he went to Brooklyn in a very stormy and wet night just to see these Christmas trees through the windows of private homes.
The first Christmas trees in Germany
Only in the late 1790s did the new custom of putting up a Christmas tree decorated with wax candles and ornaments and exchanging gifts emerge in Germany. This new holiday practice was completely outside and independent of Christian religious practices.
The idea of putting wax candles on an evergreen was inspired by the pagan tradition of celebrating the winter solstice with bonfires on Dec. 21. These bonfires on the darkest day of the year were intended to recall the sun and show her the way home. The lit Christmas tree was essentially a domesticated version of these bonfires.
The English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge gave the very first description of a decorated Christmas tree in a German household when he reported in 1799 about having seen such a tree in a private home in Ratzeburg in northwestern Germany. In 1816 German poet E.T.A. Hoffmann published his famous story “Nutcracker and Mouse King.” This story contains the very first literary record of a Christmas tree decorated with apples, sweets and lights.
From the onset, all family members, including children, were expected to participate in the gift-giving. Gifts were not brought by a mystical figure, but openly exchanged among family members – symbolizing the new middle-class culture of egalitarianism.
From German roots to American soil
American visitors to Germany in the first half of the 19th century realized the potential of this celebration for nation building. In 1835 Harvard professor George Ticknor was the first American to observe and participate in this type of Christmas celebration and to praise its usefulness for creating a national culture. That year, Ticknor and his 12-year-old daughter Anna joined the family of Count von Ungern-Sternberg in Dresden for a memorable Christmas celebration.
For both Ticknor and Brace, this holiday tradition provided the emotional glue that could bring families and members of a nation together. In 1843 Ticknor invited several prominent friends to join him in a Christmas celebration with a Christmas tree and gift-giving in his Boston home.
Ticknor’s holiday party was not the first Christmas celebration in the United States that featured a Christmas tree. German-American families had brought the custom with them and put up Christmas trees before. However, it was Ticknor’s social influence that secured the spread and social acceptance of the alien custom to put up a Christmas tree and to exchange gifts in American society.
Most Americans remained skeptical about this new custom. Some felt that they had to choose between older English customs such as hanging stockings for presents on the fireplace and the Christmas tree as proper space for the placing of gifts.
It was also hard to find the necessary ingredients for this German custom. Christmas tree farms had first to be created. And ornaments needed to be produced.
The most significant steps toward integrating Christmas into popular American culture came in the context of the American Civil War.
In the following years, Nast developed the image of Santa Claus into the jolly old man with a big belly and long white beard as we know it today. In 1866 Nast produced “Santa Claus and His Works,” an elaborate drawing of Santa Claus’ tasks, from making gifts to recording children’s behavior. This sketch also introduced the idea that Santa Claus traveled by a sledge drawn by reindeer.
Declaring Christmas a federal holiday and putting up the first Christmas tree in the White House marked the final steps in making Christmas an American holiday. On June 28, 1870, Congress passed the law that turned Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, Independence Day, and Thanksgiving Day into holidays for federal employees.
[Over 140,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.Sign up today.]
And in December 1889 President Benjamin Harrison began the tradition of setting up a Christmas tree at the White House.
Christmas had finally become an American holiday tradition.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The National Weather Service said a winter storm will bring rain and mountain snow this weekend, with wet weather expected to impact the region through the middle of next week.
The agency’s Eureka office said that, as the cold front approaches, winds are expected to increase on Saturday, diminishing in the wake of the cold front on Saturday night.
In Lake County, rain is expected to start on Saturday evening, with less than a tenth of an inch during the day but up to three quarters of an inch on Saturday night.
There is the possibility of another inch of rain on Sunday.
On Monday, the forecast calls for as much as an inch and a half, the National Weather Services said.
The forecast expects more rain from Tuesday through Thursday, with specific amounts not predicted.
Temperatures over the coming week will hover in the high 40s during the day and the low 40s at night until Monday, when they will drop into the 30s and continue in that range through late in the week.
There also will be light winds in the evenings until Monday, when southwest winds of up to 17 miles per hour and gusts of up to 23 miles per hour, are forecast.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know space is weird. But just how weird might surprise you.
Space is dominated by invisible electromagnetic forces that we typically don’t feel. It’s also full of bizarre types of matter that we never experience on Earth.
Here’s five unearthly things that happen almost exclusively in outer space.
1. Plasma
On Earth, matter typically assumes one of three states: solid, liquid, or gas. But in space, 99.9% of normal matter is in an entirely different form — plasma. Made of loose ions and electrons, this substance is in a supercharged state beyond gas that’s created when matter is heated to extreme temperatures or is plied with a strong electric current.
Although we rarely interact with plasma, we see it all the time. All the stars in the night sky, including the Sun, are mostly made of plasma. It even appears occasionally on Earth in the form of bolts of lightning and in neon signs.
In comparison to gas, where individual particles chaotically zoom about, plasma can act collectively, like a team. It both conducts electricity and is influenced by electromagnetic fields — which operate under the very same force that keeps magnets on your fridge. These fields can control the movements of charged particles in plasma and create waves that accelerate the particles to immense speeds.
Space is brimming with such invisible magnetic fields that shape the paths of plasma. Around Earth the same magnetic field that makes compasses point north directs plasma through the space around our planet.
On the Sun, magnetic fields launch solar flares and direct belches of plasma, known as the solar wind, that travel across the solar system. When the solar wind reaches Earth, it can drive energetic processes, like the auroras and space weather, which if strong enough, can damage satellites and telecommunications.
2. Extreme temperatures
From Siberia to the Sahara, Earth experiences an extensive range of temperatures. Records exist as high as 134°F and all the way down to -129°F (57°C to -89°C). But what we consider extreme on Earth is average in space. On planets without an insulating atmosphere, temperatures wildly fluctuate between day and night. Mercury regularly sees days around 840°F (449°C) and frigid nights as low as -275°F (-171°C).
And in space itself, some spacecraft experience temperature differences of 60°F (33°C) just between their sunlit and shady sides. That would be like having a glass of water in the shade freeze on a hot summer day! NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, at closest approach to the Sun, will experience differences over 2,000 degrees.
The satellites and instruments NASA sends into space are carefully designed to withstand these extremes. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory spends the vast majority of its time in direct sunlight, but a few times a year, its orbit passes into Earth’s shadow.
During this cosmic conjunction, otherwise known as an eclipse, the temperature of the Sun-facing solar panels drops by 317°F (158°C). Onboard heaters, however, turn on to keep the electronics and instruments safe by permitting only a half a degree dip.
Similarly, astronaut suits are built to withstand temperatures from -250°F to 250°F (-157°C to 121°C). The suits are white to reflect light while in the sunshine, and heaters are placed throughout the inside to keep astronauts warm in the dark. They are also designed to provide consistent pressure and oxygen, and resist damage from micrometeorites and the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation.
3. Cosmic alchemy
Every second, the Sun fuses about 600 million metric tons of hydrogen. That’s the mass of 102 Great Pyramids of Giza, 1,812 Empire State Buildings, or nearly all of the fish on Earth by some estimates.
Right now, the Sun is squeezing hydrogen into helium at its core. This process of joining atoms together under immense pressure and temperature, forging new elements, is called fusion.
When the universe was born, it contained mostly hydrogen and helium, plus a dash of a couple other light elements. Fusion in stars and supernovae have since furnished the cosmos with more than 80 other elements, some of which make life possible.
The Sun and other stars are excellent fusion machines. Every second, the Sun fuses about 600 million metric tons of hydrogen — that’s the mass of the Great Pyramid of Giza 102 times!
Along with the creation of new elements, fusion releases enormous amounts of energy and particles of light called photons. These photons take some 250,000 years to bump their way up the 434,000 miles (about 700,000 kilometers) to reach the Sun’s visible surface from the solar core. After that, the light only takes eight minutes to travel the 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) to Earth.
Fission, the opposite nuclear reaction that splits heavy elements into smaller ones, was first demonstrated in laboratories in the 1930s and is used today in nuclear power plants. The energy released in fission can create a cataclysmic bang. But for a given amount of mass, it’s still several times less than the energy created from fusion. However, scientists have not yet figured out how to control the plasma in a way to produce power from fusion reactions.
4. Magnetic explosions
Every day, the space around Earth booms with giant explosions. When the solar wind, the stream of charged particles from the Sun, pushes against the magnetic environment that surrounds and protects Earth — the magnetosphere — it tangles the Sun and Earth’s magnetic fields.
Eventually the magnetic field lines snap and realign, shooting away nearby charged particles. This explosive event is known as magnetic reconnection.
While we can’t see magnetic reconnection with our bare eyes, we can see its effects. Occasionally some of the perturbed particles pour into Earth’s upper atmosphere, where they spark the auroras.
Magnetic reconnection happens all across the universe wherever there are twisting magnetic fields. NASA missions like the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission measure reconnection events around Earth, which helps scientists understand reconnection where it’s harder to study, like in flares on the Sun, in areas surrounding black holes, and around other stars.
5. Supersonic shocks
On Earth, an easy way to transfer energy is to give something a push. This often happens through collisions, like when the wind causes trees to sway. But in outer space, particles can transfer energy without even touching. This strange transfer takes place in invisible structures known as shocks.
In shocks, energy is transferred through plasma waves and electric and magnetic fields. Imagine the particles as a flock of birds flying together. If a tail wind picks up and pushes the birds along, they fly faster even though it doesn’t look like anything is propelling them forward. Particles behave much the same way when they suddenly encounter a magnetic field. The magnetic field can essentially give them a boost forward.
Shock waves can form when things move at supersonic speeds — faster than the speed of sound, that is. If a supersonic flow encounters a stationary object, it forms what is known as a bow shock, not unlike the bow wave that’s created at the bow of a boat anchored in a swift stream. One such bow shock is created by the solar wind as it plows into Earth’s magnetic field.
Shocks show up elsewhere in space, like around active supernovae ejecting clouds of plasma. In rare cases, shocks can be temporarily created on Earth. This happens when bullets and planes travel faster than the speed of sound.
All five of these strange phenomena are common in space. Although some can be reproduced in special laboratory situations, they mostly can’t be found under normal circumstances here on Earth. NASA studies these weird things in space so scientists can analyze their properties, providing insight on the complex physics that underlies the workings of our universe.
Mara Johnson-Groh works for NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.