LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lake County Horse Council’s second annual Fiesta of the Horse was held on Sunday, June 30, drawing an enthusiastic crowd despite triple-digit temperatures.
More than 200 people enjoyed the shade in the spectator area.
Again the event was held at Rancho de la Fuente, on Soda Bay road outside of Lakeport.
Owners Frank and Rosana Perez rolled out the welcome mat, providing tents and chairs for the audience, and going the extra mile to be the most excellent hosts imaginable. They open up their beautiful ranch for this event at no charge, their gift to the community.
“Gift to the community” is also the Horse Council's motivation for putting on this family event, according to show organizer Deb Baumann.
To defray expenses this year, the LCHC welcomed co-sponsors who donated prizes or money. The resulting silent auction and prize raffle provided additional entertainment in addition to covering costs. Even modest admission fees can make an event off-bounds for many families.
The LCHC hopes to see more parents bring children next year (one little girl won a free riding lesson in this year’s raffle).
After a dramatic grand entry with flag presentation by members of the Lake County Junior Horsemen, the opening act was a thrilling display of medieval jousting (the first time an audience in Lake County has been privileged to watch two armored knights tilting at each other).
Extra kudos to Brian Claiche and Scott Donohoe for wearing chain mail and steel helmets in the triple-digit heat, and to Denise Claiche who made everyone look stunning with her costume creations for humans and horses.
Other performances included a return of Flamenca & Garrocha, Arabian, Morgan, mustang and colonial Spanish horse breed demonstrations, a Western dressage musical exhibition by Nancy Williams, a comedy wild west act provided by sharpshooter Annie Oakley, and mounted shooting.
Fiesta of the Horse showcases local talent and creates a bridge between the horse community and its neighbors. The LCHC appreciates the sponsors whose generosity enable LCHC to put on this event at no charge to the public.
The event’s primary co-sponsor is Rancho de la Fuente. Additional major sponsors this year were the Highland Springs Equestrian Center, Holdenreid Harvesting, Hooves & Wheels Carriage Club, Rancho Californio, and the Tallman Hotel/Blue Wing Saloon in Upper Lake.
Other business co-sponsors were Balius Farm Miniature Sport Horses, Barreda’s Lower Lake Feed Store, Bruno’s Shop Smart, Gaddy Shack Ranch, Rainbow Ag, RB Peters and Wine Country Blanket Repair.
Individual co-sponsors were Deb Baumann, Scott Bennett, Dorothy Collett, Dana DiRicco, Debbie James Elliot, Tina Herman, Sheri Holdener, and Kim and Mike Riley.
The LCHC is very grateful to all who volunteered that day. In addition to many already named above, volunteers included Allan Bibbee, Whitney Braito, Barbara Claiche, Makenna Kidd, Kate Erquiaga, Toni James, Laura Jernigan, Kenn and Susan McCarty, Jeannie Ruminski, Frank Stawicki, Heather Stentz, Carol Thorn, Alexandra and Juliana Vidich, and Virginia Vovchuk. Kim and Mike Riley did an awesome job coordinating the parking.
Special thanks to flamenco dancer Diane Stawicki, who set up multiple comfort stations featuring iced water (courtesy of Bruno's), cookies, chips and fruit cups for volunteers and performers alike, paid for by “Friends of Diane” (folks who enjoyed last year's show and who wanted to help support this year's). It was an extraordinary effort, appreciated by all.
Raffle and auction items sent many audience members home with armloads of goodies (someone went home with a certificate for 20 bales of hay, courtesy of Holdenried Harvesting).
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – When docent Rob Sansom walked into the Ely Stage Stop and Country Museum for the first time and saw the little bar that had been set up all he could think of was, “What a cool place this would be to have an old-timey drink!”
With that idea in mind the Ely’s “Cocktails in the West” program began – historic cocktails in restaurants that capture the history of Lake County.
In most depictions of the Old West saloon, whiskey was the drink of choice but there was a thriving cocktail culture during Victorian times.
“Professor” Jerry Thomas is the most well known of the Victorian mixologists of the day as he is one of the few that wrote anything down.
Armed with “Professor” Jerry Thomas’s recipes, sourced by David Wondrich in his 2007 book “Imbibe,” there were some simple cocktails that one might have encountered at the Ely Stage Stop.
The menu for “Cocktails In The West” include the Champagne Cocktail, Whiskey Cocktail (predecessor to the Old Fashioned), Manhattan Club (the original Manhattan), the Saratoga and the Sherry Cobbler, a quite refreshing beverage for the summer.
The three participating restaurants in our Cocktails In The West promotion are the Blue Wing Saloon in Upper Lake, the Saw Shop Gallery Bistro in Kelseyville and the Boar’s Breath in Middletown. Each building has its own history.
The Blue Wing Saloon Restaurant in Upper Lake, adjacent to the Tallman Hotel, is a recreation of the original 1880s saloon that was demolished during Prohibition.
It captures the spirit of the Victorian saloon with its Eastlake back bar and Lake County black walnut bar top.
The Saw Shop Gallery Bistro in Kelseyville is housed in a 1906 late Victorian period building with some of the architectural details still intact.
During its life as a boarding house and private residence it has been home to many of Lake County’s ancestors, past and current. The bar was milled from Lake County black walnut too.
And finally there is the Boar’s Breath in Middletown. The oldest of the three buildings, the corner brick building has housed a turn of the century general mercantile (Cannon Bros.) and the original “Corner Store” now known as Hardester’s.
The Blue Wing, Saw Shop and Boar’s Breath are looking forward to serving everyone some historical spirits. So starting the week of July 15 stop in to any one of these establishments and order up a cocktail that Black Bart might have enjoyed.
If you want the recipes, stop by the Ely Stage Stop and Country Museum to purchase recipe and history booklets. Cheers!
For more information, visit www.elystagestop.com or www.facebook.com/elystagestop , email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , or better yet stop by the museum.
The Ely Stage Stop is located at 9921 Soda Bay Road in Kelseyville and is open on Saturdays and Sundays, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., or 707-533-9990 during business hours.
U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Vilsack and U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell on Friday announced a federal, local and private collaboration that will reduce the risks of wildfire to America’s water supply in western states.
The Western Watershed Enhancement Partnership is part of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan, which outlines a comprehensive approach to reduce carbon pollution and better prepare the United States for the impacts of climate change, including increased risk of wildfires and drought.
Through the Western Watershed Enhancement Partnership, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Department of the Interior (Interior) will work together with water users to identify and mitigate risks of wildfire to parts of our nation’s water supply, irrigation and hydroelectric facilities.
Flows of sediment, debris and ash into streams and rivers after wildfires can damage water quality and often require millions of dollars in emergency measures at treatment plants to repair damage to habitat, reservoirs and facilities.
USDA’s Forest Service and Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation will kick off the new partnership through a pilot in the Upper Colorado Headwaters and Big Thompson watershed in Northern Colorado to maintain reliable, clean and sustainable water supplies for the region.
The partnership will also include the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District and Colorado State Forest Service and builds off of past partnerships between the Forest Service and municipal water suppliers, such as Denver Water’s Forest to Faucets partnership.
“Today’s announcement brings together the West’s largest forest land manager with the West’s largest water provider to ensure the resilience of our forests and their capacity to provide water supply amid climate threats,” said Vilsack. “This partnership will increase forest resilience, improve water quality, and reduce the risk of catastrophic damage from wildfire. This is good news for anyone who pays a water bill, and it is good news for our environment.”
“In the West, more than forty Reclamation dams and facilities are on or downstream from Forest Service lands where drier, hotter weather has exacerbated the risk of wildfire,” said Jewell. “This partnership can serve as a model for the West on collaborative and targeted fire threat reduction and restoration efforts to protect our critical water supplies.”
The Colorado Big-Thompson water system provides water to 850,000 people within eight counties (Boulder, Broomfield, Larimer, Logan, Morgan, Sedgwick, Washington and Weld) and to more than 640,000 acres of agricultural land. It also generates enough electricity to power 58,300 homes annually. The area has experienced several fires in the last few years, including the destructive High Park Fire in June, 2012, that threatened the reservoir.
The Memorandum of Understanding signed today at the Horsetooth Reservoir outside of Ft. Collins, Colo., will facilitate activities such as wildfire risk reduction through forest thinning, prescribed fire and other forest health treatments; minimizing post-wildfire erosion and sedimentation; and restoring areas that are currently recovering from past wildfires through tree planting and other habitat improvements.
USDA and Interior expect to formalize additional partnerships with state and local partners in the following areas:
Upper Colorado River Headwaters and Big Thompson Watershed in northern Colorado;
Salt River-CC Cragin project in Arizona;
Boise River Reservoir Partnership in Idaho;
California Partnership in the Mid-Pacific Reclamation Region;
Yakima Basin in Washington State; and
Horsethief Reservoir/Flathead River in Montana.
Nationwide, the National Forest System provides drinking water to more than 60 million Americans. The share of water supply originating on national forest lands is particularly high across much of the West, including the Upper Colorado Basin where nearly half of all water comes from National Forests. Healthy forests filter rain and snowmelt, regulate runoff and slow soil erosion – delivering clean water at a far lower cost than it would take to build infrastructure to replace these services.
The goal of the Western Watershed Enhancement Partnership is to restore forest and watershed health and to proactively plan for post-wildfire response actions intended to protect municipal and agricultural water supplies, infrastructures and facilities, water delivery capabilities and hydro-electric power generation.
Forest and watershed restoration activities and proactive planning can help minimize sedimentation impacts on reservoirs and other water and hydro-electric infrastructure by reducing soil erosion and the impacts of wildfires, helping water managers avoid costs for dredging, water filtration, and the need to replace damaged infrastructure.
Although comprehensive data on wildfire costs for water users is unavailable, several wildfires in recent decades illustrate the diversity and magnitude of direct costs:
The 1997 Buffalo Creek and 2002 Hayman Fires forced Denver Water to spend more than $26 million on dredging Strontia Springs Reservoir, treating water and reseeding the forests in the watershed;
The 2000 Cerro Grande Fire cost the Los Alamos Water Utility more than $9 million and generated about $72.4 million in emergency rehabilitation, restoration and flood mitigation cost;
The 2009 station fire and ensuing storms in 2010 cost the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works $30 million in the aftermath to remove sediment from debris basins. LA County Public Works plans to spend an additional $190 million dredging four reservoirs that are no longer able to reliably meet the county’s needs for flood control and water storage capacity; and
The 2011 Las Conchas Fire prompted the cities of Santa Fe and Albuquerque to shut down their water supply intake systems in affected rivers and reservoirs due to ash accumulation.
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