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"When partying takes to the roadways, too often the result is tragic,” said Lt. Mark Loveless, commander of the Clear Lake Area CHP office.
Death is the most significant and obvious consequence of drunk driving, but a host of other nightmares also can occur, according to Loveless.
Getting arrested for DUI can cost drunk drivers between thousands of dollars in expenses, revocation of their driver’s license and possible jail time.
“If you will be driving on Halloween, make sure you and all your passengers are buckled up and that only non-drinking drivers get behind the wheel,” said Lt. Loveless.
Another issue, as people prepare to turn the clocks back one hour for Daylight Saving Time on Sunday, Nov. 2, is pedestrian safety.
“Halloween is an exciting event for children, but streets are dark and traffic is heavy,” said Lt. Loveless. “While children are putting on their costumes, parents should remind them about basic pedestrian safety – stay with parents or a group, cross at the corner and check for traffic before crossing the street.”
Motorists also need to be aware of children running from house to house, he said.
“The safest approach is for parents to accompany their children as they go from house to house,” Lt. Loveless said.
Loveless recommends carrying a flashlight to illuminate the sidewalks and alert motorists. Parents also should take precautions to ensure costumes are safe and that their child’s vision is not obscured.
“This day can be a time of fun and fantasy for children. Don’t let it turn into a tragedy. Take safety along with you as you go from door to door,” Lt. Loveless said.
Loveless issued a final safety reminder to motorists to watch their speed and to always buckle up and secure children in child safety seats.
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- Written by: Lake County News Reports
BLUE LAKES – Accidents can occur at anytime or anywhere, and if it happens in the water, the Northshore Dive Team is ready. {sidebar id=103}
The all-volunteer dive team has been in operation since 2004, with Capt. John Rodriguez of the Northshore Fire Protection District serving as the team leader.
The team meets twice per month and at one of those meetings, they practice in the water, regardless of the weather, as they did on Sunday, Oct. 19, at The Narrows Lodge and Resort in Blue Lakes.
When the team is called out to search the body of water, they utilize a protocol devised by Team Lifeguard Systems.
The Team Lifeguard System requires a minimum of five participants, which include three divers and two tenders – with specific roles and duties for each participant.
A team must consist of one primary diver, one primary tender (who can serve as the incident commander), one fully-dressed back up diver, one back up tender (who can also serve as profiler) and one 90-percent-ready diver.
“Lifeguard Systems is in-depth training,” said diver Keith Hoyt with Northshore Fire. Hoyst said Lifeguard Systems has a higher level of safety and success with searching – 40 to 50 percent higher than the team's previous method.
Hoyt, who was serving as the 90-percent-ready diver in the exercise on Oct. 19, explained that there is more information for all team members to memorize with this method, but that information makes communication between the diver and the person on the other end of their tether – called a “tender” – more clear.
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LUCERNE – A private effort to feed the hungry and give youngsters a gathering place in Lucerne is foundering for lack of funds.
"I may have to do a photo layout for Hustler magazine to keep it going," joked 40-something Yvonne Cox, who runs a teen center and free weekly dinner with a lot of help from her friends, but none from any agencies or organizations.
Cox, better known as Snake Lady, a belly dancer and tattoo artist, has been offering weekly free meals for about two years, first at the Lucerne Alpine Senior Center, and currently at Kapitan's Kafé, a donated space. Except for occasional donations, she foots the bills for groceries. Dinner is sometimes a full meal with entrée and dessert, and sometimes a hearty soup.
Her youth center is in a building donated by Dr. Bob Gardner, who has told her he needs some rent money soon.
Gardner owns several Lucerne properties and said he's recently had some interest from potential tenants.
Gardner said this last week, "If there's any help on the horizon I would like to work with her, and I hope the community will pull together. She operates from the heart and doesn't just talk about things that actually does them. I'd love to see her get some help, but I can't carry it much longer. Our original agreement was she had the space free for three months, which ended last April."
Not everyone is a Snake Lady fan. Some criticize her friendship with Eddy Lepp, the Upper Lake marijuana grower who has just been convicted on federal drug charges. Some disapprove of her clothes, often bare midriff, or her stable of motorcycles, or sales of pipes and other marijuana paraphernalia at her former imports and gift shop.
Cox said she met with a representative of the sheriff's office in June of 2007 when Lucerne residents were worried about a rash of graffiti on buildings, hoping for some help from that department in organizing youth activities.
The sheriff's department does have youth activities, but none specifically targeted to Lucerne, according to public information officer Capt. James Bauman.
Those are the Explorer program sponsored by the Boy Scouts of America and the Sheriff's Activity League's Junior Giants program, an offshoot of the San Francisco Giants, Bauman said.
Cox's youth program includes after-school activities, Saturday movies (G or PG-rated) and occasional dances, all at the corner of 15th Avenue and Highway 20, across the street from Gardner's medical clinic.
The free dinners – which she said have provided 13,000 meals in the two years since they started – were first held at the Lucerne Alpine Senior Center, where Cox raised $500 for the center with a poker run motorcycle event, and missed becoming a board member by one vote. She and sources close to the center, who asked not to be identified, agreed there were a variety of reasons she moved from there last fall. There were disagreements over food borrowed by the center's kitchen staff, and over how to deal with unwelcome observers of her weekly belly dance classes.
She first moved the dinners to Harbor Park; the timing was unfortunate, just before the winter rainy season started. She requested and got use of Kapitan's Kafé restaurant, 6150 E. Highway 20, from owners Jose Plata and his wife Ramona Gomez. They close at 3 p.m., and Cox and her helpers move in soon after for the 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday dinners.
Regular volunteer workers at the dinners are James MacDonald (Mac) and Lillian Sherry, both formerly associated with the senior center, he as head cook and she as a board member.
Another key volunteer is Christina Anderson, who works in Robinson Rancheria tribal administration and whose 11-year-old son is a regular at the youth center. In her spare time she is working on getting nonprofit status for the youth center, and then seeking grants to keep it operating. She said she expects the nonprofit application to be approved in January.
Meanwhile, insurance is under the nonprofit umbrella of Sunrise Services. Anderson can be reached at the tribal office, 275-0527.
E-mail Sophie Annan Jensen at
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Who eats parsnips? I see them in the grocery store all the time yet I never see anyone buying them.
Parsnips are very popular in England, where they even have gardening contests to compete for the longest parsnip root. Eating parsnips with Christmas dinner is considered essential in many households in Northern Europe. But what are they doing in Lake County grocery stores?
Any historical information about the parsnip must be thought upon as iffy at best. Since the first appearance in texts of ancient Rome and Greece the parsnip as a food was lumped into that same group as the carrot. Back then carrots weren’t orange but white, red or purple, and so the similar-looking parsnip was considered to be in the same category.
The “root” of parsnips history (pun intended) is clouded at best. The word for carrots and parsnips in Latin was pastinaca, which eventually became the French word for parsnip, panais. Since it was a root vegetable like the turnip, the English added “nip,” resulting in the modern name.
Parsnips originally came from the Mediterranean region, but as the Romans expanded north they took the parsnip with them. The Romans noticed that the parsnip grew larger the further north it was planted and that it becomes sweeter if harvested after a good frost. Many plants, especially root crops, become sweeter after frost because it triggers the plant to store sugars for the cold spell and prepare to survive the winter by sacrificing the top leafy growth which then allows the plant to strengthen the root. Since the parsnip adapted so much better to the European climate than the Mediterranean, many people think of the parsnip as a European native.
In medieval Europe most kinds of sweeteners were a luxury, so the sweetness of parsnips was considered very appealing to most people and the parsnip became a staple on most tables. As sweeteners became more readily available and the potato was introduced to the European table the parsnip’s popularity slowly declined.
Early colonists planted parsnips in North America and over the years some escaped and became wild parsnips. While they are mildly edible they look remarkably like wild hemlock, which Socrates will tell you is not the greatest thing to eat if you have any interest in your heart beating tomorrow. So unless you are an experienced forager, leave the wild parsnips in the wild because you may inadvertently grab a handful of poisonous hemlock.
Someone in the world obviously loves parsnips because their seeds don’t have a very long shelf life. While many types of seeds will survive storage for many years, parsnip seeds are typically viable for only a year, two years at maximum. Therefore, saving parsnip seeds to replenish the planet with nutritious produce after the Apocalypse isn’t recommended. If you wish to grow parsnips in Lake County you should probably do it in a wine barrel full of potting soil. They like loose sandy, loamy, soil, and our native soil of clay mixed with lava rocks and obsidian isn’t particularly parsnip-friendly.
Parsnips taste better if they are under a pound in weight because smaller or younger generally mean sweeter. This is true of many foods, such as parsnips, lobsters, veal, most fishes, Hansel and Gretel, etc. As parsnips get larger they will develop a woody core that is about as much fun to eat as the core of a pineapple. Luckily as the core gets woody it also becomes easier to remove from the rest of the root.
If you want to attempt to grow the world’s record parsnip, you should be aware that those Brits like to play with their beloved parsnips in this field and currently hold both records. You need to top either (yes, there are actually two different ways of doing it) length at 17 feet 1 inch, or weight at 12 pounds, 9 ounces. The record for length isn’t quite as impressive as it sounds, so don’t waste your time trying to imagine the 17-foot record parsnip as a huge Paul Bunyan-sized vegetable that can feed a whole town. The record breaking parsnip looks more like a foot long carrot with the tip ending in a string that continues on another 16 feet.
For your own personal use (not for contests), choose parsnips similarly to how you would choose carrots. They should be firm, evenly creamy white to tan-colored, with no bruising or soft spots.
Parsnips are versatile enough to be used in hundreds of ways: raw, in salads and soups, as appetizers or as a side dish, etc. One of its most common uses is mashed like potatoes or even blended with mashed potatoes. They are low in calories; one whole parsnip is about 130 calories TOTAL. They are high in calcium, fiber, folic acid, iron, potassium, B vitamins (1,2,3,), vitamin C and zinc.
I love parsnips and look forward to them every autumn but I have a hard time imagining that the grocery store carries them all year just for my seasonal jaunt. So the question is ...Who is buying all of these parsnips?
The recipe I’ve included today was originally made with parsnips, rutabagas and winter squash, but not being used to those vegetables the recipe wasn’t well liked in my home. However when changed to parsnips, potatoes, onions and garlic the same recipe was enjoyed much more. So keep in mind that you might not want to put too many new/unique ingredients into one recipe.
The great thing about these root vegetables and autumn/winter squashes is that there is such a variety that you can mix and match this recipe to your own taste. I prefer to cube the ingredients a little smaller than average (about a quarter-inch dice) so that every forkful will have a varied combination of ingredients, not to mention that they cook faster when smaller.
Roasted Autumn Vegetables
2 parsnips diced (remove core if necessary), about two cups
1 baking potato diced, about two cups
1 winter squash (delicata, golden nugget or whatever your favorite is) diced, about two cups
1 onion quartered (leave the root intact to hold each of the four quarters together)
2 tablespoons butter, melted
2 tablespoons olive oil
¼ cup orange juice
3 tablespoons whiskey or bourbon
2 tablespoons butter
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Mix the melted butter and olive oil together and in a large bowl. Put the diced parsnips, potatoes, squash, and onion into the butter/oil mixture and toss together until well coated. Spread evenly in a single layer on a cookie sheet and put into the oven.
Meanwhile, mix the orange juice and whiskey in a small sauce pan on high heat and bring to a boil. When the mixture starts to boil reduce heat to a simmer and let cook for a minute or two so it reduces slightly and the heavy alcoholic smell burns off. Turn off the heat and add the butter and gently shake the pot until thoroughly combined.
Check the vegetables in the oven and shake the pan every fifteen minutes until done (about 35 to 45 minutes). When the vegetables are done (some carmelization and browning is desired, pieces should be tender) put in a serving bowl and pour the orange sauce over them. Lightly toss and serve.
Ross A. Christensen is an award-winning gardener and gourmet cook. He is the author of "Sushi A to Z, The Ultimate Guide" and is currently working on a new book. He has been a public speaker for many years and enjoys being involved in the community.
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