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LAKEPORT – The city of Lakeport's Third Street and City Hall parking lot improvement project is getting under way on Monday.

City Engineer Scott Harter reports that the project limits will be on Third Street, directly east of Main Street to the east side of Park Street, and the parking lot adjacent to City Hall.

FEDCO Construction began mobilizing and performing preparatory work last week, according to Harter.

Construction is expected to last 11 weeks, during which Third Street will remain open with the exception of 12 days for removal and repaving operations.

Harter said all affected businesses – The Ink Spot, On the Waterfront and Park Place restaurant – will remain open during construction. Alternative vehicle access for businesses on the north side of Third Street and the Third Street boat ramp is via Fourth Street and the waterfront parking lot.

Alternate vehicle access to The Ink Spot is via Second Street along the alleyway between Main and Park Streets, according to Harter.

Questions may be directed to Harter at 263-5614, extension 11.

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Written by: Lake County News reports

Published: 06 July 2008

 

LAKE COUNTY – July’s heat brings out some nasty critters in the night sky – specifically, a dragon and a scorpion.

Let’s start with the dragon, who is named Draco. Our star chart shows Draco to be a faint constellation that wraps itself around the little dipper (Ursa Minor).

In Greek mythology, Draco was a hundred-headed beast who was charged with guarding some golden apples. The superhero Hercules came along, put Draco to sleep with music, and stole the apples. Perhaps that is the origin of the saying “music soothes the savage beast.”

 

 

 

 

The brightest star in Draco is named Thuban. In 2500 BC, Thuban, not Polaris, was our north star. Why? Because the earth slowly wobbles as it turns – this wobble is called precession. Over time, this causes the position of celestial north to change. A diagram of how precession works is shown below.

 

 

 

 

 

From Draco in the north, we now turn to the south to view the glorious constellation, Scorpius the Scorpion.

You can barely see Scorpius on our star chart, but under Lake County skies, this constellation shines brilliantly in the south.

 

 

 

 

 

If you own a small telescope, there is a wealth of objects to be viewed in this constellation.

In Greek mythology, Scorpius was the creature that killed Orion, the mighty hunter. Orion rules the winter skies, while Scorpius lives in the summer skies so that the two are never together and so cannot fight one another.

The brightest star in Scorpius is Antares, a huge red supergiant. In last month’s column we showed how small our Sun is compared to the star Arcturus. The following diagram shows how much larger Antares is than Arcturus.

 

 

 

 

Aside from the dragon and the scorpion, our star chart shows a number of planets inhabit July night skies. Setting in the west are Saturn and Mars. Rising in the east is the solar system’s biggest planet, Jupiter. Pluto is also in the night sky, but you need a very large telescope to see it.

For more information about astronomy and local astronomy-related events, visit the Taylor Observatory website at www.taylorobservatory.org.

On July 26, starting at 8 p.m., the observatory will be open to the public. The topic for the evening is “Gems of the Night,” a presentation about the beautiful objects visible only through a telescope. There will also be a planetarium show and telescope viewing.

John Zimmerman has been an amateur astronomer for 50 years. He is a member of the Taylor Observatory staff, where, among his many duties, he helps create planetarium shows.

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Written by: Lake County News Reports

Published: 05 July 2008

LAKE COUNTY – With summer time comes a baby boom of sorts, what's commonly called “kitten season,” and it means a population explosion that crowds the shelters around the United States and here locally. {sidebar id=90}

In many cases, it doesn't lead to happy endings.

The Humane Society of the United States reports that kitten season is really three seasons at once, with cats giving birth to litters beginning in the spring, with the births peaking in late spring and early summer, and coming to an end in fall.

The warmer weather coincides with female cats' heat cycles, the group reports, and with unspayed and unneutered cats being in abundance all over the country – and also here in Lake County – forces coincide to cause a population explosion.

Despite the fact that the county and the cities of Clearlake and Lakeport all have adopted spay and neuter ordinances, there still are many unaltered animals in the county, according to Animal Care and Control officials.

Here in Lake County, Animal Care and Control reports that it's seeing a flood of cats and kittens making their way into the new shelter, located near the Lake County Jail.

“We're getting them in every day,” said Officer Eric Wood.

The shelter now has well over 60 kittens, Wood said. “We've already overloaded all of our rescue with them.”

That's just a drop in the bucket, according to Shelter Program Director Paula Werner. One week, the shelter saw 130 kittens come in.

She quotes statistics from the Humane Society of the United States that say an unaltered female cat and her unaltered offspring can produce 1.2 million cats in eight years. Werner said female cats can breed rapidly, able to go back into heat again immediately after pregnancy.

Despite the cute and cuddly factor, kittens present a lot of problems for shelters, especially in massive quantities.

Wood said kittens get sick very easily. “We don't have the means to medicate them all the time.”

That's why it's critical to get them into rescue care, which the shelter has been very successful in doing in recent years. Werner said in a previous interview that shelter staff have worked hard to form relationships with rescue groups, who have taken animals and helped reduce the county's euthanasia rates.

However, euthanasia is still highest in the county for cats, according to shelter statistics. In fiscal year 2006-07, 3,275 cats were impounded; of those, 2,648 were euthanized. Kitten season often only exacerbates the problem.

Many younger kittens, under 8 weeks old, have to be fed with a bottle, and if rescues don't take them they often are euthanized because the shelter doesn't have the staff to attend to them, said Wood.

The jump in population can often lead to cruelty, when people attempt to rid themselves of the animals by dumping them.

Just such a situation occurred one night last month.

On the evening of June 12, Wood got an after-hours call from the California Patrol reporting that some 30 animals – cats and kittens – had been dumped along Spruce Grove Road near Lower Lake, and that the animals were running down the side of the road.

When he got there around 10 p.m., Wood found some kind-hearted citizens trying to round up the kittens.

In all, they recovered 21 kittens – ranging in age from 6 to 10 weeks old – and two adult female cats, with some others escaping, said Wood. He estimated the kittens were from three separate litters.

“It was definitely a dump job,” said Wood.

He added, “I've never seen anyone dump that many cats at once.”

No one has yet reported seeing who dumped the animals, he said.

Most of the kittens had some upper respiratory infections but were otherwise OK, said Wood.

The animals weren't wild, he added, but had been socialized. “The 21 I brought in were friendly.”

Despite the overload on kittens, Wood said they were successful in getting them out of the shelter and into rescues. On June 13, one of the mothers and six kittens went to rescue, and more were on the way.

“They got real lucky,” he said.

Werner added that it's a felony offense, and the shelter is keenly interested in finding out who is responsible.

It's not the only recent dumping situation that's happened, said Wood. Public Works reported finding kittens dumped along Sulphur Bank Road in Clearlake Oaks not long ago.

Wood says he's sure it happens a lot more than they know about.

Anyone with information about dumping activities is asked to call Lake County Animal Care and Control, 263-0278.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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Written by: Elizabeth Larson

Published: 05 July 2008