Inside Sonoma

The environment almost always takes center stage at the Occidental Arts & Ecology Center in Occidental. This modest community center, founded in 1993, has as its purpose to develop “innovative and practical approaches to the pressing environmental and economic crises of our day.” The center accomplishes these goals with regular classes on sustainability, reuse, conservations [...]

The secret ingredients for great hikes with young kids are relatively easy terrain, the potential for wildlife (“keep your eyes peeled for…a mountain lion!”) and, of course, spectacular views. Hikers can find all of this and more at 850-acre Shiloh Ranch Regional Park in Windsor. The park, situated at the city’s far eastern edge, is [...]

Facebook fans and Twitter followers of Sonoma County and others have reported whale sightings off the Sonoma County coast in the past week—V-shaped spouts a mile or so offshore near Salt Point State Park. While these spectacles are not unheard of during this time of year, they are pretty rare; usually the best shore-based whale-watching [...]

Storytime has become a big event for families with young children at the Windsor Public Library at 9291 Old Redwood Highway off the Town Green. As part of the county’s 2010 Summer Reading Club “Make a Splash, Read!” event, the library hosts storytime sessions every Tuesday and Wednesday. The Tuesday sessions are geared toward older [...]

If it’s June, it must be time for those wonderful juicy orbs at Dry Creek Peach and Produce in Healdsburg’s Dry Creek Valley. The farm, situated at 2179 Yoakim Bridge Rd., is open from noon to 5 p.m. on weekends from June to September. It is the last remaining fruit farm in the Valley and [...]

A great story (by, ahem, a wonderful local writer) in Sunday’s edition of The (Santa Rosa) Press-Democrat highlighted a trend of new farmers in the area: “Agri-curious” twenty- and thirty-somethings who have turned to farming to help improve the way food is grown and to make their respective communities more self-sustaining. One of the farmers [...]

Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No…it’s a classic warbird, flying right over the tarmac during the “Wings Over Wine Country” show at the Charles M. Schulz Sonoma County Airport. This year’s event, slated for Aug. 21-22, is sure to draw a crowd, with the largest and most impressive lineup of [...]

While much is made of the supposed rivalry between Napa and Sonoma, the truth is that the region is tied much closer together than appears to outsiders. To wit, we share grapes (plenty of Napa vintners buy Sonoma County grapes for their wines), we share a passion for good food and locally-produced products and we [...]

There’s a relatively new spot in downtown Petaluma for visiting green thumbs and eco-conscious residents of Sonoma County to purchase heirloom seeds: the Baker Creek Seed Bank. OK, so the name of the place technically is Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. But because the business is located in the historic Sonoma County National Bank Building at [...]

Famous botanist Luther Burbank once remarked that the wine-growing and agricultural area of Sonoma County must be “the chosen spot of all the Earth as far as nature is concerned.” No wonder, then, that in addition to his beautiful home and gardens in downtown Santa Rosa, he also purchased a 15-acre farm near Sebastopol to [...]