Take “real food, community and sustainability,” season it with almost pornographically voluptuous photography of local foods, pair it with refreshingly well-crafted and interesting stories about the people who grow, raise, make or sell local food and you will have something close to an issue of edible Shasta-Butte. (http://www.edibleshastabutte.com) “A local business celebrating the abundance of local foods, season by season,” founded by husband and wife team Earl Bloor and Candace Byrne.

If you are familiar with what are known as the edible Communities Publications (www.ediblecommunities.com), you will know that edible Shasta-Butte is not alone in the world. At most recent count 44 edible (not literally, but the photos do make you hungry) magazines, which are all published quarterly, are being produced across North America - from edible Manhattan to edible South Florida to edible Vancouver and many more in between, rural and urban.

Candace and Earl are editor and publisher respectively of edible Shasta-Butte. They are both academics by profession, she an instructor of English at Shasta College Tehama Campus, and he the Dean of Mathematics, Engineering, Science and Health Occupations at Yuba College. While I am sure they are fabulous at their day jobs, I can’t help but feel they have hit on some sort of perfect confluence of academics, food, social-activism and community connection in their creating of edible Shasta-Butte. As academics, Earl and Candace have lived and worked in multiple places. He is Canadian by birth and she is native to New York. While living on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, they became interested in edible Cape Cod, and eventually Candace began to write articles for the publication. When the couple both settled in the Northstate in 2002, Candace began writing for edible Sacramento, “which was great!” she says. “But one day I said to Earl, ‘our region is so different from Sacramento and so rich in resources – we should just start our own publication!’” And they did.

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The Northern California Natural History Museum (http://www.ncnhm.org/index.asp) celebrated its groundbreaking in downtown Chico this past spring. “The mission of the Northern California Natural History Museum is to create a life-long learning environment that enables people to explore, interpret, and celebrate the magnificent natural heritage of our region through science, research, and education. We strive to combine the resources of California State University, Chico and the entire region to provide an educational and culturally enriching site where families, school classes, clubs, and friends can gather for a variety of activities: 1.) To learn about the natural history of Northern California, past and present; 2.) To compare Northern California’s habitats with others in North America and the world; 3.) To explore interactions between our region’s environment and the people who live here, including the original Native Americans; 4.) To participate in the exhilaration of “doing science”; 5.) To learn about our region’s critical habitats and then visit the habitats on field trips.” Photo above: the board of directors of the NCNHM at the ground breaking for the new building.

Hurray for that. All of that.

In the early 1990s, Dr. Raymond Barnett, a Professor of Vertebrate Biology at California State University Chico since the late 1970s, began mulling over the fact that Northern California needed an institution dedicated to celebrating and protecting the region’s rich natural history. Simultaneously, as a professor and a father, he was dismayed with failing science education curriculums in many of Northern California’s school systems. He decided to work toward the idea of starting a natural history museum in order to address both issues. He began by using his own personal collection of rocks and bones (found on hikes, biking, and camping trips around the region) in what he calls very “simple” hallway displays in CSU Chico’s Science building. Photo above: Dr. Ray Barnett is third from the left.

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The saying goes: Where there is smoke there is fire, but over the past month it could have easily have been reversed – where there is fire, there is smoke – and sometimes quite a lot of it. After trying to comprehend the loss of whole households or the idea of thousands of acres burned or burning, my mind has turned toward the plants themselves – the forests and gardens full of plants. Photo above: Smoky Sunrise in the Northstate.

I wonder if they too know somehow – can sense rather than smell or see the smoke through the increased particulants and pollution in the air? Do they know there is increased risk of damage or mortality and do they take measures to protect themselves or more specifically to protect their seed? It is well-known that plants under stress including drought and disease will, if at all possible, throw all of their reserves into flowering and setting seed in order to assure their next generation. Do plants that sense fire do the same? Some evidence also suggests that smoky conditions might be beneficial to plants in areas of otherwise intense summer sun and heat because the smoke reduces the intensity of the light. Furthermore, the increased carbon dioxide in the air is used by the plants to produce sugars and other foods. The larger scale climactic effects of the smoke are another story. Photo above: the magnificent Humboldt Lily in Bloom in Carolyn Melf’s Paradise Garden in mid-June.

Recently I walked the grounds of a home that burned to the ground in the Humboldt fire in mid-June. It was the home of friends. Right after the gut wrenching first impression of what an entire house burned to the ground looks like, I was immediately struck by what was not lost – or not lost entirely. The gardens. A fire that burned long enough and hot enough to diminish a washer and dryer to melted metal had not killed the blue oaks nearby, rather just licked their feet. The new green growth shooting up from the bases of charred cistus plants and Rose of Sharon brought me to my knees – to check for life in the crown and along the stems of all the gardens’ plants. The roses, which were grafted hybrid teas may not come back from above the graft, but still. The sight of bright new growth in the midst of a blackened landscape was a small but significant miracle in my eyes. Photo above: A Northstate Wildfire, late June.

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