Monday, February 09, 2009

Good News....Bad News.....

Good News: My rant about young peoples' suicides started a good dialogue.....lots of people with lots of ideas.

Bad News: Mr. Pal is super mad and wants a public debate. Bad news that he might be taking this personally. Good news about the debate. I certainly did not mean to attack Mr. Pal as a Dad.....my gripes are with the school paradigm for kids at risk. We have another one right now that has me worried sick: great mom and grandparents, not the best student. His troubles in English got him a punishment......booted out of all his science classes, which are the only classes he loves. Quiet, introspective kid who, like all Cachagua kids......doesn't have lots of friends.

Bad News: We are in the middle of the AT&T.....and noses to the grindstone. More thoughts tomorrow....and happy to engage in dialogue. As are a bunch of other folks.

Good News.....the relative warmth has the wildflowers popping already. Walks in the woods are gorgeous.

Bad News: Smokey Joe Ortman on the top of the ridge keeps track of the rainfall for thirty years. We are now at 12"......about half. Twelve inches is the place where the Jamesburg Creek starts to flow. Not much yet, and nothing in the Cachagua Creek but feral chickens.

This time last year, the Creek was overflowing, and even washed away Howard and Store Kitty.

More Bad News: Our organic meat guy, Frank at PL Bar in Gonzales, raises cattle all the way to the top of the Gavilans on the far side of the Salinas Valley. He keeps track of rain, and he is at 6".....also about half. The sucks if you are a grass-fed farmer.

More Bad News: Our organic lamb lady.....also in Gonzales.....has half the lambs she normally has. They have water and feed aplenty, and usually the ewes give birth to twin lambs. Nature is telling the sheep something, and there are only one apiece this year.

Remember, that a lot of the pressure that broke up the Land Grant Ranchos was weather-related. In the 1850's and '60's, right after Statehood, the weather went crazy. Drought, drought, flood, drought, flood, flood, drought. The rancheros cattle either starved or died of thirst, or drowned in the mud.

Folks like David Jacks were right there to lend a hand.....and dollars to make it through the bad times in exchange for mortgages on the ranchos. The Rancheros thought this was free money (sound familiar?)......and wound up losing everything. David Jacks even foreclosed on the entire City of Monterey.

Good News: The snow sure looks pretty!

2 Comments:

Blogger South40 said...

Got this email a few days ago:
(Here is a special announcement regarding the principal position at Carmel High School . Principal Karl Pallastrini is retiring at the end of this year, and as most of you will be heading up to CHS soon, I thought you may want to give your feedback to Mr. Biasotti.)
Do they want the Good News...or Bad News?

1:30 PM  
Blogger patpall22 said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

8:45 PM  

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