Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
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This has been a banner year for one of the main wild food sources in the Tehachapi Mountains: acorns. Acorns are the nuts produced by our various species of tree and shrub oaks. Our landscape is defined largely by our oaks, and acorns are their seeds, the source of all our past, present and future oak trees. Each acorn is an embryonic oak tree. However, almost none of these will actually grow into a standing tree one day. There are many, many obstacles that an acorn, and the seedling that it...
After spending more than 50 years observing the seasons change in the Tehachapi Mountains, I've reached the conclusion that autumn is the most transitional of the four seasons. There is noticeable change during each of our three-month long seasons, of course, but the differences are the most dramatic from the beginning to the end of fall. Summer, for example, is more stable: when summer officially begins about June 21 each year, the grasses are dry on the hillsides, the trees have all leafed...
"Today Cummings Valley is like the center of a flower with Brite Valley, Alpine Forest, Stallion Springs and Bear Valley Springs as its petals. For many years Cummings Valley has been known and respected for retaining its historical beauty and agricultural value." – Gerry Trierweiler...
"If you happened not to know enough to engage in advance the seat beside the driver, then the trip was rather a horror, crowded into the stuffy interior between oldtimers, liquor salesmen, mining experts, an occasional stray 'girl' from the local bawdy house, or one of those distressed and distressfully pitiable 'lungers' of whom you had the grace only to hope he wouldn't die on your shoulder. Outside there was a magnificent panorama and often good entertainment." – Mary Austin Mary Austin, a f...
"Back in my day, we had nine planets. . ." – Dave Bouldin Local amateur astronomer Dave Bouldin musing over the demotion of Pluto from a planet to a "dwarf planet" or "planetoid."...
"Misuse of the word 'literally' makes me figuratively insane." – English teachers everywhere For reasons that have yet to be explained, otherwise intelligent people have begun using the word "literally" to mean the opposite of what it actually means. As in "she literally exploded when she saw the mess" or "it's literally raining cats and dogs."...
"It was the start of lambing season, and up on the hillsides the shepherd's work was beginning. If ever a man was proud of his work and contented in it, the shepherd is. He is a craftsman, his work is his life. Long hours of solitude in the valleys or hills have a tranquilizing effect; either a man can't stand the life or it makes him meditative, and constant association with the sheep who depend on him makes him calm and unhurried." – Alan C. Jenkins...
"Good morrow, Benedick. Why, what's the matter, That you have such a February face, so full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?" – William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing...
Summer has faded and autumn has returned to the Tehachapi Valley, bringing with it the annual spectacle of thousands upon thousands of migrating Turkey Vultures. Day after day, these big black birds soar through Tehachapi Pass on their journey southward. The vultures hitch rides on thermals to gain elevation, circling as they ascend rising columns of warm air like an invisible spiral staircase. This flight behavior is known as "kettling," for the way the jumbled circling birds look as though...
Hollyhocks are one of the few ornamental flowers that naturalize so well in the Tehachapi Mountains that they can thrive without any care or supplementary watering – you can often see beautiful examples of them growing on roadsides, vacant lots or other neglected areas. They are among the first flowering species to have been cultivated in gardens, and there are references to them in literature that date back hundreds of years. They are considered one of the prime choices for traditional c...
I spent last week in Arizona, working with a world-renowned land artist named Jim Denevan to create a giant ephemeral art piece for a music and art festival. I almost always focus my writing on the Tehachapi Mountains and surrounding areas, but I thought readers might find this project interesting. Jim has been creating art for 35 years, working primarily on sandy beaches, playas and desert landscapes around the world, on projects that are often epic in size and concept. I've worked with him...
If you'd like to attract hummingbirds to your garden AND you'd like a perennial that would still be blooming in August, September and October, then here's a beautiful native plant to consider: California Fuchsia. Hummingbirds are naturally drawn to red flowers, since they can see the color red and insect competitors can't, and the tubular shape of California Fuchsia flowers also favors hummers with their long bills and nectar-sipping tongues. California Fuchsia was formerly known as Zauschneria...
French composer Claude Debussy once said "There is nothing more musical than a sunset," and with that sentiment in mind, the Tehachapi Mountains enjoy the lingering notes, the pleasant melodies, of many beautiful sunsets. One requirement for a colorful sunset is some high clouds that catch the sun's rays as it lowers, and that is why mountains like ours are often conducive to great sunsets – mountains tend to have clouds. Even on mostly clear days, where the sky overhead is an infinite blue, som...
I would like to share the story of Ola Lee Patterson, a wonderfully good, kind and humble woman, who made her mark on Tehachapi history in her own graceful way. Ola was a pioneer and trailblazer: she was the first African-American woman to live in Tehachapi. She and her husband, Moses, moved here with their daughters Maenell and Mozell in 1946, and in 1963 their youngest daughter, Laura, was the first African-American baby born at Tehachapi Hospital. You might think that in a conservative county...
One of the coolest, most interesting birds in the Tehachapi area is also one of the hardiest: the Greater Roadrunner (Geococcyx californianus). These comical, animated birds are not only fast and fearless enough to kill and eat rattlesnakes, they do not migrate, so they must also be able to withstand the harshest Tehachapi weather. Roadrunners are large birds, nearly two feet in length with long tails and long stout bills with a subtle hook at the end. Their overall plumage is a mix of black...
"I've only missed a handful of Tehachapi firework displays in the past 45 years, and this year's was easily the best ever! Even our weekend guests from L.A. were impressed. Our family loved them." – Steve Sanders...
"Tehachapi tomatoes arrive later than at lower elevations. August and September are the best months for tomatoes in Tehachapi." – Sid Weiser...
"The Committee wishes to thank and commend all members of the Management Team for information and the obvious pride in the City of Tehachapi. There are so many positive qualities and great developments going on that the Committee is at a loss to list all that were mentioned. The Committee could feel the excitement and motivation among the team and looks forward to visiting again." – Kern County Grand Jury, 2014 Report...
"Kern County, California's third largest and the nineteenth largest in the United States, is rectangular except for a series of right-angled set-backs on the western border. From east to west it is 130 miles wide; from north to south, 67 miles. It has a land area of 8,163 square miles or 5,160,960 acres; this is larger than the land area of Massachusetts, New Jersey or Hawaii, or of Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island combined." – Ernest Twisselmann...
"A life without love is like a year without summer." – Swedish Proverb...
"Remember to be gentle with yourself and others. We are all children of chance and none can say why some fields will blossom while others lay brown beneath the August sun." – Kent Nerburn...
Past Forgiveness Peace in the moment Now transcending all judgment Nothing to forgive Tehachapi resident Patrick Wong is a man whose life has been shaped by both precision and the esoteric, by some things that can be measured and others that are difficult to define. A retired union millwright, he spent 40 years doing exacting, highly technical work on turbine generators in nuclear power plants and other large facilities. At the same time, he created poetry and developed his own spiritual,...
One of the great things about gardening with native plants is that you know that they are adapted to our often demanding growing conditions. This is true of the large Penstemon genus, which is a group of typically hardy perennials in the traditionally placed in the snapdragon family. There 15 species of Penstemon that are native to Kern County, and many, many more that are not native but that will thrive here – North America is home to more than 250 species of Penstemon, and there has been e...
Postcards were once part of most people's travels, and I have hundreds of them that my family members gathered from 1906 onward. Many are interesting and unusual, capturing vanished scenes of America or the world abroad, but naturally my favorites depict a less exotic locale: Tehachapi. "Postcards from Tehachapi" is an extremely small niche among the thousands of categories of postcards, but I'm always excited to see my beloved hometown in photographic depictions, even if there's only a handful...
Manzanita is the genus name for a large group of shrubs that are native to California – there are nearly 100 different species of Manzanita found in California, and there are a number of cultivars with their own characteristics, so a gardener has many varieties from which to choose. The different Manzanitas share a number of desirable qualities, since they are evergreen, drought-tolerant, deer-resistant, and have attractive bark, flowers and berries. Several species of Manzanita are native to t...
