Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
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You never can tell from one year to the next which wildflowers will benefit most from that winter's combination of overall moisture, the timing of precipitation, air temperature, soil temperature, etc. One species that is doing very well this spring is remarkable plant known commonly as Chia. Chia (Salvia columbariae) is an annual plant commonly found growing on sandy or rocky hillsides, roadcuts, and sunny chaparral slopes throughout the Kern County mountains. Chia has a very distinctive...
Bob Parker, 56, was a big-hearted Tehachapi rock and roller who passed away on March 20, 2012 following several months of illness. Bob died from complications of hepatitis he contracted from a tainted blood transfusion while hospitalized in 1985. Bob was a gifted lead guitar player who loved playing rock n'roll music with his friends and entertaining appreciative audiences. He graduated from Tehachapi High in 1974 and played in many different local bands, including Crystal Rock, Contagious...
As many of us can attest, the Tehachapi Mountains can be a difficult place to get plants to thrive. It can be very cold in winter and spring, then warm up, and then get cold again. The summers can be long and hot. So what are often the best plants to grow here? California natives. Plants that are native to California are better adapted to our Mediterranean climate of cold, wet (hopefully) winters and dry summers with abundant sunshine. Gardeners tend to have better luck with native plants, and...
On a misty Tehachapi night, following rain earlier in the day, a small creature emerges from a hiding spot beneath a large toppled bark section, which is lying half-buried in leaf litter beside a fallen tree trunk. The little amphibian surveys its damp surroundings, as water droplets cling to the green grass. A Tehachapi Mountains native, it has large dark eyes, a mouth that seems slightly upturned in a pleasant grin, and appears to be wearing a tiny full body wetsuit decorated with splotches...
Rosemary is an attractive, hardy little shrub that many people associate with the Simon and Garfunkel hit song Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. This plant thrives in the Tehachapi Mountains and is a great choice to have somewhere in your garden for a number of reasons: it is evergreen, cold hardy, drought-tolerant and useful as a fragrant herb. The name "Rosemary" itself is rich with different significant meanings. The word originally comes from "ros" which is the Latin word for "dew," and...
A life-giving spring produces clean, clear water every day, filling a couple of small ponds that reflect the trees that tower above them, and the blue Southern California sky above. This natural gift of abundance was cherished by Native people for many centuries, and then sorely neglected by the newcomers who arrived and pushed them aside. Not any more. Thanks to an effort led by Tongva tribal members, this bountiful source of fresh water is once more a place of beauty. It is a natural resource...
This loveable plant, like so many others, is known by several different names, including Apricot Mallow, Desert Mallow, Desert Globemallow and others. By whatever name is used, however, it is a great addition to your garden. It is native to the Mojave Desert and there are lots of them growing alongside Highway 14 as you head towards Red Rock Canyon State Park, so clearly they are drought-tolerant, but unlike many xeriscape plants, Apricot Mallow is also fast-growing. They grow into blooming...
I have a variety of antique items handed down from my Tehachapi family, but one of my favorites is one of the easiest to overlook: a 1907 Kodak Brownie box camera. This simple device is slightly larger than a Pop-Tart box and made of wood and cardboard covered with black fabric. There are a few metal parts and a couple of glass lenses, and that's about it. Eastman Kodak Company made these cameras to be basic, reliable and affordable to bring photography to the masses – Brownies were the Model T...
Nuwä basketweavers were some of the finest basketmakers in California, a state that historically has been home to many of the country's best basketmaking traditions. One of them was a lady named Rosie Hicks. Rosie was born about 1890 and was the daughter of Luisa (Louise) Marcus, who was the grandmother of noted Nuwä (Kawaiisu or Southern Paiute) elder Andy Greene, who is depicted on the Nuwä mural on the side of the Hitching Post Theaters on Green Street in Downtown Tehachapi. Andy has passed a...
We lost a born leader of a man and a tireless supporter of the Tehachapi Mountains with the recent passing of Jim Arnold, 79, who passed away at his Tehachapi home on November 20 after a brief illness. Jim and his wife Sally are best known to locals as the owners of Triassic Vineyards, which they purchased from founder Chuck McCollough in 2014. Chuck had started Triassic, with grapevine planting help from community volunteers, in 2008 when he was already 80 years old. Over the past nine years...
"I was born in a tent – people called them 'canvas cabins' back there – in 1916 in Henrietta, Oklahoma. My Dad made moonshine whiskey to sell for cash money to help feed us. I helped make moonshine from the time I was big enough to carry a one-gallon bucket. Practically all the country people back there made whiskey. You could look around early in the morning and see smoke rising from all the stills scattered in the woods." – Ellis "Red" Farley Red Farley owned "Farley's Funny Farm" on Tehac...
“I drove the Grapevine (now Interstate 5) through the Tehachapi Mountains in 1925, hauling freight in a 1922 Packard four cylinder truck. There would be two drivers and the round trip between Los Angeles and Tulare took 48 hours. The first driver got paid $32.50 and the second made $27.50. The first one made more because he was in charge and had to make all of the collections. There was a place called Caswell’s Garage at the head of the Antelope Valley, and I guess they got tired of people mar...
“It’s easy to be brave from a distance.” – Lakota Sioux saying...
“Why value the present hour less than some future hour?” – Anna Comstock...
“I’ve lived in a lot of places, and you can find something wrong with all of them. The Tehachapi area is the best place I’ve found, and believe me, I’ve looked around.” – Jack Cronin...
"I don't smoke, I don't drink except a beer now and then, and I don't chase around. I spent about five years raisin' hell when I was young, then I decided I would settle down and marry the girl next door, so I did. Camila and me have been married for 61 years. Nowadays kids get married and then want to start raisin' hell, instead of getting it over with first." – Melecio Cortez Melecio Cortez worked at the cement plant at Monolith from 1929 to 1976, and continued to stay busy for the rest of h...
“What’s the best way to star gaze in the Tehachapi Mountains? That’s easy: while sitting in a hot tub under the stars. That way you stay warm and comfortable, even in winter.” – Dave Bouldin Dave Bouldin is an amateur astronomer and professional hot tub enthusiast....
With winter officially starting on December 21, the season of potentially low temperatures and snow has returned to the Tehachapi Mountains, even though there certainly hasn't been too much cold weather yet this year. But the change in seasons brings about a varied response in the different living things that call this area home. Some opt for a strategy called snow avoidance, in which they simply try to not experience snow or freezing temperatures. This includes virtually all the reptiles and...
It's fun to grow ornamental plants that both thrive in your garden and can be harvested from time to time. This is the case with a California native known as White Sage or Grandfather Sage (Salvia apiana). This hardy plant has attractive gray-green or white-green leaves that contain very aromatic resins. It was used by many different Native American tribes to make smudge sticks or medicine bundles, which serve the same purpose as incense sticks. The leaves are picked off and then wrapped into a...
“Women say they want a guy who’s smart and funny, but then they end up laughing at whatever stupid thing the good-looking rich dude says.” – American Observation...
"Corn should be a foot high by the Fourth of July." – Country Gardening Saying...
"In 1876 the Debating Society of Tehachapi was organized with Charles McVicar, the President, and Simon Alexander, the Secretary. Debates were held each week, and a newspaper correspondent hoped that, because of such organizations, instead of Tehachapi being regarded as 'that rough place,' outsiders would realize that the citizenry had a 'taste for literature and moral sentiment.'" – William Harland Boyd...
“He is a self-made man and worships his creator.” – John Bright...
"She's descended from a long line her mother listened to." – Gypsy Rose Lee...
"The southern Sierra, the Tehachapis, the Coast Ranges, and the Mojave Desert all come together in a welter of canyon and ridge, where we find interesting and peculiar plant assortments. Valley Oaks (Quercus lobata), of all things, have crept through Tehachapi Pass to the desert edge where they grow with Joshua Trees and cactus." – Elna Bakker Elna Bakker was a pioneering naturalist and cartographer who wrote the influential book An Island Called California, published by the University of C...
