September 2, Back to school night @ El Molino High School

El Molino High Scool's (Facebook) academic year has started. Thursday is "back to school night". It's program is here. (PDF)

September 4, Pato Banton @ Hollydale

From the Facebook Wall of the Hollydale Community Club

Taylor Atkins Memorial Scholarship World-Music Fundraiser, featuring Reggae Singer and toaster from Birmingham England, the incomparable PATO BANTON brings his show to the Hollydale Clubhouse, one week after playing the IRIEfest on the Queen Mary in Long Beach.

We are privileged to welcome this positive, in the light o...f Jah, Grammy nominated musician.
Local favorite, The Dirty Dub Band opens the show during the dinner hour.
Pre-sale (only) Dinner/Show Tickets @ $25. eac.
Mail your check to the Clubhouse at P.O. Box 215 Forestville, CA 95436
Order early as we only have a limited number of tickets available for this great show.
Doors open @ 5:00PM - Dinner @ 6:00 - Pato @ 8:00

Sarah's Silks

At yesterday's expo I bought a little dragonfly the table of Sarah's Silks. Today I checked this website to larean more about the company. I liked what I saw:

At Sarah's Silks we believe in the magic of creative play!
Our playsilks, dress-ups, canopies, and playthings are natural fiber toys that stimulate a child’s imagination, and capture the magical soul that lives in young children. 

They are also all over the social web, having a Facebook page a Twitter account and a blog. Yuo can buy their products at these online and offline retailers.

August 29, Mike Emerson Project @ Sarah's Forestville Kitchen

Sunday Jazz Brunch at Sarah's Forestville Kitchen features a return by the Mike Emerson Project.

Aioli review in Press Democrat

In the Sunday issue of the Press Democrat  Aioli Delicatessen (Facebook profile) was picked as the top fish taco place. Heather Irwin wrote:

Top Pick: Fancy Fishies at Aioli Delicatessen (Fridays only): Autumn Barber is a fish-frying fool come Friday. On the menu just once a week, her wild rock cod fish tacos are dunked in Fat Tire beer batter spiced with coriander and cayenne, fried to a crispy crunch and served up with chipotle lime sour cream, pico de gallo and lemon oil- dressed cabbage. In a red plastic basket, mind you, so as not to get all highfalutin'. Worth the drive to Forestville, truly. Just be patient, because there's usually a line, starting at noon. 6536 Front St., Forestville, 887-2476.

August 26, Town social and business expo @ downtown

Don't forget the expo Thursday afternoon.

Forestville in the Press Democrat last week

Forestvill was mentioned four times last week in the Press Democrat:

First, I want to quote the obituary of Harry H. Minnich:

Harry H. Minnich was passionate about genealogy and history, and for years enjoyed gathering regularly with friends for coffee in Sebastopol. Minnich, a resident of Sonoma County for 32 years, died Saturday at his home near Sebastopol. He was 69 and died of complications due to emphysema. For more than a dozen years he regularly had his morning coffee at an outside table at Carr’s Drive In in Forestville.

The report of Outside Lands festival in San Francisco mentioned:

About 25 wineries — mostly from Napa and Sonoma counties — will be pouring 75 wines in an area organizers have dubbed Wine Lands. Concertgoers will have many options — syrah, pinot grigio, fumé blanc, zinfandel and others. Iron Horse Winery in Forestville will be pairing its sparkling wines with oysters.

The description of the Gravenstein Apple Fair started off this way:

Thomas Palmertree, a 37-year-old food service worker from Forestville, had a simple but surefire plan for winning the adult category of the apple sauce-eating contest Saturday at the Gravenstein Apple Fair in Sebastopol.

Finally, the weekly roundup of events included this note:

Shone Farm in Forestville has launched a farm stand that is open from 4 to 7 p.m. Thursdays at Traverso's Market in Fountaingrove Village. The Forestville farm, which is run by Santa Rosa Junior College, also offers a CSA, or community-supported-agriculture, subscription. Traverso's also sells the wine made from Shone Farm grapes. Traverso's is located at 2097 Stagecoach Road.

August 26, The Hot Frittatas @ Off the Track Cafe

The Hot Frittatas are playing again at the Off the Track Cafe Thursday night. (They played there July 8)

Augut 21, Eric Lindell @ Forestville Club

Eric Lindell will play at the Forestville Club Saturday night. Here is a poster of an older show at the same location:

Lactose free yogurt from Redwood Hill Farm & Creamery

Tuesday Redwood Hill Farm & Creamery  announced on Facebook their new lactose free line of yogurts under the Green Valley Organics label. They built a whole new website for it too: greenvalleylactosefree.com. Besides the plain variety it comes in honey, blueberry, vanilla and strawberry flavors.

August 21, artist reception @ The Quicksilver Mine Co

The Quicksilver Mine Co. will present a one man exhibition of recent drawings and prints by Santa Rosa artist William Smith beginning August 20th.

One Across the Bow, continues in the gallery through September 26th.

An artist reception for Smith will be held on Saturday August 21st from 4—6pm.

Smith's drawings (and many of the prints) often take form as a cover on his work surface: doodles, marks, spills, stains and notes. A menagerie of comically grotesque and cartoon-like characters follows, archetypes for various moods, emotions and actions, almost suggestive of large pages torn from his artist journal.

August 28, Horseshoe Pitching Tournament

Forestville's Tenth Annual Horseshoe Pitching Tournament will be on August 28. All the information about it is on the flyer shown below. Except I removed the name, address and phone number of the people who host it. It is at a private home. If you are local you can find the flyer at all the downtown shops and the community bulletin board, so you can easily RSVP. If you are not local then why would you need to know it.

August 15, Eri and Jim @ Sarah's Forestville Kitchen

From the blog of Sarah's Forestville Kitchen

This week we have new Jazz ensemble.
Eric and Jim and maybe one or two more,
Will entertain the assembled from 10 to 2.
Come enjoy our Arctic Summer under the Tulip Tree.

Oh and we have Multi-Grain Pancakes to settle many requests. as well as Mimosas and Bellinis ;-)

August 15, Food for Thought auction (in Sebastopol)

On Sunday Food for Thought* will have is annual auction in Sebastopol's Pellini Building. More information, including the listing of the items up for auction is here.

* Food for Thought "offers comprehensive nutritional services to more than 635 individuals living with HIV/AIDS in Sonoma County." They are located at 6550 Railroad Ave., between First and Forestville Streets.

August 12, The Bodie Travelers @ Off the Track Cafe

The Bodie Travelers are playing tonight at the Off the Track Cafe at 7 PM.
From their website:

The Bodie Travelers, featuring Stacy Keith and Mark Catrambone, blend seamless harmonies, signature picking styles, and soulful harps, to deliver, award wining originals, traditional and selectively hand picked tunes.

Forestville school board race

Based on this Press Democrat article.

The deadline for getting on the November ballot was extended to 5 p.m. Wednesday in 21 districts around Sonoma County because incumbents did not opt to run for re-election by last Friday....

In Forestville, Gaylynne Castleberry Sword will take on incumbent Ron Abler, as well as consultant Mat Barnes, attorney Max Broome and parent Mary Ellen Palmer.

Here are pages for the candidates:

• Gaylynne Castleberry Sword: Her own home page (with a blog)
• Ron Abler: Information from the last school board election
• Mate Barnes: On LinkedIn.com
• Max Broom: The "about" page of his website
• Mary Ellen Palmer: The treasurer of the Forestville Education Foundation

Forestville school bond on the November ballot

Excerpts from an article by Kerry Benefield in the Press Democrat:

Seven Sonoma County school districts will ask their voters in November to support a total of more than $127 million in construction and maintenance projects, with solar installations dominating the wish lists...
Solar projects also are included in the construction list in five other districts... Forestville did not include solar in its $5.1 million bond...
In Forestville, a survey found voter support for a general obligation bond that would pay for classroom improvements, playground upgrades and other projects.
But there was not enough support to pass a two-thirds threshold needed to raise taxes for expenses, Superintendent Bob Borbe said.
“We did survey our community, and our community overwhelmingly said they would support a bond issue,” he said. “We also asked them if they would support a parcel tax and they said, ‘No.'"

Forestville in Social Media

Some social media sites are easier to search by locations others are harder. I tried to locate people/items related to our town, and as there are several other Forestvilles in the US  I searched for "Forestville, CA". Here are some results.

• On Flickr as of now there are 511 hits if you search for the tags.Vast majority of them is of students of a school by "El Domo." If you search Flickr directly for location, based on the geotags of the images, you get 328 results. These you can sort by "recent" or "interesting."
• You can search Twitter's content and you may get a few results. Right now only 6, all from the last four days, including two about the band that played last weekend in the Forestville Club, a musician who will play this week and a real estate and a shipping update and the Farmhouse Inn's competition ending. When you search for users you will only get entities who had put "forestville" in their username. All four of them, including this blog's, a dead account, a non-California account and account that belongs to a site, that contains automatic feeds that may or may not be about Forestville, CA.
• On Facebook the first results is the automatic page they had put up a few weeks ago. You can find people who put our town as their location or hometown in their profile by following this link, but"only" th first 500 will show up. You can search pages , groups and events too.

Theer are many more social media sites, of course, but wanted to start with three big one.

PD: Herbalist & Motor home accident

There were two articles last week in the Press Democrat, both in the Friday, August 6 issue, with local, Forestville connections. One of them, under the title "Motor home plunges down bank, lands in river", was about what happened after:

A 25-foot motor home rolled off its blocks Friday and plunged into the Russian River with a woman and dog inside, the CHP said.

The woman suffered minor injuries in the accident at Riverbend RV Resort & Campground, west of Mirabel Road in Forestville, CHP Sgt. Mike Brown said.

The other article, "Herbalists go native", was about herbs, herbalists, herbalism and a profile of the California School of Herbal Studies. Here is a short excerpt.

Tucked into snug Pocket Canyon 2 miles west of Forestville, the 31-year-old school offers one-day and weekend classes, as well as short- and long-term courses in various aspects of herbalism.

It was founded in the late 1970s by Rosemary Gladstar, often regarded as “The Mother of Herbalism.” She has written many books on the topic, including “Rosemary Gladstar's Herbal Recipes for Vibrant Health” (Storey Publishing, 2008).

Gladstar moved to Vermont in the early 1990s to found Sage Mountain Herbs. She also founded United Plant Savers, which aims to protect native medicinal plants of the United States and Canada.

August 8, Jim & Ron Jazz Duo @ Sarah's Forestville Kitchen

Today the Jim & Ron Jazz Duo will play during brunch at Sarah's Forestville Kitchen. Just for the record, last Sunday the Phat Chance Jazz Quartet played.

Videos of Boo Radley's House & Over the Falls @ Forestville Club on July 23

California Artisan Cheese Guild video

Cheese Chick's CheeseTV posted a video last week about the California Artisan Cheese Guild's story. Jennifer Bice, the Guild's president was prominently featured in it. She is the owner of the local Redwood Hill Farm.

August 18, blood drive @ fire station

According to the sign at the Fire station they will have a blood drive there on August 18 between 3 and 6 PM.

School in August

The School has a updated sign and an updated web calendar.

The short version:
Back to School Celebration & BBQ - Saturday, August 14 from 11:00 - 2:00
School begins on Wednesday, August 18

August 14, NY Steak BBQ @ Hollydale

Hollydale Community Club posted two signs around town about their upcming NY Steak BBQ on the 14th:

Mirabel Park pictures

Last week Mirabel Park posted a series of pictures on is Facebook page. You can view them , eve if yuo are not on Facebook. Here is my favorite: