An image of the McCann Bridge taken during low water by a Panoramio user.

According to scanner traffic, a female kayaker was trapped against a piling on the McCann Bridge in the Eel River about 8:30 this morning and drowned. 

Witnesses said that there were approximately 20 kayaks at the site. 

Kai Ostrow of Southern Humboldt Technical Rescue said that his group was called to the scene along with the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue, Cal Fire, Fruitland Ridge Fire Department and Eel River Valley Rescue. He couldn’t comment on the incident itself and directed questions to the Sheriff’s Office.

The Sheriff’s Office has not responded as of the time of this posting.

Next Saturday, Jan. 31, Brandon Parker from the Mendo-based extraction crew “3rd Gen Family” is leading a day-long solvent-less hash making demo at medical marijuana dispensary Wonderland Nursery in Garberville. “Day-long” means 10 a.m.-4 p.m. And heads up…! Wonderland Nursery is directly behind the Renner Station on Bear Canyon Rd.

This is a “come all show all seminar,” where attendees will see “how to wash, zest and dry bubble hash.” (Quotes from the 3rd_gen_family Instagram.) Parker is demonstrating his personal technique from start-to-finish, and he’s “holding nothing back.” You do not need a medical marijuana recommendation to go check out the demo.

Parker makes award-winning solvent-less extracts (a.k.a. cold-water or bubble hash) that you can dab. This is precisely what’s fresh about this demo — he’s making bubble that you can dab. You gotta know, dabbing isn’t restricted to solvent-derived extracts, like BHO. You can dab bubble too, but it has to have the right consistency. Parker will show you how to get there. (I will vouch for Parker’s hash — it’s bomb.)

I caught up with Wonderland Nursery Director of Operations Sarah Hartsoe the other day to learn more about the upcoming demo. Hartsoe’s been in the medical marijuana biz for the past five years. According to her, the popularity of bubble hash in that time has been “nonexistent — pretty much no one asks for bubble hash,” she says.

However, Hartsoe says that lately there’s been a surge in the popularity of bubble hash because extract artists like Parker are coming out with “full melt” bubble. “Full melt” refers to hash that can be dabbed on a glass rig or an electric nail without leaving any residue or ash. In other words, the hash disappears when you hit it, just like a solvent-derived dab. “So it’s nice and clean,” she says, “especially with glass-on-glass.” (She’s referring to dabbing on a quartz nail.)

“The makers of [solvent-less extracts] have really stepped up and made it full melt, and that’s where they filled in the gap. People are stopping the BHO and CO2 extractions completely and going back to bubble hash. It’s cool again,” Hartsoe says. “It went from being something you sprinkled on cannabis or rolled in a joint to something you can dab.” And it’s a dab you can do with out having to worry about ingesting residual solvents.

Parker’s goal is to show that making good-quality, “full melt” hash like this is doable, but please bear in mind that this is a day-long demo. If you want all the ins and outs of his process, show up at 10 a.m. and plan to hang out till 4 p.m. He’ll start with “fresh frozen whole plant” material (quote from his 3rd_gen_fam Instagram), and he’ll end with full melt solvent-less concentrate.

Hartsoe says the best solvent-less extracts are made from fresh bud, not trim, and certain strains are superior for bubble hash making as well. “You would still want to test your cannabis for mold, fungus and mildew beforehand,” she says, but as far as testing for residual solvent, well, that’s just something you don’t have to worry about with bubble — there’s nothing to purge.

In terms of equipment, some people use straight up washing machines or specially designed hash-making machines (like the Bubble Now) and/or bubble bags (like Boldt Bags). You also need lots of good quality ice and/or dry ice. (Like, if you want to make good beer, you gotta use good water…). Parker’s demo will involve both bubble bags and a machine.

“I think it’s important for people to know that instead of blasting or using butane or CO2 to make a concentrate,” Hartsoe says, “you can do it in a safer, more affordable way. It is healthier and it is safer for the environment. There is less of an impact… There are no cans to dispose of.” At the demo, Trim Scene Solutions will have a display of everything you need to make bubble hash, so you can check out some merch. Plus, Pearl Moon from 707 Cannabis College is doing a hand-saving “water demo” for trimmers. Apparently, if you take regular breaks from trimming to dip your hands in super cold or hot water for certain lengths of time, you can prevent strain. Moon will fill you in on the deets.

This is a free event and everyone is welcome, but to make a purchase or to become a member at Wonderland Nursery you need a California doctor’s 215 recommendation and California ID. And Hartsoe wants to remind people that Wonderland Nursery is still giving away free CBD clones to patients, so “they can utilize the free clones and start preparing to make a CBD-rich solvent-less concentrate of their own.”

For more information, Wonderland Nursery can be reached at 707-923-2175.

(From “The Trumpet Fisherman and Other Istanbul Sketches)

When I first met Bulent, he was working at his brother Edep’s shop in Çiçekçi, a pleasant residential area near Üsküdar. At the time, I was living in the neighborhood, and the brothers’ market stood on corner, and from the top of the hill looking down the street from the market you could see a fine view of the Bosphorous, with all the ships floating in the harbor and out at sea.

Edep was the more outgoing of the two brothers, and he spoke a little bit of English. “I am international people!” he would proclaim proudly, when we conversed in halting English. Edep took a liking to me; it was interesting to him that I was American, I suppose. “James, Amerika beautiful?” or he would have me choose: “Amerika? Istanbul? “

Or: “James, Amerika we go!” Edep’s hands would stretch out in a hypothetically west direction, urging us on. “Amerika big money!”

In contrast, Bulent, the other brother, was reserved, shy. We seldom spoke to one another. His well-combed hair was graying at the temples, though his face was youthful. He seemed so serious all the time.

The two brothers alternated shifts, with one taking the day and the other evenings. They were Kurds from somewhere in the east of Turkey, in the vicinity of Diyarbakır, I gathered, and had come to Istanbul some years ago. Both were married and had children, though I seldom saw them.

I was never good at saving money, and Istanbul is not a cheap city, especially if you like going out a lot, as I did. So usually I found myself broke at the end of every month, with payday still a long week away. Edep was really good about letting me have beer and cigarettes on account. He would keep track of what I owed and I would pay him when I had the money.

Buying on account is actually an old custom in Turkey, going back to the days before credit cards. Shop keepers have what is called the “veresiye defter,” or “account notebook,” where the names of the regular customers and amounts owed are kept in ink or pencil. Actually in most shops, they don’t even use a notebook, just sheets of paper with the names and amounts scratched down in long rows and columns.

Edep was always, as I said, very good about letting me, a yabancı, have beer and cigarettes on account. I probably could have had other things too, like food, but a strange sense of delicacy told me to keep my credit confined to beer and cigarettes. Besides, if I needed to eat there was Fetih, the canteen owner at the school who let me have sandwiches on account.

I was shy about asking Bulent. His shy, reserved air had in it something of watchfulness, or so I felt, and indeed when I finally approached him the first time about it he regarded me for a moment, and I saw him consider it, then with a shy, apologetic smile, he shook his head. It didn’t seem like a good idea, or he didn’t know me well enough. It was OK, I wasn’t surprised. That afternoon I waited until Edep came on for the evening shift, and made sure when I put my beer and cigarettes on the veresiye defter that Bulent was still there, so he could see that Edep knew me and trusted me, that I was a regular customer and that Edep and I already had a sound business arrangement. After that I knew that I probably could have also bought on credit from Bulent, but I still generally preferred to deal with his brother.

A time came, not many months later, when I moved from Çiçekçi back to Kadıköy. The flat was in Yeldeğirmeni, an old quarter of Kadıköy that in Ottoman times was home to Jewish and Armenian families. Nowadays the neighborhood is a bit rough, and the majority of people who live there are Turks and Kurds.

My first night at the flat, having settled in, I headed out to find the local market. It was on a corner facing an old pizzeria, the kind with the huge brick ovens and from the window you can see the workers shoveling pide and lahmacun in and out of the oven with long, wooden poles. Up the street was the local bakery.

I went into the market and – it was Bulent! He was behind the counter. We both started in surprise, then greeted each other enthusiastically. “Merhaba! Merhaba!” We were actually happy to see each other, to see a familiar face. I asked what he was doing in Yeldeğirmeni and he asked me the same thing. It turns out he was going into business for himself. Edep was fine, he said. He still had the shop in Çiçekçi. That evening I bought a few bottles of Efes and a pack of cigarettes. We shook hands and expressed our surprise again and wished each other good evening.

Outside on the way home I shook my head. Istanbul, a city of 13, 15, even 20 million souls, nobody is even sure exactly. How many markets would that make? And to think of all the markets and all the neighborhoods, that Bulent and I would end up on practically the same street. What were the odds? We took it as a good omen.

Inevitably, it wasn’t long before my spending caught up with me, and I was broke again. Putting my head down, I went to see Bulent at the market. I had noticed a change come over him in Yeldeğirmeni. He was a lot more relaxed and outgoing. Maybe having his own shop did that. Our relationship had changed too, and we were much more relaxed around each other.

Anyway, that evening I was broke and when I went to see Bulent, we chatted about the weather, about the neighborhood, about football (he was a Galatasaray fan). I asked if it was OK to have some beer and cigarettes on account, and he said no problem. It was a big relief, and Bulent and it was a good feeling to see that we now had our own arrangement, our own understanding.

I ended up living in Yeldeğirmeni through the summer. It was a long summer, and the days were long and hot. In the evenings I liked to get beer and cigarettes and sit out on the balcony drinking and smoking and watching the planes taking off and arriving at the airport. I tried to guess from the trajectory of the planes where they were headed. Many were headed south, to the pleasure resorts at Bodrum , Antalya and Marmaris. Others were headed to Europe, to Russia, to points East. Other times I watched the construction of the new metro line near the Nautilus shopping center, or the traffic piled up on the main highway, or the neighborhood women hanging their laundry out to dry on the balconies. It was a great balcony, located in a corner of the building, so that the breezes swirled there and kept the balcony cool even in August and you could see all around the different things happening in the city.

It was a different story down below. Construction crews in the neighborhood had gone to work on the main street, ripping it open to install or replace some pipes underneath. The street stones were piled up alongside the dug-up earth, and all day the sounds of the tractors and the hammers and drills kept the neighborhood very noisy, and the dust was everywhere, mixing with the heat and the noise of the workers. The streets were always crowded with people going to the markets and shops, and you had to step around the work and avoid running into people. In the evenings, it was cooler, the construction workers went home for the day, leaving the tractors parked and silent, and the dust settled. But even in the evenings the smell of the dust stayed in the air, in your nostrils.

“Çok toz!” Bulent would say, when I came in after work. Too much dust. He would complain about how the dust came in during the day and got all over everything in the shop, the fruit, the vegetables, the canned goods, the packets of chewing gum and cigarettes – everything – and he, Bulent, would have to keep everything constantly wiped down with a rag. At one point the work was going on right in front of the shop – the workers ripped up parts of the street in sections – and all day Bulent had to listen to the sounds of the tractors and drills right outside his shop.

I went to the market every evening after work. When I had money I paid in cash, and when I didn’t, Bulent let me use the veresiye defter. It was a splendid arrangement, mutually beneficial. Throughout that long, hot, dusty, noisy summer in Yeldeğirmeni I never needed to worry about having ice cold beer and cigarettes to enjoy from my cool balcony high up overlooking the neighborhood. In return, Bulent had a loyal customer, and a fairly large pay out every month. Often my tab would run up into the hundreds, and each month on the tenth I paid the amount in full. “Iyi Gün,” the Good Day, we called it.

At the end of the summer, with the new school year starting and autumn on the way, I found that I had to move again. The people I was renting from wanted to rent to the incoming Erasmus students who would pay higher prices. So I found a room in Erenköy, which is quite a ways from Kadıköy. When I moved I still owed Bulent some money, but promised myself I would go and see him as always when I got paid on the tenth.

But in Erenköy I was quickly absorbed by my new surroundings. It’s a trim, residential neighborhood, home to fairly well-off professionals and retirees. I fell into a new routine. The flat was very near the school where I worked, and so in the mornings I walked instead of taking the dolmuş. I hardly ever went to Kadıköy anymore except sometimes on the weekends. I even found a local market that let me by on account. I soon forgot all about Yeldeğirmeni and Bulent.

Months passed, a gorgeous Mediterranean fall followed by a pounding, cold winter. For weeks the city was covered in snow and ice. Then I had to move again. This time the flatmate announced, rather abruptly, that he had been offered a position in Barcelona, and was going to move there. After a bit of scrambling, I found a room for rent on Craigslist, and joyfully found myself back once again in Kadıköy.

The first night in the new flat, having paid the first month and deposit, I quickly set my few things in the room and went out for a walk. I walked past the fish markets and the produce markets, the fish and rakı cafes, realizing how much I had missed being in Kadıköy. In comparison, Erenköy was dull, desperate housewife central. Here in Kadıköy was all that I liked about Istanbul, the Bosphorous and the bustle of the crowds on the streets and by the waterfront, all the shops and cafes huddled on busy back streets.

I found myself walking through these back streets, familiarizing myself again with old haunts. Suddenly I was in Yeldeğirmeni, and I knew why I had gone there.

Bulent’s eyes widened with surprise and joy when I walked in. “Merhaba! Merhaba!” We shook hands energetically, and I pulled out my wallet. Bulent was already going for the veresiye defter and, taking a pencil from behind his ear, scanned the pages until he found my name. The amount had long ago been added up, months ago, and was waiting to be paid.

After paying the money, I apologized to Bulent for the long delay. I explained, in my halting Turkish, how I had moved to Erenköy, how it was far away, and how I had been busy at work and forgotten. No problem, no problem, Bulent said. He said he had worried that something bad had happened to me, or that maybe I had gone back to America. So we were both relieved, he because the account was settled and I because he had no hard feelings.

It wasn’t long before I was back on the veresiye defter with Bulent, even though it was a long walk to his market from my new flat. But when the tenth of the month came, I made sure to head straight over to the market and pay up.

“Iyi gün,” I said, handing the money over with a smile. The Good Day.

“Iyi gun,” Bulent said, nodding in agreement. “Ben, iyi gün. Sen, kötu gün!” Good Day for me, Bad Day for you.

Later I thought about Bulent and our agreement. Istanbul is a living body, with a strong heart fed by a vast network of busy veins and arteries. The veresiye defter, even though it is technically illegal these days, is one of the main arteries of commercial life. It is still widely used, especially in the poorer neighborhoods, where people don’t have access to credit cards. I doubt the city would ever crack down on the use of the veresiye defter (the reason why it is technically illegal is because the state cannot collect taxes on these hand-to-hand, informal credit transactions). To forbid the use of the veresiye defter would be to clog one of Istanbul’s main arteries, the effect could be almost like a cardiac arrest. It would be like cutting off the flow of credit to America; overnight, the great empire would come crashing down. But then, I’ve always found political analogies to be superficial and weak. I’m just glad that in the end, Bulent and I came out straight.

###

James Tressler is a writer and teacher whose books, including “The Trumpet Fisherman and Other Istanbul Sketches,” can be purchased at Lulu.com. He lives in Istanbul.

I was one of the Guardians, a small group entrusted with The Secret, whose job it was to pass it on from one generation to the next. It was time for our select cadre to meet, once every forty years—in a desert castle under the mountains, perhaps Saint Catherine’s monastery in the Sinai. One hundred of us in our hooded black cowls, faces hidden, the night wind howling against the shuttered windows, candles guttering and sputtering.

A wizened old master appeared, holding a long wooden box, which he unlocked: seven locks. He pulled out a huge Torah-like scroll and unrolled it on the lectern. I watched his rheumy eyes slowly reading. Finally he looked up and seemed to see us for the first time. We waited. In silence, anxious, expectant. He spoke.

“We’re fucked!”

He rolled the scroll up, put it back in its box, locked the seven locks, and disappeared. We turned and walked silently out the door, we Guardians of the Secret.

##

Barry Evans gave the best years of his life to civil engineering, and what thanks did he get? In his dotage, he travels, kayaks, meditates and writes for the Journal and the Humboldt Historian. He sucks at 8 Ball. Buy his Field Notes anthologies at any local bookstore. Please.

UPDATE 11:06 p.m.: A spokesperson at the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office said that the individuals detained do not appear to have been involved in the incident. Deputies are still on the scene attempting to gather information.

###
Original post: According to scanner traffic, the Subway in Willow Creek was robbed about 8:40 p.m tonight. The dispatcher relayed information from a reporting party that says a man and a woman were involved in the attempt. The man was armed with a handgun and, according to the individual reporting to the dispatcher, was holding a gun to another woman possibly an employee. The individuals fled in a car.

Scanner traffic indicates that law enforcement stopped the individuals believed to be involved on Berry Summit. The subjects were detained.

A reader describes seeing “six cop cars and several people on the ground handcuffed.”

Hey, who felt the 3.6 quake that tickled our coastline at 7:34 p.m.?  It was centered 26 miles southwest of Ferndale and pretty much due west of Petrolia.

A homeless camp cleaned up on Friday. [Photo on the left pre-cleanup. Photo on the right post cleanup.]

Yesterday, 3600 pounds of trash went to the dump as part of a renewed support for a bi-weekly garbage cleanup in Southern Humboldt. Sickened by this video documenting trash which was posted on the Lost Coast Outpost last Saturday, PacOut Green Team member Amy Machado started the latest surge in cleanup energy and Humboldt Pride with a post on her personal Facebook page calling for people to organize and pick up garbage along the Eel River. 

She soon understood that there was a lot more garbage than she had expected but there was also an already existing effort to cleanup the area. “Once I realized the scope of the problem then I wanted to work with groups,” Machado explained. “Let’s get people on board with something that is already happening.”

The response to Machado’s call for action has been phenomenal. She started a Facebook page that already has over 600 members. On Tuesday and Friday of this week, people excited to help joined long time trash activist Mike Miller on his regular biweekly cleanups in Southern Humboldt. On Tuesday, 1800 pounds of trash were removed.

Southern Humboldt residents including Dusty Hughston and Kerry Reynolds pictured here joined with Mike Miller (far right) on Tuesday to pick up trash. [Photo from Eel River Cleanup Party.]

On Friday, 3600 pounds was taken out from an area north of Redway. The cleanup was hard, dirty work, said Chris Anderson who helped in the event. Some aspects, he said, were a little hard to deal with including a “bucket of human feces” and five to ten hypodermic needles strewn about. Anderson said there were also lots of little batteries. “In one camp, there were 40 or 50 little batteries,” he said. “These small batteries…can leach into the water supply.”

Anderson said that at this point most of the trash appears to be coming from homeless individuals. “We’re cleaning up after people living out there,” he said. He didn’t see many of the homeless who live in the area but the one he did see was “super helpful.” Mike Miller, the long time trash activist, he said, had been working with the individual in cleaning up the area previously.  “He has created relationships with the [homeless,]” Anderson said. “He is an amazing man.” 

Pictured are a few of the estimated 10-15 folks that helped pick up trash on Friday. [Photo from Eel River Cleanup Party.]

KHUM DJ and LoCO contributor Mike Dronkers said that he was pleased to see the video he posted on the Lost Coast Outpost generate such a positive response. “I’m very excited that just pictures can move people,” he said. He was so delighted with the results of this week’s trash removal that he declared, “The Humboldt Pride runs deep with these people.” [Hence, the title of this piece.]

Dronkers said that several weeks before he posted the video that moved Machado and others, KHUM was given a packet of photos by John Casali, a trash activist originally from Southern Humboldt. Dronkers said, “I cracked it open and thought ‘this is going to take time.’ We passed it around the KHUM staff. We didn’t know what to do.”

Finally, he decided he had to “let the photos speak.” He took the images and loaded them into a movie making program. The video, he said, “Unlocked a lot of enthusiasm” that already existed in Humboldt for getting rid of the trash. He mentioned that Surfrider and PacOut Green Team were recent forerunners of the current cleanups, too.

The packet of trash photos was spread out in KHUM for the staff to contemplate. [Photo provided by Mike Dronkers.]

Amy Machado, the force behind the recent efforts, eventually envisions trash cleanup parties with live music and a party atmosphere. Right now though the focus of the Eel River Cleanup group is on rolling up sleeves and getting rid of garbage on bi-weekly basis. On Tuesdays and Fridays volunteers gather in front of Tiger Lily bookstore on the north end of Garberville at 11 a.m. Can’t show up to shovel trash? You can donate money to help here at the fundraising page for the Eel River Cleanup Party.

Fired up to do something now? Be part of the LoCO Movement:

This Sunday, January 25, [today or tomorrow depending on when you’re reading this] at 10 a.m. Southern Humboldt Technical Rescue will be practicing their rescue skills and removing the large number of remaining butane canisters that were dumped near Alderpoint Road. Nocona Mendes who already worked on the site will be donating the use of his truck and trailer. Volunteers are needed to bag trash, puncture the butane cans (to reduce costs of dumping) and load the trucks. Money is needed to cover dump fees. Trucks and trailers would be useful, too.

Redheaded Blackbelt and the Lost Coast Outpost are sponsoring the cleanup. Alderpoint Store is contributing gloves, bags, and water as well as the contents of a donation jar set up for the purpose of cleaning up this site.

LoCO will be there documenting and interviewing the participants. Come introduce yourself and join in the Humboldt Pride.

As Chris Anderson said, “It is a powerful thing to see the community coming together.”

Approximate location of the cleanup site.

Previously: 

• [GRAPHIC VIDEO] Anthropogenic Filth Along The Eel River
• 2400 Pounds of Burned Butane Canisters and Other Trash Removed From Near Alderpoint Yesterday