Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
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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...
One of my favorite roads in the Tehachapi area is also one of the oldest, a curving, undulating belt of pavement that meanders over foothills on the western end of the valley and is known as Old Town Road. The original purpose of this venerable roadway is suggested by its name, and in fact it once served to connect a string of ranches, farms and homesteads with the first little town center of Tehachapi. Only it wasn't known as "Tehachapi" at first. The initial cluster of settlers' buildings in...
There is a longtime Bear Valley Springs resident who has caught and safely relocated not dozens, or even hundreds, but literally thousands of rattlesnakes over the course of his life. His name is Ron Hayton, and he started catching rattlesnakes under his grandfather's tutelage when he was only five years old. Ron, 79, is a retired L.A. County fire captain, and decades ago he started the Snake Guys snake relocating service, providing free assistance for area residents. Ron's volunteer efforts...
The late Nuwä elder Harold Williams had a Winchester Model 1894 lever-action carbine, the kind made famous by actor (and eventual Bear Valley Springs resident) Chuck Conners on the show The Rifleman. This gun, developed by famed firearm designer John Browning, became the one of the most popular non-military rifles ever made, with the millionth model being presented to President Calvin Coolidge in 1927. The particular firearm owned by Harold Williams was first seen in the possession of a Nuwä I...
If you have been finding lots of pincher bugs or earwigs in your house or yard this spring, you are not alone. It appears that 2024 has been a banner year for them. So let's look into what they are, and why there are so many this year. Pincher bugs are insects with forcep-like structures at the end of their abdomen called cerci, and these cerci are of course the source of the name pincher bug. Or "pinchy bug," as little Kylah started calling them when she was three. They are also called...
If you drive through the narrows of Banducci Road these days, between Brite Lake and the Alps Drive entrance to Alpine Forest, you'll see that the hillsides to the south are alight with the bright yellow blossoms of one of the Golden State's most epic shrubs: California Flannelbush (Fremontodendron californicum). A couple of hundred scattered shrubs, the size of old apple trees in an abandoned orchard, are glowing with the bright lemon yellow of their waxy flowers. The Flannelbush branches are...
"The beatings will continue until morale improves." – Bill Mead...
“You can hide de fire, but what you gwon do wit de smoke?” – Uncle Remus Fiber artist Nancy Yeager Rice framed this saying and hung it on her wall as a gentle reminder to visitors not to smoke around her textiles....
“It’s like you create a pottery piece up until a certain point, and after that it’s up to the fire gods. There’s a degree of unpredictability. You can’t be a control freak and be a potter. Watercolor is the same way – I think that’s why it was easy for me to make the transition from watercolor to pottery.” – Sue Conrad Tehachapi artist Sue Conrad was a talented watercolorist for many years before becoming a highly regarded potter....
“A day without sunshine. . . is a lot like night.” – Chalkboard at Kohnen’s Bakery...
“It’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness.” – Chinese Proverb...
