Hoity Toity my proud beauty Give me the child or I'll do me duty Give me the child or I'll do ye harm Cause I've got the mortgage on the whole darn farm! Foreclosing on the farm is a bit more complicated today than it was in the era of Simon Legree and Uncle Tom's Cabin. In those days, the cro
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11/27/2010
Usually I focus on (northern) Placer and Nevada counties for my articles on eating locally, but I ran across a couple of important websites that describe localism in El Dorado, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo, and Yuba counties. The area is considered as the "Sacramento Valley." Community Alliance w
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11/22/2010
It's rainy and cold, but what the heck, let's go to the 17th Annual Mandarin Festival at the Gold Country Fairgrounds in Auburn, California! You can buy anything "Mandarin" that human beings can devise: mandarine olive oil, chocolate covered mandarins, mandarin caramel popcorn, mandarin-glaz
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11/20/2010
Last night I packed boxes to send to our troops overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are almost 200 recipients in our group, 30 of whom are Marines. One of the Marines is my son, Luke. This is the last box I will pack for him. He comes home in two weeks. The night before, Luke called fr
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11/17/2010
This trail is a middle portion of the Pioneer Express Trail that runs for fifty or more miles from the foothills down toward Folsom and Sacramento. You get to this the trail from Auburn Folsom Road about half way between Auburn and Granite Bay. Follow the signs toward the Sterling Pointe Equest
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11/13/2010
If I had to choose the best running trail in the Sierra Foothills, I'd pick the Stevens Trail in Colfax, California. The trail is named after Truman Stevens who developed it as a toll road back in the Gold Rush. It was supposed to connect Illinoisville (now Colfax) with Iowa Hill. It never mad
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11/09/2010
There are a lot of highfalutin' ideas about "affordability." Is an affordable home a "right" to accompany the Constitutional rights: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and a darling 3br/2bath with a pee-a-boo view of the lake? Is an affordable home an essential element of the "American Dre
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11/05/2010