The California Department of Fish and Wildlife is offering a Conservation Lecture Series to the public via the department’s website starting April 17.

This lecture series introduces participants to California’s diverse wildlife. Each lecture focuses on a unique plant or animal.

The Conservation Lecture Series webpage also features a list of upcoming lectures and speakers.

Advance registration is required and people may attend either in person or remotely via WebEx.

In addition to a schedule of upcoming lectures, the website has videos of past lectures and lecture materials such as PowerPoint slides saved as PDF.

Chevy’s Taco Bar on April 30 will benefit Animal Coalition of Tahoe.

From 6-8pm the taco bar be available. Happy hour prices on drinks go to 7pm.

Tickets must be purchased in advance at High Chaparral in the Heavenly Village, or call 530.307.3638 or email info@tahoeanimals.org. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for those 12 and younger.

Money raised goes to support ACT’s spay-neuter program and the county animal shelter in Meyers.

Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care got custody of this bear cub on April 15. Photos/DanThriftPhotography.com

By Kathryn Reed

Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care is caring for a healthy bear cub after it was first dropped off at the Bear League.

The little girl, about 2 months old and weighing 5.4 pounds, was discovered by Ann Bryant of the Bear League on April 15. The bear was in one of the cages she keeps out front of the West Shore-based animal group’s offices. No note, no contact info – nothing was left with her.

Officials hope someone will call to say where the cub was found. Speculation is she was a twin or triplet, so if the mother was killed, it’s possible other cubs are wandering around.

She is small, but healthy.

“She is healthy. She is not emaciated. She’s a little dehydrated, but not enough to be worried about,” Tom Millham with LTWC told Lake Tahoe News.

She has a little rash, which veterinarian Kevin Willitts took samples of, as well as some blood. Those have been sent to the lab for testing.

This is the second smallest cub LTWC has received. The smallest weighed in at 4.5 pounds. It, too, arrived on April 15 – but that was about seven years ago.

The South Shore animal rehab center usually doesn’t see bears until June.

And normally the center has a lull in between bears because January and February is the usual time to release the animals back into the wild. But because there was no snow this year that didn’t happen.

Instead, the three bears LTWC has rehabbed will be released by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife on April 23. They came from Truckee, Meeks Bay and Heavenly. At this time it is not known where they will be released.

Registration for kindergarten and transitional kindergarten in Lake Tahoe Unified School District is May 5-9.

Kindergartners must by 5 before Sept. 1. Children who will turn 5 before Dec. 2 qualify for transitional kindergarten.

When registering bring the child’s birth certificate and proof of immunizations, which includes the Varicella (chicken pox), Hepatitis B and for most children – the last booster shot.

Call the schools to set up a time:

Bijou Community School 530.543.2337

Sierra House Elementary 530.543.2327

Tahoe Valley Elementary 530.543.2350.

By Alexei Koseff, Sacramento Bee

More than 50 years ago, California’s revered Master Plan for Higher Education established public community colleges as a means to educate the state’s lower-division students and prepare them for transfer to a higher institution.

Today, the sprawling system of 112 colleges and more than 2.1 million students transfers only about 40 percent of those seeking to continue on to a university where they can finish a bachelor’s degree, according to the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office.

The poor transfer rate stems in part from a conundrum of varying requirements and confusing pathways between schools that finally resulted in a 2010 bill, SB 1440, creating the Associate Degree for Transfer. The two-year degree guarantees admission into the California State University system as a junior and sets students up to complete their studies in four years – an increasing challenge at CSU campuses where high enrollment creates heavy demand for mandatory classes.

Read the whole story

By Kathryn Reed

I am so meringue challenged it’s scary.

I tried channeling my mother, but instead I just heard laughter of my three older sisters. Not good when one is in the middle of baking.

When mom was in Tahoe for a few weeks last summer one of the things I wanted to do was make a lemon meringue pie with her. This is because I can never get the meringue to seal on the crust. It always pulls away.

Mom has been my baking teacher since I was a little girl standing on a chair pouring ingredients into the mixer.

So, last summer we went about making the pie. I watched intently as she put large dollops of meringue near the edge of the pie. I listened to her advice. I was sure I had it.

Wrong.

I just made a pie on my own this week because I was given lemons from a friend in the Bay Area. (It’s so hard to pay grocery store prices for lemons after you grow up with a lemon tree out back.)

The pie tastes good. It’s just not pretty. And apparently it is not something I’m going to make for others. Of course that means more pie for us, so it’s the not the worst thing in the world.

I make my pie crust from scratch. A store bought one will suffice.

Lemon Meringue Pie

1 9-inch baked pie shell

1½ C sugar

1/3 C cornstarch

1½ C water

3 egg yolks, slightly beaten

3 T butter

4 T lemon juice

1 1/3 T grated lemon rind

Mix sugar, cornstarch and water in saucepan. Stir until mixture is thick and boils.

Add egg yolks. Mix for about 1 minute

Remove from heat. Add butter, lemon juice, rind. Stir until butter is melted.

Pour into baked pie shell. Top with meringue. Bake at 400 degrees for 8-10 minutes, until peaks are brown.

Serve once it cools.

Meringue

3 egg whites

¼ tsp cream of tartar

6 T sugar

Beat all ingredients together until stiff.

By Kathryn Reed

One day Julian Marley might write a song about South Lake Tahoe, or maybe Reno, since that is where he will end up playing on Sunday.

Marley, son of the legendary Bob Marley, along with the Uprising Band were slated to be the headliner of the 4th annual TWC Cannabis Cup on April 20. The South Lake Tahoe City Council on Tuesday quashed that idea.

Cody Bass, who runs Tahoe Wellness Cooperative, appealed the city’s denial for a special activity permit. Bass has had such a permit for the last three years to put on a one-day event in the parking lot in the portion of Bijou Center that his landlord owns.

As with most events, his has grown over the years. This year it was to include Marley playing in the parking lot to anyone over 18 who paid for a ticket, and the cannabis cup that would have been inside the collective and for members only.

The City Council on a 5-0 vote after about two hours of discussing the matter said no way. That was staff’s recommendation.

“It’s a bummer for us,” Bass told Lake Tahoe News after the decision. “It’s mind blowing to me that in the end they didn’t make it happen.”

For permits like this on private property the applicant needs to apply no less than two weeks in advance. Bass did that. He also said the city never presented him with any complaints from the prior year.

What the city took issue with is that the original permit filed on April 4 did not resemble the promotional material that was being circulated for the event. This raised concerns about parking, noise and disturbance to neighboring businesses, as well as possible traffic issues along Highway 50.

“He was informed it violated the dispensary permit,” Hilary Roverud, with the city’s planning department, told the council.

Bass said the cannabis cup is allowed under state and local law because only people with medical marijuana cards are allowed to participate. He also pointed out how a number of cities in the state allow these and in some ways are partners by having them on city owned property.

Bass submitted another proposal that eliminated the cannabis cup and only had the music portion. Staff denied this as well, primarily citing that without consent from the adjacent property owner to allow parking that there was no plan in place to accommodate people. Security and transportation were other concerns of the city’s.

Bass said he could make it all work.

Collectively the council believed Bass should have been working with the city sooner. He repeatedly said he worked within the city’s guidelines.

The city offered to help him to move the event to Bijou Community Park, but Bass did not want to go there. He said it wouldn’t work for the stage and didn’t want to be the test case for such an event of this magnitude there.

It’s estimated about 1,300 would have attended the concert.

Bass asked the city to allow him to use Lakeview Commons, saying the concert would be open to everyone for free. The city said no; it did not want to have to revise its rules about the use of that venue at this late date.

Bass told Lake Tahoe News the concert will go on. Now it will be at the Knitting Factory in Reno on Sunday.

As for what will happen in the future, Bass predicts with Nevada getting into the medical marijuana business and Reno allowing 11 shops, that a cannabis cup will be in the Biggest Little City’s future and South Lake Tahoe will let this opportunity go up in smoke.

To the community,

Camp Richardson Historic Resort and Marina was the Adopt A Day of Nourishment sponsor for Bread & Broth’s dinner on April 7. Their generous donation fed over 85 guests and their fun and helpful sponsor crew joined with B&B crew members to pack the “giveaway” bags and then manned the serving line to greet each guest and serve the tasty roast beef dinner prepared by B&B’s talented cooks.

“We are delighted to participate in Adopt A Day, said Vanessa Santora, Camp Richardson’s sales, events and marketing manager.

Also helping the B&B volunteers from Camp Richardson were Lorraine Leonard, payroll supervisor; Travis Lauinger, retail manager; Gina Marie Hunt, group sales coordinator; and Charlie Gaspar, front desk manager. From the setup to the take down and cleanup of the dinner, these five energetic volunteers were happy to help as needed.

“The B&B staff is so welcoming and friendly,” added Santora said. “Thank you for allowing us to give back to the community we love.”

Concern and caring is the common theme that B&B’s dinner sponsors demonstrate and Camp Richardson Resort and Marina and their volunteers are no exception. B&B is grateful for and thanks our caring community supporters as they feed the hungry and those in need.

Carol Gerard, Bread & Broth

• On April 22 at 5:30pm Friends of the Library present a Tahoe Rim Trail Association talk with Shannon Skarritt, director of membership and outreach.

• Mike Makley, author of “Saving: Lake Tahoe”, will be the guest speaker at the May 8, 7pm Sierra Club meeting. The free event is at 1195 Rufus Allen Blvd., South Lake Tahoe. Books will be for sale and Makley will be signing them.

• The Tahoe City Public Utility District board at the April 18, 8:30am meeting will discuss changing how at-large members are elected.

• Cinco De Mayo-Palooza is coming to MontBleu in Stateline on May 2-5. It includes live music and food events. For more info, call 800.648.3353.

• Robb Gaffney has resigned as a skiing “ambassador” at Squaw Valley because “as we all know, Squaw is going through significant changes and the driving forces behind these changes have shifted the local climate in a direction that is uncomfortable for me.”

By Allison Aubrey, NPR

We’ve all heard the advice to eat more whole grains, and cut back on refined starches.

And there’s good reason. Compared with a diet heavy on refined grains, like white flour, a diet rich in whole grains — which includes everything from brown rice to steel-cut oats to farro — is linked to lower rates of heart disease, certain cancers and Type 2 diabetes.

So when it comes to choosing bread, experts say, you want to move away from the white loaves in the grocery aisle. That’s because white flour is a high-glycemic food— like sugar.

“That white bread is going to digest much more quickly, leading to a surge and crash in blood sugar that may stimulate hunger later in the meal, but also raise risk for diabetes and heart disease,” says David Ludwig, physician of Boston Children’s Hospital.

But when you start looking for alternatives, it’s worth noting that not all loaves labeled “whole grain” or “whole wheat” are created equal. And that’s because wheat is milled in different ways.

Read the whole story