Cove East is going to the dogs June 22.

Doggie Day is a free event put on by California Tahoe Conservancy and Lake Tahoe Humane Society that involves dog related contests and education.

Pet owners will learn about the Conservancy’s public lands and be given an opportunity to hone their pet etiquette skills.

Every leashed pooch will leave with a free Frisbee.

Trail access to Cove East beach begins at the end of Venice Drive near the Tahoe Keys Marina.

For more information, call 530.542.6063.

Tahoe City-UC Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center, in collaboration with the Lake Tahoe Master Gardeners, is hosting the Green Thumb gardening workshop series at the Tahoe City Field Station.

These free classes on gardening in Tahoe are open to all community members on Tuesdays at 5:30pm from June 24 to July 29.

Gardening in Tahoe’s high elevation and short growing season can be challenging, and the Green Thumb series is designed to help local gardeners succeed. Each workshop features a different topic and is led by a master gardener. Participants are encouraged to bring questions and samples from their garden for advice from these Tahoe gardening experts.

The workshop schedule is:

June 24: Know Your Site-Plant it Right

July 1: Container Planting: Make your own Fourth of July bowl

July 8: Invasive Weed Identification with the Tahoe Resource Conservation District

July 15: The Smiling Tree Symposium

July 22: Natives and Adapted Natives: Why? What? Where?

July 29: Vermicomposting: Worms + Kitchen Scraps = Gold!

The Tahoe City Field Station is located at 2400 Lake Forest Rd in Tahoe City.

For more information, contact Kelsey Poole at 775.881.7560, ext. 7402 or klpoole@ucdavis.edu.

Kayak Tahoe is sponsoring a free kayak/standup paddleboard demo day from 10am-2pm on June 22.

Test drive all the kayaks and paddleboards they have in stock. Staff will be on the beach ready to answer any questions.

If you choose to bring your dog, Kayak Tahoe will have some dog life jackets for you to test, too.

Suggested donation to ACT (Animal Coalition of Tahoe) is $10.

Kayak Tahoe is located at Timber Cove Marina, across from Safeway in South Lake Tahoe.

By KOLO-TV

People across the country are calling on the Washington Redskins to change their name to something less offensive. The latest blow came from the U.S. Trademark office, which revoked their trademark Wednesday morning.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has long protested the name, saying he won’t attend any Redskins games. Then, following the announcement on Wednesday, he commented, the team name reminds natives of a long history of racism and bigotry.

Local colonies agree with Reid. Saying whenever they hear the term “redskins”, it reminds them of the dark time in history when they were killed, had their land stolen, and their children taken away because they were different.

At the Reno-Sparks Tribal Health center on Thursday, Victoria Kane discussed how her family has a history of fighting offensive sports mascots.

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The Tuesday Night All Comer Track & Field Meet returns starting June 24.

The event is each Tuesday from 5-8:30pm at the South Tahoe Middle School track. Registration starts at 4:30pm.

It is for ages 2 to 90-plus.

For those who donate $20, they will receive a souvenir T-shirt.

In honor of Wimbledon, which runs June 23-July 6, Zephyr Cove Tennis Club going all white for a day.

The Breakfast at Wimbledon Doubles Tournament on June 29 is for adult players of all abilities. No need to bring a partner because the draw will be randomly selected.

Participants are asked to wear all white, just as the professionals do. Prizes will be awarded to the winners of the top four teams.

Breakfast will begin at 9am and tennis at 10am. Participants are encouraged to bring a side dish, as well as beverage of choice that does not come in a glass container.

Cost is $15 for club members, $20 for non-members, and $5 for spectators (meal only). The first 32 individual entrees are guaranteed a spot. Sign up in the club’s pro shop by noon June 26. The club is on Warrior Way off Highway 50.

By Paul Rogers, San Jose Mercury News

Time is running out on a deal to secure the largest expansion of Yosemite National Park since 1939, and one man appears to be standing in the way: local congressman Tom McClintock.

Declaring his distrust in the National Park Service, the tea party Republican from Granite Bay is at odds with local Republican state legislators and the Mariposa County Board of Supervisors over efforts to add a scenic parcel of land on Yosemite’s western boundary now owned by a Bay Area conservation group. The deal is even becoming a campaign issue in this rugged part of California as McClintock fights for re-election against a fellow Republican.

If a deal isn’t reached by the end of the year, the small nonprofit group that owns the land says it will have to sell. And the land is zoned for construction of up to 19 homes.

In 2004, the trust bought the land — a scenic landscape near El Portal that is thick with incense cedar, white fir and sugar pine trees, with breathtaking views — from a family that had owned it since 1925.

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Astronomy experts Jay Lawson and Adam Kremers will have telescopes set up to view Jupiter, Mars, Saturn and other objects in the night sky during a Summer Solstice Astronomy Party.

The June 21 event from 8:30-10:30pm is at Washoe Lake State Park at the maze-playground parking area. The park is off Highway 395 between Reno and Carson City.

There is no charge for the program, but there is a $7/vehicle entrance fee. Nevada residents receive a $2 discount.

Red lights, or flashlights wrapped in red plastic, are recommended, as they do not negatively affect night vision. Participants may want to bring a lawn chair, or something to sit on.

For more info, call 775.687.4319 or email washoelake@hdiss.net.

The track at Echo Summit was used for training for the 1968 Olympics. Photo/ Les Wright

Eldorado National Forest in cooperation with El Dorado County and the state will place a California State Historical Marker at the site of the 1968 Olympic training facility at Echo Summit on June 27.

A celebration entitled Return to the Summit will honor the site where U.S. Olympic men’s track and field athletes broke four world records during the Olympic trials at a tumultuous time in our nation’s history.

Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who finished with gold and bronze, respectively, in the 200-meter dash in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, are among the athletes scheduled to speak at the ceremony. Smith and Carlos famously bowed their heads and raised black-gloved fists on the victory stand in Mexico City, as a visible statement about the condition of human rights in this country.

The Echo Summit training site was an ideal high-altitude site to help athletes train for the thin air in Mexico City.

The facilities were disassembled and moved to South Lake Tahoe once the athletes left for Mexico City. They remained in use until 1992.

The Echo Summit site is on the south side of Highway 50, 10 miles west of South Lake Tahoe. The entrance is marked by a sign for the Adventure Mountain snow play area. The event will begin at 10:30am.

By Matt Weiser, Sacramento Bee

As if the drought isn’t enough to worry about, weather officials say California is likely to experience a hotter-than-normal summer this year, a phenomenon certain to add anxiety for water agencies and fire departments.

Summer doesn’t officially begin until Saturday. But the heat already is scorching the record books, as seen by a wave of 100-degree weather that swept across Northern California early last week. Heat records fell at six locations in the Sacramento Valley, including downtown Sacramento, which saw a high of 107 degrees last Monday. That shattered the date’s record of 103, set in 1883.

This follows what already has been an unusually warm winter and spring. In a study released Thursday, the National Climatic Data Center reported that California experienced its warmest January through May on record, with temperatures 5 degrees above the 20th-century average. Five California cities also set records: Sacramento, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco and Eureka. In Sacramento’s case, the first five months of this year were 3.7 degrees warmer than the average over the past 30 years.

In its long-range forecasts, the National Weather Service is reporting that odds favor a summer across all of California that is warmer than average. The agency extends that forecast all the way into October, the earliest that Californians normally expect seasonal rains to resume.

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