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LAKEPORT, Calif. – Lake County Animal Care and Control has several cats and new kittens waiting for homes.

The cats and kittens featured this week include domestic short and medium hairs, from calicoes to tabbies.

If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets there, hoping you'll choose them.

For those looking for a barn cat to keep the rodents at bay, be sure to ask about the barn cat adoption program. Feral barn cats are adopted out for $1 each, which includes altering, ear notching and vaccines.

The following cats at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (other cats pictured on the animal control Web site that are not listed here are still “on hold”).

Domestic short hair kitten

This male domestic short hair kitten has a gray coat and gold eyes.

He’s in kennel No. 16c, ID No. 8257.

Domestic short hair kitten

This male domestic short hair kitten has a gray tabby coat and green eyes.

He’s in kennel No. 99a, ID No. 8389.

Domestic short hair kitten

This female domestic short hair kitten has a white and gray tabby coat and green eyes.

She’s in kennel No. 99c, ID No. 8391.

Domestic short hair kitten

This female domestic short hair kitten has a torbie coat and green eyes.

She’s in kennel No. 99d, ID No. 8392.

Domestic short hair cat

This female domestic short hair cat has a lynx point coat and blue eyes.

She already has been spayed.

She’s in kennel No. 108, ID No. 8095.

Domestic medium hair mix kitten

This male domestic medium hair mix kitten has a black coat and green eyes.

He’s in kennel No. 111b, ID No. 8228.

Domestic short hair kitten

This female domestic short hair kitten has a short calico coat and gold eyes.

She’s in kennel No. 124, ID No. 8401.

‘O’Malley’

“O’Malley” is a male domestic short hair kitten with an orange tabby and white coat.

Shelter staff said he’s a sweet kitten that gets along with dogs.

He’s in Kennel No. 128, ID No. 8276.

Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.

Office hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.

Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.

LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lake County Fair is swinging into the final day of its four-day run on Sunday.

Gates open at 11 a.m. and close at 11 p.m.

A chief attraction on Sunday will be the Fiesta Latina Day celebration, which begins at 3 p.m. at the main stage.

There also will be more walk-on contests, music at venues across the grounds and exhibits.

Plus, the Midway of Fun – which was jam-packed with visitors of all ages on Saturday night – will once again be in full swing.

Regular admission prices for the fair are $12 for adults and $8 for children ages 6 through 11. Children under 6 years old are admitted free each day.

Parking is $9 per car, which benefits local Boy Scouts.

Visit www.lakecountyfair.com or contact the fair office at 707-263-6181 for more information.

The full schedule for the last day of the fair is published below.

SUNDAY, SEPT. 3

- Gates open at 11 a.m.
- Carnival Pay-One Price Day $25 - Purchase in Carnival Area
- Buildings close: 10 p.m.
- Fair closes: 11 p.m.

Special attractions:

- Fiesta Latina Day
- Draft horse wagon rides, climbing wall, pig racing, award winning chainsaw carving
- All day and everyday events
- Look for the Family Oasis in Fiesta Park – a great place for parents to relax with youngsters.
- Schedule subject to change

11 a.m. to 2 p.m.: Richard Seisser, pastels – Fritch Hall
11:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.: Majide, standard jazz classics – Gazebo Stage
Noon: Presentation at the fish aquarium in Fiesta Park
Noon to 12:45 p.m.: Vintage Crush, classic rock – Main Stage
12:30 to 2 p.m.: Two Chicks, tasty treats – Lewis Hall
1 p.m: Walk on contest, “Bling a Boot” – Fritch Hall
1:30 to 2:15 p.m.: Majide, standard jazz classics – Gazebo Stage; Vintage Crush, classic rock – Main Stage
2 p.m.: Presentation at the fish aquarium in Fiesta Park
2 to 3 p.m.: Children’s Story Time: Llama Llama, Lakeport Library – Fiesta Park
2 to 5 p.m.: Sandy and David Stillwell, jewelry making – Fritch Hall
2:30 p.m.: Walk on contest, “Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie Contest” – Lewis Hall
3 to 7 p.m.: Don McCown, custom leather – Lewis Hall
3 p.m.: Fiesta Latina – Main Stage
3 to 3:30 p.m.: Konocti Klogging Kids – Gazebo Stage
4 to 5 p.m.: Ballet Folklorico Jazmin, traditional regional Mexican music with dance
performers – Main Stage
5 p.m.: Kiss My Clear Lake Bass, sponsored by Lake County Chamber of Commerce; 4H and FFA Award Ceremony – Baldwin Pavilion
6 p.m.: Presentation at the fish aquarium in Fiesta Park
5 to 8 p.m.: Suze Pahl, jewelry making – Fritch Hall
5 to 5:45 p.m.: Mark Weston Band, pop, rock and country – Gazebo Stage
5:30 to 7:30 p.m.: Clave Trébol, contemporary Mexican music – Main Stage
7 p.m.: Dirt track auto racing and boat races – Main Grandstands
7 to 7:45 p.m.: Mark Weston Band, pop, rock and country – Gazebo Stage
8 to 10 p.m.: Banda Sangre Azteca, big band and dance – Main Stage
8 to 10 p.m.: Terry and Rohnda Turnil, pastels and acrylics – Fritch Hall
9 to 9:45 p.m.: Mark Weston Band, pop, rock and country – Gazebo Stage
11 p.m.: Fair closes – see you in 2018!

KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – On Saturday, Sept. 9, “Bluegrass at the Ely,” will be presented at the Ely Stage Stop and Country Museum from noon to 5 p.m.

The fun event is being produced by the Lake County Historical Society and the Anderson Marsh Interpretive Association.

The concert will benefit the two groups, which are charitable nonprofits that work on preserving and protecting both the Ely Stage Stop and Country Museum and Anderson Marsh State Historic Park.

The groups have joined together this year to present the Bluegrass event on the Ely Stage Stop grounds on Highway 281 (between the Clear Lake Riviera and Highway 29).

Tickets are $20 at the gate, and $15 advance sale at Catfish Coffee House in Clearlake and Watershed Books in Lakeport. Tickets are also available online at www.andersonmarsh.org to be picked up “on call,” at the event.

There will be craft and food booths, a lemonade stand and beer and wine available for sale.

The Bluegrass event will begin with local artists and veterans of the bluegrass scene, Pat Ickes and Bound to Ride, delivering traditional bluegrass songs.

Barwick and Siegfried, who have performed at the Strawberry Music Festival in California and pubs and concert halls throughout Ireland and Northern Ireland will be performing folk and bluegrass songs on mandolin and guitar.

Kathy Barwick is a native of Sacramento and has been widely hailed over the past 30 years as one of California’s most versatile acoustic musicians, known for her work in bluegrass, Americana and traditional Irish music.

Pete Siegfried, a Pennsylvania native has lived in Grass Valley since the 1970s and founded the bluegrass band Mountain Laurel in 1988 and sang lead vocals and played mandolin in the popular quintet until it disbanded in 2011.

The Thin Air String Band is a gifted group of Mendocino College teachers who perform a blend of folk and acoustic songs that are a pleasing mix of bluegrass, old-time, classic country, and Americana with an emphasis on quality vocal and acoustic music.

Local artists, The Cobb Stomper Mountain String Band is a throwback, quintessential example of the all acoustic performers that the folks from southern Appalachians have been whooping it up to for generations. They remain fresh sounding, and true to the infectiously danceable fiddle and banjo music that they started with.

Uncorked is a band of talented musicians who have been performing Irish and bluegrass for many years in Lake County and the Konocti Fiddle Club consists of very gifted young fiddlers led by Andi Skelton.

Join your Lake County friends and neighbors for a fabulous and fun day at the Ely Stage Stop and Country Museum. Please, no pets allowed and bring your own lawn chair for more comfortable viewing.

For tickets and information go to www.andersonmarsh.org.

"I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream." – Vincent van Gogh

KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – Here in Lake County lies a rich and varied past with many layers of history.

In the not-too-distant past the Taylor Observatory, at 5725 Oak Hills Lane in Kelseyville, came into being.

With the abundance of clear, clean air that is normally found in our county, the decision to locate Taylor Observatory here more than 32 years ago was a no-brainer.

The observatory was the brain-child of a former Lake County educator and assistant superintendent of schools for our county's Office of Education named Robert Taylor.

Taylor moved to Lake County from Kingsburg, Calif., according to the Lake County Office of Education's Web page.

Taylor learned of a means to obtain the funding for the construction of the observatory in the 1970s.

Since there was plenty of room on the property on which Kelseyville Elementary School was housed, the project to build our county's amazing observatory commenced, with a fabulous planetarium added on to the facility in 1985.

When Taylor moved out of Lake County we were fortunate to retain the services of his capable assistant, Evelyn Norton.

During Norton's time at the observatory she taught astronomy and wowed students and the public alike with her telescope lessons and rich planetarium features.

Norton ran the show there at the observatory until she retired in 2004. In that same year the observatory underwent extensive renovations via the hard-working Kelseyville Rotary Club, Ukiah Astronomical Society and also the Amateur Astronomers from our own county.

Taylor Observatory's planetarium took the moniker "Norton Planetarium" when she died in 2005 as a way of honoring all of her years of service to our community and its school children.

As a fourth grade teacher for 24 years, I was lucky enough to enrich the lives of my little charges with trips to the observatory, where they soaked up the universe via the facility's 36-seat classroom, the large planetarium’s amazing shows and the fabulous 16-inch telescope which is housed under an opening dome in the ceiling.

During some of that time I was also fortunate enough to present programs for the public on NASA's various space flights when I was one of NASA and JPL's "Solar System Ambassadors."

Visit the Taylor Observatory, or Taylor Observatory's Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/friendsoftaylorobservatory/.

Kathleen Scavone, M.A., is a retired educator, potter, writer and author of “Anderson Marsh State Historic Park: A Walking History, Prehistory, Flora, and Fauna Tour of a California State Park” and “Native Americans of Lake County.” She also formerly wrote for NASA and JPL as one of their “Solar System Ambassadors.” She was selected “Lake County Teacher of the Year, 1998-99” by the Lake County Office of Education, and chosen as one of 10 state finalists the same year by the California Department of Education.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – There are many new dogs waiting for new homes at Lake County Animal Care and Control this week.

This week’s available dogs include mixes of border collie, Chihuahua, German Shepherd, husky, Labrador Retriever, shepherd, pit bull and terrier.

Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.

If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets hoping you'll choose them.

The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).

Male terrier mix

This young male terrier mix has a short brown and white coat.

He’s in kennel No. 3, ID No. 8369.

Female Chihuahua

This female Chihuahua has a short red coat.

She’s in kennel No. 4, ID No. 8400.

Female Chihuahua

This female Chihuahua has a short tan coat.

She’s in kennel No. 6, ID No. 8399.

Male Chihuahua

This male Chihuahua has a short black and tan coat.

Shelter staff said he gets along with other dogs.

He’s in kennel No. 7, ID No. 8388.

Pit bull mix puppy

This female pit bull mix puppy has a short brown and white coat.

She’s in kennel No. 8a, ID No. 8393.

Pit bull mix puppy

This female pit bull mix puppy has a short brown and white coat.

She’s in kennel No. 8b, ID No. 8394.

Male shepherd mix

This male shepherd mix has a short tan and white coat.

Shelter staff said he gets along with other dogs.

He’s in kennel No. 9, ID No. 8382.

Male German Shepherd

This male German Shepherd has a medium-length black and brown coat.

Shelter staff said he goes along with other dogs.

He’s in kennel No. 10, ID No. 8298.

Male Chihuahua

This male Chihuahua mix has a short tan coat.

He’s in kennel No. 8355, ID No. 11.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft is about two weeks away from its mission-ending dive into the atmosphere of Saturn.

Its fateful plunge on Sept. 15 is a foregone conclusion – an April 22 gravitational kick from Saturn's moon Titan placed the two-and-a-half ton vehicle on its path for impending destruction.

Yet several mission milestones have to occur over the coming two-plus weeks to prepare the vehicle for one last burst of trailblazing science.

"The Cassini mission has been packed full of scientific firsts, and our unique planetary revelations will continue to the very end of the mission as Cassini becomes Saturn’s first planetary probe, sampling Saturn's atmosphere up until the last second," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. "We'll be sending data in near real time as we rush headlong into the atmosphere -- it's truly a first-of-its-kind event at Saturn."

The spacecraft is expected to lose radio contact with Earth within about one to two minutes after beginning its descent into Saturn's upper atmosphere.

But on the way down, before contact is lost, eight of Cassini's 12 science instruments will be operating. In particular, the spacecraft‘s ion and neutral mass spectrometer, or INMS, which will be directly sampling the atmosphere's composition, potentially returning insights into the giant planet's formation and evolution.

On the day before the plunge, other Cassini instruments will make detailed, high-resolution observations of Saturn's auroras, temperature, and the vortices at the planet's poles.

Cassini's imaging camera will be off during this final descent, having taken a last look at the Saturn system on Sept. 14.

In its final week, Cassini will pass several milestones en route to its science-rich Saturn plunge. (Times below are predicted and may change slightly; see https://go.nasa.gov/2wbaCBT for updated times.)

– Sept. 9: Cassini will make the last of 22 passes between Saturn itself and its rings -- closest approach is 1,044 miles (1,680 kilometers) above the clouds tops.

– Sept. 11: Cassini will make a distant flyby of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Even though the spacecraft will be at 73,974 miles (119,049 kilometers) away, the gravitational influence of the moon will slow down the spacecraft slightly as it speeds past. A few days later, instead of passing through the outermost fringes of Saturn's atmosphere, Cassini will dive in too deep to survive the friction and heating.

– Sept. 14: Cassini's imaging cameras take their last look around the Saturn system, sending back pictures of moons Titan and Enceladus, the hexagon-shaped jet stream around the planet's north pole, and features in the rings.

– Sept. 14 (5:45 p.m. EDT / 2:45 p.m. PDT): Cassini turns its antenna to point at Earth, begins a communications link that will continue until end of mission, and sends back its final images and other data collected along the way.

– Sept. 15 (4:37 a.m. EDT / 1:37 a.m. PDT): The "final plunge" begins. The spacecraft starts a five-minute roll to position INMS for optimal sampling of the atmosphere, transmitting data in near real time from now to end of mission.

– Sept. 15 (7:53 a.m. EDT / 4:53 a.m. PDT): Cassini enters Saturn's atmosphere. Its thrusters fire at 10 percent of their capacity to maintain directional stability, enabling the spacecraft's high-gain antenna to remain pointed at Earth and allowing continued transmission of data.

– Sept. 15 (7:54 a.m. EDT / 4:54 a.m. PDT): Cassini's thrusters are at 100 percent of capacity. Atmospheric forces overwhelm the thrusters' capacity to maintain control of the spacecraft's orientation, and the high-gain antenna loses its lock on Earth. At this moment, expected to occur about 940 miles (1,510 kilometers) above Saturn's cloud tops, communication from the spacecraft will cease, and Cassini's mission of exploration will have concluded. The spacecraft will break up like a meteor moments later.

As Cassini completes its 13-year tour of Saturn, its grand finale – which began in April – and final plunge are just the last beat.

Following a four-year primary mission and a two-year extension, NASA approved an ambitious plan to extend Cassini's service by an additional seven years.

Called the Cassini Solstice Mission, the extension saw Cassini perform dozens more flybys of Saturn's moons as the spacecraft observed seasonal changes in the atmospheres of Saturn and Titan.

From the outset, the planned endgame for the Solstice Mission was to expend all of Cassini's maneuvering propellant exploring, then eventually arriving in the ultra-close Grand Finale orbits, ending with safe disposal of the spacecraft in Saturn's atmosphere.

"The end of Cassini's mission will be a poignant moment, but a fitting and very necessary completion of an astonishing journey," said Earl Maize, Cassini project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "The Grand Finale represents the culmination of a seven-year plan to use the spacecraft’s remaining resources in the most scientifically productive way possible. By safely disposing of the spacecraft in Saturn's atmosphere, we avoid any possibility Cassini could impact one of Saturn's moons somewhere down the road, keeping them pristine for future exploration."

Since its launch in 1997, the findings of the Cassini mission have revolutionized our understanding of Saturn, its complex rings, the amazing assortment of moons and the planet's dynamic magnetic environment.

The most distant planetary orbiter ever launched, Cassini started making astonishing discoveries immediately upon arrival and continues today. Icy jets shoot from the tiny moon Enceladus, providing samples of an underground ocean with evidence of hydrothermal activity.

Titan's hydrocarbon lakes and seas are dominated by liquid ethane and methane, and complex prebiotic chemicals form in the atmosphere and rain to the surface.

Three-dimensional structures tower above Saturn's rings, and a giant Saturn storm circled the entire planet for most of a year.

Cassini's findings at Saturn have also buttressed scientists' understanding of processes involved in the formation of planets.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.

More information about Cassini visit https://www.nasa.gov/cassini and https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov.