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When Mike Huffman got the head coaching job at Lower Lake last summer, and began assembling a staff of a dozen or so assistants, there was one resource that proved particularly useful – and it wasn’t Craigslist, Monster.com or the classified ads of any newspaper.
Instead, he just reached for his high school yearbook.
Huffman, class of 1997, picked former teammates Justin Gaddy and Ed Fuchs as varsity assistants, Gaddy as his offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach and Fuchs as his linebacker and receivers coach.
Then he filled out the staff with more Trojan bluebloods, former Lower Lake students and athletes who shared his love for the school and his passion for the football program.
“The entire coaching staff, both varsity and JVs, is Lower Lake alumni” except one coach, Gaddy writes in an email.
As Trojan assistants over the years, Fuchs, Gaddy and Huffman have coached players who are now coaching with them.
For example, Fuchs coached current varsity assistant Scott Benefield when he played at Lower Lake; and Huffman and Gaddy coached current JV assistant Jeremiah Gamble when he played for the Trojans.
Gaddy and Huffman go all the way back to sixth grade, when they started playing youth football together.
“As little kids, Mike and I would go to the high school and watch Gordon Saddler coach his teams,” Gaddy writes. “Ed Fuchs played high school ball with us and we won multiple championships together.
“Our junior year (1995) was Saddler’s last year as head coach at Lower Lake. We then won a league championship the following year (1996) under Coach Bill Cox,” Gaddy said.
Gaddy recalled how the Trojans won the game that clinched the championship.
“The last three plays … included a huge (defensive) play by Huffman on second down, a deflection on the goal line by Fuchs on third down, and a deflection in the corner of the end zone by me on fourth down.
“To keep it short, we have a lot of wonderful history with this school and community. We all look forward to our future (on the coaching staff).”
Gaddy said the only non-Lower Lake alum on the 2012 staff is varsity assistant Troy Dahneke.
“But we love him as a Lower Lake brother anyway,” Gaddy said.
Rich Mellott can be reached at
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Four adoptable cats are waiting for homes at Lake County Animal Care and Control this week.
There are three kittens and a cat ready to join your home.
Cats that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed and microchipped 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 there, hoping you'll choose them.
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”).
Female gray and white tabby
This female tabby is 2 years old.
She has a short gray and white coat, gold eyes and has not yet been spayed.
Find her in cat room kennel No. 46, ID No. 33740.
Black and white domestic long hair
This female domestic long hair mix kitten is 14 weeks old.
The kitten has a black and white coat and gold eyes. It has not been altered.
Find her in cat room kennel 95a, ID No. 33736.
Domestic long hair mix kitten
This female black and white domestic long hair mix kitten is 14 weeks old.
She has gold eyes and has not yet been altered.
She’s in cat room kennel 95b, ID No. 33737.
Male domestic long hair mix kitten
This male domestic long hair mix kitten is 14 weeks old.
He ha gold eyes and has not yet been altered.
He’s in cat room kennel 95c, ID No. 33738.
Adoptable cats also can be seen at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control/Adopt/Cats_and_Kittens.htm or at www.petfinder.com .
Please note: Cats listed at the shelter's Web page that are said to be “on hold” are not yet cleared for adoption.
To fill out an adoption application online visit http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control/Adopt/Dog___Cat_Adoption_Application.htm .
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, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Visit the shelter online at http://www.co.lake.ca.us/Government/Directory/Animal_Care_And_Control.htm .
For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has fired its laser for the first time on Mars.
On Sunday the mission’s ChemCam instrument hit a fist-sized rock named “Coronation” with 30 pulses of its laser during a 10-second period. Each pulse delivers more than a million watts of power for about five one-billionths of a second.
The energy from the laser creates a puff of ionized, glowing plasma.
ChemCam catches the light with a telescope and analyzes it with three spectrometers for information about what elements are in the rock.
The spectrometers record 6,144 different wavelengths of ultraviolet, visible and infrared light.
“We got a great spectrum of Coronation – lots of signal,” said ChemCam Principal Investigator Roger Wiens of Los Alamos National Laboratory, N.M. “Our team is both thrilled and working hard, looking at the results. After eight years building the instrument, it’s payoff time!”
ChemCam recorded spectra from each of the 30 pulses. The goal of this initial use of the laser on Mars was to serve as target practice for characterizing the instrument, but the activity may provide additional value.
Researchers will check whether the composition changed as the pulses progressed. If it did change, that could indicate dust or other surface material being penetrated to reveal different composition beneath the surface.
“It’s surprising that the data are even better than we ever had during tests on Earth, in signal-to-noise ratio,” said ChemCam Deputy Project Scientist Sylvestre Maurice of the Institut de Recherche en Astrophysique et Planetologie (IRAP) in Toulouse, France. “It’s so rich, we can expect great science from investigating what might be thousands of targets with ChemCam in the next two years.”
The technique used by ChemCam, called laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy, has been used to determine composition of targets in other extreme environments, such as inside nuclear reactors and on the sea floor, and has had experimental applications in environmental monitoring and cancer detection.
Sunday’s investigation of Coronation is the first use of the technique in interplanetary exploration.
More information about ChemCam is available at www.msl-chemcam.com .
Dr. Tony Phillips works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
NORTH COAST, Calif. – A complex of fires burning in northern Mendocino County rapidly increased in size on Sunday.
The Pass Complex Fire grew to 5,015 acres by Sunday evening, five times the size it was reported to be earlier in the day, according to a report from Cal Fire spokesperson Julie Cooley.
Approximately 540 firefighting personnel were working the fire on Sunday evening, with Cooley reporting 10 percent containment.
The complex was first reported shortly before 3 a.m. Saturday 10 miles northeast of Covelo in Williams Valley.
The two-fire complex includes the Pass 1, which has burned into the Mendocino National Forest, and the Pass 2, which Cooley said jumped the fire line and is burning toward Pass 1.
The fires are moving east and southeast in heavy timber, Cooley reported.
Since the morning report, one outbuilding had been destroyed, according to Cooley. No evacuations were in place.
Resources on scene Sunday evening included 41 fire engines, 20 fire crews, nine bulldozers, two airtankers, two helicopters and six water tenders, Cooley reported.
Cal Fire and the US Forest Service have a unified command on the incident.
Satellite images of Northern California show the Pass Complex is sending smoke south into Lake County, where residents complained of smoky conditions throughout the day.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – A fire in neighboring Mendocino County doubled in size, sending smoke into the Lake County air basin, while wildland fires continued to burn across the northern part of the state.
Cal Fire said the Pass Complex, first reported on Saturday afternoon, had grown to 1,000 acres in size by Sunday, with only 5 percent containment.
The fire is located on Mendocino Pass Road northeast of Covelo, according to Cal Fire.
Cal Fire said the Pass Fire was caused by lightning. Several Lake County residents had reported on Lake County News’ Facebook page and by email that they had seen lightning strikes to the north late Friday.
The fire has resulted in three minor injuries, according to Cal Fire.
No structures were reported threatened, but Cal Fire said the fire was projected to move in a northeast direction toward the Mendocino National Forest and Middle Eel Wilderness.
On Sunday there were 173 personnel on scene, with 35 engines – 34 of them from Cal Fire – as well as 11 fire crews, three airtankers, three helicopters, eight bulldozers and six water tenders. Most of the resources came from Cal Fire.
Cooperating agencies are Cal Fire, the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Covelo Fire, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the California National Guard.
Other major incidents around Northern California on Sunday included the Ponderosa Fire southeast of Manton in Tehama and Shasta counties.
The fire, which began Saturday morning, had ballooned to 12,000 acres by Sunday afternoon, with no containment yet reached, according to Cal Fire. The cause is under investigation.
Approximately 974 fire personnel, 105 engines, 22 fire crews, 3 helicopters 31 bulldozers and 20 air tankers were assigned in an effort to protect the area’s residents and the 3,000 home, 20 commercial properties and 300 outbuildings that were threatened, Cal Fire said.
Cal Fire said four structures had been destroyed by Sunday afternoon.
Evacuations were put in place for the area, and all roads out of Manton were closed. Cal Fire reported that the Manton School was closed and an evacuation center opened in Redding.
Cal Fire said the Ponderosa Fire was burning one mile from Highway 44, and was moving toward the communities of Shingletown and Viola. Highway 299 should be used as an alternate route in the area.
A fire information number was set up at 530-225-2510.
Elsewhere in Northern California on Sunday afternoon, the SHU Lightning Fire had burned 350 acres in the Whitmore area of Shasta County, with 20 percent containment; the Mill Fire, located northwest of Butte Meadows in Butte County, had burned 1,610 acres and was 35 percent contained; the Reading Fire, located in Lassen National Park, was 51 percent contained at 27,849 acres; the Fort Complex, located 10 miles northeast of Happy Camp, was 200 acres with no containment estimate; the Chips Fire on the Plumas and Lassen National Forests was 38-percent contained at 44,793 acres; and the Rush Fire, located on Bureau of Land Management land in the Northern California District near Ravendale, has scorched 249,578 acres since it began last Sunday, Aug. 12, with 45 percent containment.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
When I was a little girl, a treat of immense proportions was to be taken with my brother to the soda fountain that was tucked into the corner of the local drugstore.
Light meals were served there, but more importantly, an occasional dish of ice cream could be had when my mother felt my brother and I deserved a goody.
In those days, chocolate, vanilla and strawberry ice creams were standard fare at such places, but this particular drug store also had a flavor that seemed outlandish to me: pistachio.
And that’s the one I always chose.
I had no idea what pistachios were (nor could I efficiently pronounce the name), but the peregrine nature of such a frozen concoction intrigued me.
As we have ice cream in nearly every flavor now, I rarely choose pistachio when I indulge, but my fascination with the nut remains.
When my husband and I celebrated our wedding anniversary recently and the waitress placed my pistachio-crusted salmon in front of me, I felt like a kid again, spoon poised above a metal dish of green ice cream between spins on my drug store counter stool.
Pistachios, native to Persia (modern day Iran and part of Iraq) and a sometime denizen of the hanging gardens of Babylon, grow in grape-like clusters on trees. The shells are formed first on female trees, and if there is a male tree nearby for pollination, the empty shells will fill with green pistachio nuts.
One male tree produces enough pollen for eight to twelve female nut-bearing trees.
A fleshy outer skin that’s removed during processing covers the hard shells in which the green nuts form. It changes color as the nut ripens, from green to yellowish-red, adding to pistachios’ grape-like look when on the tree.
Pistachios, technically the seed of a fruit, are considered a culinary nut, rather than a true botanical nut. They’re related to cashews (another culinary nut), and the cashew family also includes mangoes, the spice sumac, and poison ivy.
Other than in Australia where February is the harvest month, pistachios are gathered in September. A particularly hot summer might make them ready the last week of August.
When ripe, the nuts split open with a pop. In some places in the Middle East, one would be considered lucky if sitting under a pistachio tree when they snap open.
In those countries the nuts are sometimes called “smiling pistachios,” possibly because the broad opening makes the nut look like it’s in the midst of a big grin.
Because the shells are open with the nuts exposed during harvest, it’s important that they’re kept from falling on the ground to avoid contamination.
In California’s San Joaquin Valley, where fully 98 percent of pistachios consumed in the U.S. are grown, elaborate machines that prevent the nuts from touching the ground are employed during the harvest.
The specially designed contraptions shake the trees while surrounding the trunk with tilted platforms from which the nuts roll onto a conveyor belt that carries them to a pull-along trailer.
A link is below for any uber curious folks who wish to see the machines in action. It really is pretty amazing.
A more primitive, but effective, method of protecting the inner nut is to line the ground surrounding the trees with tarps to catch hand-harvested nuts.
Pistachios like hot, dry conditions, and New Mexico and Nevada are two other states where pistachios are cultivated. Iran is the largest worldwide producer, with most nuts exported to Europe and Asia.
Thankfully, tasty pistachios are considered a beneficial food.
The health benefits of tree nuts have been demonstrated in a variety of scientific studies, and pistachios specifically contain an impressive array of nutrients per serving.
Full of fiber and protein, pistachios also contain healthy monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, phytosterols for heart health, stores of potassium, vitamin B6, and lutein, which promotes eye wellness.
They have more antioxidants pound-for-pound than antioxidant power houses blueberries, blackberries, garlic, and pomegranate juice.
Because they originated in the Middle East, they’re a typical ingredient in foods there, including in the ground lamb kebabs known as gyros and in desserts like baklava.
Do you remember when pistachios were dyed a ghastly pinkish red? That was mostly to cover shell discoloration on lower grade nuts. Thankfully, it’s not done much anymore; I can’t remember when I last spotted some.
Because of their high oil and low water content, pistachios have been known to self-combust in bulk container shipments.
Such an event would belie their Chinese nickname, the “happy nut.”
Like other nuts, there is a near endless variety of ways pistachios can be used in cuisine. And, of course, they’re wonderful when eaten out of hand.
Some favorite pairings are with apricots or peaches, cheeses such as goat, Parmesan, brie, or ricotta, chicken and dishes that accompany fowl (think stuffing or rice), white or dark chocolate, honey, and lemon.
Because of the strong taste of pistachios, they work well with meats such as lamb and pork, both as a crust or as a component in a sauce, chutney, or accompanying dish.
For a treat on your morning toast, try combining softened butter, pistachios, and a bit of honey in a food processor or blender. A pinch of cinnamon may also be added.
As to today’s recipe, the citrus-pistachio couscous salad below is especially good as a bed for grilled salmon, but is also nice on its own.
And below is the video on the harvest.
Enjoy, and happy Sunday!
Citrus-pistachio couscous salad
Juice of two oranges
1 cup reduced-sodium chicken or vegetable broth
½ teaspoon sea salt
1 cup couscous
1 cucumber, peeled, seeded and diced small
½ cup chopped red bell pepper
½ cup shelled pistachios, chopped
Dressing:
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
4 scallions, chopped
1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint
Freshly ground pepper to taste
Juice of 1 lemon
Cook couscous according to directions on box, using broth in place of water. Once cooked, add orange juice and salt and mix well. Fold in cucumber, red bell pepper and pistachios.
For dressing:
Mix all ingredients for dressing in bowl and whisk. Pour over salad to taste.
This recipe serves four and is courtesy of the American Pistachio Growers Web site, www.americanpistachios.org .
Esther Oertel, a freelance writer, cooking teacher, and speaker, is passionate about local produce and all foods in the vegetable kingdom. She welcomes your questions and comments and may be reached at