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Music by the Alexis Harte Band, shown here rippin' it up at the Fillmore. Where? Arnold’s old Cedar Center, across the street from the Two Rivers Trading Company When? Sunday, July 17 Cowell Creek cleanup: Meet at 9:00 a.m. in front of the Two Rivers Trading Company. Be sure to bring gloves, closed toed shoes, sunglasses, sunscreen, a hat, and bug juice. Pruning shears, rakes, etc. also welcome. Table Mountain Farmers’ Market: From 10:00 a.m. to mid-afternoon Live Music with the Alexis Harte Band: Begins at 1:00 p.m. Cost: Free! (You don’t have to participate in the cleanup to come on down and enjoy the music!) For more information on the Cowell Creek cleanup, e-mail us at creeks@harbingerproject.com, or drop by either the Two Rivers Trading Company or the Sierra Nevada Adventure Company in Arnold.
Most folks are blissfully unaware that the neighborhood lake they swim in or eat fish from might be just downstream from some unhealthy or unappetizing impacts.
SYMPTOMS OF AN AILING CREEK (From the National Park Service Creek Care Guide) WATER QUALITY AND FLOW • Poor water quality, including problems such as excessive algae, suspended sediments, contamination from animal waste or sewage, or presence of metals or other toxics • High water temperature • Reduced water flow CREEK BED AND BANKS • Loss of natural creek channel • Excessive erosion along creek banks or deeply incised stream bed and high rates of sedimentation impeding stream flow • Still water, an absence of pools, riffles, or clean gravel (which may be covered by sediment) • Litter, yard clippings, trash, and other dumped debris PLANTS AND WILDLIFE • Lack of diversity in flora and fauna • Barren creek banks • Invading non-native plants which compete with native species in the riparian corridor • Diminished or non-existent fish, amphibian and aquatic insect populations
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A Community Celebration of Rivers and Trails Sunday, July 17 2005 Arnold lies between two mighty rivers, the Stanislaus and the Mokelumne, and although they are to a large degree “out of sight and out of mind,” they are an integral part of our community. Not surprisingly, the human influence upon these and other “watercourses” is also significant. All of the
creeks that pass through our community are part of one of these two river Cowell Pond and the lake in Lakemont are on Cowell Creek, which starts its journey in relative anonymity somewhere near the post office in town and runs behind A Street, around Cedar Center and on through the Meadowmont Golf Course before being channeled unceremoniously through a culvert under the Meadowmont Shopping center to finally emerge as the pond behind Chapel-in-the-Pines. Cowell Creek then continues on to meet up with San Antonio Creek (the source of White Pines Lake), which originates a few miles above Arnold before running the gauntlet of SPI clearcuts on its way to White Pines Lake and then tumbling over San Antonio Falls on its journey to the Pacific. The Stanislaus and Mokelumne River watersheds are comprised of all the small creeks that eventually run into them—all the seeps, bogs and springs that don’t even have names are the sources, or “headwaters”, for these two great rivers. Along the ridge that straddles Blue Lake Springs and Meadowmont, there are houses where water can literally flow off of one side of the roof into the Stanislaus River watershed and off the other side into the Mokelumne River watershed, ending up hundreds of miles apart! Most folks are blissfully unaware that the neighborhood lake they swim in or eat fish from might be just downstream from some unhealthy or unappetizing impacts. In fact, some of our most popular recreational lakes have experienced health quarantines due to severe watershed impacts—either direct human impacts like dumping of used motor oil, landscaping chemicals or other sources, or possibly indirect impacts like excessive septic tank drainage that seeps into the waters. The population of Calaveras County is expected to double over the next two decades, and it’s imperative that we give serious consideration to maintaining the health of our watersheds. Our rivers and streams, from the spectacular granite channeled Stanislaus all the way down to the seasonal creek that runs across your property in the spring, are quite literally the life blood of our communities—plant, animal, and human. So with this in mind, let’s get our hands dirty! Join us for Cowellapalooza: a community celebration of rivers and trails, to be held in Arnold’s old Cedar Center on Sunday, July 17. The day will begin at 9:00 a.m. with a badly needed cleanup and native plant restoration on the segment of Cowell Creek that runs behind Cedar Center. If you’d like to join us for the cleanup, contact us at creeks@habingerproject.com, or drop into either the Two Rivers Trading Company or the Sierra Nevada Adventure Company. They’ll supply you with details and a list of what to bring. After the cleanup comes the celebration. It will be our great pleasure to welcome the Alexis Harte Band to the Cedar Center stage for a memorable afternoon of music in the summer sun. Many of you will remember the band from their performance at the Brushwood peace event at the Bart a couple years back. Alexis and his band have been garnering consistent airplay and wowing audiences across the west, and his most recent CD, Sunlight Loping, has attracted rave reviews. (See below for more.) So grab a low-backed lawn chair or blanket, and bring a picnic if you so desire. If you must wear shoes, make sure they’re dancin’ shoes! And remember, Sunday means Farmers’ Market in Cedar Center, so plan to leave with a couple armfuls of fresh garden grown organic veggies. The Alexis Harte Band Alexis Harte’s signature aesthetic is poetic, concise songwriting galvanized into a high-energy acoustic live show. According to his website, the story of his musical development is “rife with watershed moments”, and this alone makes him the perfect choice for the first annual Cowellapalooza! As if that wasn’t enough, Harte also has impressive credentials as an ecologist, having earned a master's in ecology and environmental science. He spent three years as an ecologist in the Brazilian rainforest, where both his songwriting and remarkable guitar playing were deeply influenced by Brazilian street music. The resulting sound is worldly folk rock, often infused with Latin rhythms. Harte was recently featured as an “Emerging artist you need to hear” at the Hear Music Store, and they described the band’s most recent album like this: “Alexis Harte's burnished, burly voice is an inspiration on Sunlight Loping. His temperate rock motifs lure us in, but the Berkeley native has much more in store, as metaphor and clever word play give listeners lyrics worth turning over in the mind. Check out Sweet Tooth with its melodic nod to Mississippi John Hurt's Candy Man. There are intriguing layers to every song here, and Harte's finger-picking dexterity clears a splendid path through this sonic forest.” Acoustic Guitar Magazine featured Sunlight Loping as an Editor’s Choice: “Harte’s knack for catchy melodies, fresh lyrics, and deftly textured arrangements, as well as crisp acoustic fingerpicking and taut soloing, confirm the original folk-rock sensibility he's forged since trading his Marshall amp head for an early ’60s sunburst Gibson acoustic guitar. A former ecologist in Brazil, Harte tempers his folkie romanticism with worldly rhythms and prismatic poetry for a bracing effect overall." The band has toured extensively in the west over the past couple of years, with stops at legendary Bay Area venues like Slim’s and the Fillmore. Don’t miss this opportunity to spend an afternoon with them in the Sierra summer sun. Contents of this site copyright ©2002 Highlands Publishing |
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