Hello, dear community! I’m here at last with your weekly event log. Apologies for the delay; I seem to have picked up some gnarly strain of exotic bug in my recent travels to the American Midwest, and I’ve been laying useless in bed for days. But with the single watt of brainpower that came back online today — hallelujah! — I managed to 1) chase a wood rat from its chosen home in my living-room couch, with help from my trusty dog and my loving country mother, and 2) put together a list of everything cool happening in Healdsburg, this weekend through next. Stuff like…

But before we foray into the future, let’s take a fond look back upon our recent history, with a quick Fourth of July recap. The tight-knit small towns of America know how to celebrate this holiday best, IMO, and ours is no exception. (And I think it’s especially cool, in a place like Healdsburg where classic California liberals and the more conservative ag community exist side by side, that the Fourth has become a day to express both gratitude that we get to live here AND any discontent we may feel about how things are going.) In that full-spectrum spirit, Healdsburg was all lit up last Saturday night for the Fourth — with our roundabout and river bridge illuminated in the colors of the American flag, and an impressive round of fireworks set off from the high school field by local veterans from the American Legion org.

Before all that, during the warm and sunny daylight hours, our central plaza was popping off with Independence Day festivities, per usual. First there was the annual kids parade, which sent 200-plus young children in patriotic costumes on two laps ’round the plaza, according to Healdsburg Tribune editor Christian Kallen. (Judging this parade is always “one of my favorite things to do,” City Councilmember Evelyn Mitchell told the paper.) The party continued with a series of rubber-duckie slide races into the plaza fountain, live country music and a bunch of vendors/volunteers serving classic Fourth fare like hot dogs, corn on the cob and red-white-and-blue snow cones. The city’s rec director told the Trib that at least 3,500 people flooded the plaza that day.

And that’s not all. Earlier the same morning, a couple blocks away at the Healdsburg Farmers Market in the community pavilion, the market hosted a rowdy dessert giveaway called a “cake walk.” According to the Patch: “Healdsburg Vice Mayor Ron Edwards served as emcee, as contestants circled for a chance to win homemade desserts. Cake walks trace their roots to late 19th-century community gatherings and church socials, where contestants walked in a circle while music played before a winning number was drawn.“ And market managers wrote afterward: “How much fun was the Cake Walk? A new annual event has been created!” Meanwhile, along Pordon Lane at the residential northeast side of town, former mayor Brigette Mansell again held her annual neighborhood block party for the Fourth — now a 10-year tradition. Below are some of my favorite pics from the day…

I should also mention that just one small town north of us — in the only part of Sonoma County where you can still buy and set off your own fireworks — Cloverdale held its fifth annual Fourth of July parade and downtown festival last Saturday. The parade included a crowd-pleasing “splash zone” this year, which allowed for squirt-gun fights between parade watchers and float riders. “When the cops flew out of the rig with water guns a blazin’, the squeals were heard in Hopland,” one witness swore on socials. (BTW, the Cloverdale branch of the American Legion also just wrapped up a very cute, very patriotic fire-hydrant-decorating contest in town. Full-blast Americana!)

As for myself — I feel almost guilty, because I was off cheating on Healdsburg with my other favorite American small town of 12,000 this Fourth of July. It’s a rivertown named Madison along the Indiana-Kentucky border — aka, “America’s hometown” — and it hosts a big hydroplane boat race called the Madison Regatta on the Ohio River each Independence Day, along with a boat parade down Main Street. (There’s even a major motion picture about it.) TBH, the vibes were not far off from Healdsburg or Cloverdale… only with way older houses, much hotter/wetter air, a wider riverbed and a few more MAGA hats per capita! Plus some heat lightning to complement the town fireworks, which were sent high over the Ohio by way of river barge. Needless to say, I was in heaven. I was even having some fantasies about starting up The Madison Newsletter one day. Not to worry, though… whenever I’m away, I always leave my heart right here in Healdsburg. 💘

OK now, you know the drill. Make sure to keep telling all your people about The Healdsburg Newsletter, so they too can subscribe. Because a community that gets informed together, stays together. ❤️

Summer may have gotten off to a mild and serene start this year… but all that nonsense came to an end over the past few days, when our first big, sustained heat wave of the season finally kicked in. “Warmer temperatures have arrived for the weekend and will increase further for at least the first half of the upcoming work week,” our local office of the National Weather Service posted earlier today. “Limit your time in the sun and stay hydrated.” The NWS is also warning us about some potential dry lightning ahead. “Monsoonal moisture moving northward brings a risk of thunderstorms with little to no precipitation late this weekend into early next week,” the agency wrote yesterday, adding: “With vegetation continuing to dry, we are monitoring fire weather potential closely.” Weather officials also shared a cool graphic of these marine storms swirling toward California from the Pacific, if you want to visualize what’s happening. And here’s our full government weather forecast for the week ahead…

Before we move on to the calendar, I also wanna go over a few recent fires of note. The first was an intentional “prescribed burn” staged on Wednesday, July 1, by the Healdsburg Fire Department to reduce wildfire risk in the foothills above the “Villa Commons” neighborhood, just east of Sunnyvale Drive and north of March Avenue. “The work was a success and the city is safer now,” city officials say; check out their burn pics here. Then, the very next day, two more (presumably unintentional) fires broke out in Healdsburg. One was a small brush fire along the 101 freeway at our downtown exit, quickly stamped out by local firefighters. But another more destructive fire broke out that same Thursday in someone’s chicken (and turkey) coop out rural Chalk Hill Road, reportedly killing around 10 birds and destroying a shed. The Press Democrat posted video footage here of the dismal aftermath.

Oh also, FYI! Last Tuesday afternoon, the power went out for four or five hours in the PG&E coverage area surrounding Healdsburg — causing many a neighbor meltdown and plenty of helicopter hubbub overhead. I haven’t been able to get any reliable info on what caused the outage, but it doesn’t appear to have been pre-planned by PG&E. Personally, I spent the entire blackout bartending in the dark at the 145-year-old Dry Creek General Store & Bar. A special shoutout goes to Remi Moulder of “The Old Souls Blues Experiment,” who played us acoustic country songs from the corner, seeing as our speaker system was down! By the end of my shift, the beer was lukewarm and the shadows quite spooky… but overall, we had a ball. I’ll be tending bar again this coming Monday and Tuesday from 4-9pm, like I do each week, if you wanna come conspire. 🍻