Sep 28, 2025
Gwenna and Dan Howard didn’t plan to move. They lived in a lovely, updated home Gwenna bought more than four decades ago. Dan moved in when they married more than 20 years ago.
The couple made many improvements over the years, even during the pandemic. “Dan owned a family steel company, and he kept his crews busy with the work on our home during the lockdowns,” Gwenna says.
But Gwenna liked to check Zillow for trends. When she saw the listing for a stylish Carmichael home on a bluff overlooking the American River, she was smitten. They went to the open house and realized the place was a hot property.
Sep 28, 2025
Kimberly Cargile is sold on cannabis. As CEO of an East Sacramento dispensary called A Therapeutic Alternative, Cargile spends her days advocating for the long-maligned plant.
“There’s overwhelming positive research (about the benefits of cannabis),” Cargile says. “It’s sad that anybody would let the stigma stop them from advancing science.”
Cargile was a pre-med college student but found herself drawn toward natural medicine. Studies in herbalism, cannabis, yoga, reiki hands-on healing and pharmacology followed.
Sep 28, 2025
Admit it, until leaves transform into dazzling colors and blanket streets and lawns, they are merely a supporting cast to our magnificent trees.
Occasionally we remember to appreciate the shade provided in summer and the glorious compost that leaves spawn. Houseplant enthusiasts value leaves for helping clean the air by absorbing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen. Every garden is enhanced and benefits from leaves.
Often, we are too busy or not interested in granting Sacramento’s urban leaf canopy the respect it deserves. In truth, leaves are as Sacramento as farm to fork and tomatoes.
Sep 28, 2025
North American river otters forage, hunt and play along the lower American River. Coyotes trot along the biking and hiking paths. Western pond turtles sunbathe on logs.
Mule deer seek camouflage in meadows of sedge grass and willow trees. Wood ducks nest and hide in wooden groves.
Fox, jackrabbits, muskrats, opossums, raccoons, beavers and skunks find refuge. Hawks, eagles, egrets, herons, owls and cormorants are among the more than 200 bird species.
The parkway’s “river-rich basin, coupled with marshes teeming with life, provides vital habitat for hundreds of birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles and fish,” reports the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Sep 28, 2025
Show me a city that doesn’t demolish old buildings, and I’ll show you a graveyard. Progress cries out for rubble and rebirth.
This summer, the old Sacramento Bee headquarters at 21st and Q streets joined the roster of demolished landmarks. Wreckage never rests in a city hungry for growth.
Despite protests and lawsuits, the decrepit annex to the State Capitol was torn down in 2023. East Sac elders still dream about the Alhambra Theatre and its Moorish pillars and fountains, pulverized in 1973, replaced by a supermarket.
Sep 28, 2025
I don’t have much use for social media. Deleted my accounts years ago. But I’d like to see what TikTok can do with an Environmental Impact Report.
Despite their reputation as weapons exploited by self-interested neighbors and extortionist labor unions—all true—environmental reports dispense useful information. I’ve read dozens. Learned something every time.
Trouble is they are tough to read—ponderous, repetitive, silted. No narrative energy. No character development. Just facts presented in proscribed formats. Boxes checked, dry as cotton.
Which is why I waited three months to tackle the city’s new environmental report on the Sacramento River Parkway Project, otherwise known as the levee bike path.
