Today's News

Nysie Watson was born to be an herbalist, it seems.

"All my life I've been aware of an alternate way of healing," she says. "We used to pick mushrooms - shiitake, chantarelles - my mother could name the names of almost all the plants we'd find in the Pacific Northwest."

She got her degree in Ag. Horticulture from the University of Oregon, but that's not what made her an herbalist.

No, it took two devastating back injuries and a bout with lymphoma to make Watson an herbalist. The lessons she learned fighting back injuries and cancer made a lifelong impression on her.

Mr. Dennis Voyles' agriculture wheel class has been busy tending to their gardens located behind the CKS lunchroom. This ag class, while learning about water and land conservation, decided to try a new method called square-foot gardening. Square foot gardening is a new concept. Instead of growing crops in rows, students think in terms of square feet sections within a small plot. Each student is assigned a 4' by 4' plot enclosed by 8-inch walls of plywood. This gives each just 16 square feet of area to work with.

The time has finally come. That great computer that you bought five years ago is starting to show its age. It seems sluggish and slow, won't run some of the newer programs because it doesn't have enough memory (RAM) and you have already added all you can. So you finally bite the bullet and buy a new replacement. You get your new computer home and transfer all of your data files from the old computer to the new one.

So, what do you do with the old computer now?

I remember as a kid we used to say, "Wind from the west, fish bite the best; wind from the east, fish bite the least." I don't remember any sayings about the north or south winds. But, when the wind blows in that pristine clear water from down around Crystal River our inshore fishing gets much better.

Now I will grant that the fish will allow you fewer mistakes in clear water, especially redfish, but the clear water more than makes up for the disadvantages it brings.