With the dawn of the 2010-11 fiscal year in California, the budget-driven closures of many state park facilities have ended, effective today. But how long that will last is an open question.

Western Sonoma County is blessed with a lengthy list of state park properties, especially along the coast. But that also made for a longer list of facilities that were closed, notes Michelle Luna of the Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods.

The Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods, a volunteer-driven support organization for the parks of western Sonoma County, played an active role in the drive to get Proposition 21 on the ballot. Luna says budget decisions in Sacramento between now and November will likely make that issue a clear choice for voters.

Jack London's cottage and ranch buildings have been preserved at the state park that bears his name in Glen Ellen. But there is another part of his historic holding that is languishing in need of repair and restoration

Cracks in the dam, such as the one in the center of this photograph, are continuing to widen as the muti-layered process of getting the pre-requisites and approvals for remediation work drags on. Five years into it, Elisa Stancil, a neighbor and volunteer event coordinator at the park, says progress is slowly being made.

London erected the dam and created the rain-fed lake in 1913, using it for both recreation (as seen here) and for his farm.  Restoring the 98-year old dam is estimated to cost $1.3 million, but Stancil says that, too, has been delayed by the glacial permitting process.

The photos below show the lake's water diverter, seen as it appeared while under construction in 1913, and as it looks today. They're taken from the picture gallery on the website of the Jack London Lake Alliance.

Offshore oil drilling has never been embraced here on California’s north coast, but recent events in the Gulf Coast have bolstered that view elsewhere. Hands Across the Sand, a coordinated series of demonstrations across the country, including one near Bodega Bay, will try to reinforce those changing attitudes on June 26th.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey’s Marine Sanctuary Expansion Bill (HR 223) and its identical Senate counterpart would build on existing protections and expand them to cover the entire Marin and Sonoma coastlines. Tom Roth, the congresswoman’s senior policy aide, offers details.

But Roth also notes that the partisan political climate in Washington has become increasingly hostile toward anything that sets out to restrict American oil development.

Regardless of what happens to Woolsey’s bill, Coastwalk Executive Director Una Glass points out that there is another, statewide, obstacle to coastal oil drilling, one that is already in place, even if it is not widely known.

Luther Burbank’s greenhouse is an icon of Santa Rosa, but the famed horticulturalist actually did most of his ground-breaking work at another site—his 18 acre Goldridge Farm in Sebastopol.

Burbank is justly renowned for his botanical innovations, but not everything he worked with was a success. In fact, explains horticultural historian Bob Hornback, Burbank also is the source of two highly conspicuous “escapees” that are now ubiquitous in our local landscape, including the one shown here.

The Open House at Goldridge Farm this weekend is part of the annual Sebastopol Apple Blossom Festival, which primarily celebrates the area’s Gravenstein orchards. Hornback says that was one variety of apple that Luther Burbank didn’t do much with, although he did create the later-ripening Winterstein variety (seen in photo).

With hundreds of new fruit varieties, vegetables and ornamental plants and flowers to his credit, Burbank’s farm (including the cottage, as seen in this drawing) was the scene of constant multiple experiments, graftings and new hybrids. During so much required maintaining detailed records, says Hornback, which is something Burbank doesn’t get enough credit for doing.

From his home base in Sonoma, Dr. Rodney Jackson reaches halfway around the world to protect the endangered Snow Leopards of the Himalayas.

For almost three decades, Dr. Jackson, a zoologist, has played a leading role in the study of the elusive high mountain snow leopards. He explains how it has progressed over the years.

Snow leopards are notoriously shy, as Jackson details, but they are surprisingly available to be seen at zoos across North America, including in San Francisco, where a new habitat was recently constructed for their active breeding pair.

Dr. Jackson has recently developed the Long Tail wine label, selling high quality Sonoma County varietals as a fund-raising tool for the Snow Leopard Conservancy.