Learning the process of hands-on sheep shearing may not be wild, but it is unquestionably wooly.

Shearing sheep is a physical process, but leverage and technique are more important than strength. Students of all ages can learn—one member of the current class is just 13, and women can shear as well as men, says UC Extension Livestock Advisor John Harper. But it does take the full five days of intensive work to begin to master the task.

Done properly, Harper adds, the shearing process is not a hardship for the sheep, and can be completed quite quickly.

While selling the wool can be a welcome source of income for the sheep rancher, at least when the markets are stronger than they have been the past couple of years, regular shearing is also important for the health of the animals, adds shearing instructor Mike McWilliams.

Sebastopol’s Enmanji Temple, a cornerstone of the area’s Japanese culture, is the subject of a short documentary film that reveals a key episode in the preservation of the historic structure.

There is a strong element of autobiography in many of Lina Hoshino’s films, and Leap of Faith grew out of her curiosity about her new surroundings after she moved North from San Francisco to the small town of Penngrove, north of Petaluma.

As she leanred more about the multi-cultural history of her new home, Lina discovered a trove of recordings made by the local Japanese-American Citizens League, which led her to the subject for her film.

Leap of Faith will have its  World premiere on KRCB Public Television on Monday, May 3 at 9, pm with a repeat broadcast Tuesday, May 18 at 11:30pm.

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.

While California’s policy is to eradicate the Light Brown Apple Moth, a local researcher reports that New Zealand has adopted other tactics to control the bugs, which have been present in that country for more than a century.

One problem with California’s attempt to eradicate the Light Brown Apple Moth is that the state got a late start in that effort. U.C. Cooperative Extension biologist Lucia Varela says the number and dispersal of the moths suggests they were here for some time before they were discovered.

Right now, California’s official policy toward the apple moths is “zero tolerance,” so that any areas where they are found are place under quarantine. But Varlea and many other experts doubt that the bugs can successfully be eradicated. Instead, she says, a more realistic policy would be to control the apple moth populations, so they cause minimal damage to apples and other crops.

Lucia Varela also reported recently  on the arrival of the European Grapevine Moth in the North Bay. You can hear the North Bay Report coverage of that development here.