So much to celebrate in the Eastern Sierra each fall!  Lets kick it off with the Downtown Bishop Fall Fling, California Indian Days, and Banned Books Week, starting this Friday, September 22!

The Bishop Chamber of Commerce has organized the first Fall Fling on Friday, appropriately the first day of Fall!  From 7-9 there will be open stores and entertainment up and down Main Street for a fun evening, plus a chance to win a raffle drawing.  At Range & River, we are going to kick off our Banned Books Week celebration too, so be sure to stop by to check out our Banned Books display and to enter the door prize drawing!  We will be sampling an new ice cream flavor, Wild Mountain Blackberry, which you will not want to miss either!

Courtney has been working her creative magic on our Banned Books Week displays, so we will have a special door prize to highlight this great nationwide event.  And what better time than California Indian Days to pick up a good book on Native American culture or history to learn more on the topic.  Stop by Paiute Palace where the Pabanamanina Powwow will be going on all weekend.

It is time again to congratulate several members of our extended store “family” who have completed an academic milestone!  Of course we are excited to see where they go, and what they do next, but we can confidently say their future will include plenty of good books.

Kara has actually already finished her high school curriculum and is attending Cerro Coso classes, but graduation ceremonies this week at Palisade High School will make it official.  She shelves for us, and is also a talented artist and self taught computer web page designer.  The coming year will be one for making decisions on what comes next, but we are glad she is working on our shelves in the meanwhile!

Celica worked for us more than a year shelving and scooping ice cream until last summer.  She entertained dozens of kids at our various events, and entertains all ages in church and in the

community with her beautiful voice and musical talents.  Be sure to listen for her at the BUHS graduation!  I am sure her future studies will include music too.

Our bookseller Susan’s daughter, Ivy, will also be donning the cap and gown on Friday night, in preparation for her next academic chapter at Chico State.  Nothing like the baby of the family graduating to stir up the emotions, but we know Ivy has much to look forward to, and mom has visiting her at her own alma mater to look forward to as well!

We also want to extend congratulations to our shelver Ella who just completed 8th grade at Round Valley and moves on to the fun times at Bishop Union next year.

And we can’t forget our super energetic  ice cream scooper and shelver

of  last summer, Erin Barnes, who just completed nursing school!  Rumor has it she was top of her class too.  Good luck in your career Erin!

Lastly, we congratulate all of the graduates throughout the Eastern Sierra.  We are glad to be here to help with your assigned reading and research, but most especially for your pleasure reading!  If your plans include college, it is a hard time to get recreational reading done, but please don’t lose the habit, it will enrich your life in so many ways.  Whatever your do in the years to come, we hope you continue to study, research and ponder, and as my dear friend the artist Robert Miller said, create something every day.  All the best to you grads!

We have a unique opportunity next week to discuss a topic near and dear to most of us in the Eastern Sierra – how humans relate with the wild world.  Author John Hausdoerffer is traveling through Bishop on his way to experience some Sierra wildness, and offered to spend the evening reading and leading a discussion with us.  Hausdoerffer coedited a new book, Wildness:  Relations of People and Place, just published by University of Chicago Press earlier this year.

The event will take place Friday, May 12 at 7:00.  Location will be at Range & River Books at 206 N. Main, unless we need a bigger venue, in which case it will move to Inyo Council for the Arts.  Please call to RSVP and/or reserve a copy of the book so that we can best accommodate the interested public.

John Hausdoerffer is the director of the Master in Environmental Management at Western Colorado University in Gunnison, CO, where he serves as a Professor of Environmental Sustainability and Philosophy. He is also a fellow with the Center for Humans and Nature in Chicago.

Co-edited with Gavin Van Horn from the Center for Humans and Nature, Wildness features creative nonfiction essays that explore the spectrum of wildness found in wilderness areas, on working landscapes, and in urban communities. The book merges culturally diverse voices to delve into the evolution of “wildness,” including Gary Snyder, Vandana Shiva, Wes Jackson, The Black Land Project, Curt Meine, Julianne Warren, Robert Michael Pyle, Robin Kimmerer, Aaron Abeyta, Winona LaDuke, and Roderick Frazier Nash.

“Where ‘wilderness’ has become a divisive term in the environmental community,” explains Hausdoerffer, “’wildness’ has great potential to connect disparate branches of environmentalism. I look forward to exploring that potential with the Bishop community.”  Hausdoerffer will also read from his essays that appear in Wildness and may show clips from a documentary, “Wildness.”

The talk is free and open to the public.

Enjoy some pictures of our friends large and small celebrating with the leprechauns and fairies this year!  The leprechauns were particularly mischievous hiding the treasure, in fact it is still turning up, but everyone had fun!

Susan managed the treats table

Thanks Susan for the fruit rainbow creation!

Ella (on the left) moves on to Bishop Union in the fall!

We got the whole family!

Rainbow glasses are way better than rose colored for Emma!

Treats!

These two search high and low.

Treasure found!

Courtney was dressed for success in this rainbow tutu!

Art happening here

Love to see these creations.

Katie flying to her post as Shamrock Shake Supervisor – which got a little wild…

Kara’s artistic talent on display setting up the DIY fairy station.

One of my favorite little fairies

And more favorite sleepy but celebratory fairies.

Kara helping little ones with the Rainbow Roll game.

The Smith children showing their creations.

Treasure hunt action.

Spring means butterfly balls.

The magical fairy wishing well

Lucky shamrocks in the fairy garden.

Another year for the fairy gourd house.

The fairies’ seaside cottage

Tutus!

Watercolor salt art and a cute fairy!

Good buddies!

She’s going for the Shamrock Shake record – and did it!

Lots to do this year – cool lettering by Katie!

Shaking out the crazy ping pong balls.

This game got everyone wiggling and hopping!

An exceptionally colorful fairy!

An extra big lucky shamrock!

Again this year we will celebrate the leprechauns and all the wee folk of the world ON St. Patrick’s Day!  Join us Friday, March 17, from 5:30 to 8:00 for stories, crafts, games, treats and Treasure for kids of all ages.  It is an Open House, so come as you can, all activities are on going.

This is a free event.  We do have a lucky fairy well to toss coins in, which also helps support community literacy events.