Listen: Source Weekly Update 4/22 🎧
The Environmental Center’s annual Earth Day Fair & Parade is getting a COVID-19 remake, including a virtual parade and interactive storytime for younger participants. Find out more details in this week’s podcast. Source Weekly – Bend, Oregon · Source Weekly Update 4/22
A Rehabilitative Dude Ranch
In 1968, Deschutes County was seeking a different solution for troubled youth who had committed a crime, besides jail. Rather than strictly punitive measures the county opted to fund J Bar J Ranch, which sought to not only house the teenagers but to teach them skills to succeed as an adult. The ranch takes its…
The First Garden Shoots
Gardening is a conversation with the earth. The gardener does something, and the earth responds via the outcome. If you plant a tomato seedling upside down, for example, the earth will happily swallow it, thereby ending the discussion. A new dialog starts every time the gardener sows a seed or does anything to disrupt the status…
Brunch in a Box
Whether you’re already a meal-kit type of household, or you’re looking to try it out and see if it’s for you, the fundraiser underway at the High Desert Food and Farm Alliance could be just the ticket. HDFFA is currently accepting pre-orders for its Brunch Box Fundraiser, a fundraiser for the organization’s Food Access Program.…
All Hail the Queens
During spring, have you ever found yourself bobbing and weaving to avoid being bonked in the head by half-inch-long fuzzy missiles? Those big buzzers are bumblebees—bumblebee queens, to be exact. Every male bumblebee in North America died by the start of last winter, so the future of bumblebee species depends, as always, on the queen…
Five Buttes, One Day, All Four Seasons
Cascade Relays kicked off a new event in late March, encouraging locals and visitors alike to take on five of the biggest buttes in Central Oregon. Runners, walkers and hikers are answering the call to get some miles and elevation under their belts. Two of those hikers, David Carne and Kenny Conklin, took on the…
deWitt’s Creek
It’s always fun in cinema and television to watch obscenely rich and out-of-touch people lose all of their money and then have to live like us normals. It’s a huge reason why shows like “Arrested Development” and “Schitt’s Creek” were so popular from the jump. But the reasons why shows like that had staying power…
The New Robotic Cannabis Trimming Machine Overlords
Prior to the pandemic, I was able to make a trip to Las Vegas for the annual Marijuana Business Conference. Insofar as the event is the largest of its kind in the world—with more than 27,000 attendees from more than 60 countries—I wasn’t able to capture the full scope of my experience in a column’s…
Barefoot Melodies
Every music scene has one: the fan who stands at the front, dancing like no one else is watching. In the case of Melodi Johnson, the dancing rose to a fever pitch the second she hit the floor—a shimmering, snake-like twirl that would emerge from her body, whether the tunes were of the mellow folk…
Record-Setting Median Pricing
The real estate market has been a topic of conversation for the better part of a year, and it doesn’t look as though that is going to change any time in the near future. Housing prices have continued to soar across the nation and Central Oregon is no exception. Inventory remains low, along with average…
Buddy Heat & Last Manchild Standing
Buddy Heat I’m dating an awesome woman I see a future with. However, there’s a hurdle: She doesn’t want to have sex until we’re committed, but I don’t feel right about committing without knowing we have sexual chemistry. A previous relationship ended because the sex was subpar, and I don’t want to go through that…
Free Will Astrology—Week of April 15
ARIES (March 21-April 19): “Today I feel the whole world is a door,” wrote poet Dennis Silk. In a similar spirit, 13th-century Zen master Wumen Huikai observed, “The whole world is a door of liberation, but people are unwilling to enter it.” Now I’m here to tell you, Aries, that there will be times in…
The Leaflet — Spring 2021
Conjure the tune and sing it with me: “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” The staff here at the Source Weekly loves putting out this fine issue-within-an-issue you hold in your hands. We might even wager that it’s our favorite time of the year. From getting the deets on Oregon’s astronomical growth in…
The Green American Dream
If it hasn’t been the giant green elephant in the room over the last several decades, let’s let our second attempt at the roaring ’20s be the catalyst to bury the hatchet and finally digest the fact that cannabis is shaping the world around us. Take a journey from Bend to Redmond in the late…
#VapeLife
Whether it’s to offer some stealth in your partaking or to avoid the more-harmful effects of actual smoking, cannabis vaporizers are among the many rad benefits to seeing marijuana go legal in recent years. Relatives coming to town? You can puff these babies in your bedroom and no one will be the wiser. Attending that…
Redmond Prepares for Future of Weed
Marijuana dispensaries are still illegal in the City of Redmond, but that could change. The federal government is making moves toward decriminalizing marijuana, and Redmond is drafting policies in preparation. Although recreational marijuana became legal in Oregon in 2015, a Redmond ordinance passed in 1989 prohibits businesses from getting business licenses in the city if…
Summer Delight
Summertime in Central Oregon is meant to be spent outside. One day might have you hiking along the river, the next out for a bike ride, and another paddle boarding on a lake. You just never know what you’ll get yourself into—so if you like to partake, you need to make sure your high is…
Bill Would Provide Funds for Mobile Mental Health Crisis Assessment Teams
It’s a Tuesday evening and Nicole Von Laven, a behavioral health specialist with Deschutes County’s Mobile Crisis Assessment Team, answers a phone call from Bend Police Sgt. Elizabeth Lawrence that the veteran officer placed to the county’s mental health crisis hotline. Lawrence tells Von Laven she’s at the home of a family whose adult son…
Letters to the Editor 4/15/21
Editor’s note From the latest edition of our Leaflet cannabis guide to a look at one way that the Oregon Legislative Assembly is trying to tackle police reform and mental health services, there’s lots to read and enjoy in this week’s edition. And even as political leaders make an effort to stop the needless stops,…
Noticias en Español
Proyecto de ley proporcionaría fondos para equipos móviles para la evaluación de crisis de salud mental Por Daniel Pearson Traducido por Jéssica Sánchez-Millar El proyecto de ley 2417 de la Cámara de Representantes, presentado en la asamblea legislativa de Oregon 2021 por varios copatrocinadores, incluido el líder mayoritario del senado Rob Wagner (D-Lake Oswego), destinaría…
Parking Hits a Crux
Finding a parking spot isn’t just a city problem nowadays. The Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office is cracking down on illegal parking at Smith Rock State Park as crowds surge to unprecedented numbers. Deputies issued 19 parking tickets in March, mostly around spring break, according to Sgt. Jayson Janes, a public information officer with the Sheriff’s…
As Bend Transitions to a City, Be Ready to Talk More about the “Big P”
P is for Parking—and with Bend’s explosive growth, Bendites should be prepared to spend a lot more time talking about it in the months and years to come. The conversations that are already emerging about this topic include ones covering whether we should have to pay for it, how to pay for it, where it exists,…
