One of my favorite things we do here at The Gazette is our Neighbor of the Week profiles, sponsored by Altura Credit Union. Today's neighbors live in my neighborhood, and their beautiful ofrenda has added holiday spirit and joy to our coming and going for the last two weeks!
Our team will sort through recent nominations tomorrow morning to choose the December and January winners. If you've got a neighbor you'd like to see featured, please submit a nomination telling us about the impact they're making in Riverside.
Thank you to the Subscribers who became paid supporters this week: Leah Collier, Brian Gridley, Leslie Fifer Nagby, Cindi Reynolds, and Diana Saltanovitz. Your ongoing financial support is vital to our success in serving Riverside with the news it deserves!
Tips on what to plant, when to pick, and what to watch out for in your home garden.
Kim Malstrom is her Magnolia Center home gardener. (David Fouts)
Kim Malstrom is a Riverside-based home gardener. She runs a small, local business, Kitchen Gardens by Kim, which assists in consulting, designing, building, and maintaining food gardens in the Riverside Area. Kim is our friend with a green thumb, and we are glad to have her as a seasonal contributor.
What are we picking? We are in the season for:
Vegetables: Summer crops like zucchini, basil, and tomatoes are wrapping up, while fall crops are just getting started. Lettuce, cilantro, and radishes are already growing quickly as the cooler season sets in.
Each week, we will introduce a new neighbor. This is not a who's who list. These are regular Riversiders doing exceptional things.
Riverside has quickly become my home despite being here only for 3 years (almost 4). It has been everything I've always dreamed of when I started my family, from the nature surrounding my neighborhood to the history that Downtown holds.
This year, I decided to share with the neighborhood one of the most beautiful and touching traditions of my culture; DIA DE LOS MUERTOS (Day of the Dead ) is not only a celebration of life for all my ancestors but also a way to honor them and feel a little closer to them. My Ofrenda is not only for my ancestors; I'm inviting everyone from the community to celebrate with us and their late family members. They brought pictures and their favorite things they used to like to do or drink and remembered the good times, lessons, and love they shared with us while they were here.
A prompt to encourage your practice of creativity this week from Riversider and local author Larry Burns.
Welcome back, you awesome Airbenders! Last week, we blew the whistle on creativity, exploring the auditory and tactile dimensions of this specialty object. Did you draft a whistle symphony that echoed through the hills, or perhaps allow yourself to be taken on a meditative journey guided by the whistle's rhythmic tones? Maybe you even delved into the whistle's storied history, weaving tales of sporting victories and daring rescues into the story of how it came to be your whistle.
This week, we're literally draping ourselves in creativity; our creative thing to use this week is a scarf. This simple yet fun accessory, often used for warmth or an ounce of flair, is about to become our canvas for several minutes of tactile exploration and self-expression.
Who doesn't love how a scarf can add a pop of color to a tired outfit or keep you warm on a chilly evening? Scarf weather is a thing, people! Scarf season is calendared and celebrated in my house. Turn back those clocks and turn out the scarves.
