City, UCD collaborate for Day of Reflection on Thursday

As the Davis community continues to heal from the recent tragedies, UC Davis and the city of Davis invite the public to pause and write messages sharing their feelings of grief or compassion, privately or publicly on Thursday along the Davis Reflection Route, which can be found online at https://healthy.ucdavis. edu/reflections.

Fully accessible, the route will have stops between Shields Library and the Student Community Center, in Redwood Grove near Wyatt Deck, and the Arboretum GATEway Garden. The Compassion Bench (Third and C streets) and Sycamore Park (1313 Sycamore Lane), will also be stops along the route.

According to a press release, Aggie Mental

Health Ambassadors will be available from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for discussions and activities, and representatives of Health 34, the UC Davis Fire Department's team of health care educators and providers who can connect participants with wellness resources and counseling. Yolo County mental health professionals are also expected. Drop boxes will be provided for those wanting to submit private messages. Chairs from the Campus Planning and Environmental Stewardship’s Chair Share Program will be available. Digital submissions will also be welcome. Reflections can also be submitted digitally by scanning QR codes along the route.

The Day of Reflection may become an annual event.

Project Linus gathers June 14

Enterprise staff

Do you enjoy quilting, knitting or sewing? Join Project Linus to make blankets for children who are seriously ill, traumatized or otherwise in need.

Come to the gathering at the Davis Senior Center on Wednesday, June 14, from 1:30 to 3 p.m. to share ideas, patterns and lots of good conversation. All are welcome to attend the meeting and help sew Linus labels on handmade blankets that will be given to Yolo County organizations that serve children in need. Project Linus members may take home donated fabrics and yarn each month to complete a blanket. Finished blankets can be brought to the next monthly gathering or to the Joann Fabric store in Woodland. and whichever candidate has the lower number is listed first and so on through all candidates. If there's a tie, you go to the second letter of the last name.

For general information, drop-off location questions or fabric and yarn donations, contact Diane McGee at dmmyolo@gmail.com.

Since there were only two candidates on the ballot in the most recent election, it was an easy process.

But wait, there's more.

According to the Yolo County Elections Office, "To further ensure fairness in our election process, per California Elections Code section 13111, the random alphabet is supplemented with rotation. Because the 2019 City Council District 3 is divided between the 2nd and 4th supervisorial districts, we can use the districts for rotation. The candidate appearing first on ballots issued to voters living in the 2nd Supervisorial District will be last on the ballots for the voters living in the 4th Supervisorial District."

The first shall be last and the last shall be first, just like it says in the Good Book.

The only problem with that bit of "fairness" is that there are not equal numbers of voters from those supervisorial districts when it comes to a District 3 city council election.

If you want fairness in an election with just two candidates, have one listed first on half the ballots and the other listed first on the other half.

My advice is free.

BAN ALL BOOKS ... After learning new information, I've changed my opinion about the efforts of governors DeSantis of Florida and Abbott of Texas.

At a highly informational and entertaining Arbor Day event sponsored by Tree Davis, I learned that paper is made from trees, and books are made from paper. Who knew?

Putting two and two together, it is now obvious that these two governors are not censors at all. They're simply worried about all the trees that have to be chopped down to make the paper to make the books. Indeed, they're conservationists. Tree huggers, both. Dare I say they're even "woke"?

— Reach Bob Dunning at bdunning@davisenterprise.net.

Sheep trim greenery at preserve

Jim Smith

Special to The Enterprise

A herd of living lawnmowers are now devouring high grasses at the Cache Creek Nature Preserve.

Perennial Gazing of Capay Valley brought in 575 sheep this past week to perform “grazing maintenance” on the waist-high grasses in the oak savannah and grassland habitat of the preserve located west of Woodland.

The sheep help keep native perennial grasses healthy by controlling annual invasive plants, such as common vetch and black mustard. Nature Preserve staff will also be able to see how the grasses react to the grazing.

People can see the sheep at work but they should keep their distance. The animals are being protected by an electric fence and Schoen, an Anatolian Shepherd dog, as well as Perennial Grazing owners Christian and Shannon Cain, who live on site during the work.

Perennial Grazing is a 100-acre farm in the Capay Valley, which in addition to providing sheep for grazing and slaugh- ter, also raises ducks, turkeys and table grapes.

Christian explained that the business has been in operation since 2016 and this is the second year it has brought the sheep to the Nature Preserve, although the couple has visited the preserve of many years.

The first three years of the business, Christian said, were spent proving the concept “and the ecology of what could be done with sheep in orchards and vineyards.”

“We were (providing) sheep and goats for neighbors so it wasn’t a crazy leap to take the business on the road,” he added.

The sheep will be allowed to graze on 10 acres of the 130-acre preserve, munching through just over an acre a day through this coming Monday, May 29.

Asked the distinction between sheep and goats (which are also commonly used for controlling brush), Christian said, sheep are “grazers” and goats are “browsers.” Both animals hold their heads at a 45-degree angle but sheep will look down toward the ground and goats will look up.