Can we expect more rain this week or will the sun break through? Check our local weather coverage.
In case you missed them, here are some of the top stories from the weekend:
YACOLT — On an unseasonably warm October morning, the Hokanson family’s three children ooh-ed and aah-ed at the painted pumpkins scattered around the grounds at Pomeroy Farm.
Gwen, 6, perched atop a hay bale in a trailer being dragged behind a tractor Saturday, where she called out the familiar characters these “Pumpkin people” are dressed to imitate.
“It’s Charlie Brown! It’s Snow White! It’s a wedding!”
Then, in awe, she yelled, “They’re telling stories! They’re actually telling stories!”
The Hokansons joined dozens of other families at Pumpkin Lane at the historical north county farm Saturday, seeking a quiet but fun family activity.
Washington State Patrol identified the pedestrian killed in a Thursday night crash on Interstate 5 near La Center as a 20-year-old man from Ridgefield.
Billy N. Griffith was pronounced dead at the scene in the northbound lanes of the freeway at Milepost 17.3, according to a WSP crash memo.
Troopers have notified Griffith’s family of his death.
Lili Shi, 25, of Irvine, Calif., was northbound in a Mitsubishi Outlander SUV about 8:40 p.m. when she struck Griffith as he was crossing the freeway from west to east, troopers said.
Lyndsay Jacobs is crouching in the dirt.
She studied graphic design and architecture at James Madison University but now spends her mornings like this one, hand-weeding the vegetable beds at Sprout and Blossom Farm near Vancouver Lake.
“It’s hard work, for sure. It’s a labor of love,” she said. “There’s nothing better than being outside connecting through food.”
Jacobs, 27, is one of three young farmers contacted to explore how Clark County’s farming economy is evolving in the face of an aging farmer population, land use laws and renewed interest in locally grown produce.
All three were creatives who found themselves drawn to being stewards of the land and growing food for their community. They’ve all farmed on less than two acres of land for less than two years. And all of them are women.
The air is getting crisp, the sun is getting scarce, the clouds are coming on. It’s autumn in Clark County — time for a last little bit of outdoor exploration before gloom descends and sticks around for a while.
Eye-popping colors can be found without too much trouble here, but Clark County isn’t exactly New England, where autumn “leaf peeping” is a regional pastime. While the right coast teems with explosively deciduous beauties, our Pacific Northwest is mostly home to towering evergreens. What we don’t have in rainbow colors we more than make up for in height.
The following list of outdoor outings and sites to explore, right here in our own collective backyard, should keep you smiling for the next several weeks. Store up all that color — be it burning crimson-and-gold or cool forest green — for the gray months to come.
RIDGEFIELD — On a bright, picture-perfect morning in late September, Joe Leadingham plucked a pair of golubok grapes from the vine at Stavalaura Vineyards.
He mashed one between two fingers, watching the pulp run into the crevices of his hand and stain an indigo trail. He popped the other one into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully.
He was using his touch, taste, sight and smell — along with a healthy dose of intuition — to decide whether or not it was time to harvest.
“For each color, there’s a set of stuff that goes with it. Right now, if you taste the skin and work your way to the center — the sweetness, when it’s consistent all the way through, that shows you the grape is ready,” Leadingham said.
