March photo contest winner announced

We have a wonderful winning photo for our March contest. Wendy Francis from Topaz Ranch Estates agrees with many of us that bright yellow daffodils are the epitome of March in Douglas County. Seems every yard you look at has some. Thank you, Wendy, for your beautiful photograph. And thank you again to Kathleen Belles for her runner-up photo of an early blooming forsythia. As far as we in Douglas County are concerned, March is spring.

Speaking of the photo contest, we truly appreciate your e-mailing photos as well as bringing in printed copies. However, we cannot process complete photo albums. Please enter whichever photos you wish, but we need to receive them separately, not in an album format. You may attach more than one photo to an e-mail and don't need to e-mail photos separately. Thanks for your help in this.

Of course, now that March is over, our April photo contest is now open. April around here is filled with wonderful clouds, wind, trees and flowers and an occasional heavy, wet snow. Grass is turning green and people are coming outside to enjoy the weather. What means Douglas County in April to you? Take a photo of that and send it in. The contest ends April 30.

Meanwhile there is a lot going on in the next few weeks, particularly at the Carson Valley Museum & Cultural Center in Gardnerville. Tomorrow is Student-Senior Day where students and seniors get into the museum for free. Our promised cowboy poetry classes with Ken Gardner are finally here. Ken will be talking about his own cowboy poetry in the downstairs meeting room at 11 a.m. and again at 1 p.m. This promises to be a real treat for all of us who enjoy great cowboy poetry.

Then, on Thursday April 10, a panel consisting of Guy Rocha and Carol and Martin Griffith will discuss "The Search for Spofford Hall: How Nevada History is Built." The lecture is in the downstairs meeting room at 7 p.m. and admission is free.

Sometime in mid-April, tickets for the Barn Tour on May 24 will go on sale. We are already taking ticket orders. Tickets will cost $25 per person and will be limited. Included in the price will be a new barn book with photographs and descriptions of the barns on the tour. Ken Gardner has written a cowboy poem specifically for this tour which will be included in the book. And admission to both museums will be free to tour-goers on that day.

This tour of the barns on the historic Emigrant Trail, today called Foothill Road, will be held from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m. Barns such as Van Sickle Station, Jubilee Ranch, Cuttin' Loose and Hansen Ranch are just an example of what will be open. The tour will end with a barbecue lunch put on by the Douglas County Farm Bureau. This is held as a part of Historic Preservation Month to demonstrate the need to preserve historic barns.

If you have any questions about anything mentioned here, please call the Douglas County Historical Society at the Carson Valley Museum & Cultural Center in Gardnerville at 782-2555. Visit www.historicnevada.org. Remember, DCHS and its two museums do not receive any regular state or county funding. It's up to our members and friends to help us keep our doors open.

-- Contact Ellen Caywood at in2my2cats@yahoo.com or at 790-1565.