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GRATITUDE 
November 15, 2024 0 10  
Mushroom Madness 
Suzanne Guldimann, November 1, 2024 0  
Fungi can cure or kill, nourish life, and also decompose it back into soil. Fossil evidence for fungi is limited, but the ability to analyze molecular data has led to revelations about the evolution of this extraordinary family of...
Fool’s Gold: The Myth of Tiburcio Vasquez 
Suzanne Guldimann, October 18, 2024 0  
“And still of a winter’s night, they say,  when the wind is in the trees, When the moon is a ghostly galleon  tossed upon cloudy seas,    When the road is a ribbon of moonlight  over the purple moor,    A...
Billions in Flight: Migratory Birds 
Suzanne Guldimann, September 20, 2024 0  
Autumn doesn’t officially begin until the equinox on September 22, but all across North America birds are already on the wing—billions of them. Migration times and destinations vary based on the species and variables like weather and food sources—some...
One-Room Schoolhouse 
Suzanne Guldimann, September 6, 2024 0  
Back to school. A hundred years ago in Topanga, it would have been on foot—and often barefoot—to the little, red, one-room schoolhouse by the creek in the bend of the dirt road.  Public education in California was still relatively...
17 Nov 2024
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The Hotel Arcadia 

Suzanne Guldimann, May 3, 2024 1 12 min read  
It loomed above the beach like Count Dracula’s beach residence: stark, turreted, treeless, and not exactly inviting, but Dracula wasn’t written yet when the imposing Hotel Arcadia opened its doors in Santa Monica on January 24, 1887. Celebrated for...
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TOYON 

Suzanne Guldimann, November 17, 2023 0 7 min read  
All over Topanga Canyon and throughout the Santa Monica Mountains, toyon bushes are ablaze with red fruit. Their presence is both a conservation success story and a cautionary tale, because the toyon’s beautiful red berries, so like European holly...
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The Bear Truth 

Suzanne Guldimann, May 19, 2023 2 11 min read  
We have a new neighbor in the Santa Monica Mountains. On April 23, National Park Service biologists captured and radio-collared a 210-pound black bear in the western Santa Monica Mountains, south of the 101 Freeway. The bear, a young...