Del Norte Gardening runs monthly. Paul Madeira and Julie Jo Ayer Williams own Ocean Air Farms in Fort Dick.

We have had beautiful weather this October, and we could have an equally beautiful November.

We are happy to have such a great ending to what was a cool, wet and late-starting summer. Cooler temperatures were common throughout the West this growing season, so a warmer and sunny fall was just what we needed.

Our gardens have held on longer than usual and we are just now saying goodbye to summer squash, cucumbers (not much of a year), and basil to name a few. However, on Wednesday we did feel our first frost of the season in Fort Dick. So, there it is, we could have a mild November, or like nearly every other year, it could get cold and wet real fast.

A common plea of people made uncomfortable by coverage of criminal allegations is that the newspaper should wait until the matter has been resolved in court.

Otherwise, they say, you’re putting the defendant on trial prematurely and tainting the jury pool.

But there’s truth in the adage, “The wheels of justice move slowly.” Sometimes, cases take years to work their way through the courts. And often, they conclude with plea bargains that involve dismissal of some charges and the lowering of others. A climactic trial before a jury of one’s peers is the exception.

Kudos to City Manager Eugene Palazzo for coming up with a good suggestion and to Crescent City Council members for approving it.

If county supervisors go along with it as well, any upcoming analysis of solid waste issues will likely occur where it should — in the open.

That wasn’t the case with an ad hoc committee on solid waste appointed by supervisors two years ago, and it might not have been the case with a new ad hoc committee that supervisors recently proposed.

For the most part, Del Norte’s solid waste issues have played out in the open, with opportunity for public comment every step of the way. That included the process of awarding a garbage and recycling collection contract, which was highly competitive. And it included the recent collection price increases that have some people upset now that they’ve seen their bills.

Thank you, Cody Hoffman, for providing a local entry point to my annual column about what’s wrong with college football.

As I journeyed to the Willamette Valley for a family visit Saturday morning, I was probably driving alongside some of those Del Norters going to the BYU-OSU game in Corvallis to watch the former Warrior in action.

He didn’t disappoint, catching nine passes and playing the finest game of his young college career. And all that cheering from the Del Norters sprinkled around Reser Stadium wasn’t lost on the media. Triplicate Sports Editor Bill Choy was in the press box, where a couple of Utah journalists mentioned the Cody loyalists from Northern California. One joked that BYU should figure out how to get them to all its games, since they obviously bring out the best in Hoffman.

These are tough economic times for California and the United States. The unemployment rate is 9.1 percent for America, 12.4 percent for California, and 14.2 percent for Del Norte County.

Taxes are down because income is down. Budgets are strained. This country is in a recession. Del Norte County is no exception to the dwindling budget syndrome. The city of Crescent City anticipates at $250,000 deficit in its budget commencing July 1, 2012.

A few weeks back Sheriff Dean Wilson spoke about his role as the county’s top cop in the Sept. 3 Triplicate article “Tea Party Sheriff: Dean Wilson is filling two high-profile roles in county.”  I listen very carefully when the sheriff speaks. He has his pulse on the community and when he comments, I pay attention.

The voyage of discovery continues here at Third and H as we complete the second week of our transition to a three-times-per-week publication schedule.

We’re all still getting used to it. Yes­terday morning my wife Laura, also known as the newspaper’s Neighbors editor, went out to our Triplicate box attempting to procure a nonexistent Friday edition.

On Wednesday last week, the first non-publishing day of the new schedule, Circulation Director John Mihalyo came to work expecting dozens of calls from readers wondering where their Triplicate was. What he didn’t anticipate was being accosted upon arrival by one of our reporters complaining about finding no paper in the box at home.

My name is Mike Rhodes and I was born and raised in Del Norte County. I attended local schools, played football under Lewis Nova and have an enormous amount of pride in my community.

I am a combat veteran of Afghanistan, serving in the capacity of an Army Ranger (2nd Battalion/75th Ranger Regiment), who endured two tours of combat for my country and my community. I am currently a second-year law school student at the Creighton University School of Law in Omaha, Neb. I plan on returning to Del Norte/Humboldt counties following law school to practice and to educate.

I am openly gay and I know all too intimately firsthand the consequences of growing up like this in Del Norte County and this world. I want no child to have to endure what I did. It is unreasonable.

Newsrooms are disorderly places even in the most orderly of times. There’s always a scramble to meet the next deadline, produce the next edition and make sure that at least the most essential stories are covered, no matter how busy everyone is.

Toss a king-size wrench into the operation, and things can get downright chaotic.

I’m proud of last week’s rollout of the new Del Norte Triplicate, but it wasn’t easy. The conversion from five issues per week to three bigger issues was a challenge to every department, especially advertising, circulation and the press plant in addition to the newsroom.

If you ever wondered about the confusing patchwork of state and national parkland that contains much of Del Norte County’s old-growth redwoods and coastal trails, question it no longer.

Like the cavalry in an old Western, the National Park Service has literally come to the rescue of California State Parks.

As a result, Del Norters and visitors — about 94,000 annually — will retain access to thousands of acres of some of the finest natural resources on God’s green Earth.