Year in Review—Ramona Patch Celebrates its First Anniversary

We'd like to celebrate our first anniversary by looking back at some of our colorful stories and videos, which some readers may have missed. This is not meant as a serious recap of the year's top stories; instead it is a light look back on Patch's first year here, mostly via camera. Click on the links to see the stories.

What better way to start a Ramona Year in Review than with wild turkeys?

Check out of the big birds crossing a front lawn in a landscaped neighborhood one morning, to the amusement of the homeowner.

Some of you might also remember this hilarious video of racing, s on July 4th weekend.

From turkeys to bobcats ... we launched Ramona Patch with a video package of US Forest Service biologist Megan Jennings Find out why bobcats like mylar party balloons.

It would take more than a year to connect with all the interesting animal life around Ramona. Gil Riegler of Oasis Camel Dairy went onto his AOL email account one day and—surprise—there was his breeding bull gracing a spot above his email along with other story headlines. (Patch headlines and photos show up on the AOL home page and above the email for local readers.)

Gil emailed me to find out more about Patch.

I told him I was the woman who had on the side of the road and I was afraid the camel bull was going to spit at me. So Gil invited me out to meet the camels up close and personal, as seen in this video.

Readers began to enjoy my occasional "city girl moves to the country" pieces, as in this account of finding .

At least one man in Ramona earns his living keeping rodents off people's properties. Tom Stephan is a master falconer. I went with him and his Prairie falcon, Cookie, to watch him one day and later shot a video of him with his bird at , a wonderful event at the Wildlife Research Institute.

One of Tom's first rodent removal jobs was at a vineyard, which brings us to our next subject: the local wine industry. Vince Rossi covered the local vineyards and wineries for us this year, including this , this article on and this piece on .

I had fun shooting photos and this video of harvest day at

Nicole Reino did an interesting piece on a .

Vince wrote a and .

Speaking of history, Ruth Lepper brought us stories on local namesakes, including this one on . She also covered the school board, water board and planning group for Patch.

Ruth sent us back beautiful photos when she and some other Ramonans . She and her Chihuahua, Darla, were featured at Ramona Laund-Yer-Mutt.

On the subject of going places, I got a trip of a lifetime in a B-24 bomber, .

Karen Carlson became Patch's equine columnist and had us chuckling about her and other adventures. Readers fell in love with the Cricket series and sent Karen emails from as far afield as New Zealand.

Karen also authored an important series on and she took us on riding adventures in her

Joe Cahak offered insights into so readers could plan hikes. His pieces also came with some .

Speaking of beautiful scenery, Ramona, Julian and Mt. Laguna all had at least a dusting of snow in the past year, as seen in and .

Spring engendered a photo gallery called as well as coverage of .

Summer brought several fires to the backcountry, including the 14,100-acre The firefighting effort included 2,100 people from all over California. Patch was at the scene, shooting video and photos. Anthony Carrasco also did some great photography for us.

Summer also brought , with its and , as well as the and .

The season ended with a Sept. 11 tribute and 1950s evening to raise funds for Ramona Town Hall. Seeing the town hall board in Beatles wigs was a highlight of the year. Sandee Salvatore made a great Yoko Ono.

Halloween along Main Street was a lot of fun, as Ruth and I handed out candy to so many children and

From wherewolves to real wolves! I had a chance to visit the California Wolf Center in Julian and capture the . My hands turned blue with cold!

Angie Brenner offered us insights into nature this year, for example in this story on

From coyotes to Bulldogs ... Bill Zavetowski and Nick Pellegrino brought us .

We also offered up videos from and an playing to raise money

Bob Krysak, Dave Patterson, Woody Kirkman, Steve Islander, Joan Wayman, Diane Conklin, Robin Maxson and Chi Varnado all began blogs on Ramona Patch this year.

Thank you to our contributors and readers. A special thanks to Ruth Lepper, who has contributed to much to our success in Ramona. We look forward to this next year.