Our neighbors down the hill are selling their place and not taking their dogs. They bought the house a couple years ago but have never lived in it. They just used it to grow cannabis indoors and got caught when they set their power pole on fire.

They didn’t abate when instructed, so now they have one of those nifty $30,000 liens on the property. This story is very different from the Byrons — whose hearing is this coming Tuesday in the Supes Chambers at 1:30 p.m. There are photos of the multiple grows, lots of plants, clearly a commercial operation.

They got the dogs to guard the property, but kept them in a pen where they couldn’t protect anything. Duh. Also, they’re the sweetest dogs and are very welcoming to strangers. Now the people are gone and trying to sell. We have taken possession of the abandoned puppehs and are fostering them until they are adopted.

Lucky, the female, is a brindle German Shepherd cross. When we took her out of the pen she had a huge laceration on her leg from who knows when, so off to the vet she went for treatment and spaying. Tested heartworm negative and now on preventive meds. She is a little over 2 years old and gives the best kisses.

Toby, the male, is a handsome border collie cross and will be neutered and heartworm tested asap. He’s about 2 years old and a big cuddler. He is around 50-ish pounds and she is just over 70. On Monday they will be getting a full round of shots. Both very playful, but have no training. They are learning to walk on leashes and love being able to run in our fenced in pasture.

Why is this Dog Hell? Well, Lucky and Toby are the sworn enemies of our pack of three. When we walk our dogs twice a day in the pasture, they all bark at each other and when Lucky and Toby have escaped the pen there have been skirmishes along the border. I mean through our fence. Ugly.

So, we can’t just throw open the gates and invite them into the pack. Mr. Standish is busy fixing up a place for them on our property where the two teams can be separated until we can find the orphans good homes. There will be much barking and a precarious peace at best.

If you have room in your heart for one or both of these deserving sweethearts, please email me at lizmerry58@gmail.com or text (530) 212-0037. We don’t think they have any experience with cats, so they are probably chasers, but we’re not sure. Our cats are staying far away from them when they come over because they’re smart like that.

In other Manton news, the Antelope Elementary School District has made a counteroffer to the $245,000 bid by non-profit Manton Parks to purchase the Manton School back for our community.

A little background in case you’re not aware. In 2013, Manton School requested to be lapsed into district because of funding, of course. The school board promised that if they had to close the school, they would sell it back to the community for $1.

By 2017 the school was closed and the $1 offer evaporated. The Manton Education Council, a 501c3, was formed to keep education in Manton and try to get the school property back under local control. The council has offered an after school enrichment program for Manton kids for years, ironically paying rent to district to use our school for our kids.

In 2021, another 501c3 called Manton Parks was formed to try to purchase the property to use as a park and community center. Manton Parks scraped together enough donations to offer the district $249,000 for the property, along with a business plan and vision statement.

In a rude and greedy move, the district has just countered with $500,000 for a property they acquired for free. They added a long list of insulting demands which, if not met in perpetuity, would revert ownership to the district.

One of those demands is especially insolent. They require the original Manton School, now the Manton Historic Museum, be restored and reopened. Um, a hole in the roof was reported to the district in 2014 and they have done nothing to fix it. I know we’re in a drought, but it has rained and snowed in the past 8 years and for them to have ignored it all this time and now make Manton Parks fix it is stunning.

And speaking of ignoring problems, Groundwater Sustainability Executive Justin Jenson presented the California Department of Water Resources’ Semi-annual Groundwater Conditions Update to the Flood Control Water Conservation Board, which is our county board of supervisors wearing their water hats.

The update includes a series of graphs that show water levels as recorded over time by the state’s monitoring wells. One of those is located where Capay and Hall roads intersect. The graph shows decreasing groundwater levels, of course. I compared it to the Corning Sub Basin Sustainability Plan, which shows Minimum Thresholds for groundwater levels which, when exceeded, are supposed to trigger some sort of action.

This well – 13C00_M – has numerous perforated intervals measuring water in the different layers. Some of those layers have receded beyond their thresholds for more than 3 years and continue to decrease. I only compared one well against the plan. How many others should have triggered action by our agency? Is this intentional negligence or just laziness? Somehow they found the time to create a tax scheme to create a well registry that should already exist.

Red Bluff City Council members Johnna Jones and Daniele Eyestone will be holding a Candidates and Cookies meet and greet at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 26 at Nexus Game Emporium, 614 Main St. It’s your chance to ask the two candidates about their plans for Red Bluff’s future and tell them your concerns. They had me at cookies.

Liz Merry has been half of Merry Standish Comedy for 30 years and is a former downtown Red Bluff business owner. She now has a home-based business and is locked and loaded in Manton. She can be reached at lizmerry58@gmail.com.