I remember my first night of sleep in Boonville. It was almost 25 years ago when I fell into bed exhausted and nervous, knowing very little about the tiny new community I was going to call home.

I’d heard of “the quiet of the country,” but the silence I experienced that night was profound. It had weight, a density that made it feel like a presence in the room. After living in suburbs and cities, this absence of sound was unnerving, but I grew to love it over time. Traveling is a joy, but it’s also wonderful to come home to my own bed where the night’s quiet allows the frothy waters of my internal seas to still and clarify.

I’m especially grateful for that quiet these days. The internet has brought innumerable benefits, but unfortunately much of it has grown up like a toddler with bad parents, never moving beyond its screaming petulance phase. It enables an onslaught of information—or marketing and opinion disguised as such—that is relentless, often dubious, and designed to weaponize our brain chemistry against us. Cognitive autonomy (known as the “the capacity to consciously direct one’s own focus“1) declines steeply when submerged in today’s online “information” environment. The colonizers have run out of land and now are coming for our minds.

This is one reason why print media is making a comeback. When you submerge yourself in a physical magazine, you won’t be interrupted with a pop-up ad or an incoming call that shatters your focus. This bundle of stapled pages won’t monitor what you read and the conversations you have about it before packaging and pricing that data for whoever will pay. Even our eyes prefer reading words on paper compared to words on a screen.

After 10 years in print, we have a rhythm going, but we still try to keep it fresh. Fortunately, there is always something new to talk about when it comes to food, agriculture, and natural resources in our beautiful county. Holly mentioned how some of this issue’s articles take a look back, but we also have articles that look forward. Over at the Hopland Research and Extension Center, Christopher Chen is researching how to grow wine grapes in conditions caused by climate change. After years of trying a lot of different farming options—both in terms of products and methods—Mulligan Gardens in Laytonville is shifting gears, simplifying what they do and leaning into their strengths.

New things are happening at Noyo Harbor as well. The new icehouse is capable of producing over 20 tons of ice per day, expanding the number of fishing vessels that can be served and what’s available to them. And the coastal pop-up Floyd & Connie’s has found a forever home at the harbor, serving up elevated Americana dishes and scrumptious cocktails.

Whether this is your first time picking up our magazine or you’ve read every issue, thank you for taking a break from the noisy world to learn about what’s happening in Mendocino County. I’m enormously grateful to Holly for bringing me on board this endeavor. I love both the creativity it requires and the opportunity to highlight talented people in our region who are too busy doing their (very cool) thing to stop and write a piece on it. Word of Mouth exists to share their stories, and we can’t wait to discover more as we step into our next decade.

Torrey Douglass

Editor-in-Chief & Art Director