•July home sales continue torrid pace. Like June before it, another 30 homes transferred ownership in July in Sisters Country. The average price — $743,576 in June, rose to $761,891 last month. Six homes sold for more than $1,000,000 including one on Goodrich Road that fetched $3.5 million. The four-bedroom, six-bath home captured $670 per square foot for its 5,220-square-foot floor plan.

•They’re back. The iconic alpaca herd that roams the front pastures of the Ponderosa Inn has returned, freshly shorn and posing for the tourists. Their arrival was delayed this year due to illness of the shearer.

•Just where is “Sisters Country?” If you ask five people, you’re apt to get five different answers with many assuming it’s zip code 97759. The correct answer (open for debate) is: the Sisters School District boundaries. It is a near-perfect square with mostly drawn, not landmark edges. See for yourself at: http://ssd6.org/files/2017/01/Sisters-School_Boundary_Map_PDF.pdf

•The Laird campus addition nears completion. The 27,000-square-foot warehouse and production building at the corner of Lundgren Mill and North Pine is under roof, with its floor, walls, windows, and interior superstructure completed. At this pace a September dedication is in the cards. This brings to approximately 52,000 the number of square feet under roof for the campus. Ray’s Food Place by comparison is 43,000 square feet.

•A neighborhood meeting/open house will be hosted by local architect BUILD LLC and local property owner Hall Holdings LLC for a proposed development located at 100 W. Lundgren Mill Dr.

in Sisters.

The meeting is set for Thursday, August 12, from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m., at the ClearPine Park Structure.

The proposed project on “Lot 8” is located in the Three Sisters Business Park, consisting of a two- story, mixed-use structure with three two/three bedroom apartment units over 7,500 square feet of future light industrial, professional service, or retail trade commercial space.

If you are not able to join the meeting but wish to request project information, contact the development team at [email protected]

•Sisters Coffee Co. expands footprint. The venerable Sisters-based roaster has rented interim warehouse and packaging space in the newly completed four-unit office/warehouse complex at the southwest corner of Lundgren Mill Road and Sun Ranch Drive. Construction will begin later this year for a much larger, permanent roasting and fulfillment operation on the northwest lot.

•Mutual aid for forest protection. Two rapid-response, first-strike fire suppression trucks manned by BLM fire crews from Arizona are parked at the Sisters Ranger Station as a preventative measure. They are joined by a contract operator bulldozer on standby in the event of fire near town.

•ClearPine breaks ground for final phase. With four of five sections of the mixed-design subdivision sold out, developers are clearing ground for the last phase of construction for the 97-unit planned community.

•St. Charles is coping well with the COVID-19 uptick. As of Sunday, St. Charles Health System reported attending to 22 COVID-19 patients, five in intensive care (the system has 30 ICU beds). Three of the five are on ventilators. St. Charles joins seven other easily accessible providers in administering COVID vaccinations.

•Logging on Barclay Drive. Knaughty Log Homes is constructing a full-scale log home on its front yard, visible to all who drive by. Curiosity seekers are pulling into the property to get a first-hand, up-close look at the workmanship. Eventually the home will be disassembled, moved, and re-erected on the purchaser’s land. For every tree Knaughty harvests they plant eight in its place for sustainability.