Uncategorized

This summer my husband Steve became a tomato evangelist. Every day when I come home, I find him out in the garden, communing with his tomato plants. It all began when our neighbor (a paramedic and an avid amateur gardener very aptly named Denise Gardner) gave us six heirloom tomato plants she had germinated from seeds.

Is the glass half full? The Federal Reserve has committed to

Ming, Mark and Mischa: In July, a Gilroy resident died and her family abandoned her three dogs, leaving them in the backyard in deplorable conditions without a caretaker.   A neighbor who doesn't have any dogs would occasionally throw food over the fence and dribble water to them, but would not go near them because he thought they would bite.

September is California Wine Month and comes just in time to celebrate our brand new Wine Trail signage and another vintage year of grape-growing. The new wine trail signs give visitors a clue that they are entering wine country—with 20-some wineries between Morgan Hill and Gilroy. You can see all 70 of these signs along Watsonville Road and Butterfield and places in between, including a sign on U.S. 101 near Dunne Avenue. The highway sign is made from a mesh material to allow the wind to pass through and keep it upright no matter how hard the wind blows.

Each spring I write a column providing information about Vacation Bible Schools or Day Camps offered by local churches. Some readers have said it’s helpful and that they look forward to reading it in the newspaper. Of course, each program is as different as the congregation sponsoring it, but they have many aspects in common: volunteer workers, hours of planning time, a carefully crafted curriculum and a devotion to sharing God’s love with children from the community.

In less than an hour you can escape to the Peninsula and find an off-beaten path or one well-traveled. Read on, hiker.

New Year's morning, I awoke to the tap, tap, tap of rain water