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After months of preparation and countless hours of tweaking

After a stop at Peet's for a foo-foo coffee, I decided the

As school bells again ring and kids with backpacks make their way across campus, beautiful singing waifs through the air at Gilroy's high schools. Thanks to two newly hired, energetic and enthusiastic music specialists, the choral program that retired teacher Phil Robb spent 30 years building into one of the best in Northern California is alive and well and will continue to be one of our city's great assets.

Facing the hard-throwing Felix Hernandez on a chilly night is no

Beautiful and warm, that’s how the weather’s supposed to be this spring weekend and that’s how the San Jose Sharks are playing after the Olympic break. A Stanley Cup would be fitting for Joe Thornton, in particular. The longer he plays, the more legends he passes in the record books. When you watch him carefully, he’s clearly a “Jedi Master” feeding teammates the puck for scoring opportunities. At just the right moment in just the right place, the disc arrives on the stick and it’s a thing of beauty to watch and marvel over.

Like a canary in a coal mine, roses provide an early-warning detection system in our vineyards. Roses are generally weaker than grape vines, yet have almost the same genetic make-up. Planted among the grapevines, roses react first to disease, soil and water conditions. Roses are “indicator plants” that give the vineyard manager time to fix the problems before they reach the grape vines. Not only are roses a harbinger to the production of healthy vines, they also lend a colorful contrast to the vineyard.

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.