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These days I'm not so much the fly on the wall but more the egret in the pond trying to catch as many tidbits as possible to feed my readers a meal of what's going on. Here's this week's menu …

When out-of-town visitors see my garden for the first time, one question that almost always arises is, "Where's the garlic?" After all, with the smell of the pungent bulb usually in the air around the South Valley, it should be a prerequisite that we grow our own garlic. And now, with the Gilroy Garlic Festival time next week, it's the perfect time to think about getting started.

With the hottest part of the summer still ahead, you'll want to make sure your house is kept cool. Here are some portable options you may want to consider.

Food that grows underground – potatoes, onions, carrots – is one of life's great mysteries, as far as I can tell. The green part above ground might be interesting and may add some nice foliage to the garden, but for the novice gardener who's really interested in what's going on below ground, the plants can be an enigma.

Hazardous waste: "Hi Red Phone. Here's my complaint: Sometime around July 3, somebody dumped a 5-gallon bucket of human waste in the alley on La Coche Way, behind our house. The smell is horrendous. We've made numerous phone calls everyday to the city.

Peg and I just returned from our first road trip vacation in many years. We went to the Pacific Northwest, up Highway 101 along the coast.

Once an invasive surgical procedure, gallbladder removal now has