Columns

The other day I visited three local nurseries to see what’s new in their bare root edible selection. In addition to the classics, I found a ton of new varieties for containers and smaller home gardens.  Now is the time to add ornamentals and edibles...

Living just off Highway 9 in Ben Lomond, I am often caught up in lines of traffic going “nowhere” for minutes at a time. So much so, that I keep a notepad and pen in the console next to my seat, jotting down random...

While it might sound selfish or impossible to make time for self-care during stressful times of your life, self-care is crucial to keep you healthy, happy and balanced. During stressful periods in our lives we tend to focus outward, disregarding ourselves and our needs....

I suppose if a ‘good’ witch stood in front of me and asked, which one person from your past life would you bring back today, that one person would be my Aunt Betty. Not my mother, who left me as a small child on...

It’s beginning to look like Halloween in my neighborhood with chrysanthemums and pumpkins on porches, skeletons and ghouls decorating front doors and posts on Facebook about tarantula sightings as the spiders go about their fall mating ritual. It’s the plants that get my attention...

It’s clear that storm fatigue is a real thing. From overhearing conversations in the grocery store line to hearing folks express gratitude for their good luck, or even finding silver linings in their misfortunes, it seems like everyone is feeling the effects of these...

This month marks the end of an era in Scotts Valley. For as long as I can remember, the name Walpole has been synonymous with the Scotts Valley Police Department. Steve Walpole Sr. once led our department as chief, and in 2017 his son,...

You can hear them a long way before you see them. I’m talking about the hundreds of honey bees feasting on the highly nutritious pollen of the Crape Myrtle blossoms. I confess I don’t know a lot about keeping bees. I even had to...

This month, the voters of the Scotts Valley Fire District will be asked whether to invest $22.2 million into a new fire station and multipurpose administration/disaster support building to improve community safety. The District currently operates out of two fire stations: the 22-year-old Glenwood...

Sometimes you just have to turn to the man for guidance, and in this case, Shakespeare states it perfectly in “Macbeth”: Double, double toil and trouble,Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.By the pricking of my thumbs,Something wicked this way comes. Macbeth did in fact fall victim to...