Lard can be a touchy subject for many cooks who have or have not cooked with lard over the past 50 years, especially if you have not brought yourself up to speed with the new way pigs today are being raised on sustainable farms — such as Flying Pigs Farm in upstate New York.

Inspiration Point — the beautiful overlook between Felton and Santa Cruz along Highway 9.

I love my smart phone. I can’t imagine a day without it. A friend of mine told me that I would discover uses that I could only have imagined when I first got it. One of the simple things I use it for is taking pictures.

“Natural history isn’t just science, it predates science,” says Chris Lay. “It’s the observation and interpretation of the natural world from a personal perspective. It could be a scientist or an artist or a writer.”

You can feel the weather changing as summer winds down. It’s more than just the passing of the Labor Day holiday and the school year starting. The nights are longer and cooler. The days are not quite so hot and the flowers in the garden seem brighter and more colorful. I look past the soft blue and lavender blossoms and am drawn to the warm shades of gold, rust, orange, hot pink and red. They shout autumn is on the way.

When the soldiers came home from World War II, they brought back a new perspective for a new America. Rather than continuing a rural existence, most citizens were ready for a modern lifestyle supported by technology — dams, suburbs, shopping malls, interstate highways — and all the natural resources that could be gobbled up.

Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park is quite a mouthful of a name. Once, it was simply Big Trees.