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A couple of warm days and I'm ready for spring.

Cats kill 1.4 billion to 3.7 billion birds and 6.9 billion to 20.7 billion small mammals in the U.S. every year. Those startling statistics were recently revealed in a paper published in Nature Communications and picked up by media outlets from Comedy Central to the New York Times and Smithsonian.

Last year I was introduced to the world of bonsai. Santa Cruz Bonsai Kai president Ron Anderson gave me a private tour of his personal bonsai collection at his home in Boulder Creek. Shortly afterwards, I attended the club's yearly show held then in Scotts Valley. I arrived a bit late and the afternoon demonstration had already started. The sensei, meaning teacher, was in the process of turning a large 5-gallon overgrown juniper into a finished bonsai. The wiring had been done initiating the training of the branches to form a more pleasing shape and the root pruning was about to begin. All of us in the audience were mesmerized by the seemingly brutal treatment of the plant, but the results spoke for themselves. A beautiful, graceful juniper specimen displayed in a large, brown tray did all the talking.

Let’s face it. I love to cook.

Last year, I became a gourmet chef. That may be a slight exaggeration, but growing herbs near my kitchen door raised the bar in my cooking skills.

Loch Lomond opened to the public Friday, March 1. The opener brought clear blue skies, warm temperatures and some afternoon wind.