A couple of months ago I met with local 4-H club members as they started to plan for their upcoming spring project. This year 4-H members from Felton, Scotts Valley and Quail Creek in the Zayante area are putting their minds and enthusiasm to good use to further educate themselves and the community about the importance of beneficial insects to our world. They will share their efforts at the upcoming Felton Library Friends Garden Tour on May 19th. Proceeds from the tour will benefit the new Felton Branch Library and Nature Discovery Park project slated to break ground this summer.

The fifth of May is just ‘around the corner’ and I have all of the ingredients needed for making Tamales, absolutely necessary in my opinion, to celebrate one of my favorite holidays. 

At the beginning of August 1897, Judge Logan tackled the task of converting 400 acres of former forest into a resort community.  It was decided to begin development of “Clear Creek” by concentrating on two tracts.  Cottage lots would be laid out between the county highway and the river.  The old skid roads leading to the railyard known as Reed’s or Bloom’s Switch would become streets.  The first job was to clear away the underbrush that had occupied the landscape.  The Mountain Echo applauded the idea of “leaving all tree growths, making a beautiful park of it.”  The founding families would build beside the creek, on either side of the main road.

I know many people who wait until the beginning of May to start their vegetable gardens for the summer. Conditions make not be right for them to grow cool season vegetables like beets, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, lettuce, unions, radish and spinach. Those plants don’t mind cold soil and chilly weather. But it you’ve been waiting for the perfect time to plant those scrumptious tomatoes you crave- wait no more. And if you plan your garden right you can still grow some of the cool season crops in the shade of your other sun lovers.

Out with the old, in with the new.

Having treated thousands of cases of poison oak in my career, I’d like to share with you what I’ve learned about this miserable affliction.

I’m envious of those of you who garden in lots of sun. Well maybe not so much on a hot July day but mostly I wish I could grow more edibles in the opening of my tall redwood forest. My neighbor gives me volunteer Sun Gold cherry tomatoes each spring and some years all the stars align and I enjoy these sweet morsels, picking them mostly as I putter in the garden. They rarely get inside on a salad but boy, are they delicious.

In a first-time-ever collaborative project, five Santa Cruz County Rotary Clubs joined forces to refurbish parts of the Homeless Services Center (HSC) on Coral Street on Sat. April 7. Nearly 50 volunteers sanded and painted support pillars, benches, and picnic tables. They also installed new flooring and baseboards in the HSC dining hall.

Josephine Turcot had been escorted to her coronation as Water Carnival Queen by a suite of handmaidens.  On her journey to Palo Alto to enroll in Stanford, the following September, her retinue consisted of only one lady—her Aunt Catherine.  Upon her return to Santa Cruz, Mrs. Logan plunged into a new project--helping to host the Grand Council of the Catholic Ladies’ Aid Society.

For Scotts Valley Police Officer John Hohmann the chance to race police cars on a speedway to raise money for Special Olympics was an idea long in the making.