The 10-and-under Mountain Dream softball team took second in the Santa Cruz Blast by the Bay Tournament Gold Bracket.

Two San Lorenzo Valley friends will embark on the journey of a lifetime, a two-month cycling trip across the U.S. to raise money for the Big Brothers, Big Sisters and to send campers to summer camp in Mount Hermon.

In the summertime, kids have lots of time to enjoy the great outdoors. What better way to teach them how our planet works than to let them grow something in their own garden. Share your enthusiasm for gardening by getting your kids or the neighbor kids interested, too. You'll find sharing your knowledge with a child particularly rewarding and you will have helped create a fellow gardener for the rest of their life.

Some things in the garden need to be planned out in advance while others happen by chance. For instance, this year when our spring rain stopped dead in its tracks, I gave up adding any more acidifier to my hydrangeas. You need to change the pH of the soil around hydrangeas well before they set buds. I like Mother Nature to water for me early in the season and she didn't cooperate. As luck would have it, the flowers this year are majestic purple, mauve and magenta where before they were sky blue. Frankly, I'm thrilled with this years color palette. Hooray for serendipity.