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The Scotts Valley High School Chorus has been invited by The Surf City Kiwanis Concert Committee to participate in their December 13 concert event at the Rio Theatre in Santa Cruz. They are featured in “A Patsy Cline Christmas” with singer Joni Morris, “a nationally touring artist specializing in country and gospel music.” The After Midnight Band will be accompanying them.

The Land Trust of Santa Cruz County has announced that it has raised all the funds it needs to protect land on either side of Highway 17 for a wildlife tunnel. The final piece of funding was a $200,000 grant from the Coastal Conservancy to help purchase an easement on 170 acres west of the highway at Laurel Curve.

MEXICO — I'm halfway through my trip in Mexico. I started in Tuxtla, the capital of Chiapas, last week and will stop today in Campeche in Yucatan on the Gulf of Mexico. How different are the people, the soils, the climate, the weather and the landscapes of each locale. It's as diverse as going from Bonny Doon to Pasatiempo to Scotts Valley and then to San Lorenzo Valley.

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.

We humans used to be mostly foragers and obtained our nutrition before the end of the last ice age by being hunter-gatherers.

Each year, the Special Olympics is hosted to offer an opportunity to those with disabilities allowing them to athletically compete in the Olympic Games; this year it was hosted in New Jersey, where 3,500 participants demonstrated their strength and perseverance.