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Salamanders Prefer A Messy Garden |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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SANTA CRUZ (February 2010) -Amphibians are a scarce sight these days, and their numbers continue to dwindle worldwide. That’s why I was absurdly pleased to discover salamanders living in my downtown garden, years ago.
Our salamanders aren’t much to look at. They’re small and brown, with whiplike bodies and legs so short they could almost be mistaken for worms.
But as a gardener and an environmentalist, the survival of these creatures reassures me. If these sensitive natives can thrive alongside my family, our backyard parties and our kitchen garden, it seems that we must be doing something right.
Luckily, doing right by the salamanders often dovetails with taking the path of least resistance in the garden.
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Winter waves lash a sea cave at Wilder Ranch. Maria Gaura ©santacruzwire.com |
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Farewell To The Corn Dog - Santa Cruz Transforms School Lunch |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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SANTA CRUZ (February 2010) - Jamie Smith is a friendly guy - he’s just impatient, and very direct. The new food service director for Santa Cruz City Schools is on a mission to evict junk food from district cafeterias, and replace it with fresh, healthy, scratch-cooked meals.
That may explain why, when Smith strides into the kitchen at Gault Elementary School or Harbor High, some staffers greet him with a smile and a handshake, and others get that unmistakable “oh, crap!” look in their eyes.
It’s not clear that Smith notices the occasional look of dismay. He’s stalking the premises, often with a cell phone mashed to his ear, peering into steam trays and coolers, and rummaging through paperwork. But he doesn’t appear to miss much.
On a recent visit to a district elementary, Smith was chatting up a few employees when a deliveryman slapped a receipt on the counter and said “here’s the bill for the ice cream”. Smith gazed at the deliveryman’s retreating back and said mildly, “Ice cream on campus? Oh, my.”
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A Woman's Place Is On The Force |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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SANTA CRUZ (February 2010) - When Patty Sapone was 20 years old and studying to be a police officer, she took a job working security at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk – the first woman ever to hold that position. There wasn’t much of a honeymoon period.
“It was rough-and-tumble,” Sapone said recently, grinning at the memory. “I got in a fight my second day at the job. I’d never been in a fight in my life before I put a uniform on.” Sapone won the scuffle. And she learned something about her abilities as a woman entering a traditionally male profession.
“I learned that I could jump in, and I could prevail physically,” Sapone said. “It’s not so much that you need a certain personality type to succeed (in police work), but you need the realization that you can do these things, and you can prevail.”
Sapone went on to thrive in a profession that is nearly as male-dominated today as it was when she took her first patrol job with the Santa Cruz Police Department in 1980. Sapone retires this month with the rank of Deputy Chief, earned in the course of a 30-year career with the SCPD.
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Waves pound West Cliff, near Woodrow. Maria Gaura ©santacruzwire.com
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Will Bankruptcy Strengthen the Santa Cruz Sentinel? |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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SANTA CRUZ (January 2010) – After more than a year of increasingly urgent rumors, the Santa Cruz Sentinel’s parent company filed for bankruptcy protection January 22, a move expected to vaporize $765 million in bad debt and transfer most of the company’s stock to its creditors.
Losing more than three-quarters of a billion dollars would be considered a grim turn of events for nearly any company. But many media observers say they are cheered by the terms of the MediaNews Group bankruptcy, and expect it to benefit the Sentinel, its workers and news consumers in Santa Cruz County and beyond.
“I see all of this as good news for the papers, employees and debt holders of MediaNews Group,” said Mario van Dongen, a former Sentinel publisher who is now director of sales and marketing at the Portland Oregonian. “Cutting the debt … will give the papers some very important breathing room.”
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Three Cups of Tea Fundraiser Back by Popular Demand |
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Written by Tara Leonard
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SANTA CRUZ (January, 2010) -- Moved by the community response to their inaugural tea cup fundraiser last February, Santa Cruz artists Steven and Bonnie Barisof are planning a second annual event on February 11 at the Rio Theatre. Inspired by Greg Mortenson's bestselling memoir, Three Cups of Tea, the event raises money for Mortenson's Central Asia Institute to help build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"If you educate a girl, you educate a community,” Mortenson writes in his new book, Stones Into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books Not Bombs in Afghanistan and Pakistan. “The
better educated a woman is, the less likely she will be to let her
children join the Taliban…Their greatest fear is not the bullet, but
the pen.” Or in this case, the potter’s wheel!
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Homeowners at Capitola Beach prepare for winter waves.
Maria Gaura ©santacruzwire.com |
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The Secret Series - Alchemy, Murder and Snarky Laughs For Pre-Teens (and Their Parents) |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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SANTA CRUZ ( January 2010) – The title of the first book in the Secret Series is … well … a secret. So is the identity of the author, the town where the story takes place, and even the names of the heroes.
The first page of book one warns readers to go no further, and hints at the dire consequences of doing so. But the warnings are so overblown, the writing so funny, and the artwork so off-kilter, that you keep laughing and turning pages, despite the prickle of unease creeping up the back of your neck.
The Secret Series, now three books and counting, may not appeal to young children. But it is precisely on-target for the skeptical pre-teen reader who pounces on inconsistency, delivers dead-on parodies of television infomercials, and can sniff out adult hypocrisy at twenty paces. That is to say, most middle schoolers will love these books.
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Migratory Bufflehead ducks splash in the San Lorenzo River.
Maria Gaura ©santacruzwire.com |
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Cat Waste Can Pose A Garden Hazard |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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SANTA CRUZ (January 2010) - Organic gardeners know that many types of manure are good for garden soil. We add cow, horse, chicken and even bat manure to our yards, knowing that the breakdown of these products feeds both the soil and the vegetables in our gardens.
Cat manure, on the other hand, should never be added to garden compost or left to decompose in vegetable beds. Cat feces frequently carry parasites that can infect humans, and should be excluded from the garden or removed as promptly as possible.
It is commonly known that pregnant women should avoid cat waste to prevent infection with Toxoplasmosis, a disease that can cause devastating birth defects if contracted during gestation. But Toxoplasmosis, and other diseases spread by cat waste, can infect anyone who comes into contact with contaminated garden soil, and gardeners should take precautions to avoid a possible lifelong infection.
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Banish Cats From Your Garden Beds |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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SANTA CRUZ (January 2010) - Cats and gardeners have a complicated relationship, particularly when it comes to kitty’s toilet habits. Cats are known for relieving themselves into neat little holes in the dirt - preferably the nice, soft, cultivated dirt found in garden beds. And most gardeners, even the cat lovers among us, really hate that.
Cat poop in the garden is a health hazard, and finding a ‘buried treasure’ amongst the lettuces can be infuriating and worrisome - even if the culprit is your own beloved pet.
With an estimated 80 million cats in the U.S., banishing all free-roaming felines from your yard is probably not an option. But cats can be excluded from garden beds with a simple wire screen you can make yourself, using concrete reinforcing wire, wire cutters and a pair of gloves.
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Which species is more threatened, the penguin or the newspaper reader?
Maria Gaura ©santacruzwire.com |
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Where's the Merit in Merit Pay For Teachers? |
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By Andy Waddell, Special to SantaCruzWire
SANTA CRUZ (December 2009) - Teachers take tests. In addition to all the exams I endured to get through college and acquire a master’s degree, I have taken the CBEST, the CLAD, the CSET, and probably a few others I have forgotten, sweating with a number two pencil in hand, and paying hundreds of dollars for the privilege, all in order to teach high school English.
Teachers give tests. We administer finals, read essay exams, proctor SATs, and enjoy the sadistic thrill of passing out pop quizzes. Although you run into the odd dreamer now and then who says, “those things are meaningless” and insists only on “authentic assessment,” most of us cannot conceive of education without the forced, timed exhibition of knowledge known as a test.
Why then are teachers so reluctant to be paid according to their students’ performance on a test?
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Enjoying a sunny Christmas Day at Seabright Beach.
Maria Gaura ©santacruzwire.com |
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Bamboo Bikes - Santa Cruz Cycle Maker Goes Global |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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LA SELVA BEACH (December 2009) - Custom bike builder Craig Calfee has spent two decades crafting featherweight bicycle frames out of high-tech carbon fiber, and selling them to elite cyclists. But his travels in Africa got him thinking about a different type of building material - and a different type of bicycle rider.
The result of Calfee’s brainstorm is Bamboosero, a line of moderately-priced bikes with frames made of bamboo. The frames are engineered to Calfee’s high standards, but handmade by craftsmen in Africa, Asia and Latin America out of locally-sourced bamboo. While Bamboosero aims to do good, it isn’t a charity – it’s a business partnership with an altruistic edge. Bamboosero aims to bring desperately-needed skilled jobs to developing nations by training workers, helping them set up workshops, and marketing their products in wealthier countries.
“We’re trying to develop a market, and an industry,” Calfee said. “And the way to start is by selling bikes in the U.S. and Europe. By just being good customers we can have a huge impact on people’s lives.”
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Acres of plastic film cover strawberry fields near La Selva Beach.
Maria Gaura ©santacruzwire.com |
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The Future of Community Websites (And Why You Should Care) |
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Written by Tara Leonard
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SANTA CRUZ (December, 2009) - What is the role of community websites in the ever-changing media world? Is the internet killing journalism or creating a new, more inclusive method of information sharing? And what the heck is an “aggregator”? These are just a few of the questions participants pondered last week at a conference called “Entrepreneurship and the Community Web” sponsored by The University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. Maria Gaura and I, co-founders of Santa Cruz Wire, joined the creators of fifteen other local or hyper-local websites based in California to discuss the financial, legal and editorial challenges of managing a community based, on-line news source. We were both fascinated and frustrated by what we heard. Because this topic has lasting implications for how news and information will be delivered in the future, we want to share our impressions with SC Wire readers.
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Top Authors Help 'Beat' Go On |
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Written by Peggy Townsend
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SANTA CRUZ (December 2009) - Dennis
Morton leaned across a table at Santa Cruz County’s Juvenile Hall reading aloud
a paragraph penciled by a 14-year-old boy. The topic
was the boy’s first drink and he wrote that the alcohol had felt like “medicine”
for how it made his problems fade away. Morton, a teacher and radio-show host, nodded his head slowly at the
paragraph’s conclusion. “That
was a very full story in six lines,” he said. “How did it sound to hear what
you wrote?”
The boy,
dark-haired and built like a linebacker, dropped his head. “It
sounded good,” he said shyly.
Exchanges like that go on each week in juvenile detention facilities across
the San Francisco Bay Area. They’re at the heart of a program called “The Beat
Within,” which aims to promote literacy and provide positive recognition for
teenagers behind bars. Each week, the program distributes a
thick newsletter featuring writing and artwork from incarcerated teens, along
with essays from men and women doing harder time in prison.
Now a
score of writers – from bestselling author Karen Joy Fowler to novelist Laurie
King – are pitching in to help keep the program alive in Santa Cruz’s Juvenile
Hall.
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Cyclist takes a break during the Tour D'Afrique bike race.
Photo courtesy Brian Vernor ©Brian Vernor |
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Trans-Africa Cyclists Rally for Tour of California |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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SANTA CRUZ (December 2009) - The Tour of California bike race is an eight-day, 750-mile trek that summits a couple of mountain passes and includes at least one heart-stopping ascent per day. Big whoop. Santa Cruz filmmaker Brain Vernor has ridden a road race that makes Levi Leipheimer’s recent Tour of California victory look like the pony ride at the county fair. And Vernor rode his race lugging a backpack full of camera equipment.
Admittedly, the elite riders in the Tour of California pedal a lot faster than Vernor and the fifty or so other participants in the 7,500 mile Tour D’Afrique, an annual road race that wends from Cairo, Egypt, to Cape Town, South Africa. And yes, the ToC athletes put in thousands of training miles preparing for the main event.
But they don’t sleep on the ground for four months at a stretch, they don’t ride for weeks on unpaved roads, and they almost certainly don’t eat stewed camel meat after a day in the saddle. Vernor has done all of the above, and filmed the experience, creating “Where Are You Go”, a documentary of the 2008 Tour D’Afrique.
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Signs at UC Santa Cruz warn cyclists not to become a statistic.
Maria Gaura ©santacruzwire.com
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Bike Wrecks Spur Campus Concern |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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SANTA CRUZ (November 2009) - The bike path that trisects UC Santa Cruz’s Great Meadow offers spectacular views of Monterey Bay, and an exhilarating free-fall on the downhill ride. But a rash of serious accidents in recent months has campus officials trying to slow cyclists who blast downhill at speeds as high as 40 miles per hour, and sometimes end up in the emergency room.
This month, shortly after another cyclist was carted away in an ambulance, UCSC’s department of Transportation and Parking Services (TAPS) posted informational signs along the path, Burma-Shave style, showing some chilling statistics.
“13 solo crashes on bike path in two years,” read one sign. “7 by ambulance, 4 by helicopter, 2 walked away,” read another. Further along, at the top of the final downhill run, a third sign said “Please slow down.”
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Keeping Kids Healthy, Without the Politics |
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By Zach Friend, Special to Santa Cruz Wire
SANTA CRUZ (November 2009) - The recent funding crisis facing the state Healthy Families program, which provides much needed health insurance to California’s children, highlights an oft-ignored reality; that our failed state budgetary process and ideological entrenchments have a real-world effect on the health of actual children.
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Clear fall weather gives a view of Monterey from UC Santa Cruz. Maria Gaura ©santacruzwire.com |
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Stronger Neighborhoods and a Safe City |
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By David J. Terrazas, Special to Santa Cruz Wire
SANTA CRUZ (November, 2009) -- It was exactly one day prior to a scheduled event where residents were
set to gather downtown to mark the 20th anniversary of the Loma Prieta
earthquake when Tyler Tenorio was senselessly murdered. The anniversary event would memorialize the death and destruction that Santa Cruz suffered two decades earlier as a result of a natural catastrophe. More pointedly, the event would also celebrate the remarkable efforts of residents who tirelessly worked together with a sense of optimism to rebuild a broken city.
It is a tragic coincidence that it has taken the murder of a sixteen-year-old boy to catalyze our community to work together again to find solutions to address an entirely different type of challenge – ensuring that Santa Cruz is a safe and sustainable city for future generations.
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The Mysterious Benedict Society - Paranoid Tales for Exceptional Children |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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SANTA CRUZ (November 2009) - The bestselling Mysterious Benedict Society series opens with a newspaper solicitation: “gifted children” are sought to participate in a special test. The test is not what it seems, however, and the “winners” – four misfit kids - are sucked into a dangerous and frightening quest.
The stage is set for an ominous adventure story that serves up some seriously paranoid subject matter.
The plot of this three-volume series, aimed at children ages ten and up, revolves around subliminal mind control, ineffective and corrupt authorities, cult-like brainwashing camps for children, and other staples of the tin-hat conspiracy crowd. But this anxious tale is not simply Kafka for Kids. The bleakness is leavened with transforming friendship, and the triumph of clever children outsmarting the adult world.
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The chrysalis of a Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly dangles from a California Pipevine plant. Maria Gaura, santacruzwire.com |
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The Return of the Native - Bringing Back a Vanished Butterfly |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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SANTA CRUZ (November 2009) - The Pipevine Swallowtail, a cobalt-streaked butterfly with orange-and-white speckled underwings, once thrived in Santa Cruz County. But the local population of these beautiful creatures blinked out 100 years ago, not to be seen again for nearly five generations.
Now, they’re back – at least a few of them are – and living in a lush, two-acre garden adjacent to the Pasatiempo golf course. And if a group of local gardeners is successful, this little band of insect pioneers may soon venture out of its sanctuary to become a free-living, Santa Cruz native species once again.
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How Weird is My City? Santa Cruz Redefines "Normal" |
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By David Hoban, Special to Santa Cruz Wire
SANTA CRUZ (November 2009) - In 1968 my wife and I lived in London. Having been natives of Philadelphia, a colonial city with neighborhoods named after those in London, we were soon at home. So, it was with surprise in 1972, when we moved to Santa Cruz, that we found ourselves, culturally like fish out of water.
On every day of the year except Halloween, I often found myself confused. I couldn’t tell who was in costume at any given time. There was the ever- changing Santa Cruz top ten: The Sun Man, Ginger, The Dancer, The Shopping Bag Lady, The Umbrella Lady, The Rainbow Lady, and occasional men in suits. Surely in Philadelphia they would have been institutionalized. Yet here they were a part of a fabric of tolerance. What the hell was going on here?
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Two-year-old Ronan Karno applauds the return of Amgen's Tour of California to Santa Cruz. Santa Cruz will be the only coastal leg of the 2010 Tour. ©santacruzwire.com
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Winterize Your Vegetable Garden |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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SANTA CRUZ (October 2009) - Fall is a lovely season everywhere on the Central Coast except, perhaps, in the vegetable garden.
Look up, and behold the brilliance of the turning leaves in the slanting autumn light. Look down, and see the blackened remains of your cucumber vines, and a slumping hedgerow of dying tomatoes.
It’s tempting to walk away from this depressing scene, and not return until April. But don’t give in to seasonal slothfulness! A quick garden clean-up before the rains hit will keep the bugs and plant diseases at bay for a healthy spring garden.
And with a bit more effort, you can plant a winter garden with snap peas, lettuce and other cool-loving veggies that thrive in our mild, wet winters.
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Hungry for Books: Monarch School Students Read for the Record |
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Written by Tara Leonard
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SANTA CRUZ (October, 2009) -- Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar is about a ravenous young insect on his way to becoming a beautiful butterfly. For children everywhere, the ability to read is critical in helping them to spread their academic wings and succeed in school and beyond. That’s why, on a sunny October morning, students at Monarch School in Santa Cruz joined others around the globe in reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar as part of Jumpstart’s Read for the Record program.
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Birds make themselves at home on a calf's head at UC Santa Cruz. Maria Gaura ©santacruzwire.com
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"Lower Walnut, Indeed!" My Downtown |
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By Don Rothman, Special to Santa Cruz Wire
SANTA CRUZ (October 2009) -- We cross all sorts of thresholds everyday. Awakening from sleep, we
cross one. There are the literal ones as we walk from room to room
or leave the house. When we get in our car or saunter into a coffee
shop, yet others. We notice them especially when something unexpected
happens. The word for threshold in Latin is liminal. A
modern dictionary tells us the word now means “belonging to the point of
conscious awareness below which something cannot be experienced or
felt.” I’d like to borrow this evocative word to describe my experience
of downtown Santa Cruz, a place that periodically is scorned for its
low-life, frightful vulgarity and underworld ambiance. I descend into
the downtown just about everyday, and I guess I’ve been fortunate not to
have succumbed to oblivion, rage, or numbness. In fact, I love
this daily descent, a stark contrast with profound similarities to my 34
year ascent up to the City on a Hill, UCSC.
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Bike Traffic School - Tough Love on Two Wheels |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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SANTA CRUZ (October 2009) - Five students sit in Gary Milburn’s classroom, all assigned to traffic school for running stop signs, going the wrong way, or wearing iPod headphones while threading through traffic.
The four men and one woman are quiet, resentful and a little embarrassed to be here, but Milburn’s first comments catch them by surprise. “You’re all here because you did something right,” Milburn says, with complete sincerity. “You rode your bike instead of driving a car.”
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Tattoo Remorse - Better Think Before You Ink |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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SANTA CRUZ (October 2009) - Tattoos have waxed and waned in popularity over the centuries, but the current craze for body ink took off in the late 1980s, and Harvard dermatology professor Richard Rox Anderson, M.D., often wonders if he was partially responsible.
Anderson developed the modern tattoo-removal laser in the late 1980s, a technology shift he suspects touched off the tattoo tsunami.
“The popularity of tattooing soared in the US shortly after laser tattoo removal was commercialized,” Anderson said. “Nobody knows exactly why. (But in) my opinion, one of the deterrents to getting a tattoo – its permanence – was removed in the public’s collective mind.”
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Pogonip Closure Brings Relief, Resignation |
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Written by Tara Leonard
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SANTA CRUZ (September, 2009) -- Park regulars have responded to the closure of a portion of Pogonip with a mixture of relief and resignation. As details emerge about a thriving drug operation in the area, city agencies appear overwhelmed and under-funded in their fight to maintain control of the 640-acre city park. Meanwhile, park visitors wait and wonder what will happen next.
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Percy Jackson, Coming of Age As a Demigod |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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SANTA CRUZ (September 2009) - Boys in literature have always struggled to come of age, enter the ranks of men, and claim their place in the world. But the stakes are ever higher for modern literary heroes.
Harry Potter had to save the world from the powers of dark magic while going through puberty.
And Percy Jackson, hero of the excellent series Percy Jackson & The Olympians, must overcome dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and preserve all of Western Civilization. It’s a tall order for a hapless 12-year-old, and a wild, five-volume ride for the rest of us.
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North Fork Ranch: Where Kids Can Be Kids (So Parents Can Too!) |
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Written by Tara Leonard
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SHAWNEE, COLORADO (August, 2009) -- “Did I ever tell you about the time I was stalked by wolves?” Trevor asked, his eyes twinkling beneath a well-worn black cowboy hat. One hand on the reins, he twisted in the saddle to survey his audience and launched into an outrageous tale of Wild West adventure. I was so distracted by the gorgeous, fluttering aspens and clear blue mountain sky that I missed some salient details, but trotted my horse up closer just in time to hear, “You always shoot between the eyes, but these were two wolves and they each had one eye closed to trick me!”
Welcome to North Fork Ranch where the entertaining wranglers are just one of many unexpected pleasures. (North Fork Ranch lesson #1: How do you know when a wrangler is lying? His mouth is moving.)
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Plant A Salad Garden For Fall, And Winter |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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SANTA CRUZ (August, 2009) - Cool summer weather throughout coastal California has put a damper on this year's tomato season, disappointing home gardeners from Marin to Monterey with scrawny plants, flower drop and late-ripening fruit.
But a bad year for tomatoes can be a great year for salad greens. While the tomatoes in my garden are a fraction of their normal size, (and the heirloom varieties got yanked out weeks ago, ending their misery), the salad beds have been producing bushels of tender greens since early spring.
It’s too late in the season to start over with new tomato plants. But there’s plenty of time to grow your own salad mix from seeds and starts. Plant now, and begin eating home-grown salads by Labor Day.
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Discover Your Inner Tarzan with Zipline Canopy Tour |
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Written by Tara Leonard
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FELTON, CA (August 2009) - If you’ve ever walked through a redwood forest, tilted your head back,
and wondered what it would be like to soar among those majestic
branches, I’ve got an adventure for you. You just have to fling your
body off a 150-foot high platform while attached to a cable strung
between two trees. Don’t worry. After the first time, once your heart
stops jack-hammering and you realize that you really aren’t going
to die, it gets easier. Then it turns into one of the most exhilarating
experiences of your life. At least that was my family’s experience
during a recent Mount Hermon Redwood Canopy Tour in Felton. And if my
70-year-old mother can do it, you can too.
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Have Reptile, Will Travel |
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Written by Tara Leonard
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SANTA CRUZ (July 2009) - It’s a typical 5-year-old’s birthday party. Balloons bob along the
ceiling. A pile of brightly wrapped gifts teeter on the sofa.
A three-foot-long lizard lumbers among the captivated guests. Well, it’s
typical if the animals from Lick Your Eyeballs have been invited!
“Gentle touches,” Audra Barrios instructs as little hands reach out to stroke Esqueleto, a 3- foot long Argentine black & white tegu. Esqueleto scuttles across the deck on short, stocky legs to the delight of the fearless children while several parents, who are trying hard to be good sports, recoil at the sight of his long, forked tongue. “Remember our rule about not touching an animal’s face,” Barrios adds, deftly steering the lizard back into the circle of children.
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"House of Night" - Vampire Tale Aims Below the Belt |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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SANTA CRUZ (July 2009) - Book agents have been hunting vampires for the past few years, inspired by the “Twilight” series of young adult books, and its millions of fans. Young readers are lusting for bloody tales of the supernatural, and publishers are racing to put more vampire books on the shelves, quickly, before this terrible thirst fades.
The industry’s mad scramble to cash in on a trend has produced a raft of “Twilight” lookalikes, including the wretched and popular “House of Night” series, written by mother-daughter team P.C. and Kristin Cast. Where “Twilight” coyly titillates, “House of Night” aims straight for the crotch with scenes portraying oral sex, masturbation during a dark ritual, and the orgasmic pleasures of drinking blood.
Is it too late to issue a spoiler alert for this review?
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Fun on the Fairway at Delaveaga Disc Golf Course |
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Written by Tara Leonard
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SANTA CRUZ (July 2009) -- Known as “The Tunnel” the 8th hole at
Delaveaga Disc Golf Course features a narrow, 350-foot fairway with a
canopy of low-hanging trees. On the left is the road, on the right, a
plunging, tree-covered slope. I lined up my shot and let her fly, only
to watch helplessly as my Frisbee careened off an oak tree, bounced on
the hard-packed dirt and wobbled pathetically to a stop about twenty
feet from where it started. Laughter erupted from my fellow golfers, one
of whom was wearing a Frisbee on her head. Pebble Beach it is not. But
if you’re looking for a fun, free way to spend a summer afternoon this
is the place for you.
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Refinish, Recover and Recycle Thrift Store Chairs |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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SANTA CRUZ (July 2009) - Everyone loves a thrift store bargain. But that interesting coffee table or retro chair usually carries baggage from a former life, such as ratty upholstery or lime-green paint. Sure, it can be fixed, but it's hard to know how much time and money it will take to transform your bargain into a beauty.
Recycling vintage furniture can be creative and rewarding if you choose your project carefully. Here are some tips for tackling one of the easier projects - recovering and refinishing dining-room chairs.
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Cruz Carz - Hitting the Road for a Low-Speed Getaway |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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SANTA CRUZ (July 2009) - They’re tiny and zippy, painted a piercing yellow, and look like a Boardwalk ride gone AWOL. If you’ve been on West Cliff Drive lately, you’ve probably seen a couple of Cruz Carz whizzing past, the shotgun passenger shooting video with an iPhone, and passers-by photographing them in return.
They looked like fun, and since this is a “staycation” summer for us, my daughter and I headed over to the Cruz Carz rental lot and took one of the little three-wheelers for a spin.
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Cafe Brasil: Charming Brazilian Bistro Worth Waking Up For |
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Written by Tara Leonard
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SANTA CRUZ (June, 2009) – Here’s the thing. I’m not really a breakfast person. I’m not wild about morning in general, which explains how I’ve managed to live on the Westside for more than ten years and never eaten at Café Brasil. I’d heard plenty of rave reviews for this colorful Brazilian bistro, but every time I passed by the vibrant green building there were daunting crowds of people spilling out the door, sprawled on bright blue benches in the lush garden or sipping coffee on the steps—crowds that I’d heard could wait for up to an hour for a table. An hour during which one could still be sleeping. However, one fog-free morning, curiosity beat inertia and my daughter and I decided to ride our bikes over for a mid-week breakfast. Surprisingly, it’s a ride I expect we’ll make many times in the future.
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Defeat the Gophers Without Poisoning Your Cat |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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SANTA CRUZ (June 2009) - There’s probably not a gardener in California who hasn’t tenderly planted a rose, or heirloom tomato, only to watch it be dragged underground by a hungry gopher.
All too often, irate gardeners have retaliated with poisoned baits and gases, tainting their soil with strychnine, arsenic, zinc phosphide, and other nasty poisons. In addition to finding their intended targets, poison baits for gophers and moles have been known to kill songbirds, owls, fish, amphibians,and even family pets. Obviously, a large enough dose of these toxins could also be fatal to a human.
But there are alternatives to turning your backyard into a Superfund site. A combination of trapping and gopher-proof garden design can keep your yard mostly gopher-free without resorting to chemical warfare. Also, if done correctly, trapping can be a quick and humane alternative to an agonizing death by poison.
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iPods and Ear Damage, Limiting Dangerous Decibels |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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SANTA CRUZ (May 2009) - When the iPod was introduced in 2001, it was a $400 toy for tech-savvy grownups. Today, with sales in the hundreds of millions, these tiny agents of auditory obliviousness have penetrated every level of society. They’re helping joggers set the pace, providing bus riders with a sense of privacy, and convincing teenagers that they’re living life to the beat of a movie soundtrack.
And those ubiquitous earbuds are increasingly being wedged into the ears of young children. My daughter recently complained that she was one of only three kids in her 5th grade class who didn’t have an iPod. Some of her classmates have owned portable MP3 players for years.
I resisted her pleas. We wear sunscreen and bike helmets, and keep fresh batteries in the smoke detectors. Why would I hand my kid a device capable of blasting 105 decibels directly into her eardrums?
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TLC Ranch Brings Home the Bacon, and Eggs |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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LAS LOMAS (May 2009) -- On a sunny spring afternoon, TLC Ranch in Las Lomas looks like a storybook farm. Glossy red hens chase after bugs, and spotted pigs root contentedly in a grassy pasture. A huge white dog named Angel follows, watchfully, as four-year-old Fiona strides the fields in a stylish pair of pink wellies.
TLC Ranch is exactly the kind of small farm that local-food advocates crave as an alternative to industrial meat production. Animal welfare is paramount here, production is organic, and the food is sold locally. There is an eager market for TLC’s pasture-raised pork and eggs, despite the premium price.
But the cost of farming in the Pajaro Valley is high, and livestock producers are few and far between. If TLC is going to expand, its next move may be to a less-expensive community elsewhere in California.
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Written by Peggy Townsend
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SANTA CRUZ (May 2009) -- Jill Wolfson used to sit in the bleachers and imagine all the things that could go wrong as her gymnast daughter spun and flipped on the uneven parallel bars. She imagined her daughter’s hands letting go, the crashing fall to the ground. She imagined broken bones and concussions and even death.
It was those horrible parental imaginings that Santa Cruz writer Wolfson turned to as she sat down to write her third young-adult novel, “Cold Hands, Warm Heart,” which takes on the subject of illness, loss and connection through the story of a young girl’s heart transplant – a book one reader called “the ‘Juno’ of organ transplants.”
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Munching with Mozart: Free Noon Concerts Make Classical Music Deliciously Easy |
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Written by Tara Leonard
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SANTA CRUZ (April 2009) -- It’s 12:15 on a recent Thursday and the Main Branch of the Santa Cruz Public Library is anything but quiet. In an upstairs meeting room, pianist John Orlando flies through the lightning fast runs of a Mozart sonata for close to a hundred appreciative listeners, many of whom are discretely lunching on sandwiches or salads. These lucky music lovers are attending Munching with Mozart and Friends, a series of free noontime concerts offered the third Thursday of every month.
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A Gopher-Proof Bed For Your Victory Garden |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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SANTA CRUZ (April 2009 ) - The Victory Garden is back. Given the sad state of the economy this year, interest in home-grown food is soaring. The National Gardening Association estimates that 7 million U.S. households plan to plant new vegetable gardens this year, boosting the number of backyard plots to 43 million. First Lady Michelle Obama has even installed a kitchen garden at the White House, imparting a patriotic feel to the sometimes grubby business of growing your family's food.
If you, too, are taking the gardening plunge this year, start your growing season by building a sturdy raised bed. Here are directions for a gopher-proof redwood planter that you can build in one afternoon, and is portable enough to take with you if you move.
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Written by Tara Leonard
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SANTA CRUZ (April, 2009) -- It’s official. I’m old. I didn’t feel that way when I got married and had two kids. It barely crossed my mind when I plucked those first gray hairs and then, without a whimper, turned 40. (40 is the new 30, right?) No, I didn’t actually realize I was old until I heard myself saying to my 13-year-old son, “Pull up your pants! You look like a hoodlum!” With that simple phrase, I joined the pantheon of parents throughout the ages who have responded to their children’s fashion choices with confusion and disapproval. I’ve crossed a line and there’s no going back. And that line hovers just south of my adolescent son’s narrow hips.
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A Different Time, A Different Stimulus Package |
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Written by Peggy Townsend
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SANTA CRUZ (April 2009) -- Most of the drivers rushing over the Valencia Bridge in Aptos never even see the sign. It’s set low in the mossy concrete railing on one end of the span -- a tarnished plaque that marks the history of hard times.
The plaque, which someone had recently graffitied with chalk, commemorates the 1935 construction of the narrow, tree-shadowed bridge. The span was built with funds from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, his program to restart the economy with a flood of stimulus money for social and public works projects.
That money -- distributed for half a decade through acronym-heavy agencies like the WPA, PWA and TRAP -- changed the face of Santa Cruz, although most people might not realize it now.
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The Carnivore's Dilemma: Natural, Organic or Grassfed Beef? |
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Written by Maria Gaura
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SANTA CRUZ (APRIL 2009) - So you’ve read Michael Pollan’s books, and vowed to buy as much locally-grown, organic food as your grocery budget allows. But the tradeoffs get complicated when it comes to buying meat.
Step up to almost any meat counter in Santa Cruz and prepare to be confronted with a consumer dilemma. There’s grassfed organic beef, most of it shipped in from Uruguay, a 9,000 mile, oil-fueled journey. Other brands of organic beef hail from the U.S. Midwest, and require somewhat less shipping. But those cattle spent the last three to six months of their lives on feedlots, which many activists consider contrary to the principles of organic farming.
You can find several brands of “natural” beef raised in California. But the term “natural” can legally apply to cattle raised on corn, hormones and antibiotics, and kept in confinement for a full year. You just want the best for your family and the environment – how do you separate the beef from the bull?
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Human Care Alliance Provides Safety Net to Santa Cruz |
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Written by Tara Leonard
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SANTA CRUZ (April, 2009) -- Maybe you have a family member who found support and guidance through her battle with cancer at WomenCare. Perhaps your aging neighbors enjoy food delivery from the Grey Bears. You might have a colleague who comes to work each morning knowing that her children are safe and happy at the Emeline Childcare Center. In fact, almost every resident of Santa Cruz County has a neighbor, friend or family member who has been helped by a local, nonprofit, health and human service agency. But most of them have never heard of the Human Care Alliance.
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Santa Cruz Techies MeetUp for the Future |
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Written by Administrator
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SANTA CRUZ (April 2009) —Amid the glum economy that has cleared storefronts and hampered business, Santa Cruz techies have been packing the rooms of a monthly local geek-friendly gathering with an irrefutable optimism about the future.
The Santa Cruz New Tech Meet-Up, a networking and educational event for locals, has been so popular in recent months that organizers have had to turn members away at the door of their monthly meetings in downtown Santa Cruz. It is, they say, just one indication that the ongoing effort to galvanize the local design and tech community is gaining some serious traction.
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Uncle Funky Takes On The Recession |
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By Brad Brereton, Special to SantaCruzWire
SANTA CRUZ (March 2009) -- Uncle Funky ain’t scared of no recession. Neither, apparently, are two dozen other brave entrepreneurs who recently gave public notice of their intent to start new businesses during the worst financial downturn in seventy years.
Local businesses such as “Uncle Funky’s Productions,” “Santa Cruz Critter Sitter”, and “Wenikas Wonders” gave public notice last week of their intent to start new ventures, roll up their collective sleeves, and begin pulling the country out of its economic quagmire.
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Tragedy Becomes a Miracle for Sand Dune Collapse Survivor |
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Written by Tara Leonard
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SANTA CRUZ (Feb, 2009) -- Living near Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz, Erin Dawn was often awoken by the sound of medical transport helicopters churning through the still, dark sky. She never imagined that one night it would be her own son taking that fateful ride. But on October 11, 2008, it was 9-year-old Aidan Dawn being rushed from the emergency room to a waiting air ambulance for transport to Stanford’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.
Due to weight restrictions, Aidan’s parents weren’t allowed to ride along, so for the first time in six hours Dawn tore herself away from her child’s side. “That was very painful,” she recalls in an anguished voice. “But I had to let go, surrender, and trust that he would make it there.”
Erin and her husband, Chazz, could only watch helplessly as the helicopter circled and disappeared into the darkness, racing towards Aidan’s only hope of survival.
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Helping The Homeless Escape The Street |
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By Maria Gaura
SANTA CRUZ (January 2009) - When Ken Cole took over the Santa Cruz Homeless Services Center ten years ago, his new office was in the bedroom of a tiny, dilapidated house -- and shared with two other people. The other facilities at the center weren’t much better. The wait in line for the center’s shower could be three hours long, and meals were served out of a battered catering truck.
The city’s approach to homeless services was also in disarray. The City Council was embroiled in a circular political battle between advocates of street camping and horrified neighborhood groups, and downtown merchants were demanding that the council do something – anything -- to rein in begging on city streets.
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Is Horse Manure Safe For Organic Gardens? |
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By Maria Gaura
SANTA CRUZ (January 2009) - It may be stinky and attract flies, but nothing makes a garden grow like a steaming pile of horse manure. Horse droppings make an excellent garden fertilizer and, better yet, can be collected for free at many stables. But is horse manure as natural as it smells?
Horses are prone to a host of parasites, and most horse owners regularly dose their animals with vermicides – medications toxic to intestinal worms and other insect pests. These medications pass through the digestive system, prompting some gardeners to ask whether tainted manure may be harming their crops, their families, or the environment.
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'Lark and Termite' author writes of secrets, love and memory |
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By Peggy Townsend
SANTA CRUZ (January 2009) -- Jayne Anne Phillips’ new novel “Lark and Termite” began 25 years ago in an alley in West Virginia.
Phillips was visiting a friend when she looked out a second-story window into an alley below and spotted a boy sitting in a 1950s aluminum lawn chair. The boy was holding a strip of blue dry cleaner bag in front of his face and blowing on it so the plastic twirled and moved in front of his eyes. Her friend told Phillips the boy would sit like that for hours.
The image burned into Phillips’ memory and became the impetus for one of the central characters in her latest book -- a boy named Termite who can neither speak nor walk but is attuned to the world in ways that go beyond normal consciousness.
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Beans and Rice for Jesus Christ |
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By Maria Gaura
SANTA CRUZ (December 2008) - Regular customers at Las Palmas Taco Bar swear by the crispy chicken tacos, the huevos rancheros, and the carne asada. But the homeless people who quietly line up at Las Palmas’ side window come for the rice and beans, which are given free to anyone who knows the code phrase –“beans and rice and Jesus Christ”.
For twenty years, Las Palmas owner Rick Mendez has given a cup of hot rice and beans to anyone hungry enough to ask for it. Mendez and his sons Robbie and Ronnie hand out anywhere from ten to 35 servings of fresh-cooked food every day, along with acceptance and, sometimes, a blessing.
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Acupuncture Goes to the Dogs |
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Written by Tara Leonard
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APTOS (December, 2008) -- The acupuncture patient rests quietly as Dr. Patty Wilson takes his pulse, examines his tongue, and begins to insert thin, flexible needles into his legs, back and neck. “How’s that feel?” Wilson gently asks, leaning over the treatment table for a final insertion. The patient licks her face.
The affectionate patient is Rocco, a 12-year-old Jack Russell Terrier with bright eyes, perky ears, and a constantly wagging tail. You’d never guess that just months ago this brown-and-white bundle of energy was listless, incontinent, and shaking uncontrollably as the result of an endocrine disorder called Cushing’s Disease. Traditional veterinary medicine offered two treatments: complicated surgery or drug therapy with potentially toxic side-effects. Owner Robert Mettalia chose a third option, an integrative approach that combines the best of Western veterinary practice with Eastern techniques such as acupuncture and herbology.
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Dancing with the chickens |
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By Peggy Townsend
APTOS (December 2008) - The two children who stood in front of the mechanical dancing chickens at Glaum Egg Ranch on Monday couldn’t have laughed harder if they tried.
They cackled at the chicken angel and the chicken snowman who kicked up their claws as a poultry version of “In the Mood” blasted in the background. They howled at the little chicks in top hats who bobbed up and down in their shells.
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A Scavenger's Guide to (Mostly) Free Compost |
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By Maria Gaura
SANTA CRUZ (December 2008) - Wintry weather has finally arrived in Santa Cruz, and most backyard gardeners have abandoned their vegetable beds to the cold-hardy weeds and the neighborhood cats.
But before you curl up on the sofa with a mug of tea and a stack of seed catalogs, there is one last chore to do. Build a low-maintenance compost heap out of free or low-cost organic materials, and let nature turn it into a worm-filled soil amendment that will be ready in time for spring planting.
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More Pain In Store for Battered Santa Cruz Sentinel |
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By Maria Gaura
SANTA CRUZ, CA (Dec. 4, 2008) - The past two years have been cruel to the Santa Cruz Sentinel, but cutbacks at the battered daily newspaper are not over yet.
The Sentinel has changed hands twice since 2006, and is now owned by MediaNews, a newspaper chain notorious for its extreme cost-cutting strategies. The Sentinel’s presses have since been sold for scrap,its landmark building sold, half its workforce laid off and the survivors banished to an office park in Scotts Valley, a 15-minute drive from downtown Santa Cruz.
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Sorry, Parents - "Twilight" Is No "Harry Potter" |
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By Maria Gaura
SANTA CRUZ, Ca. (Dec. 4, 2008) - Harry Potter appeared on the literary scene a decade ago, and transformed the bookselling world with a flick of his wand. Ever since, the muggle publishing industry has been frantic to produce another fantasy franchise that appeals to kids, adults and movie executives alike.
Enter the Twilight books, a four-volume series about teenage vampires and werewolves, set in the gloomy woods of the Pacific Northwest.
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