"We're licking loneliness" is the motto held by the all-volunteer Furry Friends Pet Assisted Therapy Services, a registered non-profit organization serving Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties.  Once a month, several of its numerous volunteers bring their pet dogs to visit the elderly nuns at the Convent of the Holy Names in the hills above the Los Gatos Library. The religious women's faces light up when they see the animals. As eager hands pet the well-behaved pooches on their heads and backs, the volunteers and some of the nuns engage in lively conversations, further brightening …

The 4-inch Chaco Golden Knee tarantula walks slowly up the arm of animal curator, Glen Marchant, who is smiling fondly at the resident Youth Science Institute spider. All ends well; no one is bitten. Actually, the tarantula is a well-behaved beauty, with black, gold and orange hair resembling the colors in a calico cat's fur.  Unlike a cat, however, a tarantula's furry exterior is part of the rigid exoskeleton that supports and protects its body. Marchant explains that, as an arthropod, a young tarantula frequently sheds its entire exoskeleton through molting. During a fascinating process, a …

From the time his mother first took him horseback riding at the age of 4, Cliff Hibbitts has loved being around horses.  "I went without a horse just for a short period of time, and I didn't like myself," says Hibbitts, who co-owns the Los Gatos Barber Shop with his father, Frank.  For the past six years, Hibbitts has also owned the Hibbitts Family Stables in San Jose, where he keeps his seven horses and boards a few dozen others. He visits the stables daily, gives riding lessons by appointment, and does it all in addition to his full-time day job and a family life that includes four kids.  …

Editor's note: The following article was first published in Los Gatos Patch on July 8. "Jill's Ride for Hope" will be Saturday. In March 2009, Polly Naber and her husband, Rob, lost their 15-year-old daughter, Jillian Bailey Naber, to suicide. While dealing with their grief, Polly says they realized many people didn't know Jill took her own life, because local media reports used only the term "passed away."  "Suicide is such a hush-hush topic," Polly says. "Maybe if people talked about it more, you might be able to save lives." For the second year, Polly and Rob are supporting Jill's Ride for…

On a recent sunny Saturday morning, passersby kept stopping in their tracks to gape at five people holding yoga poses while on paddleboards atop Vasona Lake. Amazingly, no one in the group toppled into the water.  That hour-long paddleboard yoga class had begun at the boat dock with yoga instructor Adam Sewell and four women paddling slowly onto the calm lake. The head-to-toe balancing necessary to remain on a board, along with the paddling, gave the group an aerobic workout before they began the yoga practice.  During yoga movements on paddleboards, students need to keep their feet apart, …

The female mosquito certainly gets around. She can fly up to two miles while seeking a blood meal from birds, her favorite hosts. When she encounters people, instead, they become her victims, as well. She leaves them with itchy reminders about the power of her proboscis. If she draws blood from a West Nile Virus (WNV) infected bird, she can also infect humans. Although eight out of 10 people bitten by a WNV-infected mosquito won't develop symptoms, about 60 percent of the remaining 20 percent will think they have a really nasty flu, according to Russ Parman, acting district manager of the …

"Do work that you love and success will follow" is a mantra by which Marian Gault appears to live.  After growing up in the Idaho mountains, where she developed a love of wildlife and landscapes, Marian achieved success as a junior high school teacher, international folk dancer, choreographer and artist. For many years, she worked at all four careers. As a child, she had excellent drawing abilities and loved to make detail-filled pen-and-ink drawings. As an adult, she was also drawn to watercolor painting and calligraphy, frequently taking classes with renowned artists to perfect her skills. …

Editor's Note: The following article is the final installment in a three-part series about Patrick Stracey's cross-country bicycle trip. The first article, "Heart Land, Part 1," was published in Los Gatos Patch on May 27 and June 24, 2011. The second story, "Heart Land, Part, 2," ran July 1.  On July 13, Patrick Stracey's 4,205-mile bicycle trip across America ended when he brought his bicycle onto the wet Pacific sand in Seaside, OR. He had begun the trip 69 days earlier in similar fashion along an Atlantic beach in Yorktown, VA.  In between the two coasts, Stracey encountered memorable …

If Alrie Middlebrook gets her way, all schools in California will one day have an outdoor classroom where students will learn about ecology, protecting natural resources and growing foods in high-tech vertical farms to feed nearby urban residents.  Middlebrook's Environmental Laboratory for Sustainability and Ecological Education (ELSEE), is an operational plant-filled prototype for her ambitious plans. Located at her half-acre Middlebrook Gardens site near downtown San Jose, ELSEE was created by the California Native Garden Foundation (CNGF), a non-profit founded in 2004 by Middlebrook and …

Every Thursday afternoon, volunteers give 22 local families bags filled with food at the House of Hope, a food bank next to Calvary Church in Los Gatos. Vegetables are often included and freshly picked from the Hope Garden behind the house, while the other food is delivered that day by West Valley Community Services (WVCS), a Cupertino-based safety-net provider for people in financial distress.  "We provide basic needs for low-income families in the West Valley region—that's Cupertino, West San Jose, Monte Sereno, Los Gatos, Saratoga and the unincorporated mountain region," says Paul …

Editor's Note: The following article is the second of a three-part series about Patrick Stracey's current cross-country bicycle trip. The first article, "Heart Land, Part 1," was published in Los Gatos Patch on May 27 and June 24, 2011.  On the Fourth of July, Patrick Stracey, 20, will be in Montana after traveling from coastal Virginia by bicycle for nearly two months. Graham McCulloch and Matt Farrer, both from England, are riding with him on the Trans-American Bike Trail; a fourth cyclist left last month to join another group.  "We're in really good shape now," says Stracey, who was in …

Editor's Note: The following article is the first of a three-part series about Patrick Stracey's current bicycle trip across America. This story was first published in Los Gatos Patch on May 27, 2011. Part 2 will appear in this column on Friday, July 1. When Patrick Stracey was in middle school about 10 years ago, a guest speaker told the students about an exciting bicycle trip he had taken across the United States. Stracey immediately became enthralled by the idea that he, too, could have such an adventure one day.  On May 6, his dream came true. Stracey began a cross-country biking trip in …

During his frequent hikes on nearby hills, longtime orchid grower Ed Nazzal is drawn to native Bay Area orchids like a chocoholic eyeing candy inside a chocolate shop.  It's unlikely either of them will ever say, "Enough!"  Out of approximately 30,000 orchid species worldwide, nearly three dozen are native to California and about a dozen are on record as growing in the Bay Area. "I've only seen about five native species here," laments Nazzal, who has grown thousands of tropical orchids during the past 27 years. "The rest may be either extinct or rare, but I keep looking to see what's out …

Greg Meyer, a professional naturalist, outdoor guide and university lecturer, has observed nature up close on all seven continents. His childhood self would be pleased.  "As a kid, I just wanted to be outdoors all the time," Meyer says. "When I was in college, though, I didn't think you could do that for a living, but I was lucky and sort of fell into doing this."  Meyer graduated from UC Santa Cruz in 1984 with a bachelor's degree in environmental studies and received his master's degree in the same discipline. Since then, he has led numerous international expeditions for eco-tourism …

"Follow your passion" is time-honored advice that members of the Los Gatos Rowing Club (LGRC) seem to live by every day.  Between September and May, the LGRC varsity teams train after school almost daily on the 2.5-mile-long Lexington Reservoir in the Santa Cruz Mountains. During the three-hour sessions, the 14- to 18-year-olds also get substantial workouts by running on nearby trails and lifting weights in the LGRC boathouse near the reservoir's northern shore. On weekends, instead of catching up on sleep, the juniors are back for more practice shortly after sunrise.  Hard work has paid off…

Los Gatos' love affair with roses is once again hot and heavy this spring.  Masses of white floribunda roses are blooming on the fountain side of Town Plaza Park, and many dozens of buds are waiting to take center stage.  On the Civic Center's grounds, in addition to roses in the enclosed rose garden, candelabra-style floribundas, single-stemmed tea roses and 6-foot-high tree roses are giving off vivid hues that are visible from E. Main Street.  Throughout the town, many homes have enviable blooming roses in their front yards.  With so many roses producing multitudes of blooms, they must be …

Like ducks drawn to water, the kids at Vasona Park's first "Have a Healthy Creek" event hurried down to the edge of a sparkling Los Gatos Creek, with Park Ranger Brent Biafore leading the way. Biafore had chosen a creek site away from his planned spot near the boat dock, because of another event in the park. It turned out to be a half-hidden gem.  Partially shaded by masses of arching branches, the gently flowing shallow water reflected the light green colors of the springtime trees. Mallard ducks and Canada geese swam by slowly, and a few came onto the creek bank about three feet away from …

If you've ever driven or walked up the 328-foot-long/100-meter Nicholson Avenue hill—Cat's Hill to locals—its 23 percent grade has certainly caught your attention. Can you imagine yourself pedaling insanely fast on a bicycle up that hill, with your legs burning and heart pounding, then racing on a course that quickly takes you back to the steep monster—and doing all that 20 to 30 times in about an hour? On May 14, hundreds of bicycle racers will take on that grueling challenge at the 38th annual Cat's Hill Classic in the Almond Grove neighborhood of Los Gatos. Winners will receive cash and …

On April 18, even this spring's finicky sun came out to cheer as Christine Kennedy won the 2011 Boston Marathon in her age division for the third straight year.  "The day before it was wind and rain, and we had this storm come through," says Kennedy, 56, who lives in Los Gatos. "It was cold, but by the time the race started at 10 o'clock, the sun was up. The following day, it poured rain."  Kennedy's winning time of 2:56:17 in the women's 55-59 age group was better than her previous two wins in Boston—2:57:19 in 2010 in the 55-59 group and 2:56:32 in 2009 in the 50-54 group—while the second-…

If Los Gatos Creek could talk, it might boast that about a century ago its whims ruled young Los Gatos, including the land that later became Vasona Park. During most winters, the creek's dangerous rapids raged north and south of the town, its currents escaping its natural banks at will, causing damage to structures in its path. During the summer, it calmed itself, as though resting up for its next wintertime assault.  For decades, farmers in the Vasona area had accepted the creek's winter fury since they freely used the resulting, abundant groundwater to irrigate their vast orchards during …