Charming birdhouses add so much character to a home’s outdoor landscape. I noticed this firsthand early June while touring the Yolo County Red Cross Heart of the Home Kitchen Tour and the Pence Gallery of Davis Garden Tour. The homeowners created focal points in their yards using their birdhouse designs. Birdhouses serve as garden art and lodging. Creating shelter for our feathered visitors supports the songbird population so that they may thrive and reproduce. Even a novice bird-watcher like me can appreciate a bird’s place in nature – its plumage and flight fascinate. My favorites are the hummingbirds and bluebirds. At this moment, however, switching gears from the hustle and bustle of m

 It was a dark and stormy night. Well, not really.  It had been a dark and stormy afternoon, however, and about 4 p.m., I thought the River Cats series finale against the Colorado Sky Sox was in jeopardy of being rained out.   Fortunately, the storm broke around 5 p.m., and by game time there were only a few clouds in the sky.  I arrived about 6:30 and was pleasantly surprised to find a press pass waiting for me at Will Call.  I'd thought that ship might have sailed after the "flip flop incident," but apparently not. I felt like a good cop, though somewhat of a loose cannon, who'd lost his badge and gun because of his erratic behavior.  Like Mel Gibson in "Lethal Weapon". On Monday, I g

 Tree clean our air and water, store carbon in their trunks, create habitat for wildlife, reduce air pollution, increase property values, and provide countless other benefits. The Sacramento Tree Foundation works to leverage all of the benefits that trees provide to create healthy and sustainable communities through building the best urban forest in the Sacramento region. A major keystone in building the best urban forest is the Greenprint initiative, a multi-decade regional framework created to meet Sacramento's sustainability and livability goals by expanding urban forests and optimizing the benefits of tree canopies. Greenprint partners, comprised of 22 cities and 6 counties, have agree