Not long after my husband, Mark, and I moved into our Wilhaggin home, we decided to build a deck and pergola off the master bedroom. Mark is a man of many talents—he is a consultant for the state Legislature during the week, but on weekends he turns into a tool-toting maniac capable of building or renovating just about anything. When the gorgeous redwood structure was complete, it called out for a decorative vine that would wrap around each of the four corner posts and provide a canopy of shade during Sacramento’s hot summers. Without a second thought, we ordered online four Tempranillo grape vines. In addition to being fast growing and hearty, the plants would provide Mark and his son the opportunity to become home winemakers.
Will Rogers wrote, “No man can be condemned for owning a dog. As long as he has a dog, he has a friend.” For Jim Hastings, that friend is a 45-pound canine named McKinley. True to his breed—a Vizsla with sleek rusty-gold fur and a slender athletic frame—McKinley has abundant energy and a drive to move. “This is not a lapdog. This is a field dog,” says Hastings, 90, who walks with his canine cohort 4 to 5 miles every day along the American River Parkway near River Park. “Otherwise he’d be a nervous wreck. Anybody who has one should know that.”
A “civil war” is how Leslie Finke describes the situation among residents last year at the Albert Einstein Center in Arden-Arcade. “It got downright vicious,” says Finke, the center’s executive director for 37 years. “I’ve been here a long time. I’ve never seen such disharmony in the building. It was a civil war here. People were so mean to each other.”
In the pecking order, Anchovy is the chief chicken. She is an Ameraucana and lays pale blue eggs. “She will boss everyone around,” says Nicole Martin, who lives in Arden Park with husband Phil, and their daughters Phoebe and Lucie. “She will literally peck the others on the head.”Anchovy barely tolerates being picked up, but loves to be around people, especially Phil when he is working in the family’s spacious backyard garden. “She follows me around the whole time,” he says.
Early in 2017, an unaltered female terrier mix with silky red hair was picked up as a stray in Woodland by Yolo County Animal Services. When shelter staff evaluated her for adoption, she failed the behavior test. She was too frightened to walk on leash or to be handled. When they reached for her, she cowered at the back of her kennel. When they attempted to leash her, she struggled against the harness.
Leo, a spunky feline with soft swirls of auburn-red hair, is calling to his mom, Kitty O’Neal, from his outside sanctuary. “Are you ready to come in?” O’Neal queries her very vocal 12-year-old boy. Leo is perched on the top tier of his three-story cat condo in the backyard of O’Neal’s Curtis Park home, which she shares with husband, Kurt Spataro. Attached to the cage is a long tunnel made of netting that allows Leo to venture into the garden.
