Animal Hospital Closes Doors for Good

Adobe Animal Hospitali was voted Best Veterinarian in the 2009 Gold Awards.

After 35 years serving local pets, the Adobe Animal Hospital in Santa Cruz will shut down for good today. A staff member explained that business has been suffering because of the recession;  fewer pet owners can afford to bring their animals to the vet.
The Adobe Animal Hospital was especially popular because it offered low-cost veterinary services to its clients. These included not only cats and dogs. The clinic once did a brisk business treating horses, but fewer people are keeping horses these days because of the steep costs involved.

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The Creature From the Backyard Lagoon

In the lawn in front of the mother-in-law unit where I live, the tumultuous winter rains of January had filled up a depression where a tree stump had been removed. I’d really enjoyed the way things sprang to life all around after the rains, the way overnight a long dormant bush had suddenly come alive with a hundred thin woody fingers reaching out over my sidewalk, or the abrupt appearance of sturdy mushrooms caps popping up through the wood chips. I’d particularly enjoyed lying in bed listening to the happy guttural expositions of toads, imagining them gleefully loping beneath my windows in the dark.

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Tsunami Hits Santa Cruz

The tsunami that hit Santa Cruz Saturday brought some large waves, but little chaos. Photo by Curtis Cartier.

The 8.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Chile early Saturday prompted tsunami warnings along the entire Pacific coast of the United States. In Santa Cruz, beaches were closed as a precaution. That didn’t stop hundreds of onlookers from crowding the Municipal Wharf and West Cliff Drive in an attempt to see the oncoming waves, which began to hit shore around 1:45pm.

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Changes in Latitudes

Dominic Gill with his tandem bicycle in Bolivia's salt flats.

In June 2006, 25-year-old Dominic Gill set out from northern Alaska on a tandem bike named Achilles and headed south. Way south. His goal: to reach the southern tip of South America in 18 months, picking up random strangers along the way. Armed with bear spray, a video camera and a questionable sense of sanity, Gill rolled out of Prudhoe Bay, Alaska and into the bleak tundra with a small British flag fluttering encouragingly behind him. He had just one rule: “I never asked anyone to get off!”

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Santa Cruz Council Finally Sees Homeless Census

Last year, several teams wiith homeless guides fanned out to count the county's unseen. 2009 photo by Jessica Lussenhop.

On a rainy January morning more than 13 months ago, teams of local government workers and volunteers tromped through the soggy corners of the county and counted homeless people as part of the 2009 Santa Cruz County Homeless Census and Survey.
On a similarly rainy afternoon just last week, the fruits of that effort were finally presented to the Santa Cruz City Council.  The reason for the delay? “Time and availability.”

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