The whole chicken

Visitors can slip inside a rough wooden and wire gate at Hidden Villa and visit with the 40 or so chickens of its egg-laying flock. The chickens scratch and peck their way about the yard by day and spend the night snugly protected from predators in their coop.

Animal Husbandry Manager Steve Berger keeps the flock primarily for educational use as an opportunity to introduce school groups to chickens in vivo and their warm, colorful eggs. The non-profit farm offers a variety of classes to the community, including cow milking and making cheese from the milk.

Chocolate teaches life skills in cooking classes

Sharon Barkoff’s Los Altos Hills home is not just decorated with a food-lover’s memorabilia - it is designed as a learning space. The kitchen, sunlit through skylights, is accented with a vase of sunflowers, fruit-scented soaps and candles. Shaped by multiple remodels, it has become her workshop.

“I love color. I really believe you need the whole package - scents, music. Psychologically it really affects people,” Barkoff said. “Some children learn better when they touch or smell, or when they hear.”

Meatless diet stimulates creativity

I am a vegetarian.

Now, before you walk on glass around me and ask if it’s OK to eat that big, juicy steak in front of my eyes, stop. I am not a vegetarian because I choose to be; you could say I was genetically designed this way.

New books chew on the politics and ethics of food choices

Free-range eggs have wandered into Safeway. Veggie burgers grace the menu at Burger King. Even Wal-Mart has gone organic.

Food politics is officially mainstream, and Americans hunger for a deeper connection to the food they eat. If you feel left out of this phenomenon, never fear. Several recent books, including Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” (Penguin Press, 2006), “The Ethics of What We Eat: Why Our Food Choices Matter” (Rodale Books, 2007) by Peter Singer and Jim Mason, and Eric Schlosser’s “Fast Food Nation” (Harper Perennial, 2005), provide a stimulating introduction for the food politics newbie.

Adventure Toys reopens with new look and more space

Adventure Toys & Teachers’ Supplies in downtown Los Altos reopened last week showcasing its expanded ground-space. The cramped displays and cumbersome journey upstairs for additional merchandise are gone.

Owner Leslie Chiaverini and landlord Peter Galli began expansion planning in January 2006. Their plans were delayed after the city planning department vetoed an expansion of more than 95 square feet and a fire-code issue earlier this year. Chiaverini said the opening comes, “three months after I had expected.”

Los Altos ranks first among cities with highest median price

Los Altos, with a median price of $1.68 million, ranked first among California cities with the highest median home price in May. Saratoga and Los Gatos also ranked among the top 10 in the state.

Although California home sales decreased 25 percent in May compared to the same period a year ago, the median price of existing homes increased 4.8 percent, the California Association of REALTORS (C.A.R.) reported last week.

Business article

Farmers Market
set for Thursday

The Los Altos Farmers Market is open for business 4-8 p.m. Thursdays through Sept. 27 along State Street between Second and Fourth streets.
The event, put on by Urban Village and sponsored by the Los Altos Village Association, features the foods of small-acreage growers, much of it organic and […]

Halt, when harried, angry, lonely and tired

The phrase, and the acronym, HALT is used in addiction step programs. In most cases they use the word hungry instead of harried, but for my purposes, I just substituted. The phrase is a reminder that when some people feel any of the above, they might resort to their addictions - food, alcohol, etc.

I am using the phrase because that is what I hear from many of our corporate coaching clients today. No, not hungry, but harried, angry, lonely and tired. They are often overworked and desperately tired. Careers are often the way we identify ourselves. Employment follows the economic, global and Wall Street trends, and employees suffer the consequences of those moods.

Grieb grabbing attention

There was a time in Mark Grieb’s career as a pro quarterback when he could live in the Bay Area in near anonymity. Those days are over.

The Arena Football League’s popularity has grown since Grieb signed on 10 years ago and he has emerged as one of its best players. The 33-year-old is the face of the San Jose SaberCats, a perennial championship contender.

Post 558 teams recovering from slow starts to season

The Los Altos American Legion Post 558 Hawks didn’t have the start they envisioned.

The Hawks, a team of 19-and-under baseball players from six Bay Area high schools and De Anza College clawed and fluttered their way to a 0-5 start. The five losses weren’t exactly nail-biters, either. The Hawks were outscored by a total of 48-15.

Avalanche falls in regional quarterfinals

The Foothill Mountain View-Los Altos Avalanche dominated almost every aspect of every game it played at the U.S. Youth Soccer West Regional Championships. These under-14 girls took more shots on goal. They had more corners. They possessed the ball longer.

But the Avalanche didn’t score more goals - at least not in two games - and was eliminated in the quarterfinals of last month’s regional in Las Vegas.

Teenage obsession with ’success’ unhealthy for mind and spirit, panelists say

By the time psychologist Madeline Levine met the girl with the “cutter” T-shirt four years ago, she knew the field of adolescent psychology had changed. With a chatty demeanor, healthy physique and long sleeves hiding the word “empty,” the girl had carved into her wrists, the patient had become a metaphor for the adolescents who increasingly filled Levine’s office.

No longer were they the traditional “problem children” from broken families and harsh upbringings. They were overwhelmingly upper-middle-class teenagers who “looked incredibly good on the outside, but, metaphorically or not, when you rolled up their sleeves, they were bleeding underneath.”

No Sam Spade But Los Altos veteran PI handles the undercover work

On any given day in sunny, downtown Los Altos, a wife may be investigating a spouse she suspects has been unfaithful or someone may call to run a background check on a nanny or personal chef they want to confirm is a suitable hire.

The guarded history of private lives comes unhinged in Ed Piggins’ line of work as a licensed private investigator. He owns and operates Harder & Associates, a PI firm in Los Altos, with his wife, Polly. They deal in the secrets people keep from each other.

ECH wins award for women’s care

El Camino Hospital was named one of the nation’s top-rated hospitals June 25 and received a five-star ranking for women’s health services by HealthGrades, an independent health-care ratings company.

It is the only hospital in Northern California to receive the designation two years in a row. Nineteen hospitals in California received the 2007 five-star rating by HealthGrades, according to a hospital press release.

Immigration policy talk draws crowd

Rosemary Melville, citizenship and immigration services (CIS) director for District 21 (San Francisco and San Jose), offered an overview of current U.S. immigration policy June 25, the first of five summer study sessions on immigration policy sponsored by the League of Women Voters of the Los Altos Mountain View Area and the Los Altos Library.

Melville explained to the more than 90 people who attended that CIS implements U.S. immigration policy as part of the Department of Homeland Security. Current U.S. policy was defined in the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, amended in 1986 and 1996.

Kenneth John Green, LAHS biology teacher 44

Los Altos High School biology teacher Kenneth John Green, a San Francisco native, died suddenly June 29. Mr. Green was 44.

A graduate of Santa Clara University, Mr. Green taught biology, life science and anthropology for 16 years at Los Altos High.

Editorial

The recent discovery that Los Altos police are unable to use radar to nab speeders on as many as 45 city street segments does not look good any way you look at it.

From a practical standpoint, there is no excuse for the slip in the administrative process that disabled officers’ ability to track speeders with radar guns, the most accurate way of determining speed.

Letters to the Editor

City vulnerable to speeders

Recently, I read a very favorable article on our police chief retiring at age 56 with a pension of 90 percent of pay.
An accompanying article was entitled, “Radar use out in Los Altos.” Tickets are invalid until the city brings speed-limit information up to date. The 2001-2002 speed […]

Changing times

“Has it changed much since you were a camper?” I asked my son’s soccer camp counselor. He looked around, smiled, and said, “Not at all.” I could tell that no change was a good thing.

The heart of the camp, in its 35th year deep in the High Sierra, was a cluster of log cabins that still had the original single-paned windows and dusty wooden floors. Evergreen trees shading the cabins had been giants for decades.

Season of fire

“We were out and about, so we were much quicker to respond to the fire,” she said.

Calfornia Department of Forestry planes returning from a fire in the east saw the smoke from across the Bay and raced across the water to start the attack. The fire burned 128 acres in the foothills on the northern border of Los Altos Hills around the Stanford Dish.

Cal Water proposes 41 percent rate hike

Water rates will surge next summer if regulators approve a California Water District Service proposal for a 41 percent rate increase.

For the average residential customer, the increase would be $23.70 per month, and would occur over a three-year period, according to Cal Water officials. The increase still needs approval from the rate-setting California Public Utilities Commission.

Rush to secure new home for dayworkers prompts worry

Anxiety is building as board members and supporters race to secure a new home for the Day Worker Center of Mountain View. The center’s five-year lease with Cavalry Church ends July 31.

“We’re pretty worried, and we’re actively looking at sites,” said Sue Sullivan, who teaches English classes twice a week at the church.

Los Altos Hills staff proposes sewer rate increase

Los Altos Hills residents connected to the sewer system can expect a 30 percent increase in their annual fees next year as the town attempts to come closer to breaking even on its sewer service. The 1,556 sewer ratepayers who had been paying $570 annually would pay $733 under the new budget.

This increase would be the first in six years, according to City Manager Carl Cahill, and would affect residents in both of the town’s sewer basins. The proposed increase must undergo a public notification period. Town staff mailed a notice to ratepayers in mid-June describing the proposed changes. If more than 50 percent of the customers object to the increase within 45 days, city council members would not approve the change when it comes to a public hearing at their Aug. 7 meeting.

New solar panels at Town Hall

New tracking solar panels have been online at the Los Altos Hills Town Hall since June 15, joining an array of nonmobile panels in the orchard behind town hall. The moving solar system, which follows the sun’s path across the sky, is part of the town’s ongoing effort to use solar sources for at least 50 percent of the energy it consumes.

City Councilman Breene Kerr said town staff is adding and upgrading an online monitoring system that will allow residents to compare the results of the tracked and fixed solar systems.

Neutra House moves toward completion

Former Los Altos Councilman King Lear, who is spearheading the fundraising and directing the Neutra House project, said restoration of the Los Altos architectural landmark is scheduled for completion by the end of the year.

The building, designed by famed architect Richard Neutra in 1935, will be handed over to the city at year’s end, he said.

Police Blotter

Burglary

June 28, 7:50 a.m., 100 block of Angela Drive: Workers reported that construction site equipment was missing.

DUI

July 7, 11:30 p.m., El Camino Real and Distel Drive; Loleini Mahomi, 39, of East Palo Alto was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol.
July 9, 2:11 a.m., 1600 block of […]

News Brief

Sewer lawsuit decision appealed

Plaintiffs Tom Burns and the Los Altos Country Club plan to appeal the recent dismissal of their civil lawsuit filed against the city of Los Altos and Santa Clara County. They alleged the city overcharged in the unincorporated area for monthly sewer rates.
Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge […]

A rousing revival

At any angle, through any clear or contorted lens, human kindness has a flawed way of expressing itself - a theme delicately explored in TheatreWorks’ eloquent revival of “The Elephant Man,” closing Sunday in Mountain View.

Aldo Billingslea does a remarkably sensitive job as John Merrick, the famously disfigured man who, in art as in life, transforms our vision of ourselves with startling insights.

Datebook

Datebook items are run on a space-available basis for entertainment, non-profit events, low-cost classes and groups of wide interest in our circulation area. The deadline is noon Tuesday for the next week’s paper. Notices must be typed and include a contact name and phone number. Items may be submitted via e-mail (peteb@latc.com); fax (948-6647); or post (138 Main St., Los Altos, CA 94022).

THEATER