Home Front Home Front (November 25, 2005)

MAKING GARDENER'S GOLD . . . The last workshop this year on creating compost will be offered by the City of Palo Alto on Tuesday, Nov. 29, 7 to 8 p.m. at Cubberley Community Center, Room H-1, 4000 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto. Palo Alto residents who attend the workshop receive a voucher good for a discount on a Biostock compost bin ($27 instead of $89 retail). For information, or to enroll, call the city's recycling program at (650) 496-5910 or visit www.cityofpaloalto.org/recycle.

HOLIDAY BOUTIQUE . . . The Garden Club of Palo Alto will hold its biennial holiday boutique on Saturday, Dec. 3, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Lucie Stern Community Center, 1305 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto. Members of the garden club have designed and created items for sale -- including hand-knit Christmas stockings, pressed-flower stationery, botanical art, custom birdhouses, wreaths, boxwood kissing balls, centerpieces, garden benches, as well as preserves, liquor cakes and more. Proceeds from the "Holiday Affaire Takes Wing" boutique support community horticultural projects.

TOYS FOR TOTS . . . Once more Coldwell Banker is teaming with the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, offering local real-estate offices as collection points for new, unwrapped toys through Dec. 16. Toys, which will be distributed to needy children, may be dropped off at participating CB offices at 1000 El Camino Real, Suite 150, Menlo Park; 930 Santa Cruz Ave., Menlo Park; 245 Lytton Ave., Suite 100, Palo Alto; 2754 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto; 116 Portola Road, Portola Valley; 2969 Woodside Road, Woodside. Toys may also be dropped off at local fire stations.

TEAS IN THE GARDEN . . . Yerba Buena Nursery will be offering Christmas Tea Lunches Thursday through Sunday, Dec. 1-4 and Dec. 8-11 at noon. The meal, with a special holiday tea, is held in the Great Room of the 100-year-old farmhouse at the nursery, at 19500 Skyline Blvd., Woodside. Cost is $40 per person, prepaid by credit card. For information, call (650) 851-1668 or visit www.yerbabuenanursery.com.

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