The Chapel Hill Garden Club will hold its Spring Garden Tour Saturday, April 12, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sunday, April 13, from noon to 4 p.m. The tour is self-guided and includes 10 private gardens. Refreshments, exhibits, a raffle, live music, demonstrations and plant sales will be held at the Botanical Garden. Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 day of. Children’s tickets are $5, day of only. For information and tickets, contact the Botanical Garden at 962-0522 or visit www.chapelhillgardentour.net

At the Carrboro Farmers’ Market, springtime hours are in effect — 7 a.m. to noon. The return of the Carrboro Wednesday Market is just around the corner: Mark your calendar for April 9.

The Hillsborough Farmers’ Market is now open Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. to noon at 128 N. Churton Street and Wednesdays from 3-6 p.m. at East Margaret Lane behind the Sheriff’s  office.

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Cookbook author and radio personality Lynne Rossetto Kasper will visit the Fearrington Barn on Thursday, April 10 from 3 to 5 p.m. to read from her book The Splendid Table’s How To Eat Supper.

The event is free and open to the public and sponsored by McIntyre’s Fine Books. More information at www.fearrington.com

The 3CUPS coffee shop will host a forum on Wednesday, April 9 at 7:30 p.m. to discuss gaps in local agriculture infrastructure. Leading the discussion are Tim Philpott, founder of Maverick Farms, and Jennifer Curtis of NC Choices, which promotes sustainable local farming. The discussion will focus on continuing to expand local agriculture. The event is free.

The Haw River Watch will host a Macro-Micro Workshop on Saturday, March 29 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Bynum Beach. Volunteers will teach attendees about collecting and inspecting water samples for microscopic creatures (with an interlude for lunch) to test water quality. RSVP and learn more from Cynthia Crossen at 967-2500 or riverwatch@hawriver.org

Wendy Richesin-Dodd of Carrboro sent us this shot and a few other photos of multiple Xs in the sky. She shot the photos last month near Carrboro Plaza. Send your Cell Phone photos to editor@carrborocitizen.com

LAKE LEVELS

University Lake: 0‘ 2.5” below full
Cane Creek Reservoir: 11‘ 1” below full

PRECIPITATION THIS MONTH

Jones Ferry Water Treatment Plant:  4.62”
Cane Creek Reservoir: 4.11”

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Redbud’s many shades of pink. Photo by Ken Moore.

Native pink-flowered redbud, Cercis Canadensis, is right on schedule beginning its three-week-long flowering. It will be followed in a week or two by the pure-white Flowering Dogwood, Cornus florida. The combination of these two native trees’ spring awakenings gives us four to five weeks of flowering with a dramatic overlapping of the two.

In recent years, this extended beautiful beginning of our natural Piedmont spring has been overshadowed by the short, week-long blinding white explosion of the exotic Bradford Pear, Pyrus calleryana ‘Bradford’, over-planted along city streets and in parking lots and residential landscapes.

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Though the tribute to Eve Carson was more about the joy of her life than the sorrow felt by her passing, emotions still ran strong. Photo by Isaac Sandlin.

The atmosphere was more celebratory than tearful as thousands of students, faculty and Carolina community members came together on Tuesday to honor and say a final goodbye to UNC Student Body President Eve Carson.

Carson, an Athens, Ga. native who came to UNC as a Morehead-Cain scholar, was shot and killed in a robbery during the early morning hours of March 5. Two suspects – Demario James Atwater, 21, and Lawrence Alvin Lovette Jr., 17 – have been arrested and charged with first-degree murder. Police apprehended Atwater and Lovette last week after releasing photos of the suspects using Carson’s ATM card and driving what appeared to be her 2005 Toyota Highlander.

On Tuesday, people clad in Carolina blue streamed into the Dean Dome to say goodbye to their beloved friend, leader, colleague and family member. Many leaned on one another for support, but smiled as they watched a slide show and heard stories about Carson. More »

Proprietors say it’s full speed ahead

After a year of producing The Carrboro Citizen, Robert Dickson and Kirk Ross, publisher and editor, respectively, and owners of the newspaper, said Thursday that the enterprise is going strong after a year. Thanks to a loyal and growing readership, The Citizen is now the most widely read weekly publication in town.

With distribution of its press run of 5,000 papers expanded now to more than 90 locations (see list on Page 8), The Citizen is picked up by more than 3,000 people within the Carrboro town limits alone. Additional distribution expansion has increased readership in Hillsborough, Pittsboro, Southern Village, Meadowmont, on campus and throughout downtown Chapel Hill. The Citizen also maintains home-delivery service to 160 households.

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By Valarie Schwartz 

We all have dreams.

Besides the big ones, like world peace, there are the ones that come with sleep, serving as guides or revelations into our unconscious.

“Dreams don’t tell us things we already know about ourselves,” Marilyn Dyer told me. “What would be the point — they’d be a waste of time.”

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By Taylor Sisk
Staff Writer

Debbie Carraway is 37, works in information technology and has bipolar disorder. For 14 years, until just a couple of weeks ago, she was a client of Marilyn Ghezzi, a therapist at Caring Family Network. Caring Family Network no longer provides therapy services in Orange County, and Carraway is feeling the blow. The loss of continuity is at the top of her list of concerns.

“What I had before that I don’t have anymore is history,” Carraway says, “having someone who actually knows my story, who knows me, who has been with me through this walk. It’s been a long time, and having to leave that very suddenly is very hard.”

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By Susie Dickson
Staff Writer

One hundred Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools middle school students could be moved to different schools under a proposed redistricting plan that will be considered by the school board in a work session tonight (Thursday).

The proposed redistricting plan includes changes that would shift the Chinese-English dual-language program to McDougle Middle School, reduce enrollment at Culbreth Middle School and move orphan segments that were created during elementary redistricting last year. An orphan segment is a small group of students that is the only group from an elementary school to attend a particular middle school.

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LAKE LEVELS

University Lake: 0‘ .75” below full
Cane Creek Reservoir: 11‘ 6” below full

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The Obama for President campaign has landed.

This week, organizers working for Barack Obama, a U.S. Senator from Illinois and frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, started operating out of the former location of Shorty’s on Franklin Street.

More staffers and volunteers are expected to arrive soon to help gear up support in the area ahead of North Carolina’s May 6 primary.

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