By SARAH J. DANIEL Special to the Palisadian-Post At first glance, Winner Circle Farm looks like any other orchard, with its symmetrical lines of fruit bearing trees, save for the countless chickens brazenly strutting around the circular driveway, seemingly uninhibited by anyone or anything. In fact, about 100 chickens roam so freely around Doug and Leslie Miller’s 5-acre spread of land in Palmdale that their friendly visits to surrounding neighbors have become routine. For the Miller family, vendors at the Palisades Farmers Market since its inception, organic farming isn’t just about using naturally derived pest management or draping tinsel-like mylar tape on trees to deter birds from eating the fruit. It’s a way of life that rests on the pillar that nature shouldn’t be manipulated, but rather observed and its rewards reaped. Boasting a modest crop that includes Fuji apples, cherries, Asian pears, greengage plums, nectarines, grapes, garlic, pumpkins and 19 different varieties of peaches, the Millers also sell eggs laid by the aforementioned truly free-range chickens. ‘They’ll never go in a stew pot,’ Leslie Miller says of the free-feathered birds. ‘They’ll die here, they’re my friends.’ It’s this natural approach to farming that resonates with consumers who, in the face of corporate greed and mistrust, are turning to local farmers markets more often, where vendors feel like family and offer an alternative to monolithic grocery chains. Doug and Leslie, both 48, say farming has always been in their blood. Both grew up in the San Fernando Valley with big, backyard gardens: Leslie’s grandparents had orange groves next door and Doug’s grandparents had come from a farm. While dating, they used to hold contests of who could grow the best vegetables. ‘It was competitive gardening,’ jokes Leslie. Then when they had children, they wanted to grow the freshest vegetables for them. Ten years ago, they bought an orchard. ‘It was a hobby that got out of hand,’ Leslie says of the expanding farm. They have now maxed out their property and are looking into purchasing more land. ‘I’m like their family farmer,’ Leslie says of the throngs of young families, Ugg-booted teens, cyclists, celebrities, joggers and long-time residents who have made the Sunday morning trip to the Palisades market a weekend ritual. But as the health revolution continues to plow across North America with no signs of slowing, the demand for organic foods has gone mainstream, with sales of organic products growing in more than 20 percent over the last decade, according to the California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) Web site. This has forced many long time organic farmers to become certified or face losing profits to their competitors who display the coveted United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) certified organic seal. Jennifer McColm, manager of the California Certified Organic Markets Inc. says that of the eight markets she oversees (including the Palisades market), approximately 40 percent of vendors are certified and an equal number are pesticide-free farmers like the Millers. ‘People are becoming a lot more aware of what they’re putting in their bodies,’ says McColm, who admits she is no longer accepting vendor applicants who aren’t certified, and encourages her current group of non-certified vendors to start the process. Doug and Leslie began the certification process more than a year and a half ago. According to Leslie, it involves a lot of ‘jumping through hoops,’ endless paperwork, time and having tests performed on their land, and will take a total of three years to complete. For small farms like Winner Circle, becoming certified organic also means higher expenses; the cost of using organic fertilizers is significantly higher than the conventional variety. The difference’$50 per acre for the latter versus $600 per acre for organic herbicides’ Miller says would be taxing on farmers who didn’t have an additional income like their family does (Leslie teaches special needs children and her husband is a cabinetmaker). The Miller children, Casey, 25 and Miranda, 23, also help on the farm and at the markets. Organic standards and certification were pioneered by the CCOF in the mid-1970s. As the market for organic products grew, so did the number of organic certification agencies. Subsequently Congress passed the Organic Food Production Act (OFPA) in 1990 to establish consistency and this spawned the USDA to later create the National Organic Standards (NOS). Under these guidelines, uncertified farms like Winner Circle can sell goods at farmers markets and to retailers, advertising their items as ‘organic’ or ‘organically grown,’ and are not required to become certified unless their gross agricultural income from organic sales is more than $5,000 annually. Although they currently have no definite plans to sell to retail outlets, with certification the Millers would also be able to sell their produce for use as organic ingredients. Despite these perks, competition and profit weren’t the motivation behind Doug and Leslie’s decision to become certified. Leslie says they’re doing it for their customers, because they wanted to make them ‘feel more comfortable.’ Even though, she adds, ‘there are some people who will only buy organic, who buy from me because they know me and trust me.’ Leslie chats with her regular customers and seems to effortlessly remember he names of their children and spouses. She even recalled that a customer’s 4-year-old son was born the year the Palisades market opened. ‘I get Christmas cards, Hanukkah cards, even school pictures of their children ‘I’ve established some real friendships,’ she says. And with familiarity comes perks; Leslie gave jars of her homemade jams and jellies as holiday gifts this year and sells bird-pecked fruit at reduced prices to regulars like Palisadian Pete Donohue who uses his windfall to make homemade pies. Before growing peaches, Leslie got to the point that she didn’t even care for them in stores, because they didn’t have any taste. ‘I had no idea there were so many really awesome varieties of peaches,’ says Leslie, who has through trial and error now grown peaches sold at six farmers markets that her neighbor, the avocado farmer, calls ‘the real thing.’

Sinking into the corner booth of a dimly lit, smoky New York jazz lounge can transport you back several decades to a time when jazzmen reigned as kings of music. Clifford Brown. Fats Navarro. Dizzy, Miles and Chet. All it takes is one tender trumpet solo to make time stand still. The intense and passionate life of a Manhattan jazz musician and his broken family is captured in Warren Leight’s beautifully written ‘Side Man,’ on stage at the Malibu Stage Co. through July 18. Directed by the company’s interim artistic director Christopher Hart and produced by co-founder Jackie Bridgeman, ‘Side Man’ is complete with powerful performances that resonate long after the lights go down. Set first in 1985 and traveling back to 1953, the play is narrated by the young but reflective Clifford (David Barry Gray), whose father, Gene (Jack Conley) was a sideman in the legendary Claude Thornhill big band. A jazz term, sideman ‘refers to a musician who works for hire on band jobs, who knows the standards by heart and who can solo dazzlingly but also blend in with an orchestra’s sound.’ Leight wrote ‘Side Man’ based on his own father, Donald Leight, now 81, a trumpet player who worked with Claude Thornhill, Woody Herman and other band leaders through the 1950s. Perhaps this is why the characters in the memory play feel so real’their emotions raw and human. Of particular note is Conley’s commanding performance as Gene, an intensely devoted musician whose oblivious neglect of his family evokes some of the drama’s heaviest emotions. With his deep, gravelly voice and stoic demeanor, Conley creates a striking sideman. No sooner do we meet Gene than we are introduced to his family of fellow horn players, Ziggy (Todd Truly), Al (John Mariano) and Jonesy (Eddie Kehler); their loyalty to each other is rooted in their shared obsession with jazz. These quirky, comical and self-destructive characters have measured their life in gigs, not money’burning brass, getting high, traveling light and eating soup. In older age, they reminisce in the same dark, intimate jazz clubs. Their home base is the Melody Lounge, where Clifford (named for Clifford Brown) goes to visit the father he hasn’t seen in years before heading west to pursue a painting career. En route to the Lounge, he stops by their old apartment to see his alcoholic mother, Terry (Ellen Greene), who is dead inside from lonely years of marriage to a man married to his music. Separated from Gene, Terry can still think only of her love for him and their son. Greene stuns the audience with her complex character’a girlishly naive but motherly type with a dirty mouth and sudden temper. Her transformation into an alcoholic mother is painfully moving. Some may recognize her sweet, high-pitched voice from her role as Audrey in Alan Menken’s and Howard Ashman’s ‘Little Shop of Horrors,’ where she initiated the role of Audrey singing ‘Suddenly Seymour’ and ‘Somewhere That’s Green.’ She also co-starred in the movie version. Clifford traces the breakdown of his parents’ marriage through the rise and decline of jazz, superseded by the advent of rock ‘n roll. Raised on his father’s obsession with jazz and his mother’s resentment, Clifford was made old at a young age and forced to assume a parental role. It is not a coincidence that Terry tells him to ask his father to play her favorite song, ‘Why Was I Born?’ or that when Clifford walks into the bar, he hears his father soloing on ‘I Remember Clifford.’ ‘Genie on a ballad, break your heart every time,’ says Clifford of his father’s playing. And the moving production of ‘Side Man’ does break your heart, in the way that only the best jazz solos and tender melodies can. Some of the most poignant scenes illustrate the intense brotherhood formed by the four musicians over their shared passion for and understanding of jazz. When they listen to Clifford Brown’s last recording of ‘A Night in Tunisia,’ we see Ziggy, Al and Gene at their most ecstatic, nodding their heads, laughing and reacting to every melodious rise and fall. Actors Conley, Kehler, Truly and Mariano maintain their chemistry throughout the play, creating moments of humorous camaraderie and warm nostalgia for a bygone era. Kehler’s performance as the lovable but strung-out Jonesy is particularly impressive. Mary Lou Metzger plays the role of Patsy, a Melody Lounge waitress and constant in the lives of the jazzmen and Clifford. The costumes (Paula Post), especially in the ’50s and ’60s scenes, are fun to see, and the set design (Gary Randall) captures the intimate environment of the New York jazz scene. Though the production lacks live music, ‘Side Man’ is a memorable show to be seen, felt and heard in the intimate and rustic Malibu Stage Co. setting. It is not surprising that such a moving play goes up in a former place of worship. Performances run Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets are $25. The Malibu Stage Co. is located at 29243 Pacific Coast Highway. For reservations call 589-1998.

The large black crow who landed on the railing outside Jeanette Griver’s Palisades home brought with him a story. When Griver first saw the crow appear two years ago, she began observing the relationship between her Shetland Sheepdog, Curio, and the bird, whom she called Mr. Crow. ‘I took notes thinking someday I would want to write a children’s book,’ says Griver, an author and scientist by nature. In January of 2004, she began writing ‘Curio a Shetland Sheepdog Meets the Crow,’ a warm and educational story for children and adults, published by Compsych Systems, Inc. and printed by the Palisades Post. Griver was amazed at the friendship that seemed to develop in real life between her dog and the crow, who initially made a loud cawing sound that caused Curio to run to the big glass window for a look at the bird. ‘After a week or two, they had found a way to communicate,’ says Griver, who describes a curious nod that each animal, on either side of the window, would give the other as a kind of secret language. Though her book is based on these animal observations, Griver says it’s a work of fiction that incorporates ideas of communication and problem solving, loyalty and friendship. ‘The relationship between Curio and Mr. Crow is about finding a friend who’s intelligent and with whom you share a mutual respect,’ she says. Griver’s psychology background helped her write ‘Curio’ but she also conducted a good amount of research on the Internet and at the library in order to learn about and develop her characters. ‘I looked at the similarities and differences between crows and Shelties,’ says Griver, who earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from UCLA in 1961, and a master’s degree in human factors (a branch of psychology) from USC in 1964. ‘I never knew how intelligent crows were.’ She developed Mr. Crow from scientific data and dictionary information, and imagined him as a strong member of his flock, living off the land and providing for his family. By contrast, the character of Curio is dependent on her companion, Susan, to provide for her. Griver already had extensive knowledge of Shelties, who she says are ‘very loving, intelligent, eager to please, and motivated not only by food but by love.’ She had taught her own Sheltie how to spell her name, Curio, in blocks using her nose and front paws. In creating a persona for Mr. Crow, Griver focused on the positive characteristics of crows and gave him a friendly but cautious voice instead of a loud and hostile voice, which others may have chosen for the crow. Griver named her human character after her good friend of 25 years, Susan Espinoza, whose 10-year-old grandson, Michael Canty, was one of the book’s first readers and wrote one of the blurbs on the back cover. ‘I needed all the data I could get,’ says Griver, whose collaborator, Phyllis L. Milway, helped with the story development and dialogue, while artist Marna Obermiller, who has bred and trained Shelties, illustrated the book. Griver is also the author of ‘Oh No! Not Another Problem,’ a 10-step guide to problem solving which she self-published in 2000. ‘Oh No!’ appeared on the Los Angeles Times paperback, nonfiction bestseller list for 27 weeks in 2000-2001 and was printed in braille by the Library of Congress in 2001 and made into an audio book; it has since been printed in Canada, the UK and Korea. Griver’s first book was ‘Applied Problem Analysis Plus,’ published in 1988. President and CEO of her human factors company, Compsych, Griver still does some consulting but is mostly focused on her writing. She recently adopted a 4-month-old Blue Merle puppy whom she named Merula, which means ‘blackbird’; ‘Merle’ is archaic for ‘Merula’. Asked what response she hopes people will have to the ‘Curio’ book, she says, ‘I’m hoping children and adults will take time to get to know their animals and one other.’ She is already working on a second ‘Curio’ book. Griver is having a discussion and book signing at Village Books on Tuesday, June 15 at 7 p.m. Contact: 454-4063.

Canyon School fourth graders Casey Alexander and Anthony Fedorko have turned their love of comics into a thriving business with their comic series ‘Boom.’ There are six issues so far, focusing on the misadventures of Agent Boom. Casey, the son of Debbie and Scott Alexander, and Anthony, the son of Debbie Zeitman and Yuri Fedorko, said the idea came up in their cartooning class this fall at Brentwood Art Center. Casey was doodling Agent Boom. Anthony looked over his shoulder and said, ‘He looks cool.’ Casey said, ‘You think so?’ Anthony offered to help draw and work out storylines. Thus, a comic was born. ‘It’s fun to do it together,’ says Casey. ‘There are more plots and evil characters.’ ‘I love to draw,’ says Anthony, who describes his drawing style as ‘cartoon-like, not detailed and realistic. And I like making other people happy reading them.’ The classmates work on the comic during recess and after school. In November, their fourth grade teacher Charlena TerVeer assigned the class a business project. Anthony and Casey at this point had an issue, so a lot of photocopying later they started selling the comic to their classmates. ‘Their comics were very popular and the kids really liked them,’ TerVeer says. ‘They’re both good artists and very funny.’ In January, the comic books began selling at HiDeHo in Santa Monica. So far the boys have earned close to $100, which they are putting back into the business to pay for copying costs. According to Casey, they are also thinking of making a ‘Boom’ movie in their animation class. Agent Boom is a round-faced fellow with big black eyes who wears a ski mask. Issues including ‘The Hunt,’ ‘The Revolution,’ ‘War in Hell,’ ‘Rise of the Dead,’ ‘Battle Star’ and ‘The Matrix’ feature Agent Boom battling evil characters. ‘He’s not that professional,’ says Anthony of the character. ‘He makes mistakes.’ Their inspiration comes from varied sources including the TV show ‘X-Files’ and Bruce Lee movies. ‘I’ve been getting a lot of xeroxed comics in since they did the Boom Comics, I’ve gotten a lot of copycats,’ said Kelly Spears, manager of HiDeHo Comics. The display at the store, made by Anthony’s mom, features a picture of the boys on the front. ‘Guys come in and they say ‘I used to do that when I was a kid and I want to support these kids.’ ‘It’s really original,’ Spears says. ‘It’s almost like reading a video game. It’s fun, I like it a lot.’ The issues have become increasingly professional-looking and easier to read, with the upcoming Boom #7 featuring a color cover. The comic book started at four pages and increased to 12 pages for volume 6. The artwork has also been refined’from 24 hand-drawn ‘teeny panels’ a page to 12 panels per page, drawn with a ruler. The two have other comic book ideas, and call their burgeoning company Boom Brothers.

As a nature writer and photographer, Mathew Tekulsky has to take on some of the qualities of the birds he observes. For example, he has to watch like a hawk as he quietly waits to study and photograph birds. ‘It’s sort of like being an explorer,’ he says. ‘I go out into the field and I’m open to what I am going to find.’ Capturing the feathered friends on film is not easy. It requires patience and a steady hand. Although primarily a writer, Tekulsky focuses on photography and observation while doing fieldwork, saying, ‘If you take too many notes, it decreases spontaneity.’ The Sullivan Canyon resident is also known as the ‘Birdman of Bel Air,’ the title of his biweekly column on the National Geographic Web site (http://news.NationalGeographic.com), which receives nearly five million visitors a month. The column, written in a friendly, conversational style, features stories about birds or bird sightings, primarily in the Western U.S. Each column is accompanied by one of his own photos of the birds in question, and often includes historical and/or biological information in the sidebar. Tekulsky overflows with enthusiasm when talking about his specialty, and has a special love for the local birds that land in his own backyard. He encourages a reporter to birdwatch, supplying binoculars to spot the frequent visitors. He finds birds fascinating and friendly and likes to write about their personalities. In his seven years in Sullivan, he has created a bird sanctuary in his small backyard, which overlooks the canyon, fitting for an author whose credits include the book ‘Backyard Birdfeeding for Beginners.’ His garden includes apricot, lemon and coral trees, birds of paradise, Mexican sage and jasmine. One of Tekulsky’s most frequent visitors, and some of his favorites, are the scrub jays. He regularly feeds them whole peanuts, throwing the nuts onto the concrete around the pool, which the jays pick up with their beaks, one or two at a time. ‘The jays are hearty, but sensitive and delicate,’ Tekulsky says. ‘They live in a small area, and stay right here in the canyon. One family lives in less than one square mile. I feel like I’m seeing the same family over a period of years.’ The jays, squawking away, go through a ritual, picking up one peanut, then another, until they find one that is most worthwhile for making the trip. Then they fly off to store the peanut in a hiding spot to provide nourishment all winter. It takes about 17 pecks for them to open the shell, Tekulsky says. The jays also have a sweet tooth and go into a feeding frenzy when fed sugar-coated graham crackers. They also enjoy acorns and grapes. Other bird visitors require different food. For the little California towhee (characterized by its high-pitched peeps), more shy and tentative than the jays, Tekulsky will shell a peanut and give the bird half for a snack or meal. Through his observations, he has noticed subtleties about the birds. For example, the towhee, which at first looks like a rather plain brown bird, has beautiful brown markings on its cinnamon-colored throat. ‘It’s a much prettier bird than you think.’ Other common backyard visitors, which may be familiar to many Palisadians, are the black-hooded parakeet, California towhee, spotted towhee, mourning dove, Northern mockingbird, Anna’s and Allen’s hummingbird, bushtit, house finch, oak titmouse, California quail, band-tailed pigeon and song sparrow. Tekulsky has a special feeder set up for the yellow-and-black hooded orioles, and various other feeders and birdbaths throughout the yard. In a flash of brilliant yellow, the hooded oriole briefly flies in for a 10-second stop to feed on sugar water at the oriole feeder. Tekulsky had taken down the feeder for the winter and planned to put it back up in April, but in late March, a male oriole came back early from his winter in Mexico, whistling at him to put the feeder back. Tekulsky is concerned with conservation, and follows certain rules in dealing with his bird visitors. ‘I always feed them’it’s a waste of energy for them to come here without a payoff. They have a very high metabolism rate and must feed a lot more than we do. [But] I try not to domesticate them. They’re not pets. They’re wild animals you’re studying and interacting with.’ Many of the birds, such as the scrub jay, wrentit and California thrasher, are year-round residents of the Sullivan Canyon area; others, such as the sparrow, fly in from the Pacific Northwest and Alaska to winter here, and still others, such as the oriole, are here for the summer and spend the winters in Mexico or other southern locales. T o give his readers suggestions of places they can visit, Tekulsky also ventures out to see birds in nearby locations like the Malibu Lagoon or the Sepulveda Basin, or farther-flung national parks. Other times he visits quirkier locales such as Mrs. Paton’s Birder’s Haven in Patagonia, Arizona, a backyard which Marion Paton keeps open for any birdwatchers who care to drop by. Tekulsky sat for days there in the hot sun and is happy to have captured on film the elusive violet-crowned hummingbird. Using his old Pentax, without a tripod, Tekulsky stationed himself with his camera in hand for hours. ‘It’s a big camera, like lifting a bar bell,’ he says, happy that the digital camera he purchased this spring is much lighter. ‘I’ve gained a lot of faith in people through birdwatching,’ says Tekulsky, who recommends newcomers talk to birdwatchers about what they’ve seen and ask questions. ‘There’s a social aspect to birdwatching. People like to share their knowledge.’ While in the field, Tekulsky doesn’t use a blind tent, which some bird photographers use to hide from the birds so their presence won’t scare them off. He takes the time for the birds to get accustomed to him being there. ‘I say, ‘Here I am, deal with me.” Tekulsky, who is a self-taught ornithologist, maintains an archive of thousands of his photos and over 100 reference books. He studies the images to learn about bird behavior, and has been inspired by the great nature writers such as John Muir (1838-1914) and John Burroughs (1837-1921). He loves the sense of history in birdwatching. ‘Grinnell and Storer wrote ‘Animal Life in the Yosemite’ in the 1920s. They described the Steller’s jay building a nest in 1919. Eighty-five years later, I saw the exact same thing they described with the jay’s beak full of muddy grass for the lining.’ Tekulsky, 50, was born in Larchmont, New York, and after graduating from the University of Rochester, he moved to Los Angeles in 1977 to pursue his writing career. He immediately began freelancing for publications such as the Los Angeles Times, Family Circle, Science Digest and Tennis. ‘I came out here to broaden my horizons after growing up on the East Coast,’ he says. His writing career has included nature titles including ‘The Hummingbird Garden’ and ‘The Butterfly Garden’ as well as a series of gourmet drink titles, such as ‘Gourmet Coffee, Tea and Chocolate Drinks: Creating your Favorite Recipes at Home.’ In addition, he has written children’s stories and short stories, including an unpublished children’s series on ‘Scrubby, the Scrub Jay.’ But his bird column seems to have called him, he says. He’s having fun doing it, and it absorbs nearly all of his time. He recounts a Thanksgiving day spent photographing a blue-billed American wigeon while in Payson, Arizona and he calls the photo he took of the brown pelican on Christmas day 2002 ‘a great Christmas gift.’ After all, a holiday is just another day to be captivated by birds.