To Do 04.15.21

BLOOM: Where you’re planted.

Whether it’s knitting hats for newborns, setting up a mini library outside of your yard, revitalizing a community garden, or signing yourself up for any sort of volunteer effort, there are plenty of ways to keep you and your neighbors thriving and well cared for. If you’re an animal lover, consider fostering through Animal Friends Rescue Project. Or help their cause with office work or by driving pets to their furever homes (animalfriendsrescue.org). For on-the-ground work, Blue Zones Monterey County is featuring volunteer opportunities from various organizations all month long (montereycounty.bluezonesproject.com). If you can’t safely volunteer in person, no problem. Stay home and organize donations of homemade crafts to hospitals or first responders. The thing with volunteering is that anybody can do it anywhere.

STAY: Close to home.

While we’re sitting the Orange Tier, keeping things small, outdoors and close to home is still advisable. But there is no shortage of mini road trips you can take with local wineries and businesses slowly opening up. Give yourself a mini spring break and map out a road trip within the county, planning rest stops at beloved local institutions like Taqueria Hidalgo in Chualar or The Cork & Plough in King City. Or plan a scenic drive down 17-Mile Drive, River Road or visit all the historical adobes in downtown Monterey. If you have the travel bug but don’t feel safe traveling outside quite yet, consider watching a livestream concert. Ensemble Monterey holds an all-wind instrument concert called Winds in the Winery. They’re pitching it as “the best music you’ve never heard.” Tune in (for free) on Sunday, April 18 at 3pm at ensemblemonterey.org.

FEED: A Whale.

Don’t take this item literally – let the Friends of Hopkins take the lead here. This organization hosts an educational public talk on whale feeding and will dive deep (get it?) on what whales eat, why they need to eat so dang much and why it matters (to us and them). The talk is by researcher and conservation biologist Matt Savoca, who guides his talk by using a wealth of information gathered by drones, sonar and radio-frequency tags. It all happens at 7pm on Tuesday, April 20. Register at hopkinsmarinestation.stanford.edu (under “events”) beforehand. And if you want to see the real deal, yes, whale watching is still a thing you can safely do in the pandemic. Monterey Bay Whale Watch, Princess Monterey Whale Watching and other local touring businesses are still operating with increased health and safety precautions, requiring guests to wear masks and all that good stuff.