Kathleen Fox-Smith chats with a customer on opening day of her Little Silver shop last Friday. (Click to enlarge)

By DANIELLE TEPPER

Home Depot, Costco, PetSmart: With their enormous inventories, the big-box-stores that transformed American retailing in the 1990s destroyed innumerable small, local businesses along the way. They also forced customers to travel farther for the privilege of finding what they need at unbeatable prices.

Kathleen Fox-Smith has chafed against the tradeoff for years.

“I have three dogs, and the nearest major pet store is PetSmart on Route 36″ in Eatontown, says the Little Silver resident. “It’s not that far, but it’s just a nuisance to go over there.”

So, answering a deep desire to own an animal-related business and her belief that area pet owners are ready to again shop locally, Fox-Smith has decided to take on the giants in her own, small way.

Last Friday, Fox-Smith debuted a new shop: Pet’s General Store, in the A&P Plaza on Prospect Avenue, offering food, treats, toys and other accessories for dogs, cats, and birds.

Fox-Smith spent eight years at Red Bank Veterinary Hospital, first as a pharmacy tech and later as head of the purchasing department, the latter of which she said gave her valuable inventory management experience needed to run the store.

After she left RBVH in 2006, she managed an interior design office up until last year. But during the interim, she ached to return to a job that allowed her to work, at least in some capacity, with animals, she said.

When the 1,200 square-foot space that had been the home of the Peppermint Tree, a specialty children’s clothing store, became available, “I decided to go for it,” she told redbankgreen.

While this is her first business venture, Fox-Smith said she is not intimidated.

“The unknown makes you a little nervous, but I’ve always had pets, always loved them, so I’m hoping to become a reliable place for pet owners,” she said.

Fox-Smith plans to carry some products that PetSmart doesn’t, to set her store apart. “If someone comes in and is looking for a brand of food we don’t carry, if I can get it, I’ll get it,” she said.

But she’ll also stock brands that the giants carry, because “the whole purpose here is to help people not have to make that trip,” she said.

After she gets settled in and has the place running smoothly, Fox-Smith would like to see the store become involved with animal rescue efforts.

“If I won the lottery, I would open a rescue,” she said. “If we could do something with that here, maybe help the Humane Society somehow, I would really love to do that.”

Pets General Store is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday; it’s closed on Monday.

Recognize it? Take another peak.

Last week’s Where showed a growling-lion statue. Keen observers of the wild and unforgiving terrain of the Navesink section of Middletown were able to correctly identify it as one of two big, well-coifed cats flanking a driveway on Cooper Road.

Thanks to George Smuga, Mart Haviland, Alexander B. Wright, Ryan Hancock, Jackie, Jenn Woods and Paul Finn for taking a moment to drop us a lion.

If you know where this week’s photo was taken, whisper it to us here, please.

Tickets are $20 each, and the raffle will be held at the store at 4 p.m. on May 20.  (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

Kathie Panepinto was leading a tour of the Red Bank Primary School property and lamenting the heavy growth that hides an adjoining pond Monday when groundhog that had been sunning itself in the grass scooted across her path and into the brush.

“Oh, look at that,” she said said excitedly, noting that up-close sightings of deer and other wildlife are common at the school, which sits on landfill in a former wetlands abutting the Swimming River.

It was the kind of moment that for decades has inspired talk of the school’s potential as natural sciences learning center. And it underscored the value of ongoing efforts by Panepinto and other volunteers in their most ambitious effort to date: creating a permanent physical link between the school and the inaccessible pond.

A concept plan shows a walkway out into the pond that the foundation hopes to win funding for. (Click to enlarge)

Since its revival from dormancy four years ago, the nonprofit Red Bank Borough Education Foundation has focused its efforts on small-bore projects: leading cleanups of the 17-acre primary school property, lending a hand and a few dollars to installations such as a butterfly garden, a small greenhouse and a human sundial clock.

Now, though, the all-volunteer group is raising its sights with a proposal to build an outdoor classroom in the form of a pier and observation deck on the pond. The structure would enable students at the K-3 school to see land and aquatic habitats up close, and “to do wet and muddy samplings,” said RBBEF member and Councilman Ed Zipprich.

“Most folks don’t even know there’s a pond back there,” said member Susan Berke.

“The idea is to make access to the pond not just for science, but for reading, writing, art,” said Panepinto, an RBBEF officer.

No cost estimate for the project has yet been worked up, and foundation members don’t even know if they would need and might obtain permits from the state Department of Environmental Protection for the structure, which may be subject to limitations on building in coastal areas.

Still, they’ve begun the process of trying to win a grant for as much as $460,000 from the National Science Foundation, said foundation president Doug Winning, an architect. “We’re going for the full enchilada,” he said.

Meantime, the organization has raised about $10,000 in each of the past two years through art auctions held at the Atrium at Navesink Harbor. This year, no such event is planned, though members hope to put together an Antiques Roadshow-type event for 2013.

Meantime, the group has produced a reusable canvas shopping tote featuring Red Bank student art that will soon be available around town for $5. For $10, residents get the tote and membership in the RBBEF.

“We’re still taking baby steps at this point, but we’ve got momentum going, and that’s the important thing,” said Zipprich.

Owner Tim Metzger says Manning, who was adopted on the day of the Giants‘ Super Bowl win in February and is named for Eli Manning, was enjoying the outing. “Every once in a while, a truck or a motorcycle will give him a start,” he said. “But he loves people.” (Click to enlarge)

Clay-trap shooters gathered at  Rumson Country Club’s shooting range for the event, a fundraiser hosted by Ducks Unlimited. (Photos by Peter Lindner. Click to enlarge)

By STEPHANIE SCHROEPFER

A misty fog offered the perfect hunting-in-the-field vibe for nearly 50 enthusiasts who gathered for a trap-shooting event at the Rumson Country Club Saturday.

Shotgun blasts broke the morning calm as 47 participants took turns firing at orange discs lofted into the air at the the Monmouth County chapter of Ducks Unlimited‘s third annual clay shoot, a fundraiser for the conservation and maintenance of North American wetlands.

The clay shoot and the other charitable events Ducks Unlimited sponsors create opportunities for shooters and hunters to put money back into the wetlands, said state chairman Scott Paterson, a Rumson police lieutenant. Funds raised from entry fees and raffles will be dedicated to conservation efforts, he said.

“Hunters give back more than anybody,” Paterson said. “Trap and skeet shooters too, but we take, take, take, and we need to give back.”

Anyone who has hunted “at one point feels the need to give something back,” said Craig Widmaier of Red Bank, treasurer of the Monmouth County unit.

“This is strictly a grassroots and volunteer effort for habitat and wetland conservation,” one that has grown exponentially as Ducks Unlimited is now an international organization in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, Widmaier said.

Paterson, Widmaier and Monmouth County chairwoman Anne Pfaff have racked up a combined 50 years volunteering with Ducks Unlimited. The event, and the organizations’s mission, made for “a natural fit,” Pfaff said, as she ran around organizing shooting squads on the range’s blacktop surface.

Each shooter got three rounds of 25 clays, and chances at individual and team prizes. Raffle merchandise included prints, hand-carved shore birds and decoys by Anthony Ciambrone.

Paterson is also planning a spring shoreline clean-up in coming weeks with help from Ducks Unlimited and students from Rumson-Fair Haven Regional, he said. Volunteers will find contact info on the Ducks Unlimited website.

By JOHN T. WARD

Community garden proponents assailed the Red Bank council Wednesday night for what they termed its “because-I-said-so” opposition to the creation of a farm plot at a borough-owned Navesink River site.

Revisiting the council’s 2011 rejection of a proposal for a pilot garden behind the borough library parking lot on West Front Street, residents challenged elected officials to articulate their opposition to the plan, and left as frustrated as they were going in.

“What we have a hard time understanding is that we haven’t really heard a good reason why not,” Locust Avenue’s Kathleen Gasenica told the governing body.

“It’s very simple,” replied borough Administrator Stanley Sickels. “The council doesn’t share your vision for a garden there.”

“That doesn’t really answer the question,” Gasenica said.

Marked by sharp exchanges and several instances of gavel-banging by Mayor Pasquale Menna, the hearing pitted gardening enthusiasts against council members they feel have irrationally dug in their heels against a spot proponents consider ideal for a garden.

The site, with ample upland area, is “underutilized” by the public that the council professes to want to keep it open for, said garden movement organizer Cindy Burnham, of Fair Haven, who previously led the push to save nearby Maple Cove from sale by the borough.

But officials questioned whether the site might be within the purview of the state Department of Environmental Protection, which borough Engineer Christine Ballard said has jurisdiction over all development within 300 feet of waterways – an assertion that prompted mutterings from the audience that gardening is not “development.”

Officials also questioned how the plots would be apportioned among residents who want to raise vegetables and flowers at the site; where gardeners would park without taking spaces reserved for library patrons; the accessibility of the site to handicapped; and plans for the restoration of a deteriorated bulkhead, possibly this year, that might require the destruction of the garden.

In the past, officials argued that the waterfront site should be preserved for use by all residents, and not the select few.

The session kicked off with councilmembers Kathy Horgan and Ed Zipprich offering a compromise, one they said they had arrived at after visiting every borough-owned parcel of vacant land over the weekend: Marion Street, near Eastside Park, the site of an old pump station.

“It seemed, in our uneducated opinion, to be the ideal spot,” Zipprich said.

But the suggestion elicited a welter of complaints by Burnham and others that the site could hardly be less centrally located for the use of all residents, a requirement that some on the council itself had insisted on last year.

“Marion is as far out on the East Side of Red Bank as you can get,” Burnham said. She said nearby residents are likely to oppose having a community garden next door, “and I don’t blame them.”

Horgan also suggested the gardeners approach New Jersey Transit about creating a plot on a triangular lot outside the train station on Monmouth Street, arguing it was unlikely to be vandalized because of the number of passersby. But she also wondered aloud whether an alternative offered by the proponents, at Maple Cove, might not be right for the same reason.

“There are a lot of people around. It could get destroyed,” she said.

Environmental Commission chairman Andres Simonson told the council that it was “missing the boat” by rejecting the library site. “What a great beacon that would be” for the town’s commitment to the community gardening concept, he said.

The sharpest attack of the night was leveled by Ernest Anemone of Riverside Avenue, who singled out Zipprich for what he and others called the council’s “because I said so” rationale for opposing the library site.

“This town doesn’t need to impress you,” he said. “You need to impress this town.”

By meeting’s end, the council had approved a resolution approving the Marion Street site, but leaving open the possibility that Maple Cove might be farmed for a year – even though farm engineer Tony Sloan, appearing on behalf of proponents, said the site would require “itty-bitty plots and itty-bitty walkways.”

For the third consecutive year, Red Bank Middle Schoolers have exterminated the competition in a national video-production contest sponsored by a pest-control trade group.

The $3,000 grand prize for the school’s ‘I Hate Rats’ video, above, adds to a long list of accolades, cash and supplies won by the school’s vaunted video program.

Not bad for a bit of rapping that features rodents, rat poop and a reference to the plague.

RBMS students have been steamrolling the competition in recent years. In addition to this year’s video, which as in past years is to be used as a public service announcement, the middle school has created prize-winners on the topics of mosquitoes and cockroaches.

In 2009, the school’s budding YouTubers bagged $30,000 worth of electronic equipment for the school in one shot.

The latest prize, awarded by the National Pest Management Association, is to be used for science education, the association said in an announcement Monday.

From the announcement:

“Every year, Red Bank Middle School stands out for its high-quality work and the students do an exceptional job of discussing the important health risks associated with household pests,” said Missy Henriksen, vice president of public affairs for the NPMA.

Runner-up Lakewood Christian Schools of Long Beach, CA also received a $1,000 grant for its PSA, “Flea On Trial.”

“The contest encourages children to learn about the fascinating world of animals and insects while also understanding the importance of protecting public health, food and property from pests,” Henriksen said. “This contest also allows teachers to make learning a fun and interactive experience inside the classroom.”

Teachers and students in grades four through eight were challenged to create educational television PSAs highlighting the health and property risks posed by common household pests such as rodents, ants, cockroaches and stinging insects. Entries werejudged on originality, creativity, health messaging and overall appeal.

The contest was administered through the trade group’s educational children’s website, PestWorldForKid, where other entries may be viewed.

By JOHN T. WARD

A year after it was launched, a pilot trap, neuter and release program appears to have stopped population growth among Sea Bright’s stray cats in its tracks, proponents say.

No kittens are believed to have been born in the past year among the dozens of felines that inhabit the ocean beach and nearby edge of the Shrewsbury River, says Mayor Dina Long.

Long, who championed the program as a council member (and is the owner of ‘Leonard,’ a 14-year-old former stray from another town) says the program “had a great first year.

“Almost 100 cats were trapped, immunized, neutered and microchipped, at no cost to taxpayers,” she said, noting that costs were picked up by a grant from the Monmouth County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. “And for the first time, no new kittens were born on the beach last spring, which is huge,” she said.

The grant followed enactment of an ordinance that enables certified caregivers to feed and tend to the cats in the wild. The volunteers stepped in to trap the cats, and hosted them in cages in their homes during a transition period following sterilization and medical treatment and before the animals were released back into the wild, says borough resident and caregiver Frieda Finegan.

“The cats are all fed and healthy,” Finegan tells redbankgreen. “And there are no kittens.”

Long credits the volunteers for hunting down and trapping cats in advance of the 2011 winter mating season for the turnaround.

“We were out there in the rain and cold. We sat there for five and six hours” waiting to snare some of the feral cats, which won’t approach humans, said Finegan, who is 70 years old. “We had blue fingers.”

Some cats were trapped in an abandoned building, she said.

The borough was forced to act by the U.S Fish & Wildlife Service, which has responsibility for safeguarding piping plovers that inhabit the beach and are prey for cats. Previously, the town would round up as many cats as it could and have them euthanized, but the killings did little to halt population growth.

After requiring the borough to “jump through a lot of hoops,” the agency “thankfully, worked with us, and allowed us to manage our own beach” by signing off on the trap, neuter and release program, Long said.

Caregivers are responsible for tracking the microchipped cats and looking out for those without clipped ears, the signifier that a cat has been treated.

Finegan and four other volunteers monitor the cat colonies behind the beach recycling center and along the river twice a day, giving them “good quality food,” some of which she cooks herself. She estimates there are 40 cats in the two locations.

The challenge going forward, said Long, is keeping up the ranks of volunteers, who visit the cat colonies one or twice a day with food, fresh water and attentiveness to their health and safety. They also trap new cats – animals that have wandered off or been abandoned by their owners – and take them to the SPCA for sterilization.

Long says she’s not ready to declare the program a success yet, though. It’s a five-year operation, and “we’ll see after five years how many cats we have then,” she said.

The goal, she adds is not to eliminate the stray cat population –”I don’t think that would be possible,” she said – but to have all cats accounted for and cared for.

Finegan, who once took a waitressing job just to have access to scrap meat and fish for strays, says she’ll keep doing it as long as she can.

“They’re god’s little creatures,” she said. “They didn’t ask to be here.”

According to lore, if Phil sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of winter weather. If he does not see his shadow, there will be an early spring.

Today, the “seer of seers” predicted six more weeks of winter.

Phil’s power’s of prediction are “complete bunk,” a former zookeeper says in a Thursday article by the Associated Press. Also, “the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration analyzed the forecasts of groundhog prognosticators from 1988 to 2010 and concluded there was no correlation between predictions and the length of winter weather in a given year,” the AP reports.

Not to mention that groundhogs aren’t all that cute and cuddly, and tend to bite humans, the AP says.

Yeah, but the tradition is good for large-scale silliness, debate and rentals of a 1993 Bill Murray movie. And redbankgreen gets to recycle this animated GIF (featuring cows from a farm on the Navesink in Middletown) from 2010.

You want to know the weather forecast? We like the taxpayer-funded NOAA’s National Weather Service, which has this to say about the Red Bank region over the next week:

Today: Partly sunny, with a high near 49. North wind between 7 and 13 mph.

Tonight: Mostly clear, with a low around 31. North wind between 11 and 14 mph.

Friday: Sunny, with a high near 45. North wind around 11 mph.

Friday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 32. Northwest wind between 6 and 8 mph.

Saturday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 45. North wind between 7 and 9 mph.

Saturday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 31.

Sunday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 44.

Sunday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 33.

Monday: Partly sunny, with a high near 46.

Monday Night: A chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 40. Chance of precipitation is 30%.

Tuesday: Partly sunny, with a high near 47.

Tuesday Night: Partly cloudy, with a low around 34.

Wednesday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 39.