Just after 10 a.m., Barbara Perkes arrived to the center to deliver Meals On Wheels in her white Nissan Altima when she apparently lost control of the vehicle, maneuvering between two pillars in the front of the center and barreling into the front of the building.

Perkes crumpled the front right side of her car. The base of the wall of the center from the outside was smashed into the bathroom by several feet.

“(The car) broke off a pipe and there was significant damage to the east side of the complex with a large amount of water into the building,” said Division Chief Shawn Kinney.

No one was hurt, including Perkes.

Maria Lucchesi, a senior center staff member who was on the scene the time of the incident, said that the majority of the programs scheduled for the multipurpose room on the east side of the building were cancelled for the day.

— Reach Tom Sakash at tsakash@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8057. Follow him on Twitter at @TomSakash

Annie, an orange domestic shorthair tabby, was shot with a pellet gun on the evening of March 13 while her owners were away from home. They returned to their house in the 1500 block of Owens Valley Drive to find the cat with a wound in her shoulder that left her unable to use her hind legs, sheriff’s spokesman Mark Persons said Monday.

The cat received emergency treatment from the UC Davis Small Animal Clinic, where staff discovered a pellet lodged near her spine, but Annie later died from her injuries.

The case has been classified as an incident of animal cruelty, Persons said. Anyone with information about the person or people responsible for the shooting is asked to call Animal Services at 530-668-5287.

Modeled after the nutrient-rich and sponge-like effects that fallen trees create on forest floors, hugelkultur is a self-sustaining, self-sufficient permaculture gardening technique that, supporters say, accelerates and improves nature’s natural processes by improving water storage in soil.

“The hugel bed is part bio-intensive compost pile and raised garden bed,” said Derek Downey, founder of the Bee Love School of Permaculture. “It saves water and makes use of resources that otherwise people would throw away.”

Hugelkultur gardening bed’s primary ingredient is wood — either placed in a 3-foot-deep hole or directly on the soil, covered with other compostable food scraps, leaves, straw or yard waste, and topped off with soil and a cover crop of legumes for the first year to add nitrogen.

The wood and materials retain water like a sponge, relieving gardeners of the need to maintain and water their gardens.

“Hugelkultur is a lot of work at first,” said Melanie Lataste, founder of the Davis Seed Savers Alliance. “But it is a long-term investment.”

Downey, a 2009 UC Davis biological systems engineering graduate, first built handicap-accessible, 3-foot-tall raised hugel beds at the Domes on the UCD campus, allowing individuals in wheelchairs access to gardening and to reduce bending and stooping.

“That way, in the summer, you don’t have to irrigate,” said Downey, who likes to refer to the increasing hugel popularity as “the re-hilling of Davis.”

“Now all the ‘Domies’ are doing hugel beds,” he said.

Downey has since designed and constructed several hugelkultur gardening beds at the Davis Bee Sanctuary on campus and at the Village Homes Sunwise Co-op where he lives, developing a perennial food forest and teaching garden.

“My style is, do it a little different every time, and see what works the best,” Downey said.

He built his most recent hugelkultur bed base from a giant prickly pear cactus in his back yard whose branches are breaking from the weight of its outstretched arms. Downey dug a swale around the bed’s perimeter to catch and allow rainwater to seep into the knoll.

Lataste said the most exciting part of hugelkultur is creating a sustainable human ecosystem using waste as a resource.

“We want to make sure this garden can thrive without watering,” she said.

Downey and Lataste are hosting a “Hugel-mania” workshop Saturday, March 16, offering hands-on experience building new hugel beds from scratch at both the Davis Bee Sanctuary and the Seed Savers Alliance Seed Garden. The workshop runs from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Orchard Park Circle and Orchard Park Drive on the UCD campus.

Additional informative talks will include permaculture techniques, bees and seed saving. Downey and Lataste also will offer guided walking tours showcasing dozens of hugelkultur beds of various designs at the Davis Bee Sanctuary, Dome gardens, Experimental College Community Gardens and the Seed Savers Alliance Seed Garden.

Admission is free, but donations will be accepted with gratitude for the Bee Love School of Permaculture. For more information, contact Downey at davisbeecharmers@gmail.com or 310-694-2405.

Coach Bob Brewer acknowledged that this was the teams’ “first slalom race of the season, which proved to be a challenge for some of the racers. We know what to work on, and I expect they will be more competitive next week.”

Based on the times of the top boys and girls finishers, DHS earned 386 points, following Nevada Union which earned 412. Colfax was third with 383.

For its part, the DHS girls finished in first place with 204 points. Colfax followed in second place with 203 points, and Nevada Union was third with 199.

Davis boys were third with 182 points, following Nevada Union in first (208) and Del Oro High School (183) in second.

Lily Wolfe was the first varsity girl in, taking second place in a two-run combined time of 1:38.03. Natalie Serdahl earned fourth place in a total time of 1:39.15. Clara Goin came in eighth (1:50.32). Alix Graves came in 10th (1:51.36) even after hiking uphill to clear gates on both runs, and Genny Bennett placed 14th (2:06.16).

Derek Pleasants took third place, leading the Davis boys with a two-run combined time of 1:34.18. Kian Reno took fourth place in 1:42.02. Dan Ferenc-Segedin was the next Davis racer, finishing in 12th (1:53.40). Bruno Ferenc-Segedin missed a gate on his first run and had to hike uphill to get around it, but finished in 27th place (2:18.92) thanks to a fast second run that was the 11th fastest.

Winning the junior varsity girls race was Davis’ Dilara Tezcan. She completed her two runs in 2:01.19. Shannon Segall took second place in a total time of 2:01.96. Kerry Boyers placed third (2:04.23), Serena Roberts placed fourth (2:06.06) and Nina Shields placed fifth (2:06.61). Also in the top 10 were Megan Kowta, Maddie Asta, Emily Jonsson, Madison Yule and Katya Christian.

Tom Bergamaschi led the DHS JV boys’ team with a first-place finish with a total time of 1:48.42. Teammate Tyler Powell followed in second with a two-run combined time of 1:49.57. Justin Bier placed fifth (2:02.01), Noah Fisher placed seventh (2:06.66) and Pavle Jeremic placed eighth (2:09.05). Also in the top 10 were Evan Wetzlich and Marshall True.

Weather permitting, the team will race the slalom next on Monday at Alpine Meadows.