Petaluma gets tastier

Beers & Barks, Pints & Paws: On Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m., Lagunitas Brewing Co. (1280 North McDowell Blvd., Petaluma) hosts a benefit for the Paws for Love Foundation, a remarkable nonprofit organization devoted to helping unwanted and abused animals.

For a donation of $25, founder Ellyn Boone will assist your pooch in creating an original painting that you can take home and frame. The Petaluma Animal Services Foundation and the Sonoma County Animal Shelter will be on hand with pups available for adoptions.

Paws for Love’s next annual auction and gala, when dozens of paintings by shelter animals are sold, takes place on February 9, 2012, at the Finley Community Center Auditorium in Santa Rosa. For more information about the foundation, visit pawsforlove.info.

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Heirloom Melon Festival: On Saturday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., the Larkspur Ferry Terminal farmers market teams up with the Petaluma Seed Bank and Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company to celebrate the heirloom melons that are just coming into season.

If all you’ve ever had are melons from supermarkets, you’ll be amazed by the diversity of flavors and textures of more than 50 varieties of heirloom melons.

Kids can join in the fun with a seed-spitting contest at 10:30 a.m.

You can think of the festival as a sneak preview of some of the foods to be featured at the National Heirloom Exposition, coming up on September 11, 12 and 14 at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds.

For exact directions to the Larkspur farmers market, visit marincountrymart.com.

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