Sidewalk flower.

(Without a flash)

Last Sunday I pulled down all the morning glories that had grown up the sides of the porch. I also took down the Halloween lights, "cobwebs" and corn stalks. Now with everything being out in the open, the porch is totally filled with blowing leaves. The wind whips around just right, causing leaves to settle just out of the wind in front of the side door.

I mentioned that because I couldn't see the doormat when I let Cubbie out last night. It was buried under a pile of leaves. Makes me look like I never rake. Ha.

Actually if I let them go, they blow into my neighbor’s yard. His business is lawn care. He has a noisy yard vacuum that he likes running when I’m outside trying to listen to the radio. Other than the sound annoyance, it works out for both of us.

Anyway, it was mild out at about 10:00 PM. In the corner of the porch, by a wood table I usually have potted plants on, I saw a bit of color poking out of the rust shaded leaves.

(taken at 10:00 pm with a flash)

It was my sidewalk flower, (my flickr group) a wild petunia that’s been growing out of a crack in the porch concrete for the last 3 or 4 years. I forget about it every year until all the other ones have been frosted to death.

Some years the flowers are white and red, this year they are lilac. It’s a tough plant; it gets just enough shelter so it doesn’t freeze as early as the other flowers I have around the house. It’s my last link to summer. I’m always amazed it comes back every spring.

I got another picture published in the Northwest Herald. They used to display a 3 x 4 picture. Now it’s shrunk down to just fit in the header. Thinking back, I should have sent in a landscape oriented picture, not portrait. Less of it would have been cut off.

This is the picture of the weed that I don’t know the name of. If anyone does, let me know.

Nailed it. (riveting news?)

The Northwest Herald: link to actual article here. This is our local paper (and local stupidity it seems too). I sent the article to the Obscure Store and reading room , who are usually are laden with Wisconsin oddities (our neighboring state - had to get a comment in). Ha.

I love reading the paper every night after work. Make a drink, turn on radio in the garage, and take a seat on the picnic table. Read.

We've had some entertaining news lately; a FORMER FISHING GUIDE TURNED vegan teacher trying to change the middle school menu (before he was suspended), a mother complaining it was too hot in the classroom for her son "Michael" and wanted air conditioning installed in every classroom in the school (which would budget out at about 7 million dollars) - which prompted other letters stating the fact that we have on average, only about 10 days a year where it is really uncomfortable in the heat. And that Michael was probably a "momma's boy". And she is an "IDIOT". Ha.

The most unbelievable was the story below. Nails in mulch installed around the playground at a day care center: (everything below is copied from the paper)



A sampling of the thousands of nails and other things found in the mulch laid in the playground of the Woodstock Early Learning center. (Kristy Ann Mann photo)
Day care center, mill sharply divided over nail-filled mulch


By JENN WIANT - jwiant@nwherald.com

Comments (No comments posted.)

WOODSTOCK – When Melissa Norman learned that maintenance workers had found thousands of nails in the playground mulch at the Woodstock Early Learning Center, she was skeptical.

Norman, the assistant director of the child care center near Routes 47 and 120 in Woodstock, also has a 3-year-old daughter who goes to the center and plays on the playground twice a day.

“To knowingly provide this to a child care center, I just couldn’t believe it,” she said.

The mulch came from G & C Mill, a 10-year-old lumber and mulch company on Route 14 between Woodstock and Harvard.

Owner Cindy Ojeda said she had recommended a cheaper natural mulch that was not made from reprocessed wood, but the maintenance director for Woodstock Christian Life Services, which includes the Early Learning Center, chose a cedar mulch made from recycled wood that Ojeda said could include nails that would not be caught by a magnet.

“I would never have put that cedar mulch [on the playground],” Ojeda said. “But this is my customer. Who am I to tell a customer no? If you choose this product, I’m not going to say, ‘Don’t buy my mulch.’ ”

LeeAnn Atwood, spokeswoman for Woodstock Christian Life Services, said Director of Maintenance Rick Madsen had specifically asked for a mulch without nails and had not been told that the cedar mulch could contain nails. He chose cedar because it would help to keep bugs away, she said.

The Early Learning Center ordered 40 yards of cedar mulch and kept adding 20 yards at a time until it was up to 120 yards. Ojeda asked why the center did not complain until four days after the project was complete.

Atwood said the mulch originally was spread by a machine, so maintenance workers did not notice the nails right away. When a maintenance worker showed Madsen a handful of what appeared to be aluminum nails Sept. 5, he found it unusual but did not yet think it was a problem, Atwood said.

As more truckloads were dropped off during the next two days, workers collected nearly 3,000 nails, Atwood said. Madsen called Ojeda to complain the following Monday, Sept. 10.

“She was really unwilling to cooperate and help us in any way,” Atwood said.

Ojeda said it was too late to take the mulch back or give a refund: She already had spent more than $1,000 to have the mulch processed and delivered, and was out about $3,000 worth of product.

A local group that did not want its name released has offered to provide free mulch for the playground, which should open again in about a week, Atwood said. For now, a six-foot-tall pile of woodchips and nails sits in the Early Learning Center parking lot. Jim Tomasello of Tomasello’s Landscaping in Cary has offered to remove the pile for a reduced cost, but he is having trouble finding a place to take it.

“Nobody wants it,” Tomasello said. “We’ve tried giving it away, but nobody will take it because of the nails in it.”

Mulch made from reprocessed wood rarely is used unless is it colored because the dry wood holds color well, said Tomasello, whose company sells mulch. But even for recycled mulch, the number of nails that the Early Learning Center workers found seemed excessive, he said.

“I was very shocked that [G & C Mill] sold them something that was construction debris and had nails in it, and they dumped it right on the playground, knowing that kids were going to be playing in this,” Tomasello said.

Maintenance workers also found rusty hinges, rocks, pieces of aluminum cans, and chunks of plastic.

No one was hurt by the nails and other debris because the playground, which is used by about 140 children ages 4 to 12, had been closed while the mulch was being replaced, Atwood said.

Stacey Dougherty, who takes her three young children to the Early Learning Center each morning, said she was shocked to learn about the nails in the mulch on Wednesdaysept. 19.

“I was very surprised that a company would risk the safety of especially children, but people in general, for the profitability of their company,” Dougherty said.

Straw Dog(s) Days of Summer.

Well, they got my name right. I just don't know where that extra P came from.

Hell froze over?

Yes, another picture in the paper. Yea me.

Blog title is a play on the Chris Rea song: Road to Hell. (frozen over, get it?)

Good excuse for including a great song.

Otherwise, I was thinking of OutKast Hey Ya, "Shake it like a polaroid picture". That song is OK, this is much better.I always loved the lyric, "This ain't no technological breakdown".

Chris Rea

Road to Hell Part II

Well I'm standing by the river
But the water doesn't flow
It boils with every poison you can think of
And I'm underneath the streetlight
But the light of joy I know
Scared beyond belief way down in the shadows
And the perverted fear of violence
Chokes the smile on every face
And common sense is ringing out the bell
This ain't no technological breakdown
Oh no, this is the road to hell

And all the roads jam up with credit
And there's nothing you can do
It's all just pieces of paper flying away from you
Oh look out world, take a good look
What comes down here
You must learn this lesson fast and learn it well
This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway
Oh no, this is the road

Said this is the road
This is the road to hell

Read it in the Sunday papers. (or Wednesday)

Northwest Herald. Local paper. Joe Jackson song at the bottom. He's great.

Olson: Readers find humor in Christmas gag gifts


By Eric Olson
Comments (0)
Last week this space featured thoughts on ways to use the Christmas gift-giving ritual as a way to get a good laugh.

If you suffered through the entire column, you might have thought, “That’s great, gag gifts are funny, but I haven’t found any headless dolls in the street to dress up lately, and my brother already has burned all of his New Kids on the Block paraphernalia. What can I do that will be both devious and humorous at the same time?”

Luckily, some mischievous Northwest Herald readers sent stories of their own.

“Many years ago, in our teens, I think, my brother and I would take the worst albums we had and wrap them up to give to our cousins visiting from Chicago,” wrote Rob Peterson of Hebron. “We never felt they had much taste in music. We would really laugh if they liked them. Cruel.”

Sure. But hilarious when you’re in on the joke.

Peterson’s nieces and nephews were his more recent targets.

“Sometimes we would include a can of soup or dog treats or something like that in with a big gift,” he wrote. “Or sometimes we would just wrap it by itself. It's funny to see the kid open it. Some were puzzled but still said thanks. ... Some were buzzing through the presents so fast they didn't even notice. It was always funny.”

I agree. As soon as I have my own nieces and nephews, they’re getting soup. I don’t think that my wife will let me give my daughter dog treats, though.

Susan Hagerty of Marengo is another one you have to watch. Especially if she visits your house.

“Throughout the year, when visiting friends’ homes, I would sneak around and find something bizarre to steal,” Hagerty wrote. “It had to be something they wouldn't miss. Lo and behold it reappears at Christmastime as their gift. Funny to see the look on their face when they think, ‘Wow. ... I have one of these.’ Well, you do, ’cause it’s yours.”

Nothing like receiving your own stolen property for Christmas.

Hagerty said she and her friends also had a tradition of passing around an “ugly” painting of a naked woman incorporated into different items, like in the center of a holiday wreath.

Because nothing says Christmas like a badly drawn nude portrait sewn into a jean jacket.

Those of you with children might want to borrow an idea that Geri Stockwell of Wauconda used on her 11- and 12-year-old sons years ago.

“I wrapped 2 snow shovels in Christmas paper weeks before Christmas,” Stockwell wrote. “My boys knew where the gifts were and kept trying to guess what they were. A rocket, skis, were a few of the things they thought they were. They still talk about those shovels and that Christmas.”

Given that Stockwell’s children now are in their mid-40s, that’s quite an accomplishment. And really, what’s better than a gag gift that keeps on giving – back to you?

– Eric Olson is the Northwest Herald’s metro editor. Reach him at (815) 459-4122, or by e-mail at eolson@nwherald.com.

Link to article. I feel obligated. All true by the way. And these are not the quirkiest things my family does at holidays. We have even better ones. Trust me. Ha.

Appropriate song Link. (Bolt - no video)