respublica

More trees down

I have to say right up front that the Ahler's Tree Service is the absolute best. These guys were amazing yesterday as they took down 4 of our big trees and chipped the branches into small bits and blew all that into a big covered truck. They were extremely knowledgeable about how to go about all this even in tight spaces. I should also mention, very efficient with no time wasted at all. They got here around 8:30 and were finished and off by a little after 11:30.

To top it all, every one of the guys working were affable and good humored all the while never taking their eyes off of their work. I'd recommend them very highly. The most difficult and demanding tree was the big old Pin Oak in the front yard, but somehow they got that down, cleared out in maybe an hour. Then it was on to the last tree which was a Birch tucked into the side of our house with branches hanging over the neighbor's driveway, almost to their roof. That came down piece by piece very carefully and cleared out.

Here is the Birch before it came down.

The guys had to move our neighbor's trailer and that even went very smoothly over to the Legion parking lot. Afterward, it was put back better than before.

This was not easy considering all the things on our neighbor's driveway including a second trailer which was left in place.

Now it is cleared up

A crazy noisy, very noisy day

Today is the day when a tree trimming company arrived to take down 4 of our trees. They showed up with multiple vehicles, trucks, chippers etc. Tillotson Ave is going to be tough to live on today because the sound of chain saws and the chipper began immediately. These guys all know their stuff. Each one headed for a specific spot and just got started working.

I do feel bad for all the noise which will go on today, but will be glad to feel much safer after these trees are gone.

And the Bradford Pear tree which worried me no end is already down.

 

 

 

Spray Paint Vandals

It seems the Illinois State Police are now searching for the vandals who spray painted the outside of their Collinsville headquarters. I'm glad to learn they want to find these guys, but I wish they would put more effort into finding the spray painters who use highway walls and overpasses etc, as their easel as well.

There are all kinds of places on the Illinois side of the river along interstates which have been spray painted. Highway walls, box cars, railroad walls and on and on. How these things can be done without anyone noticing is beyond me. It is also beyond me how they are physically able to do many of these things up high and in narrow places. Yesterday when we drove over to St. Louis we noticed along a stretch of road in East St. Louis more graffiti and this was on a stone wall only 4 feet or so from the interstate roadway. The wall was fairly high. How could this have been done without not one car or state trouper noticing.

It had to have been also very dangerous. So, good on the Illinois State Police for wanting to catch their own vandals, but how about stopping more of the rest.

Photos are more than just Facebook fun

For some reason our homeowners insurance people wanted information on when this or that was done to our house. Just when we thought we knew the years in order to find the information in our records file, we learned we were way off.

Time goes by faster than we realize. Some of the re-models were longer ago than our best guess. At least most were done in just the past ten years, none further back than that. The best way to find the years for these projects came from all the photos I took and I am thankful I document everything with my camera. All the photos have information on just when they were taken.

So much easier than digging through page after page of bills.

As Dale got engrossed in looking at the pictures of kitchen, bathrooms and back deck gutting and re-do, he said, "Boy I'm glad you took all these pictures."

An Autumnal day

It's 47 degrees this morning which certainly lets us know Fall is really here. I like this Nathaniel Hawthorne sentiment.

"I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house."

I get a laugh out of the word, autumnal, it's a funny sounding word not used much anymore.

 

 

The Color of the Year for 2022

Need to paint a wall this coming year and have no idea what color to use? Well, the paint companies have announced the color of the coming year and it is October Mist from Benjamin Moore. They describe it as: harmonious yet diverse, reliable yet whimsical, and meditative yet eclectic. Make room for creativty. Evoking the silver green stem of a flower, October Mist creates a canvas for other colors...and your imagination to bloom."

Not surprisingly, other paint companies are promoting this color as well. Sherwin Williams has named theirs Evergreen Fog. Both are a Gray-Green.M

Brats, Candy Corn and Wisconsin

This new thing just had to be found in Wisconsin. Butchers in Madison decided have picked up their seasonal brats more than a little notch. They've added candy corn to the sausages. "Each batch of brats churns out about 120 of the links, which includes 25 pounds of brat meat, three cans of Wisconsin's Lake Louie Brewing Oktoberfest beer and two bags of candy corn."

They've turned out to be "surprisingly delicious and very popular."

 

Clouds

I am sort of fascinated with clouds. Last week while we drove over to the seminary, the clouds were unworldly. I've never seen such clouds and while Dale drove I kept snapping away. They filled the sky 360 degrees around, from the horizon on up. It was amazing.

In any event as I was standing on our front porch this morning, I noticed different types of clouds over the back of the Legion. Not as stunningly bright, but still interesting.

The last two were taken within minutes of each other and in that short of time the sky had totally changed.

Birds!

We must be at the point in time when many birds are gathering together to fly south. Our street, especially our end with all the trees, was covered in birds this morning. They were also on the ground, all were making bird sounds and it was loud. I went out to watch a bit and noticed coming across the sky from the west were huge numbers of these big black birds flying together. This area may be a meeting place for their travels, it was quite a sight.

Learning something new every day

On a whim I picked up a bamboo cutting board yesterday. I was getting tired of the white, hard, plastic type I've long used and replace frequently. This wood board looked pretty and was the right size for our food cutting things.

But boy was I surprised when I read the product notice on the back when I got home. It said to wipe a generous amount of oil on it every day for a week. Seriously? But then I wondered, what kind of oil, it did not say. So before I reached for the olive or canola oil I did some research and the most common recommendation was Mineral Oil which we did not have. Before I ran out to Walgreens I decided to check further and there are different Mineral Oils and some made specifically to use with food. As it happened, Bed Bath and Beyond carries this so off I went to get it.

I wiped it on one side and after a few hours turned it over and did the other side. This morning I wiped the first side again and etc for 5 more days. I have to wonder if all this mineral oil is necessary, but why take a chance on ruining a good thing.

Why so many empty shelves

If you go grocery shopping you've probably noticed many empty spaces in aisles. Many products are just gone. Last Friday before we left for the Huzzah, I wanted to pick up some Tostitos corn chips since the grandsons and parentals were coming and these chips are a family favorite. But Schnucks had absolutely none of any variety except for the tiny rounds. So I went to Walmart and then the Walmart Neighborhood Market. Same thing, no Tostitos of any stripe. I finally decided to stop looking at any other store and bought some South of the Border corn chips. These were actually quite good so I didn't feel too bad.

But why the lack of Tostitos of all things? At one time it was toilet paper, now it's Tostitos and other snack favorites. There are also shortages of juices, some meats, ice cream.  During the week ending on Oct. 3, nearly 15 percent of frozen foods,  15 percent of candy, 16 percent of snacks, 18 percent of beverages, and 18 percent of bakery items were out of stock at stores.  If you've been in the local Schnucks lately you'll see many aisles with empty shelves along the way. I was actually noticing these empty gaps the other day.

One reason is the supply chain, processors and food factories often have labor shortages and can only ship partial stock. Then the grocery stores are often short on workers and can't keep up with the shelf stocking.

Storms today

Woke up this morning to weather news we did not want to hear. Powerful thunderstorms, damaging wind sheers coming our way. This comes when, two days ago, we got a message back from a tree cutting person. I just hope his coming out to give an estimate and a time frame for doing the work. I have been obsessing over the damage which could occur with a big Bradford Pear tree in our back yard for months.

I went outside early today and saw a brilliantly red sky. Which worried me even more when that old saying came into my head. "Red sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning."

Dale calls me obsessively fixated on things. Maybe.

Took these pictures of the sky at the end of our street early today. The camera does not do justice to just how red it was.

This one is looking across at the American Legion parking lot. I'm always waiting for that wooden light pole near the bottom left to fall down. It's been standing by a thread for a long time.

I've lightened the last photo to see that pole better.

What will happen to all the old wind turbines?

While traveling around Illinois and other places we'd often see tons of wind turbines. These turbines were created to generate power in what was believed to be more environmentally clean. What we always noted was how cluttered the landscape looked with these huge things standing in fields. We also wondered what was going to happen to all of them when they broke down or lost their usefulness. I still wonder since the on going progression of mechanical things often leads from original huge to small.

These things are made of material not easy to recycle and many are wearing out.

What will happen to all of these when new things take their place? Well, Denmark is trying one idea. They are turning old wind turbines into bike shelters. The turbines form a roof under which bikes can be parked in cities. Well. that may be fine for a country in which people are big on using bikes for transportation, but I doubt there would be enough call for them in our cities. Maybe a couple. 90 percent of Danes own a bike and over a third of them bike to work.

But it seems an advocacy group named Re-Wind, is attempting to come up with ideas on what to do with the worn out turbines. These ideas include roofing material for a 40 square foot home (!!), guard rails and pedestrian foot bridges.

There needs to be more ideas pretty soon as the turbines begin to fail.

 

 

Oh Nuts

We've gotten into the habit of always having nuts around so that we can grab a handful periodically during the day. Nuts have good health benefits and taste good.

Research has shown:

• Lower your low-density lipoprotein (LDL or "bad") cholesterol and triglyceride levels, which play a major role in the buildup of deposits called plaques in your arteries
• Improve the health of the lining of your arteries
• Lower levels of inflammation linked to heart disease
• Reduce the risk of developing blood clots, which can lead to a heart attack and death.

What we have found is that the Schnucks brand (Culinaria) of canned nuts are the best. The nuts aren't tiny and they taste very very good. We normally have 3 types of these, Roasted/Salted extra large Virginia peanuts (so good), mixed gourmet nuts and mixed nuts with pistachios. This last does not skimp on the pistachios. Other brands have less tasteful nuts and much smaller.

My only complaint is nut package-ers put in too many almonds. It is possible to get these with low or no salt as well, I think.

IMHO

This is just my opinion, but the red stoplight on eastbound Main at 159 is too long. The traffic often backs up a full block while we wait and wait for the green. My best guess is this has something to do with IDOT of whoever, wanting the north and south traffic moving through 159. But, the eastbound red is longer than necessary in my experience.

This kind of drives Dale nuts as well and he is usually fairly non-plussed by most daily life things. We've taken to going down the alley and going out behind the former Herbert's Eye place and getting the Clay street light.

One mind settling game

For some months I've been playing a game on my ipad or iphone everyday. I'm not normally a game player, but I've found that this one has the effect of settling my brain down and gives me better concentration the rest of the day. It's easy, but you do need a bit of focus.

It's Word Scapes Search in which the screen fills with a square of disconnected letters. At the top are words you must find in those disconnected letters. When you find one, you take you finger and run across the found word which then fills with a color. You keep going til you find all of them.

It's mindless in a good way because it does settle you down and gives you some focus which can help you the rest of the day.

Find it on your app store or the web.

There are ads of course, usually after every other game. But, I've found tapping the x at the top corner as soon as I see it, ends the ad.

I'm probably the last to know this..but..

Did anyone else know there is such a thing as large trash bags which fit into the 64 gallon home, wheeled carts? This is a wonder to me, since I'm sort of obsessive about trash and recycling. The unique thing about the large bags is they fit over the top of the cart and then the everyday bags of trash go into it. At the end of the week on pick-up day, just tie up the top of the big bag and all goes into the truck at once.

Now this may seem like a small thing, but what this way of handling garbage means there is very little chance we have to clean out the darn cart. With individual weekly bags there is often or always a leak which gums up the bottom of the can. And those carts/cans are just the very devil to clean well. You almost have to crawl inside or own some sort of long handled brush which fits into the corners.

Today is our pick-up day and after I clean out the darn thing one more time with boiling water and bleach, I am going to Home Depot to get some of the giant cart bags. It can't hurt even if it won't be perfect.

Tracking property history

Since we purchased our cottage down on the Huzzah Creek in Davisville, Missouri, we've been curious as to its history. This dwelling goes back quite a long way from what we can tell from a very old photo which is framed in all its black and white glory and hanging on one of the walls. The original structure has obviously been added onto and done well, but it is easy to see what changed. Initially, the newer area went to the right. The first front door ( which now opens into a bedroom) was on the left, fireplace in the middle and the last set of stone was on the right. The left side has had something of an addition as well. We have no idea where the kitchen may have been. We do believe much of the cooking was done outside in the huge stone fireplace in the back. More adding on at some point in the back. 

We are curious as to who the first family was as well as those who followed. We do know the people we purchased the property from, but they did not do any of the renovations.

Lots of changes inside as well although we have no images of the old. Who were the first owners, what were they like, how did they live? Who came after?

Problem is I am not very knowledgeable on how to go about finding this information and it appears as though Crawford County is not online searchable.

Shorter hours at Schnucks

Due to staffing shortages, many Schnucks stores will shorten the hours they will be open. This includes most of the Metro East stores and beginning today the new hours will be 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.

A number of the St. Louis side of the river will not change their hours.

• Arsenal
• Cross Keys
• Dorsett
• Hampton Village
• Ladue Crossing
• Lindell
• Loughborough
• Richmond Center
• South City
• Downtown St. Louis

I'm not surprised about the stores which will keep the longer hours, most are among the busiest in the chain, especially Richmond Center next to St Mary's hospital. That place is close to the seminary and is always always filled with people.

I can live with these hours, maybe some will be inconvenienced if they work late. But Frankly, fewer employees is only half of the issue. So many shelves go empty fast due to lack of shipments.

Pulling out the garden

It's October and much of our vegetable garden has given up producing so I decided it was time to clear a lot of it out. The tomatoes did just an amazing job, growing almost 6 feet tall and very wide. They grew so massive the branches tangled with each other. I lost track of just how many cherry/grape tomatoes we gathered, it was in the hundreds. The Romas did well, I was able to skin and freeze many of them. The slicers were fine, but not as numerous as the others. I didn't get any photos of the amazing height of these plants, but did get pictures of how thick they were growing into each other and some of the tomatoes.

This weekend I spent hours cutting them all out and putting them in brown yard waste bags.

6 bags so far, I just hope the pick-up guy won't be fed up with us.