respublica

Here we go

Mattresses 101

Ladders 77

Driving around the St. Louis area to Illinois and down to St. Genevieve the past few days we saw quite a number of vehicles with precarious loads. It's that time of year.

Crabbing about crabgrass

What a great name for a noxious lawn weed. Crabgrass can be so pervasive that it takes over entire sections of lawn. Sadly most good grasses do no spread, but each seed is one blade of grass and that's it. The only exception to this is soyza grass which has underground roots which spread and can cover entire areas.

Par of our backyard has suddenly become a stand of crabgrass, I'm not sure why all of a sudden this has happened. The main difference from other years is that we had a big Oak tree cut down in the spring but I'm not really sure why this would cause the crabgrass. The tree was on the edge of the yard, not in the lawn, but whatever the reason, this crabgrass is so thick it's hard to walk through.

So what to do? The experts tell us a couple of things. 1. You don't have crabgrass if you have a lush, thick lawn. The weed can't get a toehold in that case. We did have a thick lawn but I believe the heavy equipment brought in to take down the tree hardened the soil around it which kept the normal grass from coming back.

2. The best treatment is the pre-emergent week killers spread in the spring before they even begin to sprout. Too late for us.

3. Post-emergent weed killers are what we're looking at now. This is sprayed on after the crabgrass has come up. We'll be looking at a wide swath of brown, dead crabgrass for a while, but I plan to try this. For some reason crabgrass just keeps on spreading. The best products according to experts are: selective killers, meaning those which only damage the weeds.

The best crabgrass killer is Drive XLR8 but that is mostly legally sold to commercial lawn services. The next best for homeowners (with fairly successful results) would be Ortho Weed B Gon Max Plus Crabgrass Control.

The Ortho is what I'll try first.

Raccoon total for the week

Critter Control trapped 5 raccoons from our yard this week. Finally today the traps are empty. 

Fly high

Katie's trapeze practice the other night while on 
the outside rig. 

Whoa

Mattresses 100

Ladders 76

Must be a lot of moving these days. Mattresses frequently falling off vehicles in and around St. Louis highways right now.

And no one looked up from their phones

Guy gets on a New York subway train yesterday with this-> A Peacock

No one seems even remotely interested because...phones. Ok, maybe the person who took the iPhone picture was interested.

A clamshell miracle

I needed a new computer mouse and went picked up one from Lexar at Office Depot. Of course it was inside one of those darn hard plastic clamshells. But this time opening it was a breeze, no more pulling out a scissors or utility knife. No more cutting my hand or arm trying to get the product out.

I was shocked to find an arrow with the words "pull back here" or something to that effect. I pulled on the corner and it opened right up.

A small miracle for our times. Now if only every other product sold which isn't food or clothing would follow Lexar's lead.

Organized for ontime flights

A wide ranging group of Missouri people have organized a group named, Citizens for Ontime Flights.

"We are dedicated to promoting more efficient air travel. The status quo in aviation is simply unacceptable. Every day thousands of flights are delayed, millions of gallons of fuel wasted and billions of dollars lost because the government has systematically failed to update the nation’s air traffic control system. We cannot continue to run the air traffic control system the same way it has been since the 1950s and expect different results. Join our effort to modernize air traffic control. "

It seems obvious this should have been done long ago. Who knew we are still in the 50's as far as air traffic control is concerned. No wonder things are so many airports are a mess.

Top 25 places Americans are flocking to this summer

According to Trip Advisor, we are headed mostly west to national parks and other venues. Number ten on this trendy list is the Gateway Arch. Interesting. Number one is the south rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

I've gotten a kick out of how many travelers have gone off the beaten path and stopped by the World's Largest Catsup Bottle in Collinsville and taken photos there.

Many pictures look like this.

The Catsup Bottle made the list of the Weird Roadside Attractions by State and for Illinois the bottle was it!

raccoons caught

That was fast!  Raccoons are easy to trap, lay some tuna and mini marshmallows inside the trap and they'll go for it every time. This morning the mama and two kids were secured. No more using our yard as their personal playground. 

The funny part is the woman from Critter Control remembered us very well from past raccoon hunting