Moon Tree & (Almost) Full Moon

She some stories about the moon trees on a few of Jim's blog posts.

I wasn't called the "Mad Mooner" in high school of nothing.

Scalpers Ahead

Penn State football ticket scalpers were really getting out of control at the turn of the century. On our end of town, many scalpers would take advantage of main routes, slowed traffic and any parking lot to wave folks in to sell their tickets.

I can remember being really annoyed one Saturday in 2002. Jim was driving me down to work at the ballet school and scalpers were thrilled as they waved us into the parking lot. They thought we were interested in what they had to offer but were an annoyance and getting in the way of anyone who had ballet class that morning.

Jim and I came up with a project that was a little questionable. We got a large piece of cardboard, black and bright orange paint and designed a "Scalpers Ahead" sign to post 1/4 of a mile before where these folks had taken to hanging out on home football Saturdays. This was one of our first Guerrilla Art projects.

Because we knew displaying a phony alert traffic sign was illegal, we were very careful about never taking any photos of the project as we created it. I really regret that now because it was AWESOME! It was to scale, we matched the color of orange traffic signs, the font, black board, curved corners and the placement was so convincing.

We quickly put the sign up very early one home game Saturday morning. I took a parting shot in the poor morning light as we got away from it as fast as we could. We drove by it and I got one more shot from the car. It looked SO GOOD!

By the end of the day, someone had taken it down. We hope that it gave the slowed traffic some smiles on their way to the game. Maybe our sign brought some unwanted attention to them on our end of town. We aren't sure of all of the reasons but scalpers aren't nearly as bad now as they were those years.

A Bad Hair Day

Me being Justin Bieber before I fixed my hair.

Add a Zero

FedEx made some odd choices in how to ship a package this week. The item of origin was (on Friday) from Middletown, PA and the destination is (still) Lewistown, PA. That's 70 miles.

Viewing the tracking progress, it has been perplexing watching the item ship over the weekend. First it went to Lancaster, PA then Newark, NJ! It then was shipped back across the state to Pittsburgh, PA and this morning was just leaving State College, PA to it's final destination. When it finally settles it will have logged 700 miles!

I can make no sense of this wasteful shipping route.

Lawn Care Tips

We have hired a couple of local Flickers for our lawn care needs. I photographed the fellow while he was hard at work in our back yard. The gal was is our front yard last evening. We are waiting for them to bill us (pun intended).

Aereation
If your lawn soil is compacted, your lawn might not be getting the air it needs to thrive. Lawn aeration attends to this problem, pulling up plugs of soil and allowing water and nutrients to reach the roots of your grass.


Lawn aeration strengthens the roots, and strong roots equal a lush, green lawn. Aerating once or twice a year will generally do. With a lawn aerator, lawn aeration can be an easy do-it-yourself project, but any good lawn care provider can aerate for you as well.

Aerate the highest traffic parts of your lawn most frequently. Heavy foot traffic can make soil practically impermeable, and lawn aeration can go a long way to solving high-traffic-area problems like slow growth and low resistance to wear and tear.

Lawn Grubs
Some lawn areas are more attractive to June bugs laying eggs. More eggs are deposited at night in warm soil areas such as next to sidewalks and driveways and often near outside lights. Open areas free of trees and shrubs are preferred and moist soil is favored over dry soil. This year egg laying is likely to be concentrated in watered lawns since most unirrigated lawn areas are dry. The ultimate irony - in most years highly managed turfs are more likely to get hit with grubs.

Grubs are the immature stages of some beetles. In our area the highest populations are annual white grubs. Grubs are whitish, "c" shaped and wormlike. The adult is the tan 3/4 inch June beetle.

Damage will usually occur in August through October. Grubs feed on grass roots until the grass dries out and dies. The turf can easily be pulled back like a carpet. Turf can survive some feeding. Less heavily watered turf should be scouted for grubs in early August. Peel back the grass. Just a couple grubs per square foot are not a problem to an otherwise healthy lawn. Ten or more per square foot are necessary to justify treatment.

Home gardeners have some options for grub control: Don't water during July and August. If the weather is hot and dry, cool season grasses such as Kentucky bluegrass will go dormant. If a few grubs are detected, water and fertilize appropriately so turf can recover from some feeding then reseed or resod areas damaged.

I Need it for Tomorrow

The perfect addendum post to my Good Fast Cheap blog, RGBisMe blogged about a little video clip that sums up certain aspects of our lives perfectly. At one time or another, we have had clients say almost everything the green robot says! Warning - the cheeky blue robot says words that we usually keep to ourselves.

Photo Satire

I took a similar photo of Ravenboy years ago and took a break yesterday to satirize the shot.

Freedom from Want

Now

Then

12 Days of Rickman

Watching Alan Rickman's movies over the holidays inspired one family to fulfill a quest... of sorts.

See ya....

Letterboxing

The thing I like about letterboxing is the stealth factor. You go out to a location that sometimes is used by others for recreational activities other than boxing. You have to be careful about not giving away the location of the box so that "noxers" (non-boxers) will not find it nor plunder it. It's a lot of fun waiting until it's clear before diving under a bush to check a location or carefully peeking under a pile of rocks in the woods while other hikers are walking away.

RGBisMe insists that I need to hone my stealth skills. "Bug," he says to me, " everybody is wondering what you are doing out here on the trail. You are giving too much away and it's pretty obvious you aren't just hiking."

"What do you mean!?" I countered,"I wait until there is absolutely nobody anywhere near me before I seek and retrieve the box. I move the box to a location that is far away from the hiding place before I stamp in. I repack the box carefully and make doubly sure that there is no one around or watching me when I replace it to it's hiding place." I insisted that he prove to me that I was a careless letterboxer, giving away that I was doing anything more than just enjoying a day in the woods.

"You are correct on all of your careful boxing techniques," he agreed, "but you also stand out like a sore thumb in the woods. This photo is what you look like after you are done stamping up."

Maybe I should change to using a solid color inkpad.