About Leaf Blowers, Wild Flowers, and Raking

I've never minded leaf blowers myself. That whining roar is as much a part of what I grew up with, as the sound of lawnmowers. But, some people don't like the sound. At all.

Howard Leland, who converted his back yard into a butterfly preserve back in 2005, met with the city council to ban leaf blowers twice: Once, in 2003, because they were too loud; again in 2006, because exhaust fumes from the leaf blowers were making his milkweeds and wild flowers sick. He put it a little more scientifically than that, but that's the gist of it.

A week after that 2006 meeting, Glenn Severtson, a neighbor of Mr. Leland's, invited Howard and the other homeowners on that block to the Whistle Stop Cafe. They spent the better part of a Saturday afternoon there, talking about Mr. Leland's yard-full of milkweed, fireweed, columbine, goldenrod, and so forth; and their leaf blowers.

When it was over, they'd agreed that Mr. Leland wouldn't try to get leaf blowers banned in Loonfoot Falls, if they'd stop using leaf blowers. Mr. Leland said that he'd make sure their yards got raked.

In the autumn of 2007, Howard Leland was out daily for well over a week, getting one yard after another raked. He told me that it was great exercise: better than jogging.

He also told me that he was getting a leaf blower for the job this year. He's not giving up his principles, he explained. The blower's motor is electric.

Loonfoot Falls Cleaned Up Taft Campaign, 100 Years Ago Today

William Howard Taft's said his presidential campaign was "one of the most uncomfortable four months of my life."

I think his campaign train's stop in Loonfoot Falls may have been part of the reason.

On a Saturday morning, a century ago, Taft's campaign train, the Presidential Special, arrived in Loonfoot Falls. A large crowd, Loonfoot Falls' mayor, the town band, and a driving rain were there to greet him.

While Mr. Taft was addressing the people of Loonfoot Falls from the limited shelter of his observation car's overhang, the fireman was filling the locomotive tender's water tank from the water plug: a tank and spout contraption near the coaling tower.

The Loonfoot Chronicle, as the town's paper was called then, records that the rain was coming down even harder when Mr. Taft wound up his speech. As the Presidential Special began pulling out of the station, the band struck up "Anchors Aweigh." As the crowd cheered, Mr. Taft waved his hat in farewell. Ironically, he was wearing a straw boater.

As the observation car, with Mr. Taft inside, was passing the water plug, the plug swung free from it's mooring and struck the car's roof. At that point, hundreds of gallons of water from in the water plug's tank began pouring onto the observation car roof.

The Loonfoot Chronicle records that, after assuring everyone from the mayor to the band director that no one had been hurt, Mr. Taft thanked Loonfoot Falls for giving his car such a thorough washing.

Our new Server and Working From Home

For everyone who looked for my column over the weekend, and today, my apologies. I had it ready for the paper, but hadn't gotten the online version done by quitting time on Friday.

No problem! We're experimenting with working from home, here at the Loonfoot Falls Chronicle-Gazette, and this was a good way to see how well it worked.

I went home, ate supper, and then logged on through our new Vacnet server. No problems. I uploaded the column, checked to make sure that it looked right, logged off, and had a pleasant weekend.

Back at the offices, I checked again, and the column was right where it should be.

Then, about 2:00, someone handed me the phone.

I've been asked not to use the name, but a regular reader let me know that the my most recent online column was still that "Feverish Server" one.

That's not good. I got the website up, went to my column, and the one you're seeing now (I hope) was there.

I did not tell the caller 'it must be a problem with your connection.' That's a technical support tradition I don't mind abandoning.

I thanked the caller, and called Stan Parks, the computer guy.

We still don't know why, but when I logged in from a remote location and uploaded that column, it was put in a secure location. Anyone could see it: as long as they had an employee account on the server, and had logged in.

Putting the column where it was supposed to be took about a minute. My guess is that it'll take Stan quite a while to sort this little glitch out.

And, no: I didn't hit the wrong key. That was the first thing I thought of. Stan and I went to my place, where I uploaded a dummy column, and so did Stan. We tried it a couple of ways, and got the same frustrating results each time.

So, until and unless this glitch is fixed, I'm not working from home.