Thursday, October 22, 2009, 04:55
Bank Robberies
In the last couple of months, we have had five armed bank robberies in this area. Five. And this is just really a rural area. There was an armed robbery at a bank in the northern part of the county last week. And on Wednesday, there was an armed robbery in the next town over.
Is this a sign of the times? During the Great Depression, there were frequent bank robberies. In one famous robbery, a hostage was taken and killed. His body was found along the state highway. Old timers are still talking about that particular robbery. I remember my folks talking about that robbery.
But with the most recent string of armed robberies, I am beginning to think twice about going into a bank around here. In fact, I am thinking maybe I don't want to be around a bank at all. Part of the reason is that the robbers must not be the brightest lamps in the store, so to speak. It doesn't matter if the robbers get away with $1 or $1 million -- an armed robbery means they are in a whole lot of really big trouble.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Monday, October 19, 2009, 04:44
Warmer -- But Not Warm
After several weeks of temperatures down in the 20s at night and in the 40s during the day. the weather was a little warmer on Sunday. It was pretty much sunny, too. But it wasn't by any stretch of the imagination warm. Maybe 50 degrees.
We have had snow three times now. Once last Saturday. Again on Monday, a week ago, when we ended up with about four inches on the ground. And then it snowed again a few days later with another layer of a couple of inches although that day it alternated with rain too, some, I think.
The cool weather and the wet weather do not bode well for the corn and the soybeans that are out in the fields. If we don't get some drying weather, the farmers won't be able to harvest their corn and the soybeans, or if they do manage to get their crops harvested, they will take a real hit on the price because the corn and soybeans will have more moisture than is desirable.
The only "crop" I have yet are carrots that I have not yet pulled from the garden. Carrots tolerate quite a lot of freezing temperatures, and if you can leave them in the ground for a while after a freeze, they get much sweeter. I had hoped to get at them this weekend, but it didn't work out that way. With any luck at all, I will be able to get them out of the ground before the ground starts to freeze. I had to plant them a second time last spring because they didn't come the first time. And then with the drought, that really delayed their progress. I wanted to leave them in the ground for as long as I could to let them grow as much as they could.
Everything else is pretty done now, after the hard freezes and the snow. The plants are withered and blackened to the point now that you can't almost can't tell what they were to begin with. All except my garden mum by the basement door. The garden mum looks really good yet. Later on, I will cut it off and cover it for the winter. I don't think it ever freezes completely right by the basement door. Mums are tough anyway. When I uncover the mum in the spring, there are often little green leaves starting to grow already.
All of the volunteer sunflowers growing in the tomato bed and the one that managed to grow in the garden have lately become very popular with the chickadees. I do not dare yet put out bird seed because of the bears around here, but the chickadees are finding snacks, anyway, on the heads of the sunflowers. It is fun to watch them hang upside-down to get the sunflower seeds.
When it gets quite cold and I am reasonably certain the bears might be hibernating, that's when I will start putting out bird seed again. In the meantime, I am hoping the birds can find their own seeds out in the woods and fields.
LeAnn R. Ralph