2009 Year in Review

Editorial

Water, water everywhere. The dreary and gray days are bad enough, but then add a bunch of rain to the already saturated ground, and you have flooding. Flooded roads. Flooded fields, and flooded basements. My heart goes out to anyone who has had their basement flooded recently. We don’t have a basement in our current home, but I do recall helping others remove wet carpet and getting the wet vac going for hours, and then carrying it up the stairs to get rid of the water. The only thing we have below ground at our current property is a well pit.

Only those who have lived in the country are likely to know what a well pit is. Since we don’t have a basement, the well pit is where the pressurized water holding tank resides. The pump (which is at the bottom of the well in the case of most modern systems) pumps water to the tank, which holds it for use in the house. Many rural properties have them because it used to be that the pumps were in the pit instead of at the bottom of the well. In any case, weather like this can cause them to flood. I have taken to pumping mine a couple times a day. I will do that until two days after a heavy rain. I hadn’t needed to do this in years past, since snowfall was in normal levels and the ground was not so saturated. This spring and last have been exceptions.

Another use for a well pit when you don’t have a basement is tornado protection. You just haven’t lived until you have to grab the family out of bed and run outside (usually in the rain) to hide in a small, damp, concrete hole in the ground. I guess that is part of the adventure and charm of country living. I’m getting a basement with our next house. The well pit is one charmer I can do without.

Another thing I can do without is the Asian Beetles, aka Ladybugs (although Ladybugs are a different bug). Every year it seems like there are more of them, and the warmer weather seems to wake them up. I heard a local radio personality mention that there was trauma in his morning when he brushed his teeth, not noticing that there was an Asian Beetle on his toothbrush. These things smell terrible when you bother them, and I bet they taste terrible when you brush your teeth with them. Yuck!

It’s nice to see that our city is going to apply for some of the stimulus money the federal government has put out there. That takes some quick thinking and acting, and I think we are in a good position to be candidates for receiving some of the pot. That will basically pay for one quarter of the project cost, and the rest is paid back interest free. I’m crossing my fingers.

I want to apologize for any things that I may have missed while proofreading the paper last week. My wife usually helps me, but I was on my own last week, and we found something that I had missed. Reading too fast will do that. We try to get the missed things in the following week’s paper whenever we can. Every week is a new adventure here at The Post!

Thanks to all of our loyal readers and advertisers. Also, thanks to all of you who submit great stuff for us to consider for printing. by Ben Wolf, Guest Columnist
March 19, 2009