Friday Morning Music
This young American composer-singer is somebody you're likely going to hear more from in the years to come.
Start your weekend with John Fullbright...
Shooting Yourself in the Foot
Most every election I make it a point to vote early. It’s certainly convenient and besides – I usually have my mind made-up long before the polls open.
Not so this year. This has been an exceedingly tough election decision to make. For a while I thought I had it all figured out. But then I began to have second thoughts. Maybe I read too much. Or perhaps I‘ve been over-analyzing candidates Romney and Obama. (Not so much Thompson and Baldwin.) I'd like to think I've done a good job of tuning-out most of the broadcast advertising, recycled the gibbering fliers along with their grainy black and white photos that have been spilling from my post box and made daily use of my caller ID, voicemail and spam filter. I’m going to keep mulling-over my decision and probably won’t make it until Tuesday when I actually draw the line connecting the arrows.
Healthy Soils Make Healthy Trees
Below the surface of the soil lies a complex soil food web we will likely never see. Without it, much of the plant life we enjoy would not be able to exist. The soil food web consists of many organisms that are beneficial to the health of the soil. This beneficial web is plentiful in an undisturbed forest setting, but can be diminished or lacking in some of the soils we have around our homes where our trees are trying to exist.
Many practices done to soils can disturb this fragile soil food web. Things like compacting the soil, overwatering, lawn treatments, removal of leaves and small branches, etc. can have major impacts on this fragile web. A healthy soil will need organisms like nematodes, beneficial fungi, bacteria, protozoa, arthropods, and certain other animals in order to maintain a favorable growing environment. These organisms play a critical role in nutrient cycling. Nutrient cycling is the process whereby plant materials are broken down into usable nutrients for plants to carry on life.
First Timer at the Women's Club
Despite living in Tosa for most of my life, I had never once been inside the Wauwatosa Women's Club until this last weekend. The quintet I play with was there to provide some light music for an art auction/benefit for a local private school.
What a beautiful site! I had no idea! I'm still getting over how nice the place is - and how often I'd passed by that building on 76th and Milwaukee Ave. without a clue about what was inside.
What About Your Polling Day Experience?
While out walking the girls I noticed that there wasn't a line at my local polling place. So after crating the dogs I walked over to the polls for lunch.
Yes. Lunch.
The day after the night before
I fell asleep early last night, exhausted from work and saturated with elaborate election speculation by talking heads on TV. But around 11 the ping of my cellphone woke me as my son texted one word: OBAMA.
Back to sleep, feeling somewhat relieved. But not elated. There's hard work to be done by everyone. That doesn't change, no matter who's in office. What changes is the willingness and ability to do it. I'm hoping for less opposition, more cooperation, and working toward the important goals that matter.
Friday Morning Music
Here's a reader contribution and a walk down memory lane. Start your weekend with this gem by Neil Young...
Tracing the Footsteps
By now you know that Jill and I spent a couple of weeks in France. Besides being the first two week vacation we've enjoyed in fourteen years it was also a pilgrimage of sorts - most of which I'll save to share another day.
Anyway, today is Veterans Day and I thought I'd take a moment to talk about my favorite veteran - Howard Gaertner. Who also happens to be my dad. Dad's been gone now for a couple of years but I'm sure he'd appreciate the mention.
Your Trees are Dormant in Winter - Our Arborists are Not
Wachtel Tree Science works throughout the winter months. In fact, during the winter we perform many of our services. We prune and remove trees and shrubs, and even remove stumps. Winters are ideal time to cable, and brace trees, install lighting protection, perform appraisals, consultations and site inspections. With the exception of insect and disease management, winter offers us an additional three months to perform our services.
Winter is an excellent time to work. The benefits are frozen ground, dormant perennials, inactive gardens and defoliated trees. The cold and sterile-like conditions of winter offer us the opportunity to prune trees and shrubs that are susceptible to, or under pressure from insect and disease problems. Trees that have infectious fungal or bacterial disease can have these infected branches pruned out in the winter and greatly reduce the risk of spreading the disease.
Applications and Appreciation
Applying for college is an unreal experience: It’s both exciting and one of the most nerve-racking things I have ever done. For example, I started crying instantly when at the exact moment that I hit submit on my UW-Madison application, I realized that I forgot to include one minute detail about an award from a standardized Latin test. However, after about 30 seconds I got over this horrifying fact and realized that not only was there nothing I could do, but there also was no longer anything that I had to do!
Searching for the Perfect French Baguette
For the last month I have been searching for a locally-sourced authentic French baguette. And I have been coming-up on the short end of the loaf in terms of success.
Until today.
Thankfulness for a special love
Sunday, November 18th is the 26th anniversary of my motherhood. On that day, our beautiful son, Andrew, came into the world. He burst into our lives and forever changed us. So many of you know this story, but Andrew was born severely developmentally disabled. As unexpected as Andrew's dire diagnosis was (my pregnancy was unremarkable - his brain injury occurred at birth), so was the imprint that his life would leave on our hearts, our minds, our other children and our family and friends.
Peeling Back Layers: Restoring the original floors in our kitchen
Old houses, like onions and sensitive ogres, have layers. Peel back those layers of wall paper, paint and flooring and you don't know what you're going to find.
TRAINING PRUNING
The primary objective of pruning young trees is to develop a framework of sturdy, well spaced branches on a strong trunk. Good branch structure, proper form, and tree strength all develop with training pruning.
Pruning done early in a tree’s life removes weak branches and corrects form when branches are relatively small. This reduces the size of pruning wounds, which results in faster closure and less opportunity for decay.
Do You Have Faith in Your Tree Service?
The old Webster’s dictionary defines faith as being firm to ones promises; contracts and of being worthy of confidence and belief. At Wachtel Tree Science, we work as a team to build and maintain your faith in us as leaders in the tree care industry.
Nordstrom opening department store at Mayfair mall by 2015
Nordstrom Inc. will open its first full-line Wisconsin department store at Wauwatosa's Mayfair mall in fall 2015.
The Seattle-based company announced Thursday plans to open a 140,000-square-foot, three-level store. It will be on the mall's east side, between Boston Store and Mayfair's six-story attached office building.
CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS AT FIRST CHURCH ... !!!
Please join us for the following events this Christmas Season = ALL are welcome!
Friday Morning Psychedelic
Turn-up the volume on your workstation PC and mellow-out to Oliver Klaus covering this tune by Donovan.
The long version too...
