This is a public-interest archive. Personal data is pseudonymized and retained under GDPR Article 89.

A Lot of Words

To the list:
 
    I have lurked on the list for the past year.  I enjoy the volume of information that I receive on those days that I have time in the office to absorb it.  I am coming on line today to thank our gracious hosts for the enormous care they take in reminding us of our responsibilities and keeping us on track.  Of course, the 300+ GWL notes I had this morning virtually overwhelmed me!  I work in this industry more on the B to B side of communications within a variety of state and national associations.  Day-to-day I'm the business manager of Joanne Kostecky Garden Design, Inc. and right now we're in the midst of a crazy spring season and our ever-present drought emergency.  I've been communicating a great deal on the local, regional, and state wide level about the problems we're presented with all of the conflicting interpretations of the new regs.
 
    Hopefully to get a new thread started and return from some of the recent diatribes against the volume of communications, I want to submit a strange story from a nursery owner in the midwest that hit the ANLA list serve this morning.  I copy it with her permission.  Maybe someone on this list has more insight...
 
From Marlene Frisbie:
 
    I've had a very odd experience over the last few days and got to wondering if any other nursery owners had ever encountered something similar.
 
    We have a wooded/wetland area towards the back of our property that we try to maintain as a natural area.  We maintain a mowed path back to the water, and my husband and some close friends use the area for deer hunting in the fall.
 
    I was on the path on Monday when I discovered that a relatively new side path that had been created.  Out of curiosity, I followed this new path and found an area 4' by 8' in size where squares of the sod had been removed and then replaced.  I quickly checked with my husband and he knew nothing about it and suggested we call the police.  Two different officers came out and decided it was odd enough to refer it on to the detectives.
 
    The detectives came out this morning and accompanied me back to the woods to dig up the area.  (Since they were all in suits and wingtips, they let me have the privilege of doing the actual digging!)  We discovered that the sod had been removed with a sod cutter, and underneath was a full sheet of plywood.  When they pried up the plywood, there was a very large hole underneath.  There was a pretty even ledge all the way around the hole to support the plywood, and this ledge was lined with boards.  There were more boards across the width of the hole, and one or two had supports underneath them so that the plywood would not buckle.  And there was absolutely nothing in the hole.
 
    One other interesting fact - about two cubic yards of good old Midwestern clay had been dug out of that hole, and somehow it had all been hauled away, because it was nowhere to be found in the area.
 
    The detectives were stumped.  Someone has gone through a lot of effort to create and hide this hole - but why?  Anyone else out there run into anything like this on their land?
 
Marlene Frisbie
Prairie Haven, Ltd.
Woodstock, IL (where MY doors will be locked tonight!)   
 
And again:  thanks to Lon and Doreen for the great job!
 
Kirk R. Brown
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index