I've been negligent in not praising the SJR for opening up all of its content online--so, thanks, y'all!
In the news today: front-yard gardens in marketplace, about their roles in not just making food about as local as possible, but also as community areas, bringing neighbors together. We've done a lot to bring greenery, including vegetables, into our tiny tiny yard, but it's all in the back. The one thing I really wanted to do, and haven't, is to put a pumpkin plant in the front yard, near the house, and grow it up a trellis, so that by the time fall hits, we'd have ready-made Halloween decorations, in the form of ghostly floating pumpkins. Alas.
The other big thing in today's paper: 2006 temperatures higher than average. There's not a whole lot of new information here, but it's always good to get a reminder of where we're at, and it's rare to get this kind of thing from an Illinois perspective. For some context, here's average temperatures across the US last year:
The full report is here.