Shovel

As a dairy farmer, I am getting the bare minimum - a price set by the federal government - for my milk while continuing to pay top dollar for feed and fuel. I am so tired of reading about farmers polluting the Chesapeake Bay. I don't know a single dairy farmer who can afford to dump chemicals in the bay. Most of the dairy farmers have been forced out of business in Maryland. Why is it OK for these sewage treatment plants to repeatedly dump in the bay and no one says a word? They have mechanical or electrical failures over and over and nothing.

Most weekday mornings, late spring through late summer, Terry Weller and George Foster climb into a bright yellow truck and fire up lasers, high-definition cameras and a bank of digital recorders before hitting the road. Weller and Foster are two of the state's pothole detectives. Their laboratory on wheels is a $1.3 million truthmobile from which asphalt cannot hide its faults. Cracks, bumps and ruts lose their anonymity to ARAN - the Automatic Road Analyzer - a tool that finds trouble before it finds motorists' front tires and suspensions.

He first heard the "wails for help" as he walked out of the police station about 10:30 p.m. Saturday. After jumping in his car, putting down the windows and following the sounds, the detective got closer and heard the sound of "metal hitting an object. " Soon after, Detective Mike Ebaugh of the Prince George's County Police Department allegedly witnessed a man "strike a nearly lifeless man with a shovel to the head," according to police. Ebaugh jumped out of his car, pulled out his handgun and ordered the man to drop the shovel, just as the man was "poised to hit the victim once again," police said.

He first heard the "wails for help" as he walked out of the police station about 10:30 p.m. Saturday. After jumping in his car, putting down the windows and following the sounds, the detective got closer and heard the sound of "metal hitting an object. " Soon after, Detective Mike Ebaugh of the Prince George's County Police Department allegedly witnessed a man "strike a nearly lifeless man with a shovel to the head," according to police. Ebaugh jumped out of his car, pulled out his handgun and ordered the man to drop the shovel, just as the man was "poised to hit the victim once again," police said.

I n recent weeks, we've had more than enough severe winter storms, as well as quality time with our families. As a result, some of us have developed the quirky behaviors of the long-snowbound. Let us examine the warning signs of this irrational state, a result of the progressive whiting-out of reality. The first things to go are your housecleaning and child-rearing standards. The disarray outdoors is mirrored indoors, and you might be prone to inappropriate outbursts. Just the other day, surveying our dreary kitchen landscape of damp snow pants strewn over chairs and slushy boots drying on muddy towels, I shouted: "Why can't you people just stay inside and spend more time surfing the Internet and texting your friends?"

There might be as many beliefs about the proper way to shovel snow as there are snowflakes. The main camps seem to be the pushers, the lifters and the wheelers. On a snowy weekend like this one, you can spot them by the tools that they carry. The pushers employ shovels with long handles and curved, "C" shaped blades. They stand up as they work, placing their shovels on the pavement and propelling themselves and the curling snowpack toward the street. Pushers do their best work in light snowfalls, ones that measure 3 inches or less.

IN A PERFECT world, I would have been the one in bed under the covers, and my teen-age sons would have been the ones out in the snow, clearing the walks and brushing off the cars.In the real world, it was the other way around. Yesterday morning as I was removing the sheets of snow from the walks and the cars, I heard a voice calling out to me from an upstairs bedroom window.It came from my 13-year-old son. For a moment I thought the kid might be asking to help with the snow-removal effort.

A man armed with a shovel robbed a Linthicum man and a Baltimore man Monday of their jackets and jewelry at the Linthicum light rail station, county police said.Santo Spencer, 18, of the first block of Hampton Road in Linthicum and Thomas Crowder, 18, of the first block of S. East Ave. in Baltimore, told police they were waiting for a call at a pay phone on Nursery Road when a man riding a bicycle approached them and asked for a cigarette. When they said they didn't have one, the man left, but returned about 10 minutes later on foot with a long-handled shovel and threatened them,police said.

If I were running the presidential campaign of either Barack Obama or John McCain, my first decree would be this: no more photo ops at disaster sites. Such photo ops always make you look dumb, I'd tell my guy. So they're out. We're not doing them anymore. This is an issue right now because neither candidate came off looking too good when they toured the flooded Midwest the other day. Obama was in Quincy, Ill., where the nearby Mississippi River was expected to reach a near-record 32 feet today.

THIS IS the digging season. The breeze is blowing, the sun is shining, and like a big dog, you feel you just gotta get outside and disturb the soil.You pull your shovel out of winter storage and start to do some spade work when a little voice -- the Jiminy Cricket of shovel maintenance -- tells you, "you really should sharpen this thing."Everyone who enjoys getting down and dirty in the garden knows this voice. It is the voice reminding us we can't merely frolic in the mud, that we have tool maintenance respons- ibilities.

As a dairy farmer, I am getting the bare minimum - a price set by the federal government - for my milk while continuing to pay top dollar for feed and fuel. I am so tired of reading about farmers polluting the Chesapeake Bay. I don't know a single dairy farmer who can afford to dump chemicals in the bay. Most of the dairy farmers have been forced out of business in Maryland. Why is it OK for these sewage treatment plants to repeatedly dump in the bay and no one says a word? They have mechanical or electrical failures over and over and nothing.

The first sign that this isn't an ordinary warehouse in southwest Baltimore is the bright blue murals of screwdrivers, wrenches and other tools painted on the exterior. Inside, the real thing: shovels, rakes, hammers, paint trays, pliers, hard hats, ladders, wheelbarrows, electric drills and just about every tool imaginable for rehabbing a house or sprucing up a park. It's like a mini Home Depot. This is the home of the new Baltimore Community ToolBank, a nonprofit that opens today and the third of its kind in the country.

ADVERTORIAL CONTENT Labor Day is here marking the “official” end of summer. White pants are out and flannel shirts are around the corner. And so are all the leaves that will be falling, falling, falling. Beautiful to look at but tiresome to rake (or blow). You know what follows - snow, snow, snow! If you are tired of endless yard work and back breaking snow shoveling then you need to visit a Traditions of America 55+ lifestyle community. The company currently has 5 active adult communities across Pennsylvania and at each one they take care of all of the yard work and snow shoveling!

Years ago, before we were married and moved to Maryland, my husband opened a checking account in Indiana and had the statements mailed to his office there. The account wasn't forgotten, just ignored. That wasn't a problem until his employer moved and the statements started bouncing back to the bank. Eventually, the account was turned over to the Indiana attorney general, who added it to a list of unclaimed property — where it was recently spotted by a family acquaintance. We put in a claim.

Nearly a week after the season's first major winter snowstorm, large patches of ice and snow still cover streets in some Northeast Baltimore neighborhoods, and residents say they are waiting for trash and recycling pickups. That's a common problem in Hamilton Hills, resident Jere Danaher said Tuesday. Last year, following the February blizzards, was the first time in 30 years that he remembers city crews being sent to clear neighborhood streets. This year, a plowing crew cleared some roads after residents complained to the area's city councilman, Robert Curran.

There might be as many beliefs about the proper way to shovel snow as there are snowflakes. The main camps seem to be the pushers, the lifters and the wheelers. On a snowy weekend like this one, you can spot them by the tools that they carry. The pushers employ shovels with long handles and curved, "C" shaped blades. They stand up as they work, placing their shovels on the pavement and propelling themselves and the curling snowpack toward the street. Pushers do their best work in light snowfalls, ones that measure 3 inches or less.

WHEN THE snow falls, the sidewalks have to be shoveled and the shovelers have to be rewarded for their labors with chocolate. That, in my mind, is the code of the snowy sidewalk. So as the flakes fell last week, I started searching for recipes that would inspire the shovel-carrying masses to action. The particular mass I had in mind was the 175 pounds of bulk known as our teen-age son. Like many parents, I have had some success over the years goading my kids to remove snow from sidewalks.

It's all in the way you look at a surplus of elephant dung.While the state recently cited the city for dumping the Baltimore Zoo's animal manure near the Jones Falls, some gardeners might be happy for the opportunity to visit the Cold Spring Lane pile and haul away that mammalian treasure.I've seen the stuff perform miracles when applied to rose and other flower beds.One spring afternoon 35 years ago, police cars suddenly appeared along 29th Street. People rushed from their Charles Village rowhouses to see what the commotion was all about.

Thank you to Watchdog ("Icy sidewalks persist at inactive fire station in South Baltimore," Feb. 21) for pointing out the disparity between what the city government expects of its citizens and what it expects of itself. The unshoveled walks at the Riverside fire station are just one of many infractions on the part of the city. I watched a TV report of city inspectors issuing citations to business owners for not clearing their sidewalks of up to four feet of snow, while city streets, let alone city owned sidewalks, went uncleared until Mother Nature took care of the problem.

I n recent weeks, we've had more than enough severe winter storms, as well as quality time with our families. As a result, some of us have developed the quirky behaviors of the long-snowbound. Let us examine the warning signs of this irrational state, a result of the progressive whiting-out of reality. The first things to go are your housecleaning and child-rearing standards. The disarray outdoors is mirrored indoors, and you might be prone to inappropriate outbursts. Just the other day, surveying our dreary kitchen landscape of damp snow pants strewn over chairs and slushy boots drying on muddy towels, I shouted: "Why can't you people just stay inside and spend more time surfing the Internet and texting your friends?"