Also on today’s menu:
Gabbard Stumps For Bolduc
Halloween Shoot In Gilford
Students To Observe Supreme Court Case
Maxim Schlossberg, an associate professor of turfgrass nutrition and soil fertility at Penn State, offered a message I’ve long wanted to hear: Blowing leaves from your yard into the street can clog the grates over drainage systems and prevent water from moving off the surface of the street. Leaves also can end up in streams and rivers where drains lead, affecting water quality and “sensitive species adapted to those waterways,” Schlossberg said.
I’ve always hated the noisy leaf-blowers that seem like an easy solution to leaf-removal but merely move the leaves from one place to another, often onto a neighbor’s property.
But that same article in which Schlossberg makes his argument goes a step further: Leaving at least some of the leaves in your yard can help fertilize your grass and other plants, providing shelter for animals and food for the birds. David Mizejewski, a naturalist at the National Wildlife Federation, said the leaves return nutrients that the plant can then recycle and reuse in the spring, and that leaf base can form “an entire ecosystem in and of itself.”
“There are probably thousands of different species that actually live in that leaf layer,” he said, “everything from earthworms and little pillbugs and all sorts of little critters that live in that leaf layer. But also higher up the food chain, salamanders, toads, box turtles, shrews and chipmunks,” and the worms provide food for birds.
Gabbard Stumps For Bolduc
Former Hawaii congressman and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, who recently left the Democratic Party and became an independent, appeared in Laconia on Monday afternoon to endorse U.S. Senate Republican candidate Don Bolduc, saying, “Mr. Bolduc is somebody who thinks for himself, has the courage to stand on his convictions, and his convictions are rooted in the Constitution and Bill of Rights. I’m glad he prevailed in the primary and I’m looking forward to him prevailing in the general election, as well.”
Gabbard said, “We have leaders in Washington from both political parties who are out of touch with the reality of the struggles and challenges and the everyday lives of Americans here in New Hampshire and across the country.” She described the current Democratic Party as hostile toward freedom of speech and controlled by “elite warmongers” who are pushing the country closer to nuclear war and trampling on fundamental freedoms.
Bolduc said, “If we say enough is enough, that Democrat, Republican, independent, Free Stater, or Libertarian, it doesn’t matter. These are Granite Staters’ problems and American problems that they have created. We must transcend these things that prevent us from coming together, and Tulsi and I, I believe, are a huge positive example of that.”
Halloween Shoot In Gilford
The Old West may be long-gone except as portrayed in old movies featuring Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and John Wayne, but the spirit of those days continues among groups such as the Northeast Six-Shooters, whose members dress in western costumes and compete with horses in mounted shooting matches.
Lakes Region residents will have a chance to see those cowboys in action — and perhaps even participate themselves if they are members of the Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association — when the Six-Shooters hold a Halloween Shoot at the Lakes Region Riding Academy in Gilford on Saturday, October 29, beginning at 11 a.m.
The Northeast Six-Shooters are affiliated with the Cowboy Mounted Shooting Association, a national organization that coordinates competitions across the country. The Six-Shooters boast membership from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
Students To Observe Supreme Court Case
The New Hampshire Supreme Court will be hearing oral arguments in an animal cruelty case at White Mountains Regional High School as part of its “On the Road” series, giving high school juniors and seniors the opportunity to learn about court proceedings by watching real dialogue between lawyers and justices. When each oral argument is finished, the justices will leave the bench to allow the students to question the lawyers on both sides about their cases.
The case is State v. David Tufano, a misdemeanor animal cruelty case in which Tufano is appealing his conviction on a charge of trapping and attempting to drown a cat in a plastic storage tub. He maintains that he put the cat in the trap to bring it to the local humane society after accidentally running over the animal, which was still breathing but not moving. He said he tried to feed the cat, and it lunged at him, biting him. He sprayed water on the cat to get it to move to the back of the trap so he could remove it from the container, he said.
On the testimony of his neighbor, Tufano was found guilty and fined $1,000, but without any incarceration. Tufano’s appeal says the court should not have allowed evidence from the neighbor, who said Tufano had a history of trapping cats, because it “inflamed” the jury to be prejudiced against him. He also says the court should have allowed evidence that the same neighbor had been convicted of lying to police in 1999.
Café Chatter
On Lowering Drug Costs: I wish that Pelosi did not say what she did. Democrats can’t always be expected to take the high road and it was already getting dicey. Under the curcumstances where Trump and his cohorts sent people to hurt members of Congress on that day. And, all the other things that he has said and done for the last 6 years. I give her a pass. Interestingly, it was her daughter that waa documenting that whole day. And, it was her daughter’s video.
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