Can't See The Forest For The Trees

As Christmas approaches, the trees start springing up in the LipsYard house. Charmaine is the queen of the decorations, and does a marvelous job with all 8 of our Christmas trees! Each Friday we'll feature 2 or 3 of them for a nice festive look to last over the weekend on the blog. This Victorian Tree is always the first one up, and it has little alphabet blocks that she grew up with for ornaments, along with beads, and ribbons and angels.

This is our Seafood Ornament Tree. I love this concept, removing all the greenery, lights, garland, and icicles; just displaying raw ornaments. This one reminds us of our annual trips to Cape Cod.

Green Thursday: Recycling a Parade

For the first time in it's 81 year history, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade recycled the helium in their balloons. 300,000 cubic feet of helium helped the parade's giant balloons stand tall to capture the spirit of the holiday. There's a real demand for helium in manufacturing and in medicine, as it's used to cool the equipment that run those fancy scanning tests. Because of the demand, there's also a shortage, which drives up the price, and makes recycling feasible.

The Helium used to fill Spidey and the other breathtaking balloons begins its journey from the American heartland. Crude helium is purified and liquefied in Otis, Kansas, then trucked across the country in 11,000-gallon tankers to a plant in New Jersey. From there, liquid helium evaporates into helium gas, which is compressed into high-pressure tube trailers a day or two before the Parade. On the day before the Parade, near the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, workers begin inflating the balloons. Early Thanksgiving morning the balloons are topped off and sent on their way.

We're helping conserve Helium by not using any in our Christmas Parade appearances this year.

Every Green Thursday we blog about issues important to sustaining our planet.

When High School classmates re-unite

Today's "Lunch with Lips" took us to Wisconsin Automatic Door in New Berlin.

We show up with free food from Cousins, play some Office Olympic Games, then eat our brains out. As a special treat, Debbie Lazaga was re-united with a fellow Grafton High School classmate, Jennifer, who brought along her old yearbook.

Here's Debbie in the classic "rattan chair pose."

and Christine with "Big Hair!"

Jake, the adopted pug liked the pictures, too.

I only hope all the people fleeing the White House west wing have a good a time at their reunion looking through the picture book of failed initiatives, broken trust, and lost opportunities. Indianapolis businessman Al Hubbard is the latest to step down, he was a top economic adviser. Hubbard was the third person to hold the job during the Bush administration.

Let the feeding frenzy begin

The lawn mower is a distant "brrrrr" in the past, replaced by the new "brrrrr" of cold weather. We cater to our feathered friends with a variety of feeders and a heated birdbath.

Think of it as a hottub for our feathered friends (and the occasional odd squirrel!)


Speaking of odd squirrels. Nobel Prize winner Al Gore spent some quality time with President Bush in the oval office that should have been his. You thought peace in the Middle East was tough!

We're silly with berries

Most of the leaves are off the trees, but we've still got berries everywhere for the birds to eat. These little guys belong to the Euonymus we have growing in the beds off the back patios.

Out in the front LipsYard, the Hawthorne (Craetagus phaenopyrum) is having one of it's first bearing years.

And out back, the Snowdrift Crabapple (Malus Snowdrift) still has fruit available.

On the flipside of the fruit available coin, are the opportunities for the Bush administration to salvage any kind of positive legacy for his 8 years in office, so he's had Condi put together a big Mid-East conference to try to get peace to break out between Israel and Palestine. "I'm optimistic" says our president. Good Luck with that.

First Snow of the Season

Thanksgiving morning brought us the first snow of the season. The Witchhazel (Hamamelis vernalis) featured on Wednesday at the edge of our green lawn, is now surrounded by a white blanket. No shoveling needed on this day, as it didn't stick to pavement, but we are going to gas up the 8hp blower and make sure it's running fine.

Be Thankful

The Witchhazel (Hamamelis vernalis,) is a hearty green in spring and summer, alive will color in the autumn, and keeps brown foliage as cover for birds all winter. Our view of the LipsYard always includes this stalwart plant, as it is closest to the house.



We're very thankful this Thanksgiving:

• For Family, Neighbors, and Friends


• For our Music-Making organizations offering us a creative outlet


• For the Freedoms this country affords, allowing us to question our leadership and not blindly follow


• For our Health and Happiness, may you be so blessed!

New Neighbors

The LipsYard neighborhood is pretty stable, but over the last couple of years, there has been a steady turnover of home-owners. Across the street from us are Mary and Jim. Nothing unusual about picking up leaves this time of year, except Jim has always had "People" do his yard work. Imagine our surprise to see them out doing it themselves.

Jim told me "I found out they wanted money to do this!" Plus, he had just got a new Black and Decker "bad boy" leaf sucker and had to try it out.

An hour or so later, he had changed his tune to "They're called leaves because you're supposed to leave them on the ground." Mary wasn't buying it.

President Bush is going to have another new cubicle neighbor, as another rat has jumped ship. This time it's Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend, the leading White House-based terrorism adviser who gave public updates on the extent of the threat to U.S. security. She's stepping down after 4 1/2 years.

Townsend said she hates to leave when figures like Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, remain at large. "Do I wish that I was going to be standing here when they are captured or killed? Absolutely. But I have no doubt that we will ultimately be successful."

Her departure continues an exodus of key Bush aides and confidants, with his two-term presidency in the final 15 months. Top aide Karl Rove, along with press secretary Tony Snow, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and senior presidential adviser Dan Bartlett, have already left. It wouldn't be too much of a bet to say she won't be the last, either.

Family to Family Thanksgiving Live Drive

Here we are at Sentry Hy. 100 and National for our Family to Family Thanksgiving "Live Drive" to help provide a great Thanksgiving meal for those less fortunate families around us.

Click here to donate online

This is Tyler, and he was here shopping with his mom and sister. His favorite part of Thanksgiving are the drumsticks. Mine is stuffing and gravy.

This is Elizabeth, Benjamin, and Nathan (I'm pointing at him, he's a corn and carrots kid) who had their mom bring them in from Brookfield to make a donation for Family to Family Thanksgiving.

Jane from Aurora Family Service explains how they don't just give food to families in need, but also follow up to find out other areas that they can offer assistance in.

Carly from St. Alphonsus school drops off the donation from the chore-drive

For 11 years the Dept. 56 collectors club of Milwaukee has made a donation and this year is no different.

Another annual donor, and our largest to date, is Quarles and Brady, brought by $12,000! Laurie and Dayle tell us they've given over $99,000 over the years.

Ted Majdecki owns this Sentry store, and another in Menomonee Falls, and made a big check presentation to Family to Family Thanksgiving.

Kathy from Deloitte dropped by their annual donation, this year nearly $4,000! They've been with our program for 10 years.

Green Thursday: The Heat Is On

During our annual furnace check at the start of the heating season, we got the bad news that our old Lennox Pulse furnace had a bad combustion chamber, and had become a carbon monoxide hazzard (do you have a working CO detector?)

Out with the old...

...and off the truck with the new. This Lennox is a step up from the old Pulse model. It is 95% efficient compared to 92% on the old one, so it will use less natural gas. It also has a DC fan motor that is much more efficient than the old AC model.

First job is to cut a hole in the side for the air intake SpaceGuard filter.
The new furnace is more compact than the old.
Here it is ready to heat our home to a brisk 69 degrees.

We opted to upgrade because of the Bush Administration's energy policy: "Find more - Use more - raise the prices for our business buddies." Energy Czar Cheney pooh poohs conservation, probably thinking it's for "ninnys," and pushes ahead for more drilling in wildlife refuges.

The price of oil has gone from $25 a barrel at the start of the "W" regime, to nearly $100 today. With the neocon's set to attack Iran, prices will only go higher.

"Ninnys" that we are at the LipsYard house, we've opted to the conservation side of the equation, and hope you will, too, when your Old Paint needs replacing.

Every Green Thursday, we post issues vital to the future of the planet.

Shrubs on Fire

Goldmound (Spiraea) on 'fire' in the LipsYard. That wacky purply Kale (Brassica oleracea) is looking good, too.
We have Spiraea in several beds around the house, providing green color and blooms all spring and summer, and beautiful color in the fall.

The beautiful colors take some of the edge off the latest numbers out on the real cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, estimated to total $1.6 trillion -- roughly double the amount the White House has requested thus far, according to a new report by Democrats on Congress' Joint Economic Committee.The report, released yesterday, attempted to put a price tag on the two conflicts, including "hidden" costs such as interest payments on the money borrowed to pay for the wars, lost investment, the expense of long-term health care for injured veterans and the cost of oil market disruptions.The $1.6 trillion figure, for the period from 2002 to 2008, translates into a cost of $20,900 for a family of four.

A Frosty Morning

At the LipsYard House, we wait for a frosty Fall morning to spread our Winterizer on the lawn. That's so we can see where we've been with the drop spreader.

This will be the 2nd time we've used the new "No Phosphorus" product on the lawn.

That's why the middle number on the bag is '0.' Here in Wisconsin, the ground is silly with Phosphorus, so we don't need to add any more.



Frosty, and darn near frozen is the relationship in Pakistan between opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, again under house arrest behind barbed wire on the orders of Pakistani military leader Pervez Musharraf "for her own protection."


She's called on him to quit as president and military chief of staff so true democratic elections can take place.

Great Brittain has joined a Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group 10 day ultimatum for him to end emergency rule and quit as army chief. What have we done? Nothing. The Bush administration continues to seek a delicate balance; criticizing Musharraf's crackdown on basic freedoms, but standing up for him as a vital ally against terrorism who has shown support for democracy (up to now.) Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte was headed to Pakistan to urge him to cut it out. Good luck with that.

American Idol in the house

Jordin Sparks, the latest American Idol, stops by the WKTI studios to talk about winning the big show. Click Jordan's picture above to watch the interview!

The 17-year-old Sparks is very poised and outgoing. She credits her parents for supporting her dreams of being a singer, and giving her the freedom and independence to learn things on her own.

She doesn't have a Tatoo (the title of her hit song) yet, but as soon as she turns 18, she'll have her brother's initials, PJ, inked behind her right ear (ouch!)

Jordin signed our white board on the way out.

Green Thursday: Online Banking Saves Trees

Switch to online banking and bill paying and help save the planet. That's the message banks and businesses will soon be using to persuade us to go paperless.

If all the nation's households just received and paid bills electronically, they'd save 16.5 million trees each year, or the amount of lumber needed to build 216,054 typical single-family homes.

We're almost totally paperless in the LipsYard house, and it saves on buying stamps, too.

Every Green Thursday we post something helpful that can also help save the planet.