Wow! Blogger suddenly does look different. I know the homepage has been saying this would happen for a while, but I am still surprised.

No time to play with it at the moment -- it is late. I am bothered right now because shortly before we left Castleton to head to Samsonville this evening, I noticed that one of my hanging baskets was missing. I have four nice, identical green planters hanging from the front porch, and every year I "fix" them myself with peat moss and compost. This year, each has a zonal geranium, a petunia, and some vinca.

Two days ago, Bob noticed that some of the marigolds I planted in a box in front of the house had been ripped out, and the plants and dirt were tossed on the ground. We decided it may have been a neighborhood cat, since something like this has never happened before, and I have heard cats will sometimes dig in flowers. The plants seemed OK, so I replanted everything, and forgot about it.

I did hear the dogs barking quite ferociously at one point today, but I didn't pay much attention and I guess that was a mistake. So the marigold mystery is solved, it was not a kitty in search of a litter box, but a vandal. The culprit must not be very tall, because they left the rope hanger, instead detaching just the pot. This makes me think more than one person was involved, someone to support the rather heavy pot, and someone to snap off each hook.

I thought if it was a kid, maybe they just threw the pot away in the nearby trash cans or tossed it in the weeds across the street, but no such luck. I didn't notice any other damage or anything else missing, but on the way out of town we stopped at the local police station and I reported it.

I saw in the newspaper today that the village is considering re-establishing a police force of its own, something which was discontinued in the 1980s. Since then we have relied on the town and state for patrols. The purposes of resuming a village force are to decrease vandalism and speeding, and both seem like worthy causes to me. People drive very recklessly in the village, using our steep one way streets as commuter "thrus."

On Monday, I'll go back to the hardware store to see if I can locate a matching pot, since I bought the four I had three years ago. And, back to the garden center to replace the flowers. Then, next week, I will be on alert!

In the sixteen years we have lived there, we have never had a problem with vandalism or theft. We have wonderful neighbors, and it really is a nice little town. By this I mean not upscale at all, just plain, simple, ordinary, and generally good. I guess we have been lucky. The officer we spoke with said school has had a lot of half days recently, and this means there are too many unsupervised teenagers during the afternoons.

Although to folks who live in areas where crime is commonplace it probably seems like no big deal, this incident makes me both mad and sad! Why would someone want to destroy my flowers?