01.01.70

Before your imagination runs amok with ideas of sado-masochistic happenings in our front garden, perhaps I should explain here that we moved to France in 2001 to “live the dream” and, along with many people, we found the first house didn’t suit our requirements after all. So three years later we sold, upped sticks and moved to a renovated farmhouse.

We already knew that from the beginning of January 1992 the maire in each town and village throughout France became responsible for every aspect of wastewater treatment, be it collective or individual. Spanc is the Service Public d’Assainissement Non Collectif, a professional body appointed by the maire to enforce wastewater collection laws in his commune. Since December 2005 every septic tank – fosse septique – in France has to be inspected to ensure every household is either on mains drainage or has a fosse septique system capable of destroying and dispersing whatever is flushed down the drains.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

He’s got five tractors, and five grandchildren, and it’s tough to say which of them makes Jim Richter of Fall City happiest. He loves that the grandchildren have each picked out their favorite tractors already, the ones they plan to inherit some day. He’s also pretty proud of the four classic tractors he put on display, along with himself as Mr. December, in the 2012 Snoqualmie Valley Tractor Men calendar.

That’s right, there’s room for 64 year-old grandfathers, too, in the pinup calendar created by Valley photographer Robin Woelz.

“The deal is that I am so good-looking,” Richter  begins, but he starts laughing before he can even finish the joke.

The calendar does feature a few undeniably sexy photos of local men at work on the farm – women are the target market, after all – but in the end, the calendar is about family, fun, and maybe even a little farming.

Family focus

Family is where it all started for Woelz, whose niece inadvertently gave her the idea for the calendar watching the parade of tractors at the Carnation 4th of July celebration. Another niece, Karisa Beerbower, helped her with all the photography. The photos all ultimately had to pass a family test, too....

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by Jennifer Delgado

A male driver was taken to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital with non-life threatening injuries after his car struck a tractor-trailer and partially slid under the vehicle, Des Plaines authorities said Wednesday.

The motorist did not see the truck backing into a dock area around 5:54 a.m. this morning at 2166 S. Mannheim Road and crashed into it, said Des Plaines Deputy Chief Mike Kozak. The man was extricated from his Honda Accord before being taken to the Park Ridge hospital, he added.

“As far as we know, it was non-life threatening injuries,” Kozak said.

The area was shut down for over an hour but is now open, Kozak said.

Source: Car crashes into tractor-trailer on Mannheim Road — Des Plaines ...