Garden

Your home is your castle, and your castle is where you go to unwind and escape from the everyday madness. Many people spend their free days watching TV or binging on YouTube to relax, and others love to cook, clean, sleep or play some good music. Now all there is no standard method to making good use of free time, so there is no right or wrong way to do it, but if you have a backyard where you live, there are some interesting activities to help convert the yard into a sanctuary.

A water display in the yard, garden fountains, or patio fountains turn the yard from ordinary to special. Scientists deduce that we humans began as water creatures and evolved to hunters who speared fish in the water. Hence our eager desire to be around water and to skip rocks. A child will be drawn to the water’s edge to start throwing rocks. People are drawn to water.

You may know him as the "Pee-pee Boy". We know him as the Mannekin Pis. Records indicate the original Mannekin Pis was created in 1388. It was destroyed many centuries later. By popular demand, the City of Brussels commissioned Jerome Duquesnoy to build another in 1619. This statue is alive and well today, situated in the labyrinth of little shops that surround The Grand Place in Brussels, Begium.

Sometime after Easter of last year Gert Knight noticed The Frog’s disappearances. "My husband was on the lawn mower and I yelled ‘Hey, John, we got a frog missing.’" Ms. Knight told reporters. They both thought that it was a simple case of "frognapping" and that they’d never see The Frog again.

They hang around town on old buildings, hide away on garden paths and come alive on movies about Ghostbusters. Many of these creatures were originally designed during the Medieval Period as very ornate rain spouts. The word "gargoyle" (along with the word "gargle") was derived from the French word "gargouille" meaning "throat". Stone carvings of these ugly creatures that do not serve as rain spouts are more accurately called "grotesques". Grotesques that combine two or more beasts are called "chimeras". We conveniently group them all under the Gargoyle heading.

No matter what religious affiliation you are, it’s always fun during the holidays is to ride around and look at all the nifty (sometimes gloriously tacky) holiday decorations. Once upon a time — when we had time — Doc and I were known to lead the pack in our neighborhood in a holiday display competition. It got pretty wild! We decorated a toilet with a candelabra — a long story — and constructed our own street sign which we proudly displayed on our corner lot that pointed the way to such places as “Bethlehem” and “Crapperville” — more of the long story.