Greatest freedom weekend ever! dozens of photos to post...

Kids' bday party, wonderful cousin visit, chalk-o-rama, seeing baby river otters, Ohio Caverns...and the Cat Stevens CD I've been waiting for from the library finally came in. I could listen to "Morning Has Broken" a million times. Hoping you all have fine tales to tell too!

life at my house...lots of facepaint, pony play, junk food, and growth-the plants, the kids, the family, the love

Celebrating Stella's 8th birthday, and chalking at Comfest

Comfest '09. 

Bumped into the Klugers at the tie-dye station

At 33, I still think poop is hilarious. So kudos to my family for indulging me in this visit to our local water treatment facility last weekend. The tour started with a video that mentioned things like "filtering the solids that float to the surface." I was cracking up. Then we donned hard hats for the grand tour of the tanks, pipes, and microbial workings. When I signed us up for the tour I worried I'd never drink tap water again, but I actually feel much more confident about it  now than I did before. After "the solids float to the surface" (chuckle) and are removed, there are multiple other steps involving filtering and microbial break down. Our guide, who has been running the plant for 20+ years, has introduced fish, bats, and birds into the process. He has added bat houses on all of the surrounding buildings, and "eliminated" (chuckle again) the need for much of the chlorine bleach and other chemicals that were once part of the process. The other part that surprised me was that the water is cleaned, released into the Olentangy River, and then cleaned again at the Circleville plant before it comes out of any faucets. Before the tour I thought the water cycled through Columbus and the treatment plant over and over again.

Tour of the water treatment plant: photos from top to bottom-

1) Zeke, geared up for the tour with his "super hero pink" nails

2) "flume sand" basically dehydrated sh*t leftover from the water treatment process, used to fill air pockets in landfills and as a soil amendment

3) sludge (yes, it's what you think it is)

4) three stories underground, this building doubled as a shelter from the 1930's to 1980's. the ceiling held enough cots, water, and food rations to care for 250,000 central ohioans for 30 days.

5) thanks for the tip!