I do love my business. I do love the business. I love the people. Some of the special things I love doing about our business. I love putting GasLog in and watching people's face light up when they see all realistic and how easy it is to burn a fire at any given moment. I also love when we go on take animal that see me doing sort of the rescue of like baby raccoons and helping baby squirrels and stuff like that as part of the job. I've always loved doing.

You know you just hit on something I didn't even know that you guys did. So you see you guys actually help install gas fire logs and gas fireplaces like inserts.

We were just getting into the interior part of it when it comes into the GasLog side of it you know just putting gas jugs in that would bring fireplace from one of the top sellers in taxes of GasLog.

Explain to me what a difference between an insert and a GasLog is.

Gas hogs are just like wood putting in your fireplace that function like that would that look like a real burning fire an insert is an actual fireplace that is placed into a hole in the wall that is your fireplace looking at it inside like a wood stove scenario but yeah that's the sense you can put a woodstoves freestanding where you can put a wood stove inside of a fireplace right. So then there are electric ones there's you know there's gas ones there's propane ones whatever. So but gas logs are well go on my Web site Masters services thats 2 s’s in the middle.

You mentioned a couple of different types of Gardens and I was on your website earlier. The Eco Gardens by Washburn dot site and you had rain Gardens butterfly Gardens pollinator Gardens edible landscaping and rock Gardens. I've got a pet rock would that help my pet rock get more exercise.

I think so Bob especially with all the oxygen that the plant will give up for your pet rock I think it will be much more helpful.

Let's walk through what is your plosives of Gardens our butterfly garden. Are you planting plants to make butterflies come into my yard.

Yes we will be planting plump milkweed or Rose milkweed brings and attract butterflies into your yard into your landscape. And so you can be sitting on your patio or just looking out your kitchen windows. Oh my gosh look at that beautiful butterfly and be mesmerized. And that's also going to help enhance the pollinator action in your landscape too. What about a rain garden also known as bio retention. I think more in a residential landscape. We say rain Gardens and then commercial since there's larger properties we call those bio retention rain Gardens are going to help aid in the retention of the water that is going to leave your property if you don't have a rain garden and does that rain garden is going to act as a retention pond.

But a quickly dissipating retention on rain garden you can have trees and there you can have ornamental grasses you have native plantings you can have shrubs. Basically what we want that rain garden to do is collect that water and then quickly dissipated. Green Gardens are not your mosquito Haven.

That's a good thing you know. Pollinator Garden is something that brings in the bees so you can help with the bee population.

Yep exactly. Pollinator Gardens also bring in our hummingbirds and our butterflies and our moth and our other beneficial insect though not just bees and things but you're on the right track. I mean we all like to eat right. Need pollinators.

That's true. Well that kind of slides into the next one and the next have a garden instead of Gardens it says edible landscaping what do you mean by that edible landscaping.

If you're going to be outside in your yard and you're hungry something as simple as a raspberry hedgerows or something. We've got fruit trees we can plant we have shrubs we can plant we have like a service berry tree that gives a berries for wildlife but that gives the berries for jams and jellies.

We can make some wine out of a Ronia shrubs.

Oh goodness edible landscaping dual purpose you know producing fruit or vegetable type.

So just basically making stuff edible so that way we can enjoy our garden by not only visually but also tastefully as well. Finally rock Gardens as I mentioned at the beginning that I've got a pet rock and I really I really do have one that I bought was kind of funny but what what really is a rock garden rock garden that's more of a Zero Escape feature and when I say Zero Escape that's felt an act like the rocks there.

So very very very drought tolerant used in places where people don't necessarily want to or maybe they can't mould or maybe they just don't want that much maintenance. So think of something maybe on a hillside or maybe you know you can even have a rock garden is introduction to your rain garden something that provides quite a bit of colour but also is very easy to maintain.

mentioned that there were people that would pick vegetables and fruits and things and then they'd come to like your father's market and some to your dad and sell them to you know some to some of the other markets around there. And there was a lot of grocery stores or markets in that in the north side back when you're growing up and where you are.

Absolutely. And the one that I'm talking to is talking about with just 16 before you go over the river and you go into Medary there. Some area right there you end. Grow with vegetables and stuff and then ride his bike into the north side in a big basket from Pebble the stuff two small grocery stores and some of the bars and the Vogue and Oni's restaurant that he's way back through they get their stuff. And I was just again part of that simple life of the north side.

So Oni's was actually attached to the word the vogue right. And that was the find out that was fine dining.

Back in the day as much as you can get from one to the other inside but you could get into Oni's or just into the vogue on the roadside so that the Bridgeview plaza area when that popped up what used to be there prior to that it used to be Wilkerson's sand pit a very large sand pit. And it was filmed by dredging out the Shaku Bay which is the river outside. See the river used to be you see all river came down each channel. But they had to have sand to fill and developing the Shopko center there with all the sand pits that were around.

We've talked about a couple of them that you brought up is that where the kids like you and your brothers and sister used to play baseball or was there other places to play baseball. Actually we played ours in the alley behind the bombers.

By her house here. There's a softball.

We play softball hard. All but. Two the street and I mention the what used to be a hotel there cross that street and off to home base was at my neighbor's garage and the telephone pole over there was first base and a second base was dug out there and third base hey it was another natural part of the parking area. And we believe there are that kind of of a perpetual game going near all summer long. Did you guys use baseball gloves and bats and real balls or did you end up using what was going in there in balls but mostly not the last. Few gloves that show up but you weren't really that needed.

And so you ever had a homerun.

I don't know. Probably did at one time or another.

Cause you could do it over one of the Alongi either one of the people who lived with St you could hit it over his shack on the back of it where he kept his and neck gets to be playable and that could be a homerun because first base was here and he said he was quite a character he would you work on the railroad and he had a boat on a pushcart and he would push it down to the river and fish all day and come back and pull it back at night.

Yeah.

Fish and you don't see that nowadays. I mean people people got there. Well I don't know if you watched any of the the bass masters when they were here with their you know hundred thousand dollar boats and their electronics and there that's going to find the fish for you. Not like casting all the time and real and in new ones.

You know yeah I know they're real good from my own history of living there please.

And you know there's somebody told me there is a pontoon boat and some dock around here with 2 400 horse on it. Wow. Yeah that's what they said. Well because I used to have a 21 foot pontoon boat with a 50 horse Mercury with it's called the Big Foot bottom. So I think it's more power to push the boat and I'd pull over water skiers and everything with it but I can't. Well we were only broke sons bought. On Father's Day and we saw a couple of these boats going 60 miles pontoons 60 miles an hour down the river.

You know they're not enjoying it. You got to enjoy that go slow it just take it all in.

When we still have that pontoon boat with my son's office was up there in the building on the river there and the L.H.I building up and wife and I we take we just like to go out for a little boat ride during the day and we get down here and park the boat. Just let it sit in the middle of the river. Comparators office. I'm on the phone. The. We're having a good time when you don't go with us.

Except that it is just fun job.

How many times did he take you up on it once. How many kids you have. I count three. Are they all musical candy. Oh. In fact.

One of the most fun things we did as a family is my wife is that crazy principal. My wife playing the organ and the four of us singing songs in four part harmony and they were older by this time of course but we used to do it. We've got a CD called The Temte singers or something I've kept with the title is that we did and right. So music was really a part of our life. I was with a guy with a little parlor organ pump organ and I said Yes I have a picture. Of growing up on George Street and we win those little ones. Or anything you know and a picture of my mother sitting playing and the four of us kids and my sister's youngest couldn't have been over eight or nine so me. My oldest brother. 13 or 14 and reaching Christmas music in four part harmony and my father of them went to out and let them come the people that lived in the neighborhood that they could come and he would set up a little manger scene and my brothers we all day and proper bathrobes with scrapes on them you know the Manjari. My sister always had to be Mary she hated that and we put on the little show singing some carols and my mother playing a little organ and the people come in and just love them. But that was part of that. There was nothing that unusual or dramatic. It was part of that simpler people still getting together and enjoying each other.

Do you miss the simple times.

Oh yes. Try to try to maintain it as much as I care.

But it's there's too much hectic going on around you to really say it's the simple times and I'm getting older so I'm going to be 40 years old this year. Celebrating the 40 anniversary of 40.

You've said the word soil a couple of times rather than dirt why soil over this dirt.

I don't call soil dirt because there is no life in it. There is life in the soil so there are microorganisms in soil. There are nutrients and soil which have those in there. OK but there again yes weeds grow in dirt. OK. So yes there is a little bit of life but that the Cheerio's the dog care the Krumm the who knows what else you have on your kitchen for that.

What can people put in their soil for their own garden.

What should they put into compost compost. Is a soil amendment compost can be mixture of nitrogen and carbon usually. We want a 30 to 1 ratio so carbon that would come from your brown Neeve like your dad leaves in the fall. Make sure that you're using leaves from a healthy tree. We don't want leaves that come from a tree that is carrying a disease and then you let your could clipping from hopefully an untreated Lawn because if you treat your life special you're putting chemicals on it organic or not grass clippings from an untreated lawn into your vegetable garden.

Now if you are looking for compost for your flower bed or you know putting around your shrubs spare mulching for protection for winter then you know yeah that's okay.

It's a vicious cycle where eventually those lawn treatment can get into our wildlife.

How do we test how do we test her soil.

Sarah by simply either taking a shovel or soil probe we gather a sample I take mine down to the extension a general one cost to around seventeen dollars and you get the result within two weeks. You get emailed to you or you can have a mailed to you and you can also have the option of paying a little bit extra to test for certain nutrients.

You've mentioned that that when you're on the board of education that you guys planned the the new Logan was Logan always the second high school in LaCrosse Cross was there.

So there's always Central and always Logan.

Well through the first period years only central when there is virtually nothing to do on a site that's very early then is interstate grew. Then Logan was built in the location of Logan middle school now.

So I'm a little kid when they moved from where the middle school currently is to the high school where the high school is now. You were part of that in the planning right.

I was the head of the planning and I I had two principal factors one of them we are going to build a school that wasn't fancy Schmalensee or anything but a place where young people would want to be during their day. So we made it a user friendly and sent the new central that was built a number of years before they had was frankly not built very user friendly.

Now when you say new central are you talking about we're Wygant Park is now our worst central is now central is now OK.

Now they have redone the new Central and made it a much more user friendly space but it used to be confusing to get around so. So we said okay we're going to build high school students want to be in and be a part of and that was part of it. And the other thing is this is a river city and we have no indoor swimming pools to speak of. Other than the one in the old YMCA which was just a small one and you had to go in bare naked to go in that really what was at all because you had to take a good shower and go in because they didn't have the cleaning mechanisms in the pool everything. And they didn't have dirty clothes going into the pool. I belong to my wife for a while and the other interesting thing when I was still I think a sophomore and I was hanging out with the wall and a director of the Y came up one day and he said Bill how would you like to be a counselor at Camp Renfield which toasties was the YMCA camp. Right. So I was accepted as a usable adult at a very young age right and enjoyed it. And I would give the guy his name but a person that still sees me and says or you did it. Well he has to do is take the campers on a hike in the woods. And they are always afraid of a bear or something says guys do it. We're going to have a little fun. So I had it when they got close.

I came out and scream yell and they almost fell into the woods.

Anyway you'd mentioned to that when once Logan was being built that you had to bring a bunch of earth into there. We are not a great deal because it was a.

Very thin muck layer which was easy to scrape off. And then it was virgin sand underneath that. So all we had to do is bring in enough to raise it about 20 feet. And we put it in and did what's called engineered compacted fill. So that because we are obviously working to build a basement it because he got down to the ground water pretty pretty soon there and then build it right on that. Same base and we got it by digging Kramersville. There is no longer a Kramersville you know the cemetery is still there and you know we don't know the street but they they're all behind it. No buildings Kwik trip and others have taken the land over there. What used to be where Logan is currently sitting foundry that's why all of the sand was taken up behind it because all of the same. It was a fairly good size and heavy use foundry and the sand is all just dumped on. And over the years it just compacted down. So we just had to tear the foundry out of there which of course had no basement either and prepare or seitan build as we would say the new low in the five we think they did do a few add ons to it since then. But it's still in good shape.

As a place where students want to be any any story you want to tell today.

Well what the story is that could tell you that infects the way that North Side in the 40s and 50s is across \concrete and they make the big pipes for sewers and stuff huge and that whole area now where Crole is. But it was much bigger and the real road workers were called Gandy dancers because all the track and rail stuff is all done by hand and they'd bring them in and he would go up and down the track and do reappear. Well those Gandy dancers would sleep in those big six foot concrete things. And at night they make their way into the neighborhoods and particularly mine because there was a liquor store or my dad's grocery store bought for Tavern's within two blocks. It was a small community there and numerous times when we'd be running around outside at night. We'd run out to the alley and shake out a Gandy dancers or 2 sleeping in our bushes. Nobody got excited about it.

We didn't know we called the cops or anything. You have any stories about them per se. Well you knowshaking them out of the bushes and.

Never because what they would do is work hard all day and sledgehammers and you name it you know fixing the ties quote. And namely to back him and all that. So they. Would come to the Near North Side which George Street. We're pretty close to the real truth there instead of read really into them very quickly.

What were the boundaries of the north side. Because you just mentioned near north side and we talked the other day when we were on the other day you mentioned northern Northside and Southern North. What were kind of the boundaries of everything.

The nor the north side kind of ended around the old Roosevelt school a little beyond it because everything else above there just wasn't the only thing there was was George Street that headed into Onalaska and he had to go over the railroad tracks again and all that sort of thing. But the lower north side there are more Caledonia's street. Like Clinton Street down to the the Milwaukee Road I have to call it evil and stuff and the tracks and a little bit beyond them because again there wasn't much monitor Street was in there. But you know that's all the buildings and you see that none of them are any more than 30 years old.