Scotty McCreery photo courtesy of UMG Nashville.

Scotty McCreerys latest video, Water Tower Town, takes fans to his hometown of Garner, North Carolina. The video features footage of the small town Scotty grew up in with shots of his church, Garner Magnet High School, the local fire station and front porches as well as plenty of footage of Scotty hanging out with his friends and baseball team.

The video also showcases the other side of Scottys life. Cameras follow Scotty on stage for his live show, backstage, meeting fans and on the bus, capturing candid moments such as Scotty snoozing on a bus seat. Directed by Todd Cassetty, the Water Tower Town video is an ode to the place Scotty calls home when hes not on the road and ends with a shot of Garners very own water tower.

Watch the video:

Scotty is currently a special guest on Brad Paisleys Virtual Reality Tour. A recent high school graduate, he will attend North Carolina State University in the fall, continuing to balance his career with his education.

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Watch Scotty McCreery’s “Water Tower Town” Video

SAVE THE DATE

Come enjoy music and a cocktail buffet on the porches of two beautiful Victorian homes in the Heights at the Shelter Island Educational Foundations third annual porch party on Sunday, July 1 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $50 and may be reserved by calling Jody Thompson at 749-2352.

DICK CAVETT TO SPEAK

Emmy Award-winning talk show host and comedian, Dick Cavett, and his wife, fellow author Martha Rogers, Ph.D., will speak on Saturday, June 30 at the Shelter Island Librarys 22nd annual Book & Author Luncheon. Sponsored by the Friends of the Shelter Island Public Library, the event will take place at noon at the Rams Head Inn and Gary Paul Gates will moderate. Tickets are $75 for open seating and $125 for reserved seating and an autographed book. Call the library at 749-0042 for information and reservations.

READING CLUB BEGINS

Dream Big, Read! is the theme of the Summer Reading Club at the Library. Kids can help fill the childrens room with stars by putting up a star for every book they read, while collecting stickers, books and weekly prizes. Registration begins Friday, June 22; book reporting starts on Tuesday, July 3. Call the library at 749-0042 for information or to register.

FIRST CONCERT AT PERLMAN

The Perlman Music Program will open its summer season on Friday, June 22, with its annual Faculty Concert, which will take place under the tent at the schools Shore Road campus. This concert is an opportunity to hear performances by the programs faculty, including violinist Itzhak Perlman.

The performance begins at 7:30 p.m. and is free and open to the public and kids of all ages. Call 212- 877-5045 or 749-0740 for more information or go to perlmanmusicprogram.org for a season schedule.

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What’s happening on Shelter Island and beyond

Here's what stink bug eggs and newly hatched stink bugs look like. (AP/USDA)

WASHINGTON - They swarmed in the garden, covered screen doors and camped out on porches across Washington this fall. This summer, the stink bugs will be back.

"They are on the same schedule they were in 2010, and if you recall, 2010 was their breakout year," says Mike Raupp, professor of entymology at the University of Maryland.

But stink bugs don't seem to be popping up in great numbers yet.

"They're beginning to show up in our commercial fruit orchards now," Raupp says. Soon, gardeners will see the beetles go after tomatoes and peppers.

"Given the warm weather, we're going to see that awful second generation of that nefarious pest," says Raupp. "So I wouldn't be surprised if the worst is yet to come."

Raupp suggests homeowners arm themselves with a jar or bucket of soapy water and drop adult stinkbugs into the mix.

"I've found these guys are not good at the backstroke, so if you drop them into the soapy water, you'll cut down on future generations," Raupp says.

To take it a step further, look for egg masses on the underside of leaves around the garden.

"They're round like little globes, and they're white to pale green in color," according to Raupp. "They turn darker just before they hatch."

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Stink bugs: They're coming back

OLDSMAR

Here's the vision: 52 cottages, each one a little different. All of them will have front porches and rear garages that open onto back alleyways. The mostly modest-sized homes will be different colors. They'll be energy-efficient. They'll be spaced close together, but every home will border green space or another special feature of the neighborhood.

On Tuesday night, Oldsmar leaders got a first look at initial plans for Hayes Park Cottages, a 52-home development that would be built on vacant city-owned land near downtown.

They liked what they saw. After viewing a proposed neighborhood layout and artists' renderings of cottage designs, the Oldsmar City Council unanimously approved a site plan for the project.

"We still have a lot of work to do, but we're making great progress," said John Bews, an Oldsmar resident who has a home design company and is partnering with the city to develop the site. "We think we've got something special here in a built-out county."

The goal is to provide affordable workforce housing that is near businesses, schools and recreation, said Marie Dauphinais, Oldsmar's director of planning and redevelopment.

The 3.8-acre property south of Hayes Road and east of Pine Avenue is near Richard Rogers Park, Cypress Lakes Industrial Park, Brooker Creek Corporate Center and Forest Lakes Elementary School.

No one is ready to break ground yet. City Manager Bruce Haddock noted that the city and Bews haven't finalized a development agreement at this point. "We've got a long ways to go," added Vice Mayor Jerry Beverland.

Bews intends to start construction next year.

The size of the homes will range from 840-square-foot "micro houses" or "studio cottages" to 1,700-square-foot mid-sized homes. A few will be duplexes. Many will be clustered around a "village green" area.

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Oldsmar leaders get a look at plans for new cottage community

BIRMINGHAM, AL (WBRC) -

It seemslike snakes areall over the place: yards, roads, porches and of course the woods.

Just this weekend a Jefferson County Sheriff's deputy chasing a suspect in the woods near Saint Vincent's East shot and killed a rattlesnake. The deputy says it was ready to strike him or his K-9.

Experts say, if you are bitten, the best thing to do is to rush to get medical help.

"In general it's always safe to come present to an emergency department for an evaluation," UAB ER Dr. Jim Galbraith said.

Galbraith says it can take four to five hours for symptoms or swelling to appear after a snake bite.

"So if you get bit by a snake, the first thing you want to do is get yourself out of the area where the snake is present. It is not advised to capture or go after to identify the snake," Galbraith said.

He says rattlesnakes, copperheads and water moccasins are typically the snakes that live in our part of the country.

Chris Patterson with CritterControl says he's going on more jobs to get snakes out of homes and yards.

"We've probably gone from having one to two jobs a month, to 20 or 30 calls a month," Patterson said.

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How to stay safe when you encounter a snake

Written by Macklin Reid, Press Staff Monday, 18 June 2012 05:23

Run-down abandoned-looking houses engulfed by untended landscaping unmowed knee-high lawns, shrubs that seem to consume porches are again on the Board of Selectmens long-range agenda.

This time, the selectmen dont seem eager to wade into the philosophically muddy waters of using legal penalties to force residents to maintain their homes to standards set by the neighborhood or community.

The law town officials are now contemplating would apply only to properties that no one is living in houses that were foreclosed on, or abandoned by their owners for some reason. They might be in the hands of a mortgage company, or bank.

Im not talking where were going into inhabited homes and forcing people, First Selectman Rudy Marconi told a recent selectmens meeting. This is just vacated homes.

To emphasize the distinction, Mr. Marconi has offered property maintenance law as a replacement for the description blight ordinance that was commonly used when the idea was discussed inconclusively a year ago.

The problem of unmaintained properties, Mr. Marconi suggested, is not simply a matter of aesthetics. A study done at Pace University found that an abandoned-looking property could substantially reduce the value of neighboring properties within sight of it.

For every house that has a view of the vacated house, its approximately $7,500, Mr. Marconi said of the average loss in property value found in the study.

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Run-down houses again eyed by officials

Ray Bradbury: The outpouring of tributes to the great speculative-fiction writer Ray Bradbury, who died June 5, included one with an architectural bent. Steve Rose writes in his weekly architectural column in the Guardian about Bradbury as an architectural "imagineer" who took a keen interest in urban design, and a key influence -- "for better or worse" -- on theme parks and urban malls. He quotes Bradbury on the latter:

"Malls are substitute cities, substitutes for the possible imagination of mayors, city councilmen and other people who don't know what a city is while living right in the centre of one. So it is up to corporations, creative corporations, to recreate the city."

Rose concludes: "The only architecture that would really have satisfied him, one suspects, is a permanent moon base, from which to launch manned expeditions to Mars."

"No front porches. My uncle says there used to be front porches. And people sat there sometimes at night, talking when they wanted to talk, rocking, and not talking when they didn't want to talk. Sometimes they just sat there and thought about things, turned things over. My uncle says the architects got rid of the front porches because they didn't look well. But my uncle says that was merely rationalizing it; the real reason, hidden underneath, might be they didn't want people sitting like that, doing nothing, rocking, talking; that was the wrong KIND of social life. People talked too much. And they had time to think. So they ran off with the porches."

-- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 Home, sweet cubicle: For many of us, a cubicle is our home away from home, which makes this roundup of funky office cubicles just home-related enough to include here. There's a pop-up cardboard office -- think of a giant pop-up card -- and the Kruikantoor portable office by Tim Vinke, which looks a lot like a recycling bin. Gotta love the way the chairs fit into it. There's an office in a box by Toshihiko Suzuki for Kenchikukagu. A puffy one that inflates. A solar-powered outdoor workspace. The uber-cool Hus 1 garden office by Torsten Ottesj. And possibly my favorite, the iTrunk Pocket Office by Pinel & Pinel, which is pink and has a cabinet front that looks like an iPod.

Bathroom amenity: An extra-long bathroom in a Vancouver, B.C., home presented a challenge with its dimensions: 16 feet long and 9 feet wide. Interior designer Kelly Deck writes: "Done poorly, (the room) was almost certain to feel like a bowling alley."

The solution was to bookend the bathroom with two millwork towers: one opposite the toilet for storage; and the other, across from the steam shower, offering a place to sit, hooks for hanging robes, open shelves for fresh towels, and two drawers for more storage.

The tower with seating bench is brilliant, and looks inviting in the photo. Every bathroom that's large enough should have one. As for the steam shower, that's probably grand, too.

-- Pat Jeffries

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From the home front: Ray Bradbury and architecture; office cubicles; bedroom and bath design

Where have all the porches gone?

What happened to sprinklers being used as a way to cool off during a summer heat wave? To playing outside all day and not returning until the sun began to set?

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Life without porches

Look out, you food-hoarding, gun-loving, camouflage-wearing conspiracy theorists: the government really is on your front porch.

Literally. A few days ago, the Durham City Council approved an ordinance striking down a Southern tradition. It banned indoor, upholstered furniture from front porches.

You read right: you can no longer indulge in one of the great Southern comforts known to mankind - coming home after a hard days work and plopping down with a cold one and chatting with your neighbor on that genuine imitation Naugahyde couch you dragged onto the porch because its too tattered for the front room but not raggedy enough for the trash heap. And if your neighbor is a pretty little thing who Sweet Thang doesnt like, you may find yourself sleeping on it that night.

Not only is the banning of sofas from the front porch an assault on a cherished Southern practice, its also an assault on poor people. Do you have any rich relatives whore going to hold onto a red pleather Barcalounger whose guts are held in place with silver duct tape?

You can sympathize with city officials even if you, like me, view keeping a battered easy chair on the front porch a constitutional right. Ric Hester of Durhams Neighborhood Improvement Services told me sofas and such sprouting on porches and in yards has become almost an epidemic in parts of Northeast Durham. On some streets, he said, it seems like every other house is guilty.

Thats too much even for me, a dude who not only appreciates tackiness but who worships at its altar. Still, at a time when your garbage man will chastise you for putting a plastic milk jug in the trash can instead of in the recycling bin - oh, so Im the only one? - it seems incongruous of the city to hassle people who are really buying into the recycling movement. It ought to give them blue ribbons.

A warning from Wilson

I warned you about this 14 years ago when a group of busybodies called the Wilson Appearance Committee persuaded that city to ban indoor furniture from front porches. That it has come to such a pass in Durham is our fault. We shouldve protested instead of passively accepting it when our Wilson brethren and sisteren were being assaulted by the good-taste police. Who knows how effective a massive protest - a front-porch sit-out? - would have been in halting the spread of such a law?

Just as when Sherman passed through here on his gloriously destructive march to the sea, another cherished Southern tradition is falling to another Northern movement. I figured nobody born down here is going to object to a couch on the porch, unless theyve been colleged Up North, but Hester said his department receives three to five complaints a week from people who cant abide their neighbors louche and waterlogged faux-leather front porch loveseat.

Whither Rockingham?

See more here:
Saunders: Banning sofas on the porch? That’s just tacky

7:56 AM

By Betty Adams badams@centralmaine.com Staff Writer

AUGUSTA -- Andrea Jellison and her husband drove into their driveway early Tuesday afternoon with the backseat of the car full of a month's worth of groceries.

click image to enlarge

UNSAFE CONDITIONS: Augusta code enforcement officer Rob Overton tapes a notice on the deck at 11 State Street that wooden stairs and deck entrance to three apartments in the building is unsafe. Tenants in the units were ordered to relocate.

Staff photo by Andy Molloy

click image to enlarge

UNSAFE CONDITIONS: Andrea Jellison reacts to being told that her apartment at 11 State Street in Augusta had been condemned as unsafe. Jellison, her husband and child were told by city officials that the wooden stairs and deck entrance to the building is unsafe and were ordered to relocate.

Staff photo by Andy Molloy

Augusta police and a city code enforcement officer met the couple and told them that their apartment and two others in the four-story building at 11 State St. had been deemed unfit to live in, so they could not stay there.

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Augusta family find themselves suddenly homeless