Paula and the baby stopped by Monday afternoon and I got to hold little Elly. She is beautiful.

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I told my mom last week that I was going to be busy filling gaps while Paula is away on maternity leave. Without a pause, Mom said, "Why don't you take care of the baby and let her work."

Not an option, unfortunately.

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June is Business Appreciation Month, but for me it is employee appreciation month, too. I am always reminded of how much everyone does to contribute to our operation at the Free Press when they're gone. It becomes apparent very quickly that each person contributes a lot to the publications we produce here.

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Free Press writer Tom (Unstoppable) Stoppel has moved on to another career, but fortunately he isn't leaving town. He will be hard to replace here, but we know he will make his mark with his new employer, the Kansas Department of Transportation.

We certainly appreciated everything Tom did for the Free Press. We wish him the best on his new career path.

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It has been said that this year's harvest was over before it even started last year. I am sure someone keeps track of those things, but I can never remember how it was a year ago.

I've already forgotten who won the Super Bowl. Maybe it doesn't matter if I know those things.

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If you lose the front key to your business you might call a doctor.

Randy Claassen was out riding his bicycle north of Durham and spotted something shiny lying along Kansas Highway 15.

He stopped to pick it up and saw I.D. on the key ring that led him back to a Hillsboro business.

I guess we can leave it at that.

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A great time to take a walk is between 7 and 8 a.m. in downtown Hillsboro. The town actually starts waking up a piece at a time.

And the traffic gets heavier by the minute. Some places have the same routine each day while others are sporadic. I place myself in the sporadic category.

One of the benefits of being a business owner is that I don't have to be to work at a specific time-unless all of the time counts. Therefore, I don't get there early and don't leave late, if you know what I mean.

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Speaking of walking around. Friday night I'm walking around town and there's a guy and his wife extracting the weeds from between the bricks on both sides of north and south Main. They even brought a wheel barrow to haul off the debris.

I know they didn't do it for any recognition but none other than pride in their community.

They said they came to the Farmer's Market and couldn't believe all of the weeds growing everywhere and decided to do something about it.

It was either pull weeds or go golfing, they told me.