MERRILLVILLE | Efforts to create a vibrant historic district in Merrillville could include the acquisition of the former Old Mill pizza and Carriage House properties.

During Monday’s informational meeting about the historic district, Town Council President Carol Miano said she has started examining the possibility of obtaining the properties, both near 73rd Avenue and Madison Street.

Taghi Arshami, of the Arsh Group, said one of the goals of creating the historic district is to promote redevelopment and attract new businesses.

If Merrillville can acquire the Old Mill and Carriage House properties, the town could remodel the buildings and rent space in them for businesses, such as a bakery, art studio and coffee shop, Miano said.

Some residents said they attended the meeting to find out the status of those buildings and were pleased to hear Merrillville is attempting to acquire them.

The historic district is slated to run along 73rd Avenue from Mississippi Street to Van Buren Street.

Merrillville is contemplating several improvement projects to enhance the area.

Arshami presented several concepts for streetscapes, landscaping, decorative lighting and other features that can be incorporated into the district.

After explaining possible plans, the concepts were displayed on three boards, and residents were asked to identify the features they want the town to pursue.

Councilman Shawn Pettit said the town wants to start a road improvement project on Madison Street, and enhancing the intersection at 73rd Avenue will be included in those plans.

He said Merrillville will review the feedback received Monday and discuss how the ideas can be implemented in the upcoming project.

Pettit said funding for projects in the historic district could come from Merrillville’s Mississippi Street and Broadway tax increment financing districts.

Arshami said creating the district could also make Merrillville eligible for historic preservation grants.

Michelle Moore Allen

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Michelle Moore Allen is one of those people who seems to jump into action wherever she lands.

Within weeks of moving to Kennebunk with her new husband in 2011, she was a volunteer “ambassador” for the Kennebunk-Kennebunkport-Arundel Chamber of Commerce. Two years later, just this past September, she was elected to the chamber’s board.

“It didn’t take me long to get involved in Kennebunk once I got here,” she said.

She grew up in Addison, a Washington County town about 30 miles south of Machias. She attended Roger Williams University in Rhode Island and graduated with a degree in marketing and communications.

She went to work as a part-time marketing assistant for Bar Harbor Bank and Trust right out of college, then took a job with the former Union Trust in Ellsworth before traveling south to Portland in 2007. Within a month of arriving in southern Maine, she found a job as marketing director for Bath Fitter of Maine.

When she started at Bath Fitter, she said, the company was going to fewer than 10 trade shows and conferences a year. Now, she said, “we are doing over 100 events a year.”

She is married to Kevin Allen, owner of Ambedextrous Inc., a landscaping company that he founded in 2005. It wasn’t long after they started dating in 2009 before she was helping him with his marketing.

“He didn’t have a great hold on marketing,“ she said.

Even before they were married, Allen volunteered to help out with the American Diabetes Association’s Tour de Cure in Kennebunk, and has chaired that committee for three years. Kevin Allen is diabetic.

Through her work with Bath Fitter and Ambedextrous, Inc., she became involved with the Maine Innkeepers Association and the Maine Apartment Association. Bath Fitter is a member of both organizations.

Over time, she has become an advocate for the businesses that comprise the service sector of Maine’s economy. Living as she does in the heart of southern Maine tourism, she feels the year-round businesses that don’t cater to tourists could use a boost from the local chamber of commerce.

She has a number of ideas about how to do that. Those include offering discounted memberships to small businesses, a chamber-sponsored silent auction for service-sector companies, or perhaps a mid-winter business expo, “something in the off-season that brings all three towns together that is a draw for local people once the tourists are gone.”

She describes herself as a listener.

“I think everybody has a story to tell. We’re all good at talking about our own stories and not really listening. Not everyone is as vocal as I am. Because I am vocal, I’m willing to speak to issues that I hear from other people,” she says.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The West Virginia state Capitol campus could grow as far west as Laidley Field and Veazey Avenue in the east should state officials choose to follow the latest version of the Capitol Complex Master Plan.

The new conceptual design plan, unveiled Friday by the state Department of Administration, also calls for the construction of six new office buildings, three standalone parking garages and a daycare in order to accommodate employee overcrowding at the statehouse.

The plan doesn’t require state leaders — either current or future officials — to build or fund the projects it recommends. Rather, it provides a framework for expanding the complex in a way that honors Capitol architect Cass Gilbert’s original vision for the facility.

“The purpose of this comprehensive plan is to serve as a guide that state officials may utilize in the future when proposing changes, renovations or expansions to the state Capitol complex,” said Diane Holley-Brown, spokeswoman for the state Department of Administration.

“This resource will serve as a useful tool when making future decisions affecting the State Capitol complex,” she said.

The state signed a nearly $888,000 contract in 2009 with Pennsylvania-based consulting firm Michael Baker Inc. to come up with the plan.

While staff at Michael Baker spearheaded the project, they worked with consultants from other firms to develop specific aspects of the plan.

RMJM Hillier handled historic architectural and planning, Heritage Landscapes provided landscape design, System Planning Corp. offered security planning aspects and Walker Parking provided parking planning services.

This is actually the sixth version of a master plan for the statehouse campus.

Gilbert originally began work on one in early 1934, but he died later that year before completing it. His son, Cass Gilbert Jr., drew up a second master plan in 1940.

The younger Gilbert’s plan led to the construction of what’s now known as Building 3, which used to house the Division of Motor Vehicles. A design team from Charleston-based firm Zando, Martin, and Milstead produced another plan in 1966 which called for construction of current buildings 5, 6 and 7.

C.E. Silling Associates drew up another master plan in 1988, though the only recommendation implemented from it was the closure of Washington Street East in the campus area.

Tag Studios and Sasaki Associates, Inc. drew up another master plan in 1994, though nearly all of its recommendations have been ignored.

With so many different architects designing various aspects of the Capitol complex over the years — and the fact that many of their ideas failed to be carried out in full — the latest plan is designed to provide a “holistic, comprehensive, cohesive and organized plan” to improve and grow the campus.

It also goes beyond guiding building architecture, but the more functional aspects of the Capitol area. 

“Unlike other plans of the past, this plan addresses not only the facilities, but parking, security, landscaping, utilities, energy conservation and access to and on the campus,” Holley-Brown said.

The plan features seven phases. The first two phases, to be completed over the next eight years, mostly call for landscaping, security and utility improvements.

A new, 12,000-square foot stage for hosting public events would be built in this time.

The later phases are more ambitious, and involve several construction projects to alleviate overcrowding in Capitol offices and parking areas.

The current complex has 2,800 parking spaces spread across ten parking lots, however, this is still 1,300 spaces short of current needs.

The plan proposes replacing most of these existing surface lots with several above and below ground parking garages.

A six-story, 1,745-space would be constructed along Piedmont Road next to Laidley Field. A three-story, 1,990-space garage would also be built along Washington Street East between Carolina Avenue and Greenbrier Street.

This block currently contains some parking, along with a 7-Eleven and McDonald’s. In addition to providing more parking, the new building would also include retail space, Capitol police headquarters, employee credit union and, possibly, a gym and bicycle storage room for statehouse employees.

A third, seven-story, 1,605-space garage would be built toward the east on the block between Piedmont Road, Washington Street East and Michigan and Veazey avenues. That building would also feature ground and maintenance storage, as well as over offices.

Combined with other parking areas, including bus parking for the Culture Center, the new plan would offer more than 6,000 spaces for employee and public parking.

In addition to expanding parking, calls for 667,000 square feet of additional office space spread across six new five-story office buildings.

Three of the buildings would be built in the area of the existing parking garage and lots off of Greenbrier Street. The other three would be built along Washington Street East on the blocks east of the Capitol.

All would feature below-ground parking employees working in those buildings.

The plan proposes moving House of Delegates offices to one of those buildings, in order to allow delegates and legislative staff to have their own offices. Most delegates, excluding those that chair committees, currently share office space with at least one other delegate in rooms in the Capitol’s East Wing or ground floor.

The plan also says one of the new office buildings could be used to accommodate a potential new Intermediate Appellate Court system — a topic of high debate in recent years.

The new judicial building should be constructed to include various courtrooms, judge’s chambers, research libraries and conference rooms that could be used by the court system, according to the plan.

A seventh two-story, 62,500-square foot building, located along Michigan Avenue, could also be built to house a daycare. It would be large enough to serve 265 children, with more than 20,000 of outdoor greenspace that could be used for a playground.

A handful of smaller buildings and security posts would be built under the plan. That includes a 4,000-square foot visitor center located near the current Greenbrier Street entrance next to the Culture Center.

The plan would also help future governors avoid criticisms among Charleston’s chattering class with the construction of a permanent, 4,500-square foot event center attached to the Governor’s Mansion.

The permanent facility would, in theory, eliminate the need for erecting any more temporary plastic party tents for executive entertaining.

Contact writer Jared Hunt at busin…@dailymail.com or 304-348-4836.

Photo credit: Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group.

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL  ) has released more details of its new headquarters.

In a recent interview with the local San Jose Mercury News newspaper, Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer and Director of Real Estate and Facilities Dan Whisenhunt previewed the building that, when finished, will stand as a monument to the late Steve Jobs’ legacy.

“We have treated this project just as we would any Apple product. And this will be a place for the most creative and collaborative teams in the industry to innovate for decades to come,” Oppenheimer told reporter Patrick May.

Color me reassured. Why? Apple has always done best when pursuing Big Ideas that critics fail to understand, and few projects have drawn as many scratched heads as Apple’s flying-saucer HQ.

“I love great design, lush landscaping, and early warnings. Apple’s proposal for its new Cupertino campus appears to be all three,” Foolish colleague Cindy Johnson wrote in June 2011, on the heels of Jobs’ surprise visit to a Cupertino City Council meeting to present the initial plan.

For their part, Oppenheimer and Whisenhunt touted state-of-the-art environmental considerations, such as a ventilated design to avoid costly air conditioning for 70% of the year. LED lighting and on-site recycling are also included in the design.

So why talk about it now, when the building is still just a concept? An initial vote on Apple’s design is scheduled for Tuesday.

Yet I also think Oppenheimer is reminding us that Apple hasn’t changed as much as we might like to think. It’s as if he, Whisenhunt, and others at Apple believe that, with the right shepherding, they’ll be able to infuse Jobs’ spirit, sensibility, and daring into the project. A last hurrah, if you will, for the leader who helped return Apple to greatness after years in the wilderness.

As an Apple shareholder, I’m fine with that. Especially if it engages and inspires a new generation of engineers to think as differently as Jobs did. Think I’m wrong? Have a better idea? Tell us about it in the comments box below.

Orchard Dale Water Board candidates

Octavio “Toby” Chavez

Age: 74

Occupation: Retired postal manager

Public offices held: South Whittier School Board, 1985-89, 1997-2001

Whittier Union High School District, 1989-93,

Family: Married with three children

Education: Associated of science degree from L.A. Trade Tech

H.C. “Hal” Estabrook

Age: 85

Occupation: Retired purchasing director

Public offices held: Member of the Orchard Dale Water Board since 2002

Family: Married with two children

Education: Attended Ithaca College

Bob Noonan

Age: 82

Occupation: Retired insurance brokoer

Public offices held: Member of Orchard Dale Water Board, 1993-present

Family: Married with five children

Education: Attended University of San Francisco

Joseph Velasco III

Age: 43

Occupation: Employment representative with the state of California

Public offices held: Member of the Orchard Dale Water Board since February 2008

Family: Married with two children

Education: Attended University of Southern California

SOUTH WHITTIER This year’s Nov. 5 election for three seats on the Orchard Dale Water District Board of Directors has the feel of deja vu from four years ago.

Incumbents H.C. “Hal” Estabrook, 85, Bob Noonan, 82, and Joseph Velasco III, 43, were challenged then by two challengers — one of whom was Octavio “Toby” Chavez. 74.

And this year, those are the four candidates in 2013 for this district that has 4,200 customers and serves water to about 20,000 people.

The issues also aren’t much different.

The three incumbents say the district is doing a good job and Chavez, a former school board member, said he has the experience to contribute.

“It’s the incumbents who understand the issues,” said Velasco.

“We spend countless hours discussing how we can save the district and ultimately our customers’ money,” Velasco said. “As president, under my management team, we’ve saved the district $100,000 in spending and in staffing.”

Noonan cites his 19 years on the board.

“I was instrumental in the construction of a new office and the building of a new reservoir,” he said. “In the next four years, I want to be part of the redoing the master plan to remodel a 50-year-old water system.”

Estabrook said the district is in good shape financially.

“We’ve set aside in excess of $1  million for infrastructure,” he said.

The board also works well together, Estabrook said.

“We’ve got a combination of seniors and juniors on the board,” he said referring to the age. Two are under 50 and three are over 65.

Chavez said he brings his experience of involvement in the community, including eight years on school boards and his time with the Whittier Coordinating Council, where he’s now vice president.

“I have a little free time and I’m willing to contribute, serve and hopefully improve and help the district,” he said.

Chavez also said he has some new ideas.

“I think they should consider figuring a way to use recycled water,” he said. “It’s a little cheaper for landscaping.”

Estabrook said the district has looked into bringing reclaimed wastewater to Orchard Dale.

Bitterroot Public Library director Trista Smith knows just how hard it is to hit a moving target.

In the last week of October, Smith and members of the library board are hoping the public will step forward to help them with their aim in creating a new five-year strategic plan.

“When you start thinking about how things are changing so rapidly, it’s hard to know just where we’ll be five years from now,” Smith said. “This will be a best stab at where we need to go.”

The library has set aside two times on Oct. 24 for the community to step forward and offer input on the draft strategic plan that is now ready to read at http://bitterrootpubliclibrary.org.

“We want the public to tell us if they think we’re hitting the mark,” Smith said. “We’ve already received some great feedback from them. We’re hoping for a lot more.”

The sessions will be held from 3-4 p.m. and 5:30-6:30 p.m. at the library.

The draft plan breaks down five goals for the upcoming five-year span.

Smith said the library has already done some work on the first goal that seeks to create a space that fosters an environment of lifelong learning.

Initially that seemed like an overwhelming challenge, considering the fact the library is housed in an old Carnegie building that’s already bursting at the seams and isn’t particularly conducive to technology.

There was no money for an expansion or a new building, so Smith said the focus turned to making the best of what was already available.

They found that space just outdoors. Some new landscaping and places for people to sit added a whole new place for people to enjoy their library.

“That space that we already had wasn’t being used,” Smith said. “The transition has been amazing.”

The next goal focuses on the changing world of technology.

The library’s initial offering of Kindles for reading and another device for tapping into the world of streaming information and programming has been met with a great deal of demand.

“They are so popular that there’s a waiting list,” she said.

Smith said the library wants to continue to explore the potential of using technology to expand its offerings to the public.

Another goal centers on unleashing the creative potential of the library staff by using a program piloted by Google that allows its employees one free hour a week to explore and learn more about their field.

“A lot of great program ideas came from that time at Google,” she said.

The library’s plan also creates goals for the continuance of the library’s role as a community center and gathering place.

“Our Wild Wednesday offerings have really captured that idea,” she said. “We want to try to build on that.”

The last goal focuses on developing a new marketing strategy.

The two public meetings are open to everyone.

Smith hopes to have a final plan in place by the end of the year.

“I think we have a really solid draft plan,” she said. “We hope people will give us some solid input that we can add into it before we take it before the board and have it finalized.”

Reach reporter Perry Backus at 363-3300 or pbackus@ravallirepublic.com.

Gilbert sets her novel 200 years in the past and writes in lavish prose reminiscent of the Victorians. The book spans continents and decades, and as it follows Alma on her life’s journey, it’s filled with exquisite details regarding all kinds of plant life.

The narrative begins with Alma’s father, Henry Whittaker, a ruthless man who uses his knowledge of botany to become the richest man in Philadelphia. Alma is his miniature in female form, “ginger of hair, florid of skin, small of mouth, wide of brow, abundant of nose.” But most important, Alma is as clever as her father: She seeks knowledge at every turn and becomes a brilliant scientist.

The plants Gilbert dwells on represent characters, and in particular, mosses represent Alma. After realizing that no one has studied mosses extensively, since they are not “big or beautiful or showy” like orchids, Alma dedicates her life to these parasitic, rootless entities. Mosses are a “stupefying kingdom. … Here was rich, abundant valleys filled with tiny trees of braided mermaid hair and minuscule, tangled vines.”

Mosses become a symbol for Alma, representing overlooked and ugly things, yet hiding a brilliant mind underneath their plain shell.

Rather Dickensian in style and structure, Gilbert’s novel is also populated with oddities in human form. Among them are Alma’s adopted sister, Prudence, who lives in poverty in opposition to slavery, and Alma’s mother, Beatrix, a staid and practical Dutchwoman who practices Euclidean landscaping.

The novel hits its stride when Gilbert introduces Ambrose Pike, a talented lithographer who dreams of becoming an angel of God. He’s a beautiful but deeply sensitive and fragile man. Alma, at this point, is 48 years old; never married and never departed from her father’s Philadelphia estate.

When Ambrose and Alma come together, their relationship is not only a sharing of ideas and knowledge but a spiritual one. Gilbert drifts into the supernatural when Alma and Ambrose decide to marry after sharing their thoughts telepathically in a book-binding closet.

The marriage turns sour after only a month, and Alma sends Ambrose to Tahiti to manage a vanilla plantation. Ambrose leaves without protest, obedient man that he is. Some years later, Alma learns that he has died from an infection in the hot climate.

The novel shifts into more recognizable Gilbert territory after Ambrose’s untimely death — personal enlightenment while traversing an exotic locale.

Like Gilbert in her memoir, Alma journeys to Tahiti to unravel the mystery of her husband. Gilbert chronicles this journey with a close eye, from the leaking, ramshackle cottage in which Alma lives to the crabs scuttling on the sandy beaches to the native Tahitians who steal and return Alma’s belongings at random. Alma searches in the Tahitian jungle for months until finding the man who supplies the answers about her husband she so desperately seeks.

“The Signature of All Things,” though sprawling, follows a direct course most of the way. It falls off the tracks when Alma discovers what her husband had been up to in Tahiti and tries to heighten her own experience in what turns out to be an odd and jarring attempt at spiritual and sexual awakening.

The novel returns to its course thereafter, leisurely following Alma into her 60s, 70s and 80s, as she writes a thesis based on — yes, you guessed it — the signature of all things. Connections abound in every living thing, Alma discovers; she forms a scientific theory of adaptation and evolution rivaling Darwin’s. But Alma never publishes her findings — an avoidance by Gilbert to dilute actual history within the context of fiction.

By the end of this 500-page, good though not brilliant epic, the novel seems to be searching for its own signature, its own take-away lesson about life. Gilbert refuses to let the novel and Alma’s journey speak for themselves so she tidily oversimplifies the connection between those fascinating mosses and Alma’s own life.

You know you’re on to something pretty special when no less than five people recommend the same garden as a superb specimen to feature for the Lifestyles section of The Taos News.

That garden belongs to Tricia and Eric Stammberger, just off Rio Lucero near Upper Ranchitos. People in the know, and universities and garden groups come from miles around, even from out-of-state to revel in the Stammbergers’ little patch of dahlia heaven.

The day before our first hard frost of 2013, Friday, Sept. 27, Tricia Stammberger said the patio and gardens were full to overflowing with people who hurried by to clip and carry away as many of the dahlia blooms as they could handle.

We’re talking hundreds, between 750 to a thousand blooms Tricia guesstimates. Frequent visitors every year include the Lions Club, Southern Methodist University-Taos, The Native Plant Society, Oklahoma State University, art classes and individual painters, to name just a few.

“Friends and friends of friends came all day before the big frost Saturday morning, it was such chaos,” Tricia said, smiling wanly, but happily.

Even though the frost snapped all the dahlias and other tender annuals, big spots of blue bachelor buttons (cornflowers), purple cone flower (pink echinacea) and a riot of yellow gloriosa daisies still popped the air, bright under the fall skies.

But it’s the dahlias that delight.

“When you dig these up you divide them,” Tricia Stammberger says, a little hesitant because most gardeners won’t bother with digging and dividing, it’s just too much work.

But she’s got help — Jerry Schwartz’ Sticks Stones of El Rito, and his landscaping crew of seven.

“Jerry’s just a godsend,” she said, including of course every one of the workers. “When I first brought him in five years ago I just wanted him to tell me what would be good to grow here.” Shwartz stayed to design and plant and has been there ever since.

“When we do something, we don’t want it to be ordinary,” Tricia says about her and husband Eric’s approach to making a beautiful life.

A typical example is the concrete basketball pad they inherited from the former owners. While Tricia was noodling around with different ideas or removing it entirely, Eric Stammberger painted it into a checkerboard and installed large gray and white checker disks — totally fun and whimsical.

A frequent architectural detail throughout are branches, twigs and old tree trunks that serve variously as fence posts, trellises in the veggie garden or for clematis climbing against the barn, or slung diagonally across the front portal to support a huge mass of Virginia creeper vine.

Nothing goes to waste. If it’s not repurposed creatively it goes on the huge compost pile, easily as high as Tricia is tall (over five feet).

“We’ll have to get a backhoe in here to turn the compost this year,” she notes, eyeing the massive pile of green and brown compostables. It all goes back onto the beds and into the ground as nature intended.

“Dahlias don’t need rich top soil,” she explains, noting that this was one of the things Schwartz taught her. They don’t need lots of fertilizer to get this annual bounty, which is a good thing. The rocky river bed the property sits on isn’t lush, so the tons of top soil they brought in is all they have to work with – and the dahlias love it.

“Dahlias were first farmed by the Aztecs as a food. It’s a tuber, like a sweet potato,” Tricia said, something she discovered doing research for one of the many garden talks she gives throughout the year.

When asked if they’ve ever eaten one, her eyes fly open in horror.

“For us that would be cannibalistic! We can’t eat something once we know its name.”

Almost like they are pets? She agrees, shaking her head, smiling.

Here and there the dahlias are marked with different colored tape. That’s to help the gardeners decide which to divide and save, Tricia says, identifying which varieties she wants more of and which they have enough of — the workers specifically asked her to make selections this year to help keep the work down to a gentle roar.

With about 16 major varieties of dahlias planted, the show starts around Aug. 1 and, “goes like popcorn,” she says, ’til first frost. “We wait like little beavers for the first blooms and then they just keep coming. The more you cut the more they bloom.”

And it’s all a labor of love. The Stammbergers say it could never become a commercial venture, because it would lose the heart and soul that generates all this abundance in the first place.

Can’t wait for next August.

Virginia Department of Transportation officials describe the latest project happening at their Hanging Rock Area Headquarters near Salem as a national model.

Yet, they also understand that the initiative — composting road kill carcasses — can turn some stomachs.

“We don’t necessarily want to put one of these right next to a subdivision,” said Jimmy White, VDOT project manager.

The Hanging Rock composter is set just inside a tree line on state property north of Interstate 81.

This breakthrough in highway-management technology is straightforward. A dead deer goes inside a bin. A month later, brown compost tumbles out.

The composting bin array off Thompson Memorial Drive and a unit near South Boston in Halifax County are an experiment designed to reduce the state’s $4 million annual cost incurred by driving dead animals to landfills.

Officials are becoming convinced on-site decomposition could be cheaper. A worker stacks wild or domestic dead animals collected on state property in concrete bins with lots of sawdust. Naturally occurring microbes do the rest, assisted by forced air jets in the floor.

But there is a side benefit. What was once waste becomes a fertilizer-like resource inside the composter, and VDOT has no intention of giving the valuable material away. It plans to spread it. Some of the Halifax-made compost, when spread on an eroding area along Virginia 360 outside Halifax, contributed to rapid grass growth, White said.

Applying composting, which farmers have used for years, to road kill management is exciting to state officials.

The completeness of the animal breakdown is “fantastic,” said Stan Philpott, superintendent of the Hanging Rock yard, who is also pleased that his crews no longer have to drive about 10 dead animals each weekday to the New River Valley. The animals went to the landfill near Dublin operated by the New River Resource Authority, which is still used by some VDOT regional offices that don’t compost.

Once usable quantities of the compost are produced, crews are expected to apply it as a fertilizer to stimulate vegetation growth where the ground has been disturbed or eroded. The agency will also employ it as a landscaping and flower bed mulch, White said.

The state’s composting venture complies with Department of Environmental Quality regulations, said DEQ solid waste permit writer Jenny Poland. The material is not required to be pathogen-free, though the pathogens “are at levels that should not be harmful to human health,” according to Poland.

“The compost will be used by VDOT. They have a lot of projects where they will be able to use that,” said Poland, “It has good soil amendment properties.”

Based on the project’s success so far, VDOT is contracting for four more composting units at $115,000 apiece at locations yet to be announced. Barring a glitch, the state could someday operate enough composters to serve large tracts of the state, White said.

Highway workers are on course to collect more than 5,000 dead animals in the Roanoke and New River valleys and nearby communities this year, most of it roadkill. The statewide count could exceed 50,000. VDOT must dispose of the carcasses but wants to lower the cost. The annual, average disposal cost was $4.1 million from fiscal 2007 through fiscal 2011 for personnel, transportation costs and landfill fees. The mileage alone, to and from landfills, averages 252,000 miles yearly.

When White ran a VDOT yard in Rockbridge County 20 years ago, sometimes the carcasses were fed to the big cats at the Natural Bridge Zoo, he said.

Those days are long gone.

VDOT workers have buried roadkill beside highways. However, that system worked better before utilities placed infrastructure along highways, where it is tracked and safeguarded by Miss Utility, and environmental regulations came into force that further regulate digging. It isn’t done much any more.

In recent years, the best available solution was to drive the carcasses in a pickup to landfills. But White said some Virginia landfills charge a lot, perhaps $60 to $100 a deer, and have become reluctant to accept animal carcasses because “it hurts their management of the landfill.”

Joe Levine, who directs the New River Resource Authority, said the waste-management agency’s facility continues to accept dead animals without any operational issues at the municipal waste rate of $32 a ton. That said, the authority is in favor of recycling, waste reduction and reuse.

“All compliant composting systems are great ideas,” Levine said.

Convinced the state needed a new plan, the Virginia Center for Transportation Innovation and Research, an arm of VDOT, studied composting and decided the state should try it as a possible new, long-term solution to animal disposal. After some early attempts, and input from Advanced Composting Technologies LLC, in Candler, N.C., the state focused its efforts on rectangular bins equipped with blowers. Microbial action, which requires food, water and oxygen, can rot a batch of animals in a month or two in such a container, according to White, who said temperatures hit a pathogen-killing 160 degrees or more.

A crew built the state’s first forced-air, animal composter in 2012 at a VDOT yard just outside Halifax, a small town near South Boston. Workers converted three steel roll-off garbage containers at a cost of $48,000. In a sign of the tool’s versatility, it processed a couple of donkeys in addition to the usual roadkill of primarily deer but also bears and smaller animals, White said.

Halifax Mayor Dick Moore recently heard about the system.

“It didn’t bother me. There was no odor involved that I can tell by just riding by there,” he said.

To further the experiment, crews retrofitted four concrete material storage bins at the Hanging Rock VDOT yard for $28,000 and the state started up that composter in July. Each bin can hold about 10,000 pounds of animals, about 100 deer. The temperature inside of one of its bins stood at 150 degrees Wednesday morning.

The system features forced-air jets that fuel decomposition and a trough that routes the run off from the topless bins into a tank underground. Using a hose sprayer, an attendant applies a couple of spritzes of the fluid every so often to help keep the piles cooking.

VDOT thinks the money it saves in avoided disposal expenses will cover the cost of each forced-air device in as few as five years for those VDOT yards at least 25 miles from a landfill. The payback period is likely to be longer, but well within the composter’s lifetime, for VDOT yards closer to a landfill, a VDOT research report said.

Cristina Siegel, who directs the Clean Valley Council, a Roanoke-based nonprofit organization dedicated to litter prevention, recycling, waste stream reduction and stormwater pollution prevention, reacted positively to VDOT’s composting project. She said DEQ approval likely means VDOT has demonstrated it can ensure the proper heat and moisture recipe for full decomposition of organic matter — a breakdown much greater than area residents may achieve in backyard composting piles.

“There certainly is an initial ‘yuck’ factor when you hear the idea,” she said. However, given the exacting standards VDOT appears to be using, “a compostable plate or a head of old lettuce or a road-killed deer ultimately break down to the same organic components.”

To report a dead animal on a highway, call 800-367-7623 (800-FOR-ROAD).

Designer’s best

Cooler temps offer the perfect opportunity to use warmer colors and accents to cozy up indoor and outdoor spaces. We’ve found just the site to inspire you. Freshhome.com offers 15 Best Autumn Decorating Tips and Ideas. We’ve excerpted some of the ideas here. You can see the remainder at: bit.ly/9xBzPc.

Welcome fall with dining room tables and centerpieces. Whether you want to go formal or casual for your table, choose colors that reflect your home decor and the season. Consider using red and yellow apples for an informal organic and edible centerpiece. Remember, the centerpiece doesn’t have to be stagnant; add or subtract from it throughout the season for visual interest. For more formality, consider place settings and table linens that have just hints of fall colors and themes.

Dress up your front porch with fall inspiration. Use tall corn stalks, raffia or straw to wrap around entry-porch columns and mailboxes. Use thick ribbon in deep oranges and browns to contrast with the straw. Carry these same materials into lanyards or garlands to decorate around your front door and entry.

Use your fireplace to showcase seasonal décor. Your fireplace mantel has been waiting for this season! Whether you look in your yard or travel to an arts and crafts store, dried leaves and pine cones make great décor. Small pumpkins, gourds or dried leaf vines, along with colorful candles, will brighten your mantel and spirits.

Cooler temperatures mean cozy sitting areas: As the temperatures begin to fall, bring out the fall-colored throws and blankets to place on couches or in adjacent baskets. Complementing fall-colored throw pillows will complete any cozy nook as a place to cuddle up and enjoy a good book.

Best home tour for getting ideas

Wake County’s annual Parade of Homes continues from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday and again Oct. 11-13, offering a chance to visit more than 200 new homes with the latest and greatest in technology, design, landscaping and color. The homes, which range from $130,000 to well over $1million, are great places to draw inspiration for your own home or just to see how different color palettes can change the feel of a room. You’ll want to wear comfy slip-on shoes, since footwear is not allowed in many homes. It’s also a good idea to take your camera phone and bring along paint swatches in case you see something you like. (However, some homes don’t allow photography.)

Parade books with floor plans, addresses and prices are available at houses along the route. You can also download the Parade app for your iPhone or Android phone and explore the homes online. Learn more at: paradeofhomeswake.com/

Best Halloween craft

Raleigh resident Kari Raynor and her two sons, Evan and Bennett, had a blast decorating glass jar pumpkins, ghosts and Frankensteins last fall. Raynor got the idea from Pinterest. You can make some, too, with the instructions laid out on the Not So Idle Hands blog. This post takes you through creating pumpkin jars. You can customize your jars by using different colored tissue paper and face designs.

You will need:

• 5 glass jars of varying sizes (varying sizes makes it more interesting)

• Orange tissue paper

• Mod Podge

• Black paper

• Green paint

1 Start by cutting the tissue paper into strips about 11/2 to 2 inches wide. Measure the height of your jars and trim the tissue paper strips to that length.

2 Paint Mod Podge a section at a time onto the outside of the jar. Lay down a strip of paper and smooth them down well. Then move onto the next section. Don’t worry if it’s a little wrinkly or the strips overlap, it won’t show once it’s dry.

3 Keep going till you get the jar covered. Then,work on cutting out faces for them. (The site offers templates for cutting out face shapes.)

4 Glue on the faces and paint the tops of the jars with some pretty green paint. Then brush on a coat or two of Mod Podge. (I used glossy to look shiny, like it’s part of the jar.)

5 Let them cure for 24 hours.

Use either battery powered tea lights or strings of Christmas lights to illuminate the pumpkins at night.

To see a step-by-step guide for creating the pumpkins, visit bit.ly/19lyIqR.

Best recipe

Sandra Hardy of Havelock wrote in to share her recipe for autumnal cranberry chicken:

“This cranberry chicken recipe is ideal for busy weeknights when you don’t have a lot of time to spend in the kitchen. With just four ingredients, this easy cranberry chicken recipe is an easy fix-and-forget-it way to enjoy boneless chicken breasts. I usually serve it with broccoli and some type of potato dish. Baked potatoes are always a good choice because you can bake them in the oven at the same time.”

Cranberry Chicken

Ingredients:

6 boneless skinless chicken breasts

1 1 oz. envelope dried French onion soup mix

1 16 oz. can cranberry sauce

1 cup Catalina salad dressing

Preparation:

PREHEAT oven to 350 degrees F. Spray 9-by-13-inch baking dish with cooking spray.

PLACE chicken breasts in baking dish. Sprinkle French onion soup mix evenly over chicken breasts.

WHISK together cranberry sauce and salad dressing. Pour over chicken breasts.

BAKE approximately 50 minutes.

Best of the tube

On HGTV:

From remodel to short sale. Caught between their new professional lives and their old student ways, accountants Robert and Marie may be ready to move on, but their disheveled home is holding them back. With water damaged floors, mixed-up rooms and a master bath that somehow turned into a storage area, the house is unsellable. Jonathan comes to the rescue with a plan to breathe fresh life into the home, but is soon tripped up by a costly setback, and the couple gambles on a short sale to land a great new home. “Buying and Selling” airs at 8 p.m. Wednesday.

Send news and photos to The News Observer, P.O. Box 191, Raleigh, N.C. 27602; email topdrawer@newsobserver.com.