This is a story you hope has a happy ending, but at the very least, you admire the efforts of those who look out for wildlife.

It's about the old Santa Claus Church, a hole that needed to be patched and the sudden realization that the hole served as an entry point for a mama bird and her new youngsters.

Read about it in the Santa Claus Museum and Village blog.

A survey conducted over the past seven months of the 13 southwest Indiana counties in which emerald ash borer had not been previously detected showed no signs of the invasive insect that kills ash trees.

As part of the survey, traps were strategically located in five southwestern counties—Gibson, Posey, Spencer, Vanderburgh and Warrick.

“The 82 purple traps placed on the designed grid did not capture any of the beetles,” said Phil Marshall, state entomologist.

Visual surveys were also conducted by DNR experts during spring and summer in the eight other southwestern Indiana counties (Crawford, Daviess, Greene, Knox, Martin, Perry, Pike and Sullivan). No new EAB infestations were detected.

From Purdue University

Indiana's pumpkin crop for the most part has fared well despite the drought that has gripped the Midwest, and consumers should have an abundance of healthy pumpkins to choose from this autumn.

Initially, there were fears that the crop would not germinate properly because of the drought and heat, said Dan Egel, a Purdue Extension plant pathologist. But the pumpkins did germinate, and the dryness actually protected them from many of the diseases that afflict them in wetter years.