Only a few more days till Christmas

I returned a couple grandkids to their mother yesterday and they have been replaced with peace and tranquility. It was fun while it lasted.

While they were here we decorated for Christmas. Lots of other people are doing the same--Strack and VanTil has sold all of its Christmas trees.

Speaking of trees, on the other side of the highway and a bit to the south, the tree stumps are all that is left from 14 trees that once were southeast of the reflecting pond. It looks very different now, and I suspect it will look a lot more different next summer.

This morning (Friday) there were many trucks being loaded with stone from the piles at the Babcock Quarry. The piles do not look that big, but it takes only two scoops from the big loader to fill a truck. I do not know where the trucks were going, but by the end of the day the pile may be noticeably smaller.

The quarry is piling crushed stone to form berms to keep people from driving on the areas that once stored rock.

(Would a rock from the quarry serve as a substitute for a lump of coal as a present for a naughty boy or girl?)

A building permit in the window of the old Hoover Furniture Building suggests that rumors that it will be the future home of Ayda's Restaurant are true. (At one time the building housed a creamery or some operation that produced ice cream--if you remember details, leave them in a comment. So the building may be going back to something related to its roots--food.)

 I took the picture below recently. What is it and where is it?