Yellow tape

    Within easy walking distance of my house is Olympia Park, a little island of green with a large creek flowing through it. There used to be a smaller creek flowing into it, but this was shunted into a culvert so it could be covered up to install a new play area. This was one of those "it's the thought that counts" type moves, because almost nobody ever uses the play area, there not being hellacious numbers of kids in the neighborhood anymore.
    For the past several weeks, the play area has been cordoned off with yellow "Caution Do not enter" tape, which of course is way better than "Crime Scene Do not cross" tape, but still. For a short stretch out of that period, a crew from the county was busily digging in the wood chips underneath the play equipment, but they didn't seem to be comprehensively removing it. I had a wild guess that perhaps fire ants had moved in, but didn't have the sense to ask anyone.
    Today, the yellow tape is gone and in place of the wood chips is something that looks like gravel. It's soft though, so it may be an improvement. There was a certain smell of rubber, though, suggesting that this might be ripped up tires or recycled soda bottles or something such. The play area is ostensibly for kids 5-12 (in other words, old enough not to put random stuff in their mouths) but the few kids that I have seen playing there have been (closely supervised, thank goodness) toddlers. So I'm not sure that plastic-smelling stuff is an improvement. Still, it's nice to see the play area open and whatever the stuff is I think it would be friendly to little feet. If it's also unfriendly to fire ants, that would probably be a plus.