Getting ready for spring

On Thursday I noticed a hill in Brookside Park. It was not the much needed sledding hill, which would be a nice addition for the winter. Rather it was a pile of wood chips, part of preparation for next spring.

The main playground area has lost most of its mulching and needed a new load of chips. The first pile was joined by a second, and on both Thursday and Friday workers were placing the chips around the equipment.

 They were still not finished on Saturday. If the mulch was from the city's collection of downed trees and branches, I contributed to the these piles.

As the cold and short days of winter keep us inside, it is nice to have reminders that in a few months the weather will be warmer and kids will again be playing on this equipment.

There is still some activity in the park. This morning I saw the runners of the Rudolph 5K Run (formerly called the Santa Shuffle) go past my house. The race started and ended at Brookside Park. The runners looked cold. I had no desire to go out and take a picture. (Here are some photos from last year, from 2009, and from 2008.)

It took a couple of extra trips, but I finally found the geocache in Brookside Park (as well as one along Owen Street). It required a bit of thinking outside the box. If you cannot find what you are looking for, maybe you are looking for the wrong thing.

Speaking of geocaching, Brian Capouch mentioned it last week when he introduced the presentations of his software engineering class at Saint Joe. I think his class set out the geocache at that can be found at SJC. However, the class ultimately decided not to do much with geocaching--the company that runs the geocaching website is interested in making money from the activity, and Brian is an open-source guy. His class investigated Independence Cemetery in Barkley Gillam Township, and as a result, it may now be the best documented pioneer cemetery in the state. I was hoping the www.pastfinder.com website would have information on the applications the class developed to bring the cemetery on-line, but it was not there when I checked.