Sap's rising

I have been noticing early signs of spring. For example, some of the maples are dripping sap onto the streets, sandhill cranes are flying overhead, the days are getting long, the setting sun is moving north, and Walgreens was setting out garden seeds. Today the local schools had a fog delay, another sign of change of seasons. I still have not seen any croci (or crocuses) and in some past years they had already bloomed and disappeared by the end of February.

In an unrelated thread, there has been activity--big machines being set up--in the old Von Tobel building on Vine Street. A person I know said that a machine shop from the city (Chicago, Gary, Hammond???) is moving down to avoid high taxes and utilities.

One of the empty slots in the Town Mall is now filled with a hair salon, the Cutting Room. I have thought of writing about the various beauty shops around town, but there are so many and they are so scattered I do not know where to begin.

I ate with a resident of Newton County the other night and heard Newton County news. He confirmed that the Marina trucks that are constantly going through Rensselaer are heading to Buffalo, not to the Newton County Landfill, which gets about 500 trucks a day, but they not Marina Trucks. I have been noticing that when they are heading west through Rensselaer, they are empty. He also said that the Landfill has been clearing ground north of their current pile, so they may be planning another mountain or an extension of the existing mountain. There is also a small plant being built that will produce egg carton and other things from recycled paper. It will be powered by methane from the landfill. In the past this person had been hostile to the landfill, but has reconciled. The landfill people go out of the way to be nice to him, as do the people running a 12000-head pig farm that is also one of his neighbors.

He also mentioned plans for a Grand Prix racetrack and a gated community north of the North Newton high school. If I had ever heard of this project, I do not remember it. I wonder if it will be our version of Coyote Springs.