Potpourri---April 12, 2012

The last two nights have had frosts, with temperatures into the 20s, and I expected to see considerable plant damage. My grapes had some, but along with leaves that were killed, there were others that looked just fine. I was very surprised to see the many volunteer tomatoes that have come up (they all produced marble sized fruit, which is why they re-seed) doing well. I could not see any damage at all. The trees that looked worst were the ailanthus trees, which looked terrible. But they are weed-like, so I am sure they will recover.

On Wednesday Jordan Floral celebrated its 35th anniversary. They have not been in their present location on the corner of College and Grace for the entire time. At one time they were downtown, across from the court house. When I came to town the building that they were in was the storage part of Wright's Furniture, which was where Fase's is now. The building was originally build for a farm implement store.

I noticed an article by Brian Capouch on a bulletin board at SJC earlier this week that he had published in the Pulaski County Journal in February, but could not find it on-line. He noted a comment I made about the area having an interesting geologic history, and did some research to find out more. He concluded with a discussion of the meteor crater in Newton County.

The student newspaper at SJC reports that the college choir will be going to Italy and the Vatican next fall. They have the invitation and now need to find the money to finance the trip.

There is a new business in town, Gameland, which mostly sells new and used video games. The owner previously had a shop called Sue's Special Occasions, which sold balloons and cards. The new shop still has the balloons and cards, but they seem to be secondary to the video games. I would tell you more, but I was born a bit too soon to really get video games. It is next to The Needle's Point, across the street from R&M, in the space that a beauty shop previously occupied.

Also new is Schmidy's Pizza, which yesterday got a favorable review from Little Indiana. They are applying for a liquor license, and I think the decision was supposed to be made at a meeting tonight.

I check the river level occasionally, and recently I noticed a pattern in the daily flow that I do not understand. In winter a pattern like this can be explained by melting during the day and freezing during the night. What causes it when there is nothing left to melt?

 There is a river float scheduled for the end of the month. We need some rain to get the river level a bit higher.

There are three plays this week. I will get to only one. Have you noticed how many more activities there are than there were in January and February?

Have you finished your taxes? They are due on Monday.

What did I miss?

Update: The mulberry trees were also hard hit by the frost. Some of them have lost all their leaves.