Another week almost gone

It was a pretty quiet week, though we had some excitement when we found a mouse trapped in a garbage can on Wednesday. It had climbed in to feast on some food morsels and could not get back out .I relocated him about half a mile from my house, on the other side of the river.

It is time to set mouse traps. The next mouse in the house will not be as lucky as this one.

A couple days later in the same area that my former house guest now resides, I saw park people digging a hole near the south side of the Talbert Bridge. I asked why. The hole is for a foundation of a monument citing the people who were instrumental in getting the bridge built. It will undoubtedly be the subject of a future post.

A couple of young doves were hanging around my backyard this past week, and I could get very close to them. I think hunting season for doves started a week or two ago. They were safe in my backyard, but if they ever come inside....

The last flowers of summer are blooming. A few years ago I planted some sunflower seeds I found in plants along the road and they grew. I did not know at the time that they were Jerusalem artichokes, which can be a real pain to eradicate though it does have edible tubers. The plants get about nine feet tall.

I had never eaten at the Doghouse, so I decided to give it a try before it closed. I thought the picture of a coat hook would be an appropriate illustration for the occasion. I asked why the business was closing and was told that sales were poor. Another victim of the sluggish economy.

I noticed that the repair shop on Washington and Weston--it was Paul's Auto Repair--was empty. I could not recall if I had noticed that it was empty before or not. Is this a recent closing, or has it been closed for a while?

Saint Joseph's College was notified last week that they were one of 14 colleges to awarded a Title III Strengthening Institutions Program grant from the Department of Education. I looked online to find how large the grant was, but the 2012 grants were not yet listed. The colleges getting funded from this program last year were getting between $300,000 and $400,000.

On my trip to La Fiesta Market, I took a picture of what I think is a pump station on the new sewer line that links the businesses at the intersection with the Rensselaer sewer system. Construction seems to be finished on this project.

This past week workers were installing new windows on the lift station adjacent to Weston Cemetery. It was undramatic. I noticed this giant concrete pump getting ready to leave the water treatment plant. I can hear lots of activity going on, and I can see the piles of supplies and building materials, but the work is almost all inside, so there are not many photo opportunities.

I finally got to a networking event sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce. The folks at First Trust Credit Union were very friendly, and I enjoyed talking to a variety of people.

Construction of the new building on Drexel Drive is proceeding very rapidly. By the end of the week, a couple layers of concrete blocks outlined where the building would be.

I had to close the windows this week. Instead of trying to get rid of heat, as we did all summer, we now need to preserve it. Fall is here even though the trees are still green.