Rising and falling, odds and ends

Below is the newly re-roofed Fifth-Third Bank building.

Below is what remains of the Johnny Rusk building. I do not know if the floor slab will remain or be removed.

I have a lot of pictures showing various stages of progress for each of these projects. Maybe I will post them sometime. Or maybe not.

On Tuesday I was invited to a Rotary luncheon to hear a presentation about bluebirds by Ken Murray who is the treasurer of the Indiana Bluebird Society. The society has about 250 members and promotes bluebirds and other native cavity nesting birds. (That means that they do not like English sparrows and starlings, which are not native and which compete with the native birds for nesting sites.) Bluebird populations declined rather dramatically from the 1950s to the 1970s, primarily due to habitat loss. Members of the society encourage bluebirds by providing nesting sites for them. Below is an example of a nesting box that Mr Murray uses.

 He puts out about 75 boxes in 45 locations. Bluebirds will not let other bluebirds nest near them, but do not mind tree swallows, which have increased in numbers recently. Last year about 380 eggs were laid in these boxes and 266 young birds fledged. Normally bluebirds in our area have two broods each summer.

After the luncheon I noticed that Balloons Galore has moved from the old Sears Building to the Horton Building.

On the ledge is a little plastic flower that is selling well. It is solar powered. If you want to see what it does, stop by.

The last of the Lenten Luncheons took place today. I attended most of them and one thing I noticed is that different congregations pronounced the word "Amen" differently. Some had a short A and some a long A. Any ideas of why the difference? I always thought the short A was the Latin pronunciation and the long A was the proper English pronunciation.