Spring and other things

Last night a line of severe storms approached Rensselaer from the west and it appeared as if we would get drenched. But the line broke up and most of the heavy rain seemed to go to our north. We got maybe a tenth of an inch. The river, which had risen almost to flood stage after the heavy rains on Saturday, has continued to recede. I did not take pictures of the water this year because it seems so slight compared to what was happening in March of 2009. (See here, here, here, here, and here.)

It is feeling like spring. The rains on Saturday evicted thousands of earthworms from their holes and when they crawled into the streets, cars smashed them. I heard frogs a week ago when I went to a Community Garden meeting. There will be a Community Garden this year and it will be located just south of the County Annex building that houses the Surveyor and the Extension Offices. There should soon be flyers going up around town with details. The Garden does have a Facebook page. Plots are 20 feet by 20 feet and cost $15 to rent.

Indiana holds a late primary, on May 3. Here is a list of candidates in both parties. Many county offices will be on the ballot this year.

We did not get the forecast rain last night, but we did get the strong winds today. I have not seen trees down, but part of the roof of Family Dollar in the College Mall blew off. There was nothing dramatic to see. There were pieces of roofing in front of the buildings, such as this piece in front of Save-A-Lot.



I went to back of the building to see if there was more debris. The wind was catching the edge of whatever was left and pushing it up. (The bump should not be there--it should be flat.)





















Here is a release from the police department, noting that when the roof lifted, it broke the natural gas pipe.

The wind made a mess of the recycling route. There were boxes and bottles all over the place.

I went to parts of two meetings this week. I attended a bit of the Animal Control Board meeting on Monday. The meeting started late because one of the members was late and without her, there was no quorum. I welcomed the new reporter from the Rensselaer Republican to Rensselaer. He has an article in today's Republican about what happened. With the new hire the Republican will be able to cover more meetings on days on which meetings overlap. (I left early to go to the Rensselaer City Council meeting.)

I also attended a bit of the Jasper County Historical Society meeting. (I left this one to attend the County Council meeting, which had a long and interesting discussion on taxation. I will try to get a post up on it tomorrow.) While at the Historical Society meeting, I took a picture of some ledger books that were recently donated. They came from the building on Front Street that was recently demolished to make way for parking. The books are from a blacksmith shop that was operating in the late 19th and very early 20th century run by Martin Luther Hemphill.  The picture below shows most of the books, which were put in a freezer for a while to kill the mold.


Here is a sample of what is inside one of them.


The Historical Society is excited to get these records because they contain names of a great many residents. They intend to index the ledger so people searching for ancestors will know if their ancestors were in Rensselaer in the 1890s. Presently people researching ancestors in that time period are often frustrated because almost the entire Census of 1890 was destroyed in a fire in 1921.
(Updated)