March is almost over

I found my first crocuses of 2019. They were on the south side of St. Augustine Church. I am always excited to see the first crocuses of spring—they tell me that winter is over.

There was also this flower there. I do not know what it is.

The Rensselaer City Council met for its final meeting of March on Monday evening. Before the regular agenda, a non-resident asked about the 25% surcharge that he pays for City natural gas. The surcharge was instituted in a 1993 ordinance. The person asked if the surcharge should have been discontinued after the expenses for extending the gas lines and other expenses in serving non-resident consumers had been recouped. The answer was that surcharges of this sort are common when a city-owned utility serves non-residents. It compensates for the lack of tax revenue from them. (The City provides gas west of town almost to the County border.)

After approving a transfer of $60, the Council approved a small increase in the electric tracker that will result in a small increase in electric bills for the second quarter.

Discussion turned to recording software. The Council approved a bid of $10,1161.52 to provide software, microphones, a computer to run the system, and two monitors to display presentations. No camera is included. Each microphone will record on its own track, making hearing individual speakers much easier when going back to compose the minutes of the meeting.

The Council approved an internal control policy that the State auditor said that the City needed to pass. It is designed to prevent internal fraud. One of the questions involved bidding for certain projects. It seems that what is not allowed by one area of State government is standard procedure in another. That led to the next item, approving seeking statements of qualification for the wastewater treatment plant and extending sewer service to three areas that are not presently served. It was not clear that this way of proceeding was in conflict with the internal control policy that had just been passed. By the next meeting City officials should know what the State requires and adjustments can be made.

The Fire Chief brought up the issue of cancer among firefighters. It seems that firefighters get cancer at rates higher than that of the rest of the population. He asked for input to help him prepare next year's budget. A committee including Councilmen Odle and Watson was appointed to investigate.

Two previously formed committees reported. The committee on meter deposits has decided what it wants in an ordinance but needs the ordinance to be written. Those with good credit histories will not need to submit a deposit. Those who cannot provide that history will need to submit a deposit, but they will have the deposit applied to their bills after twelve months with no billing problems. The committee considering the move of the Clerk/Treasurers office to the old police building (which adjoins City Hall) has two contractors giving bids and will report back at the next Council meeting.

Rensselaer's Urban Forest group received a state grant of $9500 and expects to plant about 100 trees this year. There was a discussion of decrepit buildings and people with trash in their yards. There was special mention of the old laundry building on the corner of Clark and Cullen. There is work on an ordinance to address the problem.

The City has taken delivery of a new dump truck that is equipped with a snow plow and a salt spreader. Clean-up week will be May 6-10 and the Council approved spending $400 to feed the clean-up crews. It also approved hiring up to five part time employees for the summer.

In other news, the last of the area art shows is on display at the Carnegie Center, this one for middle school students. Below is a Cowoose hybird.

Alliance Bank is collecting bottle caps that will be converted into benches for the Fairgrounds. See here.

The Rensselaer Republican has an informative article about the Wheatfield Town Council and the proposed solar park in Kankakee Township. See here.

Makeevers

The tallest monument in Weston Cemetery is in the southeastern part of the cemetery. This impressive monument, topped with a statue of a woman and announcing to the world that beneath lies a very wealthy person, marks the grave of John Makeever (1819-1910) who was, according to a newspaper report of his death, the richest man in Jasper County. There are other Makeever graves in Weston Cemetery, but no one with that last name has lived in Jasper County for many years. Who were the Makeevers and what happened to them?

The report of John's death in The Rensselaer Republican noted that he had five brothers and four sisters, all of whom lived to adulthood. Three of those brothers and three sisters left Ohio and came with John to Jasper County in about 1845 and settled in Newton Township, as did John's parents. His parents, Patrick and Isabel, are buried in Old Settlers Cemetery, which is a couple miles northeast of the I-65/SR-114 intersection. According to their grave markers, Patrick was 102 or 103 years old when he died in 1856 and Isabel was 108 when she died in 1872. I do not believe these ages for two reason. First, living more than a century was exceedingly rare in the 19th Century when life was much more physically demanding than it is today. And second, if Isabel had been born in 1764 as the marker suggests, she would have been 55 years old when she gave birth to John in 1819 and even older when his brothers were born.

Much of John Makeever's wealth was in the form of real estate. Three years before his death he divided 2500 acres between his two daughters. The newspaper article reporting this notes that he retained for himself several hundred acres, enough to make four or five big farms, as well as his property holdings in Rensselaer. He built and owned the Makeever Hotel, though others managed it. He also for many years ran a private bank with his son-in-law, Jay Willliams.

John Makeever had three children. His only son died as an infant. His daughter Almira (1884-1931) was the second wife of William Sims Stockton (1835-1911). They had three children, two of whom died as infants. Their son Jay William (1876-1962) had two children who in turn had children, a son and a daughter who married a Phegley. There may be Phegleys living in the area who are descended from John Makeever. There are still some Stocktons alive, but I do not know of any who live in Jasper County.

The other daughter, Cordelia (1846-1932), married Jay Williams (1856-1908) who had a large furniture store in Rensselaer and who also worked with John Makeever in the banking business. They had one daughter, Mary Jane (1873-1938) who married Charles H Porter (1869-1949) and they had no children. Jay Williams committed suicide and after his death his furniture business was purchased by W.J.Wright.

There are descendants of John Makeever in Jasper County, but none of them have the last name of Makeever. The other graves with the name Makeever come from the brothers of John came also came to to Jasper County in about 1845.

I can only find one of the three sisters who is supposed to have come to Jasper County, Rebecca Mills, and I know nothing about her. However, all three brothers are fairly well documented.

The oldest of the three was Milton Makeever (1821-1899), who has a inconspicuous marker in Weston Cemetery across the road from John's large tombstone.

The newspaper report of his death noted that his permanent residence was on the same 40 acres he had built on 55 years previously. He was survived by wife Nancy (1826-1901), one daughter, and three sons. One daughter, Virginia Estella (1868-1889) predeceased him and is buried in the same cemetery lot but in an unmarked grave. She married William Lyons (1864-1936) and died a few days after giving birth to her daughter Virginia Estella Lyons (1889-1975). Miss Lyons married Claude Porter Seward (1883-1959) and both are buried in North Star Cemetery in Newton County as is their daughter Bethel (1912-1971). I have not been able to trace two other Seward children.

Son Isaac Newton Makeever (1853-1914) never married and is buried near his parents in an unmarked grave. Daughter Indiana (1860-1899) married Robert Yeoman (1847-1930) and had a son, Albertus Yeoman (1881-1932). However, she seems to have divorced her husband and taken back her maiden name as he remarried before she died. Son Jasper (1848-1917) moved to Newton County where he and several members of his family are buried in the North Star Cemetery. He and wife Mary Jane Kenton (1849-1937) had at least six children but neither of their two sons had children.

Milton's final son, Frank (1851-1929) had at least six children. Eldest son Bovee (1878-1948) moved to New York and is the only one of the children not buried in Weston Cemetery. Daughter Maud (1883-1972) married Charles Bengston (1887-1963), Grover (1884-1950) never married and Wade (1886-1974) married late and had one daughter. Jane Indiana Makeever (1890-1974) married Frank Brann (1898-1979) and the youngest child, Mary Gay (1895-1975) never married.

A third brother who came to Indiana from Ohio was Madison Makeever (1825-1885). Although he died before his brothers, he had more children than the other three combined. His first wife was Harriet Ivers (1832-1873). They had nine children: Louisa (1852-1872), an infant (1854-1854), Martha Ellen Mahany (1855-1937) who moved to South Dakota, John (1857-?) who moved first to Nebraska and then to New York, Mary Gibbon (1859-1920) who first moved to South Dakota and then to what is now Alberta, Canada, where she and her husband are buried, Milton (1859-1940) who moved to Nebraska and then Mexico where he died, Sanford (1864-1928) who moved to Chicago and then New York, Ida May Robinson (1867-1945) who moved to Nebraska and then Los Angeles but is buried in Weston Cemetery, and Madison (1869-1957) who died in New Hampshire.

His second wife was Clara Healy (1846-1923) who bore him six children. Two infants died at birth. Bessie (1876-1967) married Korah Parker (1872-1906) and had two children and after his early death married Walter Lee Bragg (1883-1941). With her second husband she moved to Oklahoma. Marguerite Blanch (1878-1928) married Clarence Sigler (1874-1912) and had two children and moved to Oklahoma. After he died, she married Joe Fansler. Rosa Belle (1880-1885) died when only fifteen and is buried with her father. Finally, Jessie (1885-1950) married Lee Rardin and settled near Parr. She had two children and was the only one of Madison's children who remained in Jasper County after reaching adulthood. She is buried with her husband in Weston Cemetery.

After Madison's death his widow remarried and became Clara Coen.

Just to the south and east of John Makeever's impressive tombstone is the more modest grave marker of his brother, Daniel S Makeever (1828-1889). He was a farmer in the 1870 Census but the reports of his death said that he was living in Rensselaer. He married Catherine Cunningham and she and three children survived him. The newspaper reported after his death that a nephew, Isaac Newton Makeever, was appointed to administer his estate.

Son David (1854-1896) went west. In the 1880 Census he was working on the farm of an uncle in Missouri and in the same year he appears to have married his cousin, Mary Cunningham. They had one son, John David Makeever (1894-1963). While his wife and son remained in Missouri, David was preparing a new home in North Dakota where he died unexpectedly. His wife and son remained in Missouri and are buried there.

Daughter Mary (1856-1936) married Felix W Lester and moved to Nebraska where she died, but her body was shipped back to Rensselaer and she is buried in Weston Cemetery. Daniel Sweeney Makeever (1869-1947) is buried in Weston Cemetery with his wife, Emeline Randolph (1870-1954). In the same lot is their daughter, Ruth Makeever Poole Hickman (1894-1955) and her first husband, Bradford Poole (1891-1946).

The map below is from 1909 and shows the land owned in Newton Township by various members of the Makeever family, with John's holdings shaded red and other family members shaded green. What is now the Sherwood Forest subdivision was once owned by John Makeever. The Historical Society has a large wall map that shows ownership a few years before this map and much of the green was then shown as owned by Madison Makeever. When he died his will stipulated that the property be kept intact until his youngest child was 21 years old. That happened a few years before 1909.

I have a plat map from 1978 and I was curious to see how much of the land was still owned by the family. As you can see below, only a little was left. There are some Makeevers shown at the top but they lived in Missouri and were descended from the Daniel Makeever line. The Stocktons and Phegleys were descended from John Makeever.

Looking at the current owners on the GIS map, only 73 acres of the land owned by the Makeevers in 1908 is still owned by a descendant.

And now for some personal genealogy. March 24 is the centennial of the death of my paternal grandfather. I wonder how common it is for people to live long enough to be able to mark the centennial of a grandparent's death. I tried to get an answer on the Internet and found nothing. My first centennial of this sort, the centennial death of my paternal grandmother, happened a bit over four years ago and I was not aware of the event. I have a cousin who was only 53 at the time.
I will have to live to over a century in order to mark the centennial of another grandparent.

Mid-month March meetings

The much-anticipated meeting of the Jasper County Plan Commission was canceled for Monday evening. The newspaper notice of the agenda was published nine days prior to the meeting, not the required ten days. However notice for the Jasper County Board of Zoning Appeals was published in time, so that meeting did take place.

There was only one item on the BZA agenda, a variance for Von Excavating. This item had been discussed in the July, 2018 meeting and the Board had asked that the petitioner discover what the State required for highway access. It had taken the intervening time to get the property surveyed and permits from the State. The reason for a variance rather than a rezone was that there is no zoning that fit what the petitioner wanted to do, which is storage of materials for the business. There will be no retail sales from the lot and if in the future plans change to include retail sales, there will be need for additional approvals from the BZA. After a bit of discussion, the Board approved the variance. Then they wondered if the variance was attached to the land or to the applicant. They clarified that the variance was to the applicant, not the land.

The next meeting will be April 15.

The item that had drawn interest for the Plan Commission was an amendment to the wind ordinance. It contains a single change made in three different places: it replaces the 1760 foot setback with a 2400 foot setback for existing non-participating residences, for land zoned R1, R2, VR, M1, and M2, and for any platted residential subdivision. The current setback is .3333 miles and the proposed setback is .4545 miles. It will be interesting to see if anyone is happy with the change or if the comments at the next meeting will consist of complaints that the setbacks need to be larger so that the ordinance will effectively ban wind turbines (though it is not clear if they can be built with these setbacks).

On Tuesday evening the County Council met and the only interesting item on the agenda was tax abatement for Dunn's Bridge Solar LLC. At its previous meeting the Council had made parts of Kankakee Township an Economic Revitalization Area (ERA) and had been given some suggestions on a tax abatement for a proposed solar park. (See here for more information.) On Tuesday a representative for the solar company gave a few statistics to start the conversation. He noted that if the project is fully built, it will over 30 years provide about $35 million in payments to land owners and about $24 million in taxes. Further, the facility will require virtually no County services. For the past month Councilman Gary Fritz and JCEDO Director Stephen Eastridge have been working and negotiating with Orion Energy to develop an alternative tax abatement schedule to the those that the company had proposed in February. They eliminated the economic development payment, which reduced County revenue, and they shortened the abatement schedule from ten years to six. The abatement schedule for the six years will be 100%, 86%, 72%, 58%, 44%, and 30%. The company will get less abatement with this schedule and the County will get more in taxes, but perhaps because the County has low property taxes, the schedule is acceptable to the company. The proposal passed. Unlike most abatements, there are no employment goals in this one.

The rest of the meeting was occupied with the normal business of additional appropriations other items that are not of great public interest.

We had a couple of inches of snow on Sunday morning that was very pretty but thankfully it had almost all melted by sunset.

On Sunday the Fair Board had a chicken/pork-chop dinner and had fliers showing the entertainment schedule. It is different from what has been done in the past. There are no musical acts scheduled for the grandstand.

Revisiting SJC

Signs of spring keep appearing. Turkey vultures are back. The thermometer hit 60 degrees on Thursday. Sap is rising in the maple trees. A few days ago multiple flocks of sandhill cranes flew high overhead. Some heavy rains passed through the area on Thursday and we had high winds.

And today we had snow falling.

On Thursday evening JCEDO sponsored a workshop called "Supporting Small Businesses in Rensselaer." From the title I was not sure if my attendance would be appropriate (I do have some small businesses, but they are hobby-businesses, not real businesses; this blog is an example), but when I mentioned my concern to JCEDO Director Stephen Eastridge, he said that I should attend.

The meeting was in Room 108 of the Core Building, which was a computer lab when I taught at SJC but was remodeled either shortly before I retired or shortly after.

The workshop was not a how-to-do discussion but rather focused on the overall environment for business in Rensselaer. The discussion facilitator did, however, have one tip for business owners. She noted that in preparing to come to Rensselaer, she pulled up Google Maps to look for a coffee shop. She found the Little Coffee Shop on 231 and noted that the owners had claimed the profile and filled it out. She said that was something every business owner should do. It is free and it is often the introduction people have to a business.

The people attending were then divided into two groups and asked to list strengths and weakness that Rensselaer had for small business or businesses in general. Among the strengths that people mentioned were location near I-65 and transportation links, being the county seat, the hospital, media (local radio and newspaper), nearness to Fair Oaks Farms, reasonable cost of living, utility infrastructure, Internet access (though lacking in some rural areas), and the library. Among the weaknesses listed were limited shopping, limited early child care, sketchy public transportation, the current state of Saint Joseph's College, and poor aesthetics downtown.

The discussion then turned to actions that could be taken to improve things. Suggestions were listed and then people were allowed to vote on those they thought were best, with each person getting three votes. The results are shown below.

The event was interesting but it remains to be seen if anything will come of it.

I did pick up some good news and bad news that residents of Rensselaer should find interesting. First the good news. For much of April, May, and June the daily parade of garbage trucks going through Rensselaer will cease.

Now for the bad news. The reason that the garbage trucks will not be coming through Rensselaer is that INDOT will be replacing the bridge or culvert over the Yeoman ditch that is just to the east of Kentucky Fried Chicken (or to the West of Dairy Queen). That means that to get the interstate from Rensselaer you will go on 114 to CR 850 W (next to Memory Gardens), go south a mile, then west on CR 600 S to CR 1000 W, then north to SR 114, and then east back to the Interstate. That will inconvenience a lot of people.

Trying to check this out, I found a map of the upcoming road projects for INDOT. You can see the dot on the map for this bridge project, but it is not in the right place. Searching for the project number leads to the identification of the bridge as "Bridge over Sayler Ditch, 0.41 mi. E of I-65" and a bit further search leads to this report on the bridge.

Taste is returning

Monday's City Council meeting had a large crowd. Included were Boy Scouts from Brook. I am not sure why they attended.

There were several Citizen's Comments before the Council got to its main agenda. Barb Lucas representing the Prairie Arts Council requested and received permission to use Potawotamie Park for the Sixth Annual Rock the Arts Festival. It will be earlier this year, on June 22. Brienne Hooker of the Jasper-Newton Foundation highlighted some of the projects that the Foundation has supported. Team Mission Jasper County helps a lot of people during a week in the summer and the Foundation has given them money for construction materials. Community Services has joined with Phil's Friends to make blankets for local cancer patients. An elementary school PE teacher has designed a Run for Fun program that has raised about $5000 for the local food pantry. The Lilly Foundation is matching gifts to the Foundation's Community Funds on a 2 for 1 basis during this and next year.

The Safe Kids Halloween program that sponsors the Trunk or Treat Program is joining with Fenwick Brewery to revive the Taste of Rensselaer event. The parties involved requested use of the City parking lot south of Fenwick's and also part of Front Street for the event and it was approved. Taste of Rensselaer will happen on June 8.

The first item on the main agenda was the gas tracker. It will be a five cent decrease per hundred cubic feet for the March billings. The Council retroactively approved a USDA budget submission that has to be done every year. (I did not understand what this one was about.) Action on a City Hall recording system was tabled to the next meeting. The Gas Department submitted two quotes for a new welding truck and one, from Gutwein Motors, was approved. About 80 trees, mostly ash trees, need to be removed from City right-of-ways and approval was granted for getting quotes for removing them. A request for money from the public relations account to be used to help fund the purchase of flags that will displayed along US231 from the Bowling Alley to Vine Street was approved. The flags will be displayed on Memorial Day, 4th of July, Veteran's Day, and Memorial Day.

The mayor reported that he has had calls about utilities using the City's right-of-way. He and Mr Miller explained that Federal and State agencies want to encourage broadband in rural communities and the State has decided a way to do that is to limit what local governments can do on the matter. A committee reported that moving the Clerk-Treasurer's office to the old police station could be done for about $8000. The Council approved their proceeding to obtain  quotes for the work needed (painting and removing a non-load-bearing wall).

Support for the dispatch software that the Police Department uses will be discontinued in a year or two and the Police Department will find out how the County plans to adjust. The Department has completed interviews for a dispatcher to fill a vacancy and will make an offer this week. It is in the process of filling an opening for a patrolman and there is the possibility that another patrolman will leave. If he does, they may fill both positions from the one pool.

The Council approved buying new shades to replace those in the utility office. Some of the blinds are broken and cannot be repaired. Kenny Haun reported that the Fire Department had received its new command truck and it is in operation. In his role as building commissioner he said that there were a couple of neglected or unsafe structures that he is working on getting torn down. The process to do so it long and involved. There is an unsafe building committee that has not met for some time and it is unclear if the people on it still want to serve.

Well #8 has reached substantial completion (which means that it is in operation). There is still some grass to be planted and final completion is scheduled for March 17. With no further business or announcements, the meeting adjourned.

Beavers have been active downstream from Weston Cemetery. Below are a couple of pictures showing what they have been up to.

The weather has turned from bitterly cold to seasonal. The Great Lakes reached their maximum ice coverage on March 9 when they were 80.9% covered. Lakes Michigan and Ontario never had much ice but Superior and Huron were largely iced over. Now that the temperatures are a bit higher, the ice is rapidly receding because much of it was quite thin. It was a cold winter.

The Community Garden had its organizational meeting on Monday night. If you would like a plot, contact the Extension Office on North McKinley.

Correction: The event is Taste of Jasper County, not Taste of Rensselaer.

Meetings 3-3-19

The March meeting of the Jasper County Commissioners had lots of small items with no big item dominating the agenda. It began with three buried cable requests. The only one I found interesting was one about a company putting optic cable in Rensselaer. A tiny bit of the project involved County roadways east of the quarry. I think this is the same project that I mentioned here.

Wheatfield Township received a grant a while back of $500,000 to help build a fire station. They have put the project to bid twice, but apparently found those bids too high so they solicited a third round of bids. No one submitted any bids for this round.

The Solar Power ordinance sent to the Commissioners by the Plan Commission was approved with no changes. There followed a discussion of the remodeling of the former PNC Bank building. Preliminary quotes were high enough so that the project must be bid competitively and it will be bid as an "as-built" project, a way to give more flexibility in remodeling the building. Councilman Andrew Andree, who is an experienced contractor, is doing much of the organizational work on this project. Before he left, he gave the Commissioners a map of the Military Operations Area (MOA) of Grissom Air Force Base. Commissioner Culp will meet with Air Force officials soon to hear what they have to say. Apparently they will show him a map but he cannot take a picture of it.

Beth Warren had three quotes for a new plat cabinet. The Commissioners approved going forward with one of the quotes. Mr Wakefield of Community Corrections wanted approval for submitting a grant proposal, which was granted. The Commissioners approved a few minor changes to the County Code where items were out of date or no longer in compliance with state law. There was a short discussion of a restrictive covenant that is in the County's title to the Jasper County Youth Center. The County would like the restriction on possible uses for the facility removed and apparently SJC is willing to agree. A variety of training and travel requests were approved. The Commissioners approved an agreement with an engineering firm to prepare for rebuilding one bridge and repairing another in Wheatfield Township. Overall the County's 126 bridges are in good shape, with the County rated third best in the State.

Karen Wilson from Emergency Management reported on two grants that her department had received. One was for $100,000 for radio equipment. However, she did not follow correct procedure in making the grant and the Commissioners were unhappy about that.

There was time for some public comments and several were made about the wind ordinance. There was a sizable crowd at the meeting that attended just in case the topic of wind came up.

The public session was then closed and the Commissioners went to executive session.

I stopped by the Recorder's office to ask about what kind of historical records they had. I was shown a room lined with books recording title transfers. Opening one from the 1880s, I found everything was hand written and some of the ink had faded so much that pages were almost unreadable.

In the evening the Rensselaer Park Board and Corporation met and both had quorums. After hearing Rick Odle suggest that they pay to get a plan for which species of trees to plant at Staddon Field, they reappointed Corporation members Musch and Pickering. They had two responses for the open Corporation member and appointed one. They then reappointed the officers from last year and approved minutes for the November Board meeting and the January Corporation  meeting. Because the February meeting did not have a quorum, there were no minutes to report but the discussions about soccer and softball that took place in February were summarized.

They discussed the latest set of plans for Brookside Park, which include three regulation sized ball fields. The three fields will allow the facility to attract tournaments. How much gets built and when depends on finances.

Heather Hall reported on plans for summer programs. In addition to keeping all or most of the programs from last year, 2019 will have a garden club for kids, a series of programs on birds and butterflies, health and fitness programs, a 70th birthday bash for the pool, and a summer solstice overnight camp-out. Something that may happen is cup-in-hand kickball, which is for adults. Players must hold a cup of beer at all times, which makes catching the ball a challenge. If you want to know more, search youtube for "cup in hand kickball".

In other news, CDC Resources, which has offices in Rensselaer and Monticello, has a new executive director. The Monticello paper wrote about her last week. See here.

The recent cold weather has frozen some slow-moving sections of the Iroquois River.

An unusual tour

Update: I was asked by a person who manages this facility to remove the pictures of the interior because they might give information to potential or current competitors.

A couple of weeks ago I received an e-mail inviting me to tour the almost completed phase one of the Premier Biosource facility north of Rensselaer. After watching this project proceed through regulatory hearings and going to the groundbreaking ceremonies, I was eager to go.

The facility will raise hogs for biomedical research. (For background, follow the two links in the above paragraph and this one.) The part of the facility that has been completed is phase one of four. Construction of phase two will begin in the next two months. When completely built out, the farm will have about 5000 hogs but this building is only designed for a couple hundred, and I believe that it will need the space in phase two to complete the raising of pigs.

  The tours were scheduled on Monday from noon until 3:00 and I arrived about 1:30. I found the door locked and I had no idea how to get in. Fortunately, someone was leaving soon after I arrived and escorted me into the building and took me to a farrowing room where I joined the in-progress tour.

 The first piglets are scheduled to arrive on April 10. They will be surgically delivered and brought to the room above, where they will be placed in the plastic tubs and hand fed. That may seem a strange way to begin, but the goal is to establish a completely disease-free population. When these first pigs reach breeding age and give birth, they will nurse their young.

We continued down the hall, past a room on the north that will serve as a lab for testing and whatever else needs to be done and then into a group of rooms through which feed and other supplies enter. Items come into a first room where they can be fumigated. They are then moved to a second room where additional decontamination can be done. Feed enters the facility here and is transported to the pigs by means of pipes using augers.

 Initially the feed will be purchased from specialty suppliers. Ultimately the farm will build its own feed mill. Someone on the tour asked if they would purchase locally and was told that they would buy corn and other grains from local farmers, but only from those who did not raise hogs. They want no contamination from any other hog operation.

The control for the door to the fumigation room is similar to the control on the door to the facility. It is operated by a card swipe. Only those with a card can open doors and the control system records who opened doors and when.

 We proceeded down the hall to the gestation rooms at the far west of the building. This hallway runs east-west for the entire length of the building. The pipes are left exposed so that if there is any problem with them, they will be easily accessible for repair. Under the hallway is an empty space through which air circulates back to the air handler.

 There are two gestation rooms. One is for regular hogs. Some medical research is done with the same hogs that are raised for meat and some uses a special breed of dwarf swine called Yucatan pigs. There are strange looking containers that are part of the feeding system. The feed arrives via the pipe with an auger running through it and these containers measure out a set amount of feed. When they are all filled, a flip of a switch will empty all of them into the feeding troughs for the pigs. This room will hold 100 pigs.

 There are slots in the floor that allow pig manure to drop down and be collected. It also allows air to circulate. Fresh air enters from above and old air goes though the floor and returns to the air handler via the air passage under the hallway.

 Across the hall is the gestation room for the Yucatan pigs.

 We then went back down the hall with a quick stop at the second farrowing room, this one on the north side of the hallway.

 We continued to the east end of the hallway and at this point the three people who were on the tour when I arrived left. One of them was a woman who had been busy taking notes. She writes for a national hog magazine. I had asked her if this hog barn was like a normal hog barn and she said that it was completely different. I will be looking for whatever she writes and if I can find it, I will post a link. I am sure she noticed a lot of things that I missed.

The tour continued with three people who had joined the tour after me. At the north side of the east end of the hallway was a storage room and the utility room. The utility room was dominated by a huge air handler. Air from the outside travels along the top going through two filters, the second a HEPA filter,  and a heat exchanger. Air from the facility flows along the bottom, also going through a filter and the heat exchange. In the summer the heat exchange will take heat from the incoming air and transfer it to the outgoing air. In the winter it will take heat from the outgoing air and transfer it to the incoming air.

The entire facility is air-tight and will be pressurized. When the outside door is open, one will feel a breeze flowing out. This is one of the many measures taken for biosecurity.

Several men were working on  pipes in the room connected to two boxes that provide the heat for the entire complex and also supply the hot water. I was amazed that such small units, combined about the size of my home furnace, could heat the entire complex.

Before the animals arrive, the entire building will be cleaned and disinfected. There was a lot of dust on the walls, probably from finishing some of the floors.

We ended the tour in the employee break room. One of the employee perks will be free meals. The provided meals are another measure to prevent contamination.

Leaving I went out the same way I came in but this time the passage out made more sense. Coming in I had to step over the edges of a shower room. I assume that each worker will have to shower and change clothes when they come to work.

Before I left I took a picture of the facility from the west side.

I will never again be allowed in the building.

(I saw a robin on Monday, the first one this year.)

Annual Regional High School Art Show 2019 edition

The Annual Regional High School Art Show is on display at the Fendig Gallery. I thought the fish sculpture below was interesting.

I was impressed with the detail in this drawing.

I have a soft spot for tessellations.

The teacher for this art class was appropriately name Weaver.

The show will conclude on March 10 with an awards ceremony. The Fendig Gallery is open Tuesdays and Thursdays from noon until 4:00.

I found this map while looking for something else. I think it is for 1909. It lacks the eastern and northern parts of Rensselaer. Many street names have changed since 1909.

Autumn Trace posted an update of construction on its Facebook page. See here.