Returning to normal

Rensselaer was in the band of highest snowfall from the blizzard on Wednesday. It is hard to measure how much snow we got because of the blowing and the fact that we got a wet snow that compacted. The snow on the trees shows that the wind was from the north.

The blizzard closed county roads--the commissioners declared a snow emergency with traffic on county roads banned--and all local schools, including Saint Joseph's College, were closed. Even the public library closed for two days. Roads in Rensselaer were not unusually bad for a blizzard. The crews got them plowed and we did not have the drifting that some of the county roads had. Despite the days off from school, there were no kids at the playgrounds.

 The red cedars looked sad.

The mail was delivered on both days, but the Rensselaer Republican could not get Thursday's edition to the post office in time for delivery, so they made the issue free for download from their website. The east-west highways had serious drifting. The problems on US 24 west of Remington were featured on WLFI last night.

People got to use their snow blowers to remove the wet and heavy snow, something that they have not had to do much this winter. The blizzard was the first big snow of the winter and doubled our total snowfall for the season.

 While some businesses closed on Wednesday and Thursday, one opened for the first time. Mount Hood Pizza & Grill opened for business on Thursday.

 On Thursday the temperature rose above freezing and a bit of snow melted, enough to make puddles on some of the streets. By the afternoon most of Rensselaer's streets were dry. The county snow plows struggled with the heavy, drifted snow and the ban on travel was not lifted until 6:00 in the evening. Even then, some of the gravel roads remained unplowed.

Today school is back in session with a two hour delay. There are lots of snowmen around town--the conditions were ideal for building them and with the schools closed there was an abundant labor force. The forecast is for a warm weekend, so by next week much of the snow should be gone.


Among the many snowmen I saw around town, this was the most unusual.

I meant to post earlier today but I am having Internet connection problems.

Another kind of PET

A week or two ago a friend invited me to accompany him on a visit to the P.E.T factory near DeMotte. We traveled north on Tuesday this week. The facility is located just north of the intersection of SR 10 and US 231, east of Kersey and west of the KV Middle School.

 I have mentioned the PETs before, most prominently when they had a booth at the Jasper County Fair in 2014. The PETs are hand-powered tricycles that are distributed in poor nations to people who would otherwise be immobile. The DeMotte factory currently ships all of its production, which is currently six vehicles per week, to Swaziland.

The workforce is an all-volunteer workforce. Many are retired people who want to do something socially useful. Most are from the DeMotte and Wheatfield area with some commuting from Lake and Porter Counties. Each volunteer is assigned to a particular area, such as the wood shop, the paint shop, or the metal working shop. Seeing how the work was organized reminded me of the CDC Resources workshop, which breaks jobs down into simple steps.

Part of each PET is made of wood. Most of the wood is bought locally at cost and cut. There is no measuring in the production process. Everything is done with templates. In the picture below you can see some of the sizes that are used. the gray boards are the templates. They are placed on the table and the uncut board is butted up against it. Then a cut is made with a radial arm saw giving the exact size needed. To make a different piece, a different template is used.

 The pieces are assembled with screws and the screw holes are drilled using a template similar to the one shown below. The piece is either the seat or the back of the seat.

Pieces in various states of assembly are shown below along with one finished piece that has been painted, another task that has its own special crew.

 The vehicles have cushions that are made at the facility. The cushions start as sheets of foam rubber which are cut to size and then put into a cloth enclosure.

 The frame of the PET is made from steel and much of the frame is constructed at the DeMotte facility. First the steel is cut to the proper lengths. As with the wooden pieces, there are templates used for cutting so each piece has the proper length.

 After the metal is cut, it is buffered and holes are drilled. A before and after look is shown below.

 Sparks fly in the welding area.

 The fork that holds the front wheel is not produced at DeMotte but rather in Michigan. It has intricate welds and I think it is done with a robotic welding machine.

 The frame that is made in DeMotte is then attached to the fork to complete the frame.

 The wheels are made in China. They are solid so flat tires are not a problem the users will ever have to worry about. In the picture below you can see the painting area.

 After the vehicles are assembled, they are partially disassembled to be packed. In this section of the building you can see some boxes of pull PETs that are used for small children. There are three models of PETs produced in the 26 PET facilities throughout the United States, the pull PETs, PETs for children, and adult PETs. The DeMotte facility only produced the adult PETs. The pull PETs were produced in a Michigan facility.

The boxed PETs will be put into a container and the container will travel to Africa on a ship. Also included in the container are various other things, such as crutches and walkers. There is a mattress and a recliner on the pile. One of the volunteers in Swaziland has decided to stay there and so some comforts of home were being shipped to her. The PETs in the foreground need to be disassembled and packed.

 When they are packed, this is what the box looks like. The jugs serve two purposes. They are packing material to prevent shifting of contents but when the box is unpacked they will be used as water jugs in Swaziland. Some of them come from a car dealership. They had contained a fluid that will completely evaporate so they can be used for water--I think it was windshield wiper fluid but my memory is a bit fuzzy on that.

 Over the years the look of vehicles has changed. An older model is in the back and the latest is in the front. As users and producers figure out ways to make them better, the changes are incorporated into the design plans.

If you want your own PET, you are out of luck. The US has too many regulations and trial lawyers to allow distribution in the U.S.

The DeMotte factory produces six vehicles a week. Most of the volunteer work is done three mornings per week. The facility could easily produce double that production, but the cost of materials is about $250 per vehicle and it is that cost that limits production. Because the vehicles are given away, the cost must be covered by donations. If you or a group of people would like to make life better from someone whom you will never meet, consider donating.

The main PET website is here. The DeMotte website is here. Both have videos. The second video on the DeMotte website shows production in the DeMotte workshop at the end of the video and the person who took the time to give us a wonderful tour is in that video, working in the metal area.

Before we returned to Rensselaer, we stopped by a very different wood working business in the DeMotte area. The owner makes very intricate and detailed wooden models of vehicles. I did not take any pictures but you can see what he produces from his website, which gets many more hits a day than this blog or any other website I maintain.

A blizzard and some meetings

On Saturday we had a beautiful spring day. People were out, dressed in shorts. The park had a group of kids playing soccer and the playground equipment was entertaining a bunch of little kids


Today we are having a spring blizzard. The precipitation  started as rain in the early morning hours and then turned to snow. The wind may be the cause of power outages in many places. The forecast is for eight inches to a foot of snow. Area schools are closed and even the library is closed. This is a good day to stay at home. On the bright side, it is not bitterly cold, much of the snow will melt in the next few days, and the days are getting longer.

On Monday the Jasper County Planning Board met. It had two items on the agenda. First, it considered a rezone of a property near DeMotte. The owner wanted to rezone from A2 to R2, which would then allow the lot to be split so her daughter could build on the back half. A neighbor objected, but one of the members noted that the whole area was residential so the rezone would not change the character of the area. The Board approved the change, but the woman has additional regulatory hurdles to pass before she can build.

The other item on the agenda was the Unified Development Ordinance. Though this meeting had been advertised as a public hearing, there were only four or five people in the audience and they had little to say. The discussion of the Board was about wind farms and how far they needed to be from the Jasper Pulaski area so they would not interfere with the cranes. After discussion, they decided not to go with a mile rule but to define the area from 400N to 300W as the protected zone that would not be available for wind turbines. In addition, any wind farm proposal would need to undergo an environmental study, and that might make even some areas outside that zone protected. One environmental goal, energy that does not use fossil fuel, comes into conflict with another environmental goal, protecting wildlife. (The cranes came back just in time for the blizzard. I saw hundred in fields when I went to DeMotte on Tuesday.)

In response to a question, the Board said that the main effect of the changes to the UDO would not be to make it more or less restrictive, but to make it clearer. They had gotten rid of things that did not make sense for the county (the original was drafted largely by a consultant) and modified items that experience had shown had problems. The Board approved a motion to send the ordinance to the Commissioners who have final say.

On Tuesday night the County Council met for its February meeting. They approved three supplemental appropriations and heard a reports from the airport manager and the tourism coordinator. They also discussed bills before the state legislature that will affect the county. Next month they will begin discussion of the Local Option Income Tax. Because of possible changes at the state level, any decision on the matter may have to be made in the June meeting or earlier.

When I started writing this the streets by my house were still black. Now they are white.

Update: As of 10:00 Saint Joseph's College canceling the remaining classes of the day.

A quick city council meeting

Tonight's City Council meeting lasted 18 minutes.

Reverend Smith gave an invocation and during public comments said that on April 15-17 twenty area churches would be sponsoring an event called Revive Indiana. It will have people knocking on doors and perhaps some other features.

The agenda had three items, an ordinance to cancel outstanding checks that are more than two years old, several cemetery deeds, and a request for a family medical leave.

An open house is being planned for the new fire house. It will be held June 25. Below is picture of the state of construction as of Sunday.

Police Chief Phillips said that the state has told him there will be no traffic light at the Melville SR 114 intersection. The traffic count is now lower than what it was at the last count and it does not meet the requirements for a light. He also said that at the next meeting he would talk about a proposed radio system grant that seems to be connected to the communication tower that the Sheriff had been discussing with the county for months.

Councilman Odle asked the city attorney about the proposed sale of the Monnett building. It will be on the agenda for the next meeting.

Mr Bowles said that the computers purchased for council use have arrived and are being configured. Ron DeMoss said that the cemetery building had a furnace failure and that a new furnace costing $2800 had been ordered after the mayor's approval.

Assistant Street Superintendent Daniels announced that drilling was finished on the test well at SJC and that the contractor had installed some casing. A twenty four hour test will soon be run to see if the well can produce sufficient water.

Project Manager Lockridge said that there are upcoming meetings to discuss state resurfacing of US 231. This year the state will be resurfacing US 231 from SR 16 to the Washington Street Bridge. In 2017 the Washington Street Bridge will be rebuilt--everything except the pillars. The city must decide what to do with the water main that is attached to the bridge. Water service to the I-65 interchange is mostly done with service lines installed and one meter also installed. The customer with the meter may be getting city water as early as tomorrow.

It was the last City Council meeting for Weston Cemetery Superintendent Ron DeMoss.

All of that in just 18 minutes.

On to other topics. I heard multiple flocks of sandhill cranes flying over today. If they were not so noisy, no one would notice them because they fly so high.

In another sign of spring, Spring Break begins for SJC students March 4. Their baseball and softball teams are already playing games. The college choir had a concert on Sunday and their final concert will be on April 17 in the Chapel.

There is a new house under construction on Sunset Drive in the subdivision off Sparling.

The Library is hosting a stuffed animal sleepover this Friday. Kids can dump off one stuffed animal at 4:00 and pick them up the next morning at 11:00 and enjoy a picnic lunch. (I am sure my grandkids would an event like this.)

I found the gateway that was mentioned at the public hearing on the Wellness Center. It contains a huge amount of financial information about all Indiana local public entities, though it may take you a while to find them. The URL is gateway.ifionline.org. Another site that lets you look at government is one that contains pay for federal employees. It is here. It does not seem to be run by the government.

Finally, below is a picture of a light that will illuminate the parking lot of the new fire station. It seems to be LED.

Limelight 2016

The annual Limelight exhibit is on display at the Fendig Gallery. It features work done by students served by Cooperative School Services and CDC Resources. (Here is a link to last year's post that has links I am too lazy to make again this year.)

The exhibit seems to be a bit smaller this year. The pictures from the students served by Cooperative School Services share themes. There are a number of the cardinal pictures in the exhibit. These pictures are done in the school art classes.

The ribbons that the Cooperative School Services students have are different from those next to works by people served by CDC Resources in Rensselaer.

The exhibit runs until March 11. The Gallery is open Monday through Friday from noon until 2:00. The annual Limelight exhibit is timed to coincide with Indiana Disability Awareness Month (which is March), though as I write this the event is not listed on the Indiana Disability Awareness website.

In other news, there was an interesting series of comments on a post of the Facebook group Rensselaer Indiana Friends about the opening of the Mount Hood Pizza and Grill. The target date is February 29. You can read the string of comments here if you have not seen it already.