Sun, wind, water and rain (updated)

Did the first annual Iroquois River float float, or did the event get postponed? If it took place, how was it?

I was out of town for much of the day, getting back just after the afternoon thunderstorm passed. It was quite scenic viewed from Newton County.

A new wind farm, the Settlers' Trail Wind Farm, is being planted to the west of the four already in White and Benton Counties and just south of Sheldon, Illinois.

I see from a Facebook friend that Benton County High School did well in the Academic Superbowl competition. I have not found results to link to, but I will if I find them.

Update: Results are here: http://www.iasp.org/iace/SeniorSuperResults/StateResults/SeniorSuperStateResults.html

Schools are divided into four classes based on size, with class 1 being the largest and class 4 the smallest. There are six areas in which they were competing: English, Science, Fine Arts, Social Studies, Mathematics, and Interdisciplinary. The top 3 finishers are indicated, with the other state finalists listed but not ordered. Here are some of the area results:

Twin Lakes tied for first place in Interdisciplinary, class 2
Benton Central was first in Social Science and a finalist in Science, class 3
North Judson was second in Science and a finalist in Fine Arts, class 3
Rensselaer was a finalist in Fine Arts and Mathematics, class 3
North Newton was a finalist in Fine Arts, class 3
North White tied for first place in the English competition, was second in Fine Arts, and was a finalist in Social Studies, class 4
Pioneer HS was a finalist in Science, class 4

From the comments, we learn that Rensselaer was fourth in both of its competitions.

Congratulations to all the teams that made it to state, and extra congratulations to those that won. I am impressed with North White's results.

Update 2: Traveling a couple hundred miles through prime corn belt farmland, I saw very little activity in the fields and few fields that appeared to be planted. I saw no corn emerging. The wet weather has delayed planting in our area.

Somethings old, somethings new

On Thursday a track meet at Rensselaer Central celebrated its centennial. The RMD (Rensselaer Monticello Delphi) meet was first held in 1911, a hundred years ago, and has, with four exceptions, been held every year since. This was the 96th meet in the series. Since it rotates among the schools, Rensselaer will not be hosting the 100th meet--it will get the 99th. I remember a few RMD meets from the years in which I went to all the home meets. Some things change. Now they are running the boys and the girls together in the races. I guess gender equality has finally truly arrived in the sport of track.

I was just kidding about the coed races. Above you see the lineup at the start of the 3200. Since a fast time in this race is ten minutes and it often has only a few participants, often both the boys and girls races are run at the same time--it reduces the length of a meet by at least fifteen minutes. The winning time was just a bit over ten minutes and the Rensselaer boys finished 1-2-3-5. (I wonder who holds the Rensselaer record for this distance? Speaking of records, I had a chat with the holder of the Rensselaer long jump record at the VFW on Saturday. That record was set by a man who during World War II served on the battleship Wisconsin.)

Somethings have not changed much in Rensselaer track meets. The starter is still the same. The really important people are still the timers--how could you have a meet without us them. Notice them on the right. And Rensselaer still struggles in the sprints.

The best place to take an action picture is still the pole vault.

Earlier Thursday the Rensselaer Chamber of Commerce had its open house and grand opening. They are now in the back of the building next to the city parking lot on Front Street. They have a view of the river and will have easy access to Austin Park when or if the pedestrian bridge is installed. (Note on progress of the Talbert Bridge--they finished planking it Thursday. Now it needs the side rails, but an outside contractor has to do them.) Notice all the green trees. The past week has seen the greening of Rensselaer.

Their office complex consists of two offices behind the narrow windows and a large conference room with a fireplace. The fireplace room originally had a skylight, and you can see it if you know where to look in the picture above. It is plastic and it no longer looked very nice from inside, so it has been blocked. It also leaked heat in the winter.

There was a ribbon cutting, but I missed that. I am sure that the Rensselaer Republican will have pictures.

Dame's Rocket

I saw these attractive flowers along Bunkum Road yesterday and wondered what they were. They look a lot like phlox, but the flowers only have four petals, not five. I am pretty sure that it is Dame's Rocket, or Hesperis matronalis. It is not a wild flower, though it is often sold in wildflower seed mixes, but a garden flower that has escaped cultivation and is now considered an invasive species.

Flowers like these remind me that I need to spend less time blogging and more time working in the garden. It may be time to plant the things that do not tolerate frost. I have volunteer tomatoes coming up. In fact I have a lot of volunteer plants in addition to the tomatoes--lettuce, dill, a couple potatoes, and lots of carrots. (I left a couple of carrots grow last year that had overwintered, and they produced seed. Carrots are biennial, producing their seed the second year.) Last year I had a lot of volunteer squash, some of which were interesting hybrids--so far none have appeared and maybe I will avoid them. Rhubarb is already ready to harvest--maybe it will be on sale at the first farmers' market of the season this Saturday.

Any excuse for a party

I stopped by the bank today and found that they were getting ready for a party. Why? It was because of the date, May 5, or 5-3, for fifth third. So you can figure out which bank I was at. The hamburgers were very tasty.

At SJC there was another party. The excuse for this one? It was to relieve the stress that final exams cause. Never mind that many professors do not have finals, or that if the students did what they were supposed to do during the semester, there would be little stress at final time. There were a variety of activities, such a blowing bubbles or playing with Play Doh. Laird's Therapy dogs were popular, and there were also cookies for the stressed but still hungry.

Stressed students could get to a happier place with some sidewalk art, as at least one student did.

If they did not want something organized, they could take a walk and enjoy the spring flowers. I noticed another field of purple flowers, this one on Drexel Drive.

Someone had suggested that the plants were Ground Ivy or Glechoma hederacea. Checking the Internet, I found that Glechoma hederacea is what is all over my back yard. I cannot get rid of it.

But it is not the plant that is in the fields. The plants in the field above are shown below, and they seem to be Henbit, or Lamium amplexicaule.

However, there is a third plant that looks similar and is widespread in the area fields, purple or red deadnettle, or Lamium purpureum. (I do not have a picture of that at hand.) Check the fields and lawns and see if you can find all three. The ground ivy seems to be much more common in town, probably because it tolerates mowing. The henbit and deadnettle seems to dominate in the farmer's fields.

And completely unrelated, Shriners are selling Videalia Onions in the Walmart parking lot to raise funds for the Shriner's hospitals. A ten pound bag costs ten dollars. A Shriner's hospital was there when we needed it.

Update: If you go north on Mattheson you will see both henbit and purple deadnettle. The deadnettle predominates on the east side of the road, and the henbit on the east, especially as you go further north. Near the airport I found a place where the two were mixed together. The plant with the purplish leaves is Lamium purpureum. It has pale flowers, and the leaves more than the flowers give the stands of it the purplish color.

Remember--Tuesday is Primary Election Day

It was a busy weekend with a plethora of events. On Saturday I spent an hour looking at garage sales even though I need to get rid of stuff, not add stuff. I did not see anything that tempted me. One of the most interesting sites was in the building that will become Embers, an event hall. They were selling some of the stuff that was left in the building.

I thought there were fewer sales this year and that the sales had less non-clothing stuff. Some of the had a tremendous amount of clothing. The most expensive item I saw for sale was a Harley-Davidson motorcycle for $15000. If you enjoy town-wide yard sales, you are in luck. There will be another in September.

On Saturday the Firemen's dinner was well attended. My neighbor was selling tickets and told me that he has six little bunnies in his back yard. That probably means that I will have at least one resident bunny living in my garden this summer. I prefer toads.

I noticed the plaque (is that the right thing to call this?) on the building. The firehouse was completed after I arrived in Rensselaer, though I was not paying attention to things like this at the time. I do not remember there ever not being a fire station at that corner, but native Rensselaerians my age remember events in the old armory at the site. I do recognize some of the names on the plaque.

Another dinner on Sunday was sponsored by the Veteran's of Foreign Wars as their way of celebrating Loyalty Day. I have to admit that I had not previously heard of Loyalty Day, or if I had, I do not remember it. It is part of the fight to control May Day. The Red Cross had their bloodmobile at the VFW hall. (It does not look like it is the same blood mobile that was in this post.)

Birthright had an Open House on Sunday and one of these days I will post some pictures of their new quarters. On Thursday the Chamber of Commerce will have their open house to show people their new office. They are in the same building as Birthright, but in the back.

Finally, SJC is finishing the school year with final exams this week. They had a bunch of events over the weekend, some of which I attended in the past. This year the only one I went to was the final choir concert. Next weekend is graduation--maybe I will go out and congratulate some of the graduates I know. And laugh at the faculty who have to wear the awful academic garb--I always hated wearing it.

Tomorrow is primary election day--vote if you have been paying attention, but if you have not been, stay at home. After Tuesday most of the political signs that are everywhere in town should disappear for the summer, to reappear in the fall before the municipal elections on November 8. The most interesting event of the week appears to be the river float scheduled for next weekend. Unfortunately I have another commitment at the time, so I will miss it.