Car day

Today (Saturday) had a lot of scheduled events and I was curious about how the heat wave would affect them. I visited the Jasper Count Airport a bit before 11:00 to see the EAA Chapter 828 Fly In. There were only four planes parked by the office building. I thought the little plane with the propeller on the back was worth a picture.

While not much seemed to be happening at the airport, there was a lot of activity at the fairgrounds. It was cleanup day, a day to get the grounds ready for the fair that will start in a week. The large group of people in the stands of the show arena had been busy working and now were ready for lunch. If you are trying to figure out exactly from where this photo was taken, you probably have not been to the fairgrounds recently. There is now a roof over the space between the show arena and the swine barn to its north.

 My next stop was the JC Cruiser car show in Brookside Park. This van looked strange enough for me to stop and take a closer look. Its tag said it was a 1964 Chevy Greenbriar van.

 There seemed to be fewer cars than in previous years, though some arrived after I left. When I was there, the sun-drenched middle of the field was still empty.

 I wanted to go to the Mustang Roundup, but the heat was too much for me.

In mid-afternoon a couple of small showers popped over Rensselaer and gave us some much needed rain (about half an inch at my house) and the clouds stopped the heating from the sun. By the time Cruise Night began, there was a breeze from the north and the humidity had dropped, making conditions bearable.

There seemed to be fewer cars this year, but the crowd was about the same as in the past.

 The newly crowned fair queen and her court made their appearance.

Swallows

The barn swallows that nested in my garage are gone--the little ones flew away. I am making sure that they will not come back. A block of scrap wood left over from my son's deck project has found a use.

 Why not welcome wildlife? Barn swallows are messy birds. Below you can see what is on the garage floor under the nest. Some of what they dropped did not make it to the floor--it hit the car. I guess that is what we should expect from animals born in the barn.

Also, I will not miss the parents swooping at me whenever I went I went into the garage.

The heat wave is supposed to break tonight. Three days with temperatures over 100 degrees in the area is enough.

Gym roof

The high school gymnasium is being renovated this summer. This morning workers were on the roof, removing the old roof and and getting ready to install a new one. The worker on the top was loading scraps from the old roof into a container that the crane would dump into the dumpsters.

On my meandering route that took me to the high school, I stopped by the bridge project and saw that the workers had finished placing the re-bar for northern approach and seemed to be waiting for the arrival of the cement truck.

On my return the cement truck had arrived and begun delivering concrete.

On days that are as hot as this one will be, everyone wants to get started early so they can quit early.

One of the Chicago weather men said that the heat would break tomorrow afternoon when a cold front comes through. I hope that front comes through in time to make the car festivities planned for tomorrow bearable.

We did get a trace of rain yesterday. A storm blew up north of Chicago, traveled down the lakefront, did a lot of damage in Merrillville, Indiana, and faded away as it got to Jasper County. We did not even get a breeze from it, but it did block the sun for a few hours.

It is not just closed, it's gone

The asphalt of Austin Avenue has been ripped out and the bed of a new, circular walking path has been put in place in Austin Park.

Odds and Ends, July 3, 2012

I am trying to survive the heat wave and that means I am not doing much at all. However, I have noticed several things around town that caught my interest. First, there is a new playground, but I do not think anyone is allowed to play there yet. It is north of the new school on Melville.

There are thousands of little goldfish in the reflecting pond at St. Joseph's College. They seem to like the edge of the pond.

There is a new park bench in Memorial (Flat Iron) Park on McKinley Street. It has probably been there a while, but I just noticed it.

It was donated by the Rensselaer Class of 1962, so it must have been something they did to commemorate the 50th anniversary of their graduation.

I searched on the Internet for the origin of the saying, "Knee high by the Fourth of July" but could not find anything. The corn in the fields around town is head high and tasseling. I have never seen corn only knee high by the Fourth of July--it is usually taller than that by the Fourth of June. Anyone know where that expression came from?

Have a nice Fourth of July.