Scarecrow Trail

The Scarecrow Trail is filling up. Below is the entry from the CASA program.

Alliance Bank has a fairly traditional scarecrow.

 The Park Department entered a short one.

 The Hope Community scarecrow seems to have dozed off. It has the best use of Bomber colors.

 The heavy metal award definitely belongs to Claussen Company tin man. Where are the lion and Dorothy?

B&H Mowing featured a lawnmower scarecrow.

 The lady scarecrow is from the Soil and Water Conservation District. Mrs Kosiba's 6th Grade Enrichment Class.

 Franciscan Working Well has the scariest scarecrow. "We are bad to the bone while helping you feel better from the inside out."

 The Fire Department's entry is promoting fire safety.

Girl Scouts had an entry that seems to be selling cookies.

 Prairie Arts Council has a very artistic entry highlighting the arts of painting, writing, music. It is one of the corniest entries.

Brown's entry is a huge table decoration. After this picture was taken, someone added large glasses to the face.

Rensselaer Central High School FCS has a small scarecrow.

The entry from Franciscan Health  Franciscan Health Employee Engagement
may have the funniest scarecrows.

At the south end of the park nearest College Avenue are a couple scarecrow graduates ready to hit the road to continue their education. The exhibit is from Bombers for Academic Excellence.

Thursday's post had pictures of entries from St. Augustine School and IBEC.

When I first heard of this event, I wondered why anyone would enter given that there was a small entry fee. Those that did enter figured out that it was an inexpensive way to advertise their product, service, or existence.

 I have been looking for color in the trees and found some. I believe the species is Toxicodendron radicans.

Thirsty Thursdays

The Jasper/Newton Foundation has a new series of events called Thirsty Thursdays: Tap into Your Community. I wanted to see what they were about so I attended the first on Thursday evening. It  was held at the Carnegie Center and its focus was arts and culture.

The attendance from the general public was low so the event was mostly a networking event for the representatives of the groups that did attend. Prairie Arts Council (PAC)was well represented and several people talked about Rock the Arts, the exhibitions in the Fendig Gallery and their Holiday Show. We also heard about Art League and the Prairie Writer's Guild. The Art League differs from the PAC in that it is mostly a group of artists who share ideas and help one another produce art. PAC organizes and sponsors exhibits, art camps and classes, and festivals. It has a much bigger membership than the Art League. However, a lot of the Art League folks are also members of PAC and the two groups work together. The Prairie Writers Guild is like the Art League in that it is a group of writers who encourage one another to write. It also produces books of writings from the group, the From the Edge of the Prairie books.

The other group represented was the Touch of Dutch Festival. It has roots back to celebrations in 1946 when the community was welcoming back veterans from WWII. For a number of years it was Town and Farm Days or Town and Country Days. At some point they decided to have a theme, and one year the theme was called Touch of Dutch. The next year newspaper mistakenly referred to the festival as the Touch of Dutch and the name stuck. But the name was kind of an accident.

The festival took a year off in 2011 and then moved to the new Spencer Park. Since then it has grown. This year it had 127 vendors. DeMotte will soon be getting a community center in the park. It will be able to seat 250 to 300 people.

The meeting took place in the Fendig Gallery, which has just opened a new and impressive exhibit called State of the Art: Art of the State. It is a juried show, which means that a person or group of people select what goes into the show from submitted entries. The show was open to current and former residents of Indiana, who submitted 277 works for possible inclusion. It is a big show, with pictures not only in the upstairs gallery but also in the conference room in the lower level. The show runs to November 3 with the reception and awards on Friday, Oct 12 from 6:00 to 8:00 pm. The Gallery is open from noon to 4:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays and on Saturday from noon to 2:00.  One of the PAC members commented that usually one would have to go to Chicago or Indianapolis to see an art exhibit of this quality.

When I saw this very large picture, I wondered if it was a photograph. It is not. It is a charcoal drawing. It is also for sale and was the most expensive item that I saw in the show.

Below are three pictures showing the variety of subject matter in the pictures.

 These shoes with mice were done by a former Rensselaerian.

 One of the members who frequently shows at the Fendig Gallery did this very large fabric work.

 Below is a close up of one of the trees. The red leaves are all individual bits of cloth.

The picture below reminds me of some of my adventures in childhood.

 There are some very pretty landscapes in the show.

The Prairie Arts Council does an excellent job of arranging exhibitions, but this one stands out. It is part of their celebration of 25 years as an organization.

The future Thirsty Thursdays events are Oct 11 at the Fairchild House in DeMotte focused on education, Oct 18 at Fenwick Farms Brewery focused on Health and Wellness, Oct 25 at the George Ade Home near Brook focused on Historic Preservation, and Nov 1 at Embers Venue focused on Community Initiatives. The Jasper/Newton Foundation would appreciate a RSVP if you plan to attend.

Senior Expo

On Wednesday I went to the Senior Expo at the Fairgrounds. As I arrived, I noticed that a new building was being constructed. It will be the new fair office building. It will have office space, some storage, and a meeting room.

The old office structure will be torn down.

Franciscan had a health fair in the morning. It had tests for cholesterol, blood sugar, bone density, blood pressure, and body mass index (BMI). I forgot to ask the staff how often they find problems that sends people to their doctors. I suspect it is quite often.

There were a lot of vendors at the event. Area nursing homes—Rensselaer Care Center, Oak Grove in DeMotte, Parkview Haven in Francesville, and George Ade in Brook—were there. Autumn Trace, which is building an assisted living facility east of Walmart, had a floor plan of their facility, which will open next summer.

Below is a picture from one of their brochures showing the floor plans of the various units.

They have a Facebook page that has some drone shots of the construction.

I learned that Parkview Haven is no longer owned by the Apostolic Church. For about four years it has been owned by a non-profit group, Pulaski Health Foundation. The Foundation also owns and operates a care center in Winamac.

Though the local ambulances say Prompt, the company is no longer Prompt but Phoenix Paramedic Solutions.

I met a lady who is trying to establish a local branch of FirstCare Home Care Services. The company is established to our north.

The Expo had a lot of booths of people providing information. The attendance was respectable for a first-time event. I hope they will do it again. It was definitely worthwhile for older citizens.

I was excited to see that the pump house for the water well on Sparling has finally arrived. The picture is not very good because I was shooting into the light.

The first two scarecrows for the Scarecrow Trail were up on Wednesday afternoon. One was from St. Augustine School. (It is a compassionate scarecrow because it is feeding the birds.)

The other seemed to be from IBEC.

Enjoy the summer weather of October. A few leaves are beginning to turn and a few more are falling.

Parks and utilities and other things

The Rensselaer Park Board and Corporation met Monday night. Most of the discussion was about the dog park construction, fundraising, and soccer.

Coming later this week will be Scarecrow Trail in Milroy and Potawatomie Parks. Twenty or 21 scarecrows decorated by local businesses or citizens will be on display. There will be winners and they will be announced at the Fall Fest on Oct 18. Fall Fest will be at the south end of Brookside Park (last year it was at the north end) and will run from 5 to 8 pm. It includes a Riley Read, hayrides, crafts, pumpkin carving, a bounce house, and concessions. Last year it was a very popular event.

The parking lot at the dog park is finished. Its construction required about 400 tons of stone. And there is a water line to the park. The water main is on the south side of Bunkum and the City used a directional drilling machine to bore under the road. I was also told that the City owns that machine.

The worker digging the hole to the water main had to avoid a cable that was only a foot or two away.  The subsoil is clay in this area.

Next on the list of things to do is a concrete pour for sidewalks and a small shelter. The final step, if it all goes according to plan, will be the fencings. The dog park even has an address--either 815 or 851 W Bunkum Road.

The Board discussed the need for a director for the dog park and approved the position.

Recent fundraising has been slow but the people in charge of the Parks for People campaign have been busy trying to get in-kind donations and have been quite successful. Some of the materials and labor for the dog park will be donated and the dirt that will be hauled into the old Monnett property in a couple weeks will be donated by Morocco Sand and Gravel. Some of the truck transport will also be donated.

There was more discussion about soccer. The people running the soccer program do not communicate well with the Park people.

Someone noted that there were about 240 dead or dying ash trees in City right-of-ways.

I stopped by City Hall to see what was happening with the Customer Service Week, I learned that it is a good idea to unplug electronic devices when they are not in use if their transformers draw power when sleeping or off. While I was there a deliveryman brought a package for next week's event.

Public Power Week will run from Oct 7 to the 13th and there are two interesting events associated with that week. First, there is a ribbon cutting for the Rensselaer 2 Solar Park on October 9 at 1:15. The entrance to the solar park is from Wood Road south on Franklin. (Franklin has a gap, much if it filled by the solar park.) IMPA, the owners of the solar park, would like an RSVP if you are planning to attend.

 The other event is an open house at the City power plant on October 10 from 10 till 2. It will be a chance to see the big engines that generate electricity on hot summer days.

Workers were busy on Tuesday installing new windows in the Court House. It seems a lot of them need to be replaced.

Tuesday was the last of this Fall's Walk with a Doc. The short talks before people hiked through Weston Cemetery were always interesting. Last week a doctor talked about how people want antibiotics for any ailment even if the ailment is caused by a virus rather than a bacteria. There are bad side effects from unnecessary antibiotics, such as encouraging resistant bacteria and the killing of beneficial bacteria. When you kill off the good bacteria in your intestines, nasty things can happen. This last talk before the walk was about skin cancer. People should avoid tanning beds and too much sun and use sunscreen. A SPF of 15 is adequate; higher numbers provide minimal extra protection.

There will be another series of walks in the Spring.

On Tuesday a crew was milling the parking lot at St. Augustine's.

I saw on the Facebook page of Bomber Beatz that the Rensselaer Primary and Elementary Schools will be having a winter program at the SJC field house. The dates are December 4 and 6. This is the first outside event that I know of to be held on the campus since the College closed.  I do not know more.

It's October already

The October Commissioners meeting on Monday mostly was concerned with routine business. They did open bids for the Wheatfield Township Fire Station. That project received an OCRA grant that the Commissioners had sponsored because Townships were not eligible to submit applications. There were two bids. Hamstra had a base bid of $1,656,384 with an alternative of $67,250 for epoxy coating of the floor and $192,866 for concrete rather than asphalt. The other company was from Gary and I did not catch the name (it sounded like Herrick or Eric Construction). Their base bid was $1,62,500 with alternatives of $20,000 for epoxy and $300,000 for concrete. The bids were taken under advisement by the architect and township officials. From their reaction it appeared to me that the bids were higher than they had expected.

The Commissioners approved two contracts. One was for a company that supports the Clerk's office in collecting payments for something child related. It costs $650 a month. The other was a software contract for electronic poll pads. A discussion of that item had taken place at the previous meeting.

There were a number of job openings or potential job openings discussed and approved. Community Corrections will add a new position. It is in the budget and will get them closer to meeting state requirements for staffing. The Sheriff got permission to replace a dispatcher who is leaving for a better paying job and also to add a new student resource officer (SRO) for the KV school system. The presentation of that had taken place at the County Council meeting in August or September. Kara Fishburn, the only person running for County Clerk, said three people in that office would be retiring and she wanted approval to replace them when they did retire. The auditor said that one of her deputy auditors had taken a position with the court and she received permission to replace that position. Animal control has a part-time person probably leaving, and he received permission to fill that position when it opened. The head of planning and development has someone interested in doing inspections of building constructions and she and the Commissioners discussed what the best way of compensating the person for the work. Finally, the Commissioners have decided to fill the IT vacancy with a company called ARCEM Solutions from Lafayette. They will have a person on site 40 hours a week but he will be an ARCEM employee, not a County employee. The initial contract will be a one-year contract but if all works out, the County would like a longer term of open contract.

The Commissioners passed a change in the UDO that had passed the Planning Commission a week or two ago. It changes the frequency allowed for splits in subdivisions to one year from five years. No one was sure why the limit had been five years. The other things discussed were of even less interest to the general public than the items mentioned above.

The Drainage Board had a very short agenda and met before the Commissioners meeting rather than at 1:00 as it normally does.

When I got to the Court House, there were trucks unloading window glass. A contractor is replacing two pane windows that no longer are sealed and as a result, constantly fog up.

The high school held its Homecoming last week. I missed the parade but checked out the floats on Friday. I thought the Barbecue the Bison was the best theme.

I stopped by the Farmers Market on Saturday to see what they had. There was not much in garden vegetables. I guess my garden is not the only one that has been disappointing this year.

St. Augustine's had its Fall Fest on Saturday evening. They had a one-man band entertainer.

This week is Customer Appreciation Week for the Rensselaer utilities. Stop by City Hall and talk to them and enjoy a snack.

The lot of land north of the railroad tracks that once had a tank farm is for sale by on-line auction. They are selling without a reserve but I wonder if they will get any bids. The potential liability of land that might have had fuel leaking is substantial. The tanks were demolished in 2009.

Ayda's is applying for a liquor license and is working on remodeling the east end of the building, the part that is currently empty. It will be a banquet room.

Finally for those of you who read weather forecasts from caterpillars, I have seen quite a few on the roads lately. Here is a picture of one. What does this pattern forecast?