Water news

About half an hour ago, this was the scene at the corner of Milroy and Washington, across the highway from Busy Bee. Two pumps were removing the water that was gushing from a broken water main.

If you live in Rensselaer, you may be without water, and there is a boil order for the next two days.

In other water news, we are getting needed rain. It is making a mess of bulk pickup, however.

The weatherman on WLFI said that April was cooler than March, only the second time this has happened since records were kept beginning in the 19th century. And record heat is on the way, which will be quite a change from our very chilly weekend.

New Neighbors

I noticed some new neighbors this past week.

The nest is in a bush next to the house, about five feet from the ground, so it is easy to peek inside. The parent birds do not like me to do that, and complain when I do.

Can you tell what kind of birds these are? (I would not know if I did not see the parents.)

Lights, windows, butterflies (updated)

I swung by the new elementary school today and noticed some changes.

If you noticed that there are now windows in the building and lights in the parking lot, you noticed the same thing I did.

Have you noticed an unusual number of butterflies that are black, orange, and white? They are (I think) Red Admiral Butterflies, and they are having a boom year in the Midwest.

Are you ready for a big weekend of yard sales and lots of other events?

Update: I got a picture of one today (Friday):

City Auction

The city held an auction today, and unlike two years ago, I was able to attend. I noticed these electric motors and recognized them immediately. If you are a faithful reader of this blog, you should also recognize them.

They sold for $400 each. I wonder what they will be used for.

There are always many bicycles at the city auction. Most needed some repair work. They went from as low as $2.50 for a couple that were scrap-yard ready to $40 or $50 for the nicer ones.

One person bought all these huge lights for $10 each. I suppose that is a great deal, but how many people need lights like this?

There were a lot of odds and ends that seemed to have limited uses, but of course if you are one of the people who needs the item, it can be a great deal.

There were a lot of old computers for sale. I put in some low-ball bids because I wanted only the hard drive from one, but the lowest they sold for was $7.50. They had a Pentium 4 processor and were Windows XP ready.

The city auction does not seem to be an annual event. I do not remember one from last year, though maybe I missed it. There was one in 2010.

Before and after

A few months ago the walls of the bathhouse at the LaRue Pool looked like the picture below.

 After the repainting, they look now are a lot less colorful.

 The park workers recently wired the shelter at Bicentennial Park. However, they have not yet connected their wiring to the power grid.

The picture below is the first stage of a project at Slice of Pie Pizza.

The end result of the project will be the Slice of Pie Pizza Plaza.

 The Rensselaer Urban Forestry Council wants everyone to know that they planted trees along Cullen Street.

 SJC had another tree planting recently. They are replanting an orchard either where or near where SJC once had an extensive orchard. It is rather ironic given that a year or two ago SJC cut down almost all the mature apple trees that bore edible fruit.

 The water town has ears. When did it get them?

Update: I see on Facebook that the Fair Oaks Farms is planting a 6500 tree orchard. Wow.