Many things

Is it my imagination or does the sky look different in the fall than it does in the summer? I kept wondering that yesterday as the dark clouds mixed with patches of very blue sky.

 The city leaf vac is roaming the streets searching for leaves. It has ended one of the old rituals of fall--burning leaves. (Do you miss the smell of burning leaves?)

The Animal Control Board advertised that it was meeting in the Library on Monday night and because I had never been to one of their meetings, I decided to attend. (I was told that it had been a long time since any member of the public had been at one of their meetings.) They had six members plus the director of the shelter present, which was enough for a quorum, something they did not have at their last meeting. (A quorum is necessary for any vote to be official.)

After a brief discussion of the director's report on how many animals were received and what happened to them, the Board had a lengthy discussion of finances relating to donations. The whole issue came up when the Animal Shelter had a float in a recent parade. They wanted to use some funds in their donation budget to pay for some expenses, but were told by the auditor that they could not do that because they lacked the appropriate line item in their donation account. If that does not quite make sense to you, you can understand why the Board spent about half an hour discussing it.

I do not think I have ever been to a meeting where members had as many cell phone calls. Most of the members got at least one, and at this point in the meeting the chair of the Board received one and had to leave because of an emergency involving one of his dogs. The meeting continued with a discussion of a policy for comp time. I do not understand the nuances of this, but the issue is important because animal control people often have to come in at odd hours to deal with a problem. As I understand it, they are paid time and a half for these calls, but then are expected to adjust their work schedules so their total time worked is not affected. The policy passed and a couple more people had to leave.

Then there was a discussion of personnel issues that I did not understand at all, followed by a discussion of a pit bull that is being held at the shelter pending a court decision. The dog had bitten three people and its fate will be determined at a November 10th hearing. At this point two more people had to leave, so only the director and one member of the board were left. Since I was no longer at a meeting bur rather a conversation between two people,  I left as well.

The Tuesday night Historical Society meeting had one of the largest crowds ever. The program was about Indian artifacts. All of the items shown below and much more were found by one local collector.

Our area seems to be unusually rich in these artifacts. Much of our area was once swamp so people camped on the sand hills, and those hills are often full of arrowheads, spear points, axes, and other stone items used by the Indians. However, finding them has gotten more difficult because of the advent of no-till farming--wind and water erosion are friends of the arrowhead hunter. Also, land owners are much less willing to let collectors onto their properties than they used to be.

(Normally the County Council meets on the same Tuesdays as the Historical Society, but this month they moved their meeting back a week because county officials who need to be at the meeting were out of town. The County Council meeting will be next Tuesday.)

Out of town

On two days this past week I traveled out of town. On one of those trips I drove up US 231 through Wolcott. I discovered that the Dairy Queen at the 193 mile-marker exit is gone, replaced less than a month ago by something called Ludy's Burgers.

I stopped in Wolcott to see what they were doing with their sidewalks, something that the Wolcott Facebook page has mentioned a lot. They have installed what appears to brick dividers between the sidewalks and the street

 Below is another view, taken on a rainy day that does not show the sidewalks at their best. Wolcott has a small downtown that has some very nice old buildings. It is nice to see the community trying to make their little downtown as attractive as possible.

At Pleasant Ridge workers were re-roofing a large conical storage bin and they looked tiny on it. Unfortunately I was not able to take a picture.

Along the various highways less than half the fields had been harvested. I saw no one out in the fields harvesting, which was not surprising considering the weather.

The maple trees seem to be especially colorful this year and this week most are at peak color. A good example of their color is shown in the picture below. If the sun were out and the sky was blue, the leaves would be even brighter.

Today Town and Country was busy paving College Avenue. They finished the whole road but did not finish some of the connections at the intersections.