Rainy weekend March 20-21

We had another fairly quiet weekend. We had been invited to a wedding of the daughter of some friends in South Bend. Sometimes Karen is able to construct a lap quilt as a wedding gift. She spent Saturday putting the finishing touches on this one.


Here is the artist herself peeking over the top.

The wedding was in the evening so we didn't get back home Saturday night until almost Midnight. Sunday was cool and rainy and with the late night on Saturday we were attacked by naps after lunch.

It stayed gray and rainy almost all day. Finally just at sundown I noticed that there was a little clearing in the west and was able to get these sunset shots off the deck (still raining, however)

Since weather cycles often repeat every seven days or so I hope we are not in for rainy weekends for the rest of early spring. Oh well I guess I won't melt.

Picnic 3-16-10

Adelphia and the kids came over to my office Last Tuesday to have lunch together. Since it was a nice sunny day we decided to head out to a park about a mile north of campus.

The food was good and all

but the allure of the play ground equipment was stronger.

Elizabeth

Elisea

Ethan

All three kids are climbers and enjoyed the equipment and the nice weather

There was a small pond across the road from the playground that had a couple of geese that we decided to investigate.

Inevitably I had to return to work and the report later on that the kids slept well as getting home.

Rainy Weekend 3/13/10

First off, I want to apologize for the overly bright colors in this post. Normally my posts are gray and brown, but this one looks like it came out of a comic book. We had Skyler and Trae for the weekend while Blake and Apryl were away. Since it was a rainy cool day and I had had enough Saturday morning cartoon action we decided to go to Science Central at Fort Wayne. The building in which Science Central is housed was the old Fort Wayne power plant circa 1920's that was used to convert coal into electricity. Most county seat town had these power plants, and there are only a few remaining in operation in Indiana. Several years ago Fort Wayne politicians decided to sign a lease with the Indiana Michigan Electric company to provide electrical service to the city of Fort Wayne. I&M didn't need or want an old out of date power plant since they had plenty of capacity in other areas so the power plant was shut down. After several years some bright minds decided to convert the power plant into an science education and demonstration center. About half of the building has been filled with all sorts of displays to allow mainly kids of all ages the opportunity to see and experiment with hands on physic, biology, palaeontology, meteorology, mathematics etc. There are normally nationally traveling exhibits, like the Hubbel space telescope exhibit that is currently there , which was pretty cool. Sprinkled in or rather built around are the remnants of the old power plant, a bridge crane, a steam turbine generator, a boiler and lots of piping, now all brightly painted and not the original drab green or grey.

About a year ago I was asked to provide an estimate to renovate the other half of the building into more exhibit space and to take over the maintenance of the building. Since they are already operating on a shoe string budget and there is little likelihood of the University doing the maintenance for free we were never able to come to an agreement. I think the big grant they were hoping to get fell through as well. Even so it is a great facility for kids of all ages.

One interesting and sort of exciting, in a scare your mother to death sort of way, was a high rail bicycle. The bicycle has wheels that are slightly groove and sit on top of a steel rail about 1/2" wide. There is a counter balance attached to the bike and hangs under the track that compensates for the weight of the rider and keeps the bike upright sort of. There is a platform on one side in case someone gets stuck along the way so the staff member can go out an get their bike back. On the other side is open space with about three stories of nothing but net below.

Trae and Skyler both took a lap

They even let old guys give it a try.

Trae stood in line and tried out the moon walk equipment. the harness hooked to a cable and to a hydraulic pump simulates a semi-weightless environment.

Another section has a saltwater tidal pool exhibit with creatures normally found along the ocean shore.

It's a very hands on type of exhibit, with the staff allowing kids to touch live animal and watch them move under water. This star fish was placed back in the water upside down and in a mater of about three - five minutes turned itself over. It was sort of like slow motion acrobatics.

Clarice and Jon were needing to go to Fort Wayne anyway, so they met us there and later in the day we go together at a restaurant for late lunch, early dinner.

Of course you have to have an exhibit with lizards and snakes. This was not Karen favorite part of the trip.

Karen found this stationary bike. I don't think we were producing much electricity.

After I looked at the guy next to me I decided to give up.

Fort Wayne has a lot of links to mastodon fossils. The University's mascot is a mastodon and there are plenty of old bones laying in display cases on campus.

Quiet First Weekend in March

Last Thursday I had a minor medical procedure and was forced to sit quietly for three days. By Saturday afternoon I had had enough and needed to get out of the house. Karen decided that she would let me take a slow meander on the Pisgah Marsh boardwalk. This place is one of our favorite places to spend a little quiet time. Now in late winter this area is coming alive with all sorts of wildlife, geese, ducks, sand hill cranes, turkeys and a wide variety of birds and small mammals. It was a slow, but not quiet walk. There was a lot of squawking, clucking, quacking and chirpping.

The sun was nice and warm even though it was still a bit cool temperature wise

Geese were cruising back and forth down the length of the water ways

The wetland area varies from a hundred yards to a quarter mile wide and is perhaps two to three miles long. The board walk starts in about the middle of the length on the east side and is about 1/3 mile long which terminates in a nice shelter overlooking a beaver pond.

Here's my lovely wife leading the way

A precious jewel in a golden setting.

Come on old man catch up!

The sky was brilliant blue and was a nice contract to the sun lit tree branches

Along the boardwalk there are several small ponds interconnected by a central flowing stream. The sunlight reflecting off the water provided a nice warm glow to the otherwise dull sepia background.

If you line up just right you can get some interesting effects like this picture above.

After the walk and on our way home we cut across the marsh on a county road a 1/2 mile north of where the board walk ends. We spotted these tom turkeys strutting across a grass field.

On further here is another shot of geese preparing to land in a corn filed.

On Sunday afternoon we got invited to Blake and Apryl's. Here is one of their deer Sandstorm. This is his first rack and seems to be very fond of it since he hasn't shead it yet.

These are three of last years fawns, almost full grown.

The weather was really nice, the boys threw a football for a while

Most of the time we just sat in lawn chairs around a camp fire.

Nothing like a late winter/early spring campfire to burn a little left over brush and junk wood.

Fresh apple branches sharpened for a specific purpose.

Hot dogs!

Another hot dog

We even had Moses's daughter attend a burning bush! What a weekend.