Waterville Blog 2015: August 2015

Monday, August 31, 2015

It's Garbage Day.

61 degrees and overcast at 5:00 a.m.

The Weather Forecast from TWCNY:

"Mainly Dry and Unseasonably Warm This Week!Tonight will be mild and tranquil under a partly cloudy sky. Lows will drop into the low to mid 60s.
The weakening cool front that brought more clouds to the area Sunday and even a spotty shower or two, will be washing out to the south of us Monday, which MAY trigger a spotty shower/storm mainly south of the thruway Monday afternoon. Most of us, if not all, on Monday, though will be dry with some sun for all. Highs will be in the mid 80s, and it will be muggy. High pressure that will be reestablishing itself over the Northeast Monday will stick around through much of the week ahead with just a weak backdoor cool front possibly triggering a few spotty showers and storms Thursday and Friday. Highs this upcoming week will range from about 85 to 90 each and everyday, with the warmest days likely being Tuesday and Wednesday when we will be up near 90°.
At this early juncture it appears that the unseasonable warmth will stick around right through Labor Day weekend too! Stay tuned for updates!"

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Here & There

Saturday afternoon.

It's been fine weather for painting. Some scraping and priming has been in progress at the Conway residence on White Street ....

... and, right next door, two of the tenants showed off their work on the newly-painted pillars.

"Fresh Picked" was busy ....

.... and about two-dozen members of a three-wheeled motorcycle club stopped at "Roc's" for a tasty break.

The Hughes Farm Stand on Route 12B just south of Deansboro ...

... and the Landis Family stand on Shanley Road both offer the best of Summer's Bounty.

There's no doubt about it, though - the seasons are changing .....

...... and Hydrangeas in St. Bernard's Cemetery (above) and at Mike and Pat Rogers' home are "blushing."

Only a few rows of Hops have yet to be harvested at the Mosher Farm .....

....... and picking is in progress at the Forward Farm on Water Street, too.

You can see from these two photographs, taken by Jeff Reynolds (a.k.a. "the flying librarian,") that immense quantities of green beans have recently been harvested from the enormous fields just behind the Waterville Public Library (above) ....

... and next to the playing fields at the Waterville Jr.-Sr. High School.

(Thanks for the great photos, Jeff!)

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The Black Walnut saplings in the plantation north of Tower Street have been pruned ....

........... giving glimpses of the historic stone barn that was built by Ruben Tower in the late 1800s to replace a wooden structure that had burned a few years earlier, in 1885.

Neither view - from either Tower Street or Huntington Place - gives any indication of just how large the entire Walnut Plantation really is, but this image from Google Maps does!
It's just about three-quarters of a mile from Tower Street to the northernmost end of the area.
That's a LOT of walnut trees!

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COMING EVENTS

The Village Of Waterville

*SPECIAL NOTICES*

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** Village Grant Application **
PUBLIC HEARING
September 2, at 7:00 p.m.

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WATERVILLE CENTRAL SCHOOL

8 DAYS UNTIL SCHOOL!

To enlarge, click on the image!
For Interactive Calendar please click HERE.

WCS Sports

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THE WATERVILLE PUBLIC LIBRARY

Friday Films are back!

For Interactive Calendar and more Information, please click HERE.

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IN THE MAIL

SouthGate Ministries presents:
‘The Kingdom of God in You’

by
Hart to Heart Ministries,

h2hm.org

From September 11-13 @ 7:00pm
Admission is free.

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FOR THE RECORD

Have a good week, everyone!

Monday, August 24, 2015

Monday morning

I began to assemble this blog post very early Sunday morning, but as time passed I realized that it was going to be a fine - no: PERFECT - summer day, too nice to spend two or three hours sitting at my computer - and so, I didn't!
Now I'm catching up.

This morning it's 61 degrees at 6:00 a.m.
Another beauty - at least for a while.

The TWCNY Weather Forecast:

"Monday is shaping up to be partly sunny with a few showers and storms working through due to a cold front. Out ahead of this front, temperatures should still manage to top out near seasonable levels with highs in the upper 70s and low 80s.

The cool down begins Tuesday with highs easing into the mid 70s. We'll keep in the risk for a shower as the cold front pulls away to our east and an area of low pressure spins to the northwest. Scattered showers look more likely on Wednesday and the overall weather pattern will remain unsettled through about Thursday. Additionally, temperatures will be a bit on the cool side with highs in the low 70s. It won't be until the very end of the week that noticeable improvement takes place.

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Here & There

There's a new sign over the door of BusinessWare Consulting in the former Modern Electric Building on East Main Street.

BusinessWare Consulting was founded in 1999 by William Strohmeyer, and has been an authorized partner of OSAS software product lines since its inception. Open Systems, Inc., a leading provider of business software, announced in July, 2014, that BusinessWare Consulting, Inc. (BWC) of Waterville would serve as the New York Regional Office of Open Systems, Inc.

CONGRATULATIONS!

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Everyone is watching the transformation of the former Main Street Garage into an old fashioned TEXACO station - complete with the red-tiled roof! Although there had been hope that the building might actually be a new coffee shop (called "Fill 'er Up," perhaps?) owner Art White has said that it would continue to serve as an automotive repair shop.

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The handsome new Victorian railing on the front porch of the Davis residence on Sanger Avenue was getting a fresh coat of paint yesterday afternoon but Karl Davis, who was wielding the paintbrush, remained mostly hidden from my camera.

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Some of the healthiest Hop Vines in the area are those that have probably been growing in the same place since the mid-1800s, like these, in a honeysuckle hedgerow right next to Route 20 - but always just out of reach!

There's nothing left, now, of what had been a nice little Hop Yard on the front lawn of the Waterville Public Library. Too bad.

Also just mown, the empty building lot at #381 Putnam Street. A nice improvement.

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Now blooming, Wild Clematis (or "Virgin's Bower") draped over shady hedgerows ......

............. and Great Lobelia, in soggy but sunny ditches.

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A few days ago Jeff Reynolds took his "eye-phone" camera to visit "Pat's Garden" at the corner of South Babbott Avenue and White Street and sent me these pictures.

Panoramic view.

Hibiscus.

Hibiscus and daisy-like Dahlia.

Datura

(My favorite) - a Rose.

Who'd have thought that someday we'd be able to take photographs like this with our telephones!

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And yesterday Jeff sent several pictures that he had taken at the Barton-Brown Observatory and the MVAS public Star-gazing on Saturday night.

I especially like these pictures because they show the impressive size of the telescope. This is NOT the sort that one puts on a tripod in the back yard!

One of the most amazed and delighted visitors to the observatory was Jack Youngs, shown here, peering through the eyepiece of the telescope and seeing - for the first time - the "Sea of Tranquility,"
the lunar landing site of Apollo 11.