Waterville Blog 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.