The Long Weekend

Starting Friday afternoon at Delphos I began what would be 7 games umpired in less that 72 hours...Saturday was the busiest, 4 games. I left Celina at 8am for a American Legion Tournament double header at Columbus Grove, the south site of the Annual Ottawa Run American Legion get together which began at 10 in the morning...finishing up there about 3pm, I headed back home, where Sam and I would do the final 2 games of the Celina ACME Invitational at Montgomery Field,...I would finish up at 10 that evening, making for a long 14+ hour day from the time I hit the road, until I cracked open a beer as I headed to the basement shower. That would be the longest stretch of the weekend, which ended yesterday with a Semi-Final double header in the Consolation B Bracket. I pretty much vegetated after getting home, watched some College World Series action, and the remastered version of "Lonesome Dove" on AMC.

The rain danced around the area all weekend, but none or very little hit the ball diamonds, so no delays in the action. It was actually pretty pleasant and coolish for most of the weekend in the area. Back at it tonight at Delphos St. Johns...then will head to Dayton to meet up with Hal, Patricia, and Anissa. Hal will pick them up at the airport, then we will meet somewhere inbetween....since I will be late, this saves the women from sitting in the airport for a long stretch while I'm in limbo at the game.

Sunflowers and Mersman Debris_____

I chronicled the demise of the old Mersman Table Factory and buildings on this blog back in 2007-08. The 100+ year old structures has housed the Mersman Table works for many years, and sat across the street from our house...in 2007 the new owners, looking for something profitable to do with the land began the job of dismantling the buildings brick by brick. What was left last Spring(2008) was a pile of bricks, brick dust/dirt and concrete, across the street and east of our place...not a pretty site. The plans were to take the material and dump much of it into Grand Lake for rip-rap and wave breaks....that final process finally began a couple of weeks ago. Here are some photos of before, after, and the process of putting the debris in the lake.

The 100+ year old(built in 1905) Mersman Table Factory across the street from our place as it comes down....what was left after it was leveled, and the debris finally being laid as a wave break on the west end of Grand Lake this morning.

Sunflowers 2009_____

Last growing season we decided to add some colorful Sunflowers to our garden area...using the Evening Sun Mix we came up with a few nice flowers by summers end....this year I have decided to take the Sunflowers one step further...adding the Orange colored Citrus Sunflowers as well as the Mammoth Sunflowers to the mix. In the first couple of weeks several dozen plants have sprouted, and the large mammoth ones are going great guns near the fence and old kennel area. Hopefully by mid summer I will have a bunch of Flowers and with the large ones, plenty of seeds to bag.

Time to do a little pre-emptive house cleaning....them head to Delphos, and on towards Dayton this evening....

back later>>>>

Sunflower Photos__top, an evening shade Sunflower from our garden last year....then several of the 2 foot tall(at 3 weeks from planting date) Mammoth Sunflower plants...so far about 2 dozen of these and another 18-20 of the Evening Shade and Citrus Sunflower plants have broken the surface....hopefully the Mammoths will look something like the bottom photo by summers end.