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Suburban Sprawl in Culver?

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Wikipedia defines Suburban Sprawl thus: “Urban sprawl or suburban sprawl describes the expansion of human populations away from central urban areas into low-density, monofunctional and usually car-dependent communities, in a process called suburbanization.” While Culver isn’t exactly racing down the road to strip malls, it’s worth looking at the changes occuring in recent and proposed developments in Culver.

Culver’s early development was very traditional. Despite dealing with the curvature of Lake Maxinkuckee, a traditional grid system was used for both the commercial and residential areas with the section of Lake Shore Drive along the Park being one of the few deviations with some curvature to reflect the lake shore. Since that time, the newer subdivisions have not followed the grid. The Riggings, Maple Ridge and Edgewood Estates are all dead end or loop streets with no plans to tie into the grid. It’s a little cheesy, but Adam Conover of “Adam Explains Everything” does a quick run down of some of the issues here:

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Half Century Award

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I received a notice yesterday that we have been selected to be part of the the IEDC’s 2o18 Century and Half-Century Award Class. Figured I’d better go ahead and apply now since the award may not be around in 10 years when our Century in business rolls around. Plus I probably won’t be here to fill out the paperwork in 10 years! (I need to change our tagline on the home page! We’re at 90 years now!)

It’s particularly remarkable for Easterday Construction to make this milestone as a family business. Very few family businesses make it past the 2nd generation, let alone into the 4th as we have. I’m sure that Great Grandpa Easterday didn’t plan for this since he didn’t even bother to keep the records of our actual start date!

Those of us working here now can only take a little of the credit, as we’re standing on the shoulders of those that came before us. I will be honoring them when I accept this award.

So I get to go down to the Statehouse on April 11th to receive the award. Maybe I’ll get a photo op with Governor Holcomb… or maybe Henry! I’ll report back here afterwards.

Sand Hill Farm Logo

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I used the new Sand Hill Farm Logo today in a post to Town, Gown and Lake about the Habitat for Humanity site at Sand Hill Farm. (If you’re not on Town, Gown and Lake and and want to read that post, I’ve included it below.) I chose to work with Shelly Schrimsher of Unlocked Creativity since this is a local project. I’d seen her work through her assistance to the Town on the Stellar projects and the new Town Logo. She helped me work through some of the ideas I already had and I think the collaboration resulted in something versatile that I can use for years.

Sand Hill Farm Site Sign Concept

I wanted to include a graphic that brought the sand hill and associated woods into the logo. She did this in a creative way bringing the curve of the hill slope into the “s” in sand.  I also asked for the graphic to be independent of the words to make it more versatile and she was able to to do that. And finally I had a vision of the entry sign made from rusted, cut, multi-layer metal on a gabion base/background to carry through the Culver Charrette field stone theme. From several examples I showed her, she was able to provide a mock-up capturing the concept. Now I can show the fabricators what the goal is – which makes it more likely they’ll achieve it for me. This is out for quotes now.

Overall this was a good experience and I am pleased with the results. You’ll be seeing the logo show up more and more as the project moves forward. Give Shelly a shot if you have similar needs.

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Barn Owls

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Picture from the Indiana DNR Division of Fish & Wildlife Wild Bulletin

As further evidence of my eclectic interests, here’s a picture of a Barn Owl and the story about it from the DNR Wild Bulletin.

The barn owl pair on a DNR nest cam in southern Indiana is raising a second brood of chicks unusually late into the nesting season.

The existence of a bonus round of chicks in 2017 is good news for barn owls because they are an endangered species in Indiana. In 2015, only 10 barn owl nests were reported statewide.

The mother owl laid this second clutch of eggs in late September, which is just within the standard barn owl breeding season from March to October. But this year was the first time this pair laid eggs that late while on the nest cam.

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