Chickens, man's best friend

Caldwell, Idaho – We all knew Fido was man’s best friend but who know the Little Red Hen would run him a close second. Chickens as pets are gaining more approval in city ordinances these days.

Caldwell is the latest, in Treasure Valley, to revise their city ordinances, which took effect at the end of June. The new ordinance allows people living on less than an acre to own some farm animals that have been reclassified as pets, including goats, miniature horses, peacocks, and pot-bellied pigs.

Lonalee Hoogland is the owner of 5 chickens and for a while she was keeping them illegally until the new ordinance passed. The chickens are called “urban chickens” or “backyard chickens,” according to KTVB Local News Site.

“I was in noncompliance with the ordinance, and I had received letters from the city saying that I needed to get rid of my chickens, and basically said, no, I want to work on getting this approved,” Hoogland told KTVB Local News Site.

Hoogland was a big advocate for chickens as pets and spoke at city meetings on the subject. Now anyone living in Caldwell can keep up to ten chickens, even on less than an acre.

Gretchen Anderson, who lives in Eagle, has written a book about chickens as pets called “The Backyard Chicken Fight.”

Anderson says the backyard chickens are getting more and more popular for two big reasons, one being food security, wanting to know their food is safe and the second being people want to do what they want in their backyards.

Main concerns people usually have about chickens are noise, odor, predators and disease. Anderson says that with proper care those things can all be avoided.

All info was taken from the ktvb.com website. To read more visit this website:

http://www.ktvb.com/news/Urban-Chickens-gaining-more-approval-in-Idaho-cities-125466513.html

Honey everywhere but not a drop to eat

Island Park, Idaho – What can happen when beehives get loose? People being stung, honey on the ground, and a possible threat of approaching bears.

Honey flowed from highway 20 in Idaho late Sunday afternoon when a truck carrying 400 beehives wrecked, as reported by NPR.

Once assistants arrived on the scene rescue personnel and the truck driver were forced to stay in their vehicles until they could dawn protective gear do to the swarm of bees.

There were 14 million bees aboard the semi truck, which was being driven from California to Minot, North Dakota when the accident occurred.

Fire Chief Kenny Strandberg and his crew were apart of the clean up on the highway. It is reported that many of the bees were killed after being sprayed by firefighting foam.

According to the local TV station KIFI Local News 8,

“It is not unusual for semi-trucks with bees to travel U.S. Highway 20. Strandberg said about three or four trucks come through every week.”

KIFI also reported that the bees have a street value of three cents apiece. This means that an estimated $400,000 worth of insects were lost in the crash.

The real concern now is the bears that will be attracted to the area due to the high bee population now.

“I am worried about the bears coming down now – the grizzly bears,” Strandberg said.

To Read more and watch the Local News 8 video on the story follow the links below.

News Video: http://www.localnews8.com/video/28516596/index.html

NPR article: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/07/12/137798639/truck-crash-released-14-million-angry-bees-and-honey-on-highway

Sugar City's v Rexburg's Impact Zones

Sugar City, Idaho – The Sugar City Planning and Zoning committee has assigned a three-person committee to represent Sugar City in an Impact Area agreement with Rexburg and Madison County.

The three members of the committee were picked and assigned by the Planning and Zoning Commission Chair Christine “Sam” Lines. The spokesman/negotiator is Tom Fleming, assistant secretary, and the advisers are Steve Hawkes, assistant chair, and David Ogden, commissioner.

Brent McFadden, a representative of sorts, was suppose to attend the meeting but was absent. He was suppose to present on the impact area agreement that is suppose to take place at a date that has not yet been arranged.

In McFadden’s absence it was the committee’s understanding that the proceedings at the impact area agreement will be to correlate Rexburg’s impact areas with Sugar City’s. Such as if Sugar had a Residential-Agricultural District in their impact zone that was aligned with a Highway Commercial District in Rexburg’s impact zone. They would hope to align another coinciding district to decrease any problems. This is the committee’s understanding.

The new impact area agreement must be signed by five different entities to make it official. These entities are Rexburg, Sugar City, Madison County, Newdale, and Teton City.

The three-person committee Sugar City is sending to the meeting will meet with two other three-person committees from Rexburg and the County. After the agreement has been signed this then nine-person committee will meet if someone in the impact areas wishes to build, to ether approve or disapprove the development. This way that person will not have to go to each entity individually to make an appeal to build.

The County has made this request so that Sugar City’s zones and ordinances coordinate with Rexburg’s.

Egypt wants its stuff back

While some say New York City’s acid rain is eroding a 3,500-year-old Egyptian obelisk others might say the 500 years spent in saltwater and having flaming camel dung thrown at it worse.

Cleopatra’s Needle, an obelisk that stands in Central Park since 1881, is undergoing a “weather study” this summer by the New York City’s Department of Parks and Recreation. They are trying to answer the question if damage is being done to the artifact.

This study came about when the minister of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, wrote to the Mayor of New York City and the Central Park Conservancy back in January that the extended stay of the obelisk in New York was wearing away the hieroglyphs and it needs to come back to its home land. Hawass said he would “take the necessary steps to bring this precious artifact home and save it from ruin.”

However it is questions whether Egypt is the safest place for artifact these days. Not long after Dr. Hawass sent his letter looters broke into the Egyptian Museum in Cairo damaging many artifacts and leaving some missing.

The obelisk was built around 1500 B.C. to honor Pharaoh Thutmose III. It is true that the artifact has been through a lot in its history. It was knocked down in 525 B.C. when the Persians “sacked” Heliopolis. They threw flaming camel dung to burn off the hieroglyphics. But the hieroglyphics suffered more damage as it lay on its side in saltwater for about 500 years. It was then re-erected in 12 B.C. by the Romans in Alexandria. Finally in 1881 Cleopatra’s Needle it was given as a gift arriving in New York City commemorating the opening of the Suez Canal. A few years later the parks department noticed flakes of granite coming off the Needle. In 1885 Park officials removed 800 pounds of flakes from its surface in an attempt to clean up the monument.

In a prepared statement by the current New York City parks department they said,

“Cleopatra’s Needle undergoes physical inspections and conservations assessments on an annual basis.”

Until it is determined if New York’s weather really is bringing damage to the obelisk it will remain in Central Park.

Information for this post was taken from New York Times website and video concerning Cleopatra’s Needle, also from the Dr. Hawass website. Both links are posted below.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/egypt-or-central-park-where-does-an-ancient-obelisk-belong/?smid=tw-nytimes&seid=auto

http://www.drhawass.com/blog/obelisk-central-park

Happy Independance Day America

In celebration of our nations independence cities from east to west are having a celebration with parades, fireworks and barbeques.

In the city of Rexburg, Idaho events are happening from 7am – 12pm. It starts with a pancake breakfast in the park sponsored by Kiwanis, from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. Then they have a Day in the Park full of games and fun followed by the Whoopee Days Parade that runs from Smith Park down Main Street and ends at Porter Park.

Citizens lined the streets of Rexburg to watch the Whoopee Days Parade. The parade started out with the flag of our nation held by older men. People placed their hands over their hearts out of respect for our flag and our nation. The parade consisted of the High school marching band and flag team, also the cheer leaders from the high school and from the middle school were present.

There were also companies from around town who were present in the parade. An Asia restaurant featured a dragon and handed out sesame seed cookies. There was a very large grocery cart made for the local grocery store. Many floats with people threw candy to the crowds and children scrambled on the street filling their sacks with candy.

In the evening in the neighboring city of Idaho Falls there will be fireworks. The show is the best one West of the Mississippi put on by Melaluca.

Even with all the parades, candy, and barbeque it is important to remember why we celebrate this day. We are honoring our forefathers who fought for the freedom of this land and our liberty to be free of kings and let the people govern themselves.

We live in a choice land and should always be grateful for the privileges we’ve been give through others sacrifices.

Sugar City's new park signs

Sugar City, Idaho – Mayor and councilmen approved the posting of and design for city park signs at the Sugar City Council meeting Thursday June 23.

In 2003 the current mayor and council approved the names of the parks in Sugar City and the

council today wanted to remain true to the names given then and respect the council’s decision.

Councilman Bruce King proposed there be a policy put in place to be helpful for the future in the chance of park names wanting to be changed. Sharen Bell the city clerk said that the council, back in 2003 when they approved the names of the parks, wanted the matter ended and for the names not to be changed.

The Mayor Glenn Dalling also said that he thought the council needed to make a decision but also be careful about it. Councilman Harold Harris had a concern because of the proceedings in 2003 were they even allowed to change that motion and rename the parks. Smith, Moon and Neibaur parks in Sugar are named after people but the council would like to shy away from naming any future parks after people.

The current park names remained intact and it was proposed to place signs and plaques at each

park explaining how the parks were named.

The city parks receiving the new signs are Heritage Park, Thomas C. Neibaur Veteran's Park, Lyle H. Moon Park, and Smith Park. The sign for Heritage Park will be placed on Center Street about midway on the lot. The sign for Neibaur Park will also be placed on Center Street near the corner of Center St. and Maple Ave. The sign for Moon Park, located between South Front St. and Railroad Ave, will be placed on South Front Street midway around the bend in the road. For Smith Park the sign will be placed at the intersection of E. 3000 North and S. 7th West on the North West corner.

There was concern however about the name of Smith Park and it being confused with Smith

Park in the neighboring city of Rexburg. But a motion was carried to keep the current park names.

A motion was also carried for the design of the signs with a background of a silhouette of the

Teton Mountains, with 4 lines of writing with the park name shadowed in red.

Public Transportation.

[I thought I would do something different for this post and talk about city transportation instead of focusing on one city in particular.]

There is the so called top 10 list for cities with the best transit system or the one that is used the most but from all the sources I found none can seem to agree, why is that?

Well we’ll explore just some of those transit systems from the many sources I found. On quite a few of the sites I found Denver, Colo. was listed as one of the best transit systems in the nation. Also according to the Atlantic the percent of people using the Denver-Aurora-Bloomfiled, Colo. system is 4.6%.

On the chart in the Atlantic it says that 30.4% of people in New York, Northern New Jersey, and Long Island use public transit. I was a little surprised when Las Vegas, Nev. showed up at number 8 with 3.4% using public transit.

Anyway where is this going? It seems to me there are a lot of transits in the world that aren’t being used very much. I mean 4.6% for Denver that’s not a very big number. But lets face it sometimes the public transit systems aren’t the most clean, or carry the most friendly passangers.

With the world, at times, in a uproar about global warming I don’t understand why people are still driving their car to work with just them in the car when they could take public transportation.

What about college students and their cars? I live in a college town and live 2 blocks from campus which isn’t very bad. In the snow I walk and when the weather is nice I ride my bike. But there are people living near me and some who live even closer to campus who end up driving a car everyday. It’s nice outside so who cares if you have a class at the top of the hill, walk and get some exercise. Also it would save you some money so you don’t have to buy a parking permit, you’re already complaining you’re a poor college student any.

In other words, help save the earth and take the transit system.

[I know this is a rant but I thought it would be a little interesting and entertaining.]
Site I used for the Atlantic information:
http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/05/the-10-best-cities-for-public-transportation/239376/