It must be...spring?

Ya wouldn't know it by the weather around here still, but during my workday today, I noticed a couple of happenings around town that just screamed Spring has sprung!

The Annual Planting O'Palms in Peoria



Photo and blurb courtesy of WEEK TV.

Workers were getting ready for the Peoria Chiefs' home opener Monday night with the annual palm tree planting.

Crews started early this morning by removing the old trees and then planted nine Queen Palms from Florida.

Chiefs officials say for the sixth straight year, Kelch Turf Farms and Landscaping out of Kickapoo planted the trees in the left field and left-centerfield berms.

The Chiefs and O’Brien Field started the tradition of Palm Trees in Peoria when the stadium opened on May 24, 2002 with 20 trees both inside and outside the stadium. The Chiefs switched to Queen Palms before the 2003 season as the Queens are better equipped to handle the changes in the Central Illinois climate. This season, as in 2004, the Queen Palms will only be planted inside the stadium, as trees more indigenous to Central Illinois have been planted outside the stadium.

See, when they first started this, a lotta people bitched about it...waste of money...stupid thing to do...yada, yada, yada. But I happen to think it's kinda neat. It's not like I go to any Chiefs games, anyway, so if they hafta jack up the ticket price a couple of cents to cover the cost of the palms...what the hell?

Gawd knows...Peoria needs a little somethin to make it special. I'd much rather it be known for palm trees than some white-elephant of a museum/altar of worship of the Great Yellow God (Caterpillar).

And the second thing that screamed "spring!"?

Emo's is open!



'Course, it's not like I'll be able to enjoy one of their awesome "hot tamale in a cup"s or their fantastically messy, but delicious chili dogs or any of their delectable ice cream treats. Unfortunately, my current intake of wonderful things like that has been...severly curtailed. On the bright side, I've lost five pounds.

Funny. That doesn't make me feel any better. (sigh)