Quick trip

For a fun little getaway over spring break, Jane and I finally took the trip we’ve been talking about ever since she got hooked on genealogy. Her folks got to Illinois by way of southwestern Michigan. My interest was in visiting the places where I spent my first 8 years in Elkhart and Bristol, Indiana. My memories are vague and patchy (e.g., I recall quite vividly sitting on the school bus and wondering when my legs would be long enough to touch the floor, but remember next to nothing about where my grandparents lived), and I wanted to go back to connect some dots in my mind.

We cruised Main Street in Elkhart to see if I would recognize any landmarks. We discovered that Elkhart is a big railroad town. We got caught by long trains on the southbound and northbound trips. Nothing seemed particularly familiar in the downtown area. It looked pretty much like any other small Midwestern town, now an assortment of old brick buildings and shiny new ones. I did remember the McDonald’s by the river. It’s all been rebuilt, of course. It looked much different when it first opened in the early 60’s. My, how excited we were to have one of the new-fangled fast-food restaurants that served hamburgers for 5¢!

Jane, being a lady of leisure since her retirement, did some research for me. She found the graves of my grandparents, aunt, and uncle at the Rice Cemetery in Elkhart. A very nice lady in the cemetery office helped me locate the graves on a map. I didn’t immediately realize that when we looked at the map on the table, it was upside down relative to the real world. After some frustration and wandering around in the cold wind, I managed to locate the markers. How does one pose by a grave? A big smile seemed inappropriate, so here I am looking somber. Note map clutched tightly in my left hand.

By my grandparents' graves

 We found the old brick church where my dad has his parish. A sign outside said, “Heritage Church.” I wasn’t sure what that meant at first. Had another congregation taken it over? Eventually, we noticed that there was a new HUGE church kitty-corner from the small one. Judging by the windows, the “heritage church” is primarily used for storage now.

Zion Lutheran "Heritage" Church

The house where we lived is still down the road a bit, although all of the surrounding area is now taken up by sprawling housing developments. It was hard for me to believe how tiny the house was. This little house has three bedrooms and an office. The office door is in the picture. The front door to the house is over to the right. When I was young, that driveway seemed very long to me. I remember thinking that going to the end of it was about as far as a person would want to walk in a day.

Bristol itself is a one-horse town. As with Elkhart, there was nothing that made me think, “Hey! I remember that!”

We headed out of town toward Constantine, MI, in search of the Rich side of Jane’s family. Her great, great, great grandfather, Learned (spellings varied) Rich, had a farm in Constantine. He was struck by lightning in his bed one night and killed. His wife, Amanda, later married Heman Harwood (“What a name!” Jane said.). The trail goes cold at that point because the Rich children were absorbed into the Harwoods and/or farmed out to other relatives.

We got to the Constantine Library at 4:50.  I ran out to check the hours. To our delight, Thursday was one of the nights they were open until 7:00. 

Jane on her way to the Constantine Library

A very nice lady showed us to the Michigan Room in the back where all the old stuff was. Unfortunately, the earliest history they had was from the 1870’s, and Learned had died in 1839. “Unless he was famous,” the librarian said, “there probably won’t be much on him in the history.”

“But you never know,” I said. I did some research on McHenry County related to the Crystal Lake watershed some years ago and was amazed at the number of weird stories that were included in the 1885 history. Someone being struck by lightning inside his house might have been unusual enough to enter the folklore. It wasn’t, though.

The librarian disappeared for a few minutes and came back with record of the graves in the Broad Street Cemetery. It listed Cornelia Rich, child of Leuned & Amanda, 12y, 5m, 1851. She explained that there was no public access to that cemetery any more. I did the math for Cornelia and figured she was either an infant or not yet born when her father died. We couldn’t find any record of Learned’s grave and concluded that he was probably buried on his farm.

I found an early plat book that had Harwood properties all over the place, but no Rich that I could see. Presumably, whatever Amanda inherited from Learned/Leuned passed to Heman Harwood. One of the Rich boys grew up and married a Dyckman girl. The Dyckmans were associated with Schoolcraft, Paw Paw, and South Haven. But that would be tomorrow’s adventure.

I correctly guessed that Three Rivers would be our best bet for lodging. We checked into the Holiday Inn Express. This is the only motel I’ve ever been in that had the pillows labeled.

Embroidery labels on the pillow cases for easy reference

While I was getting the room, Jane was Googling restaurants on her smart phone. The Chinese restaurant of my childhood was now Mexican. Oh well. Better to have it closed entirely than to find out it was not as good as my memory of it. I still have the memory intact.

Jane found a place 5 miles out of town called the Fisher Lake Inn. The menu seemed to be in the style of the Wisconsin supper club. We were not disappointed. We sat at a window looking out at the lake, watching the wickedly cold wind blow the ice to west. We had a lovely dinner of prime rib.

Front of the Fisher Lake Inn

The view from our table

The following morning, we set out for Schoolcraft. We followed a historic marker sign to a house build in 1835 by Dr. Nathan Thomas, the first medical doctor in Kalamazoo County. In 1843, he “quickly agreed” to use his house to shelter fugitive slaves as part of the underground railroad. One thousand to 1500 slaves passed through the house on their way to Canada, which was still, I have to say, a heck of a long walk from Schoolcraft.

Dr. Thomas' house on the Underground Railroad

While the Michigan Richs weren’t particularly rich, the Dyckmans were quite successful. Evert B. Dyckman had his hands in everything. His grave was not hard to find. Jane had downloaded pictures from FindAGrave, and I spotted the marker from the road.

Dyckman Family memorial

I thought the initials on the marker were odd. The B is entertwined with the D, and it looks like the E just tipped in afterwards. It couldn’t have, of course, since it is carved from stone.

Evert B. Dyckman's initials

The Schoolcraft Library did not open until 1:00 on Fridays, which was three hours from when we were there. We took a turn through B & G’s where I bought two high-quality stocking caps for Terry for 69¢ each, a pair of mittens, and a pair of gloves ($5.50 each). Jane got a pair of gloves.

Jane's car in front of B & G Discount

We went on to Paw Paw where once again, the Dyckman presence was easy to find.

The Dyckman Building in Paw Paw

The street had some pretty wonky parking. I wondered if it had been one-way at some point because the only way to get into the angle spots was to back in. Why didn’t they just paint the stripes the other way? Was it somehow safer to back in? I guess it was easier to see if you were going to hit anyone when pulling out.

Wonky parking in Paw Paw--you have to back into the spaces

On to South Haven, where Evert and his sons, Aaron and William, and grandsons, Evert S., and William Jr., had even more business interests. It was getting to be lunch time. We drove down to the beach to have a picnic in the car. The wind was so cold and so strong that not even the seagulls wanted to be off the ground. They hunkered on the sand facing into the wind.

Seagulls hunkered down

Me freezing in the cold wind

Jane had found an old directory that listed addresses or intersections of several Dyckmans. We found that Superior St. and Erie St. were one block apart, which meant that the corner of LaGrange and Superior, where Aaron S., lived, may have actually been adjacent to the corner of LaGrange and Erie, where Evert S. lived. We speculated that it might have been these two houses.

Possible Dyckman homes

We stopped in the library, where we found quite a lot of information about Evert B. and Aaron S. We made a bunch of copies of various accounts of their various ventures and adventures.

Finally, we went up to the Lakeview Cemetery. There were no kind ladies to help us find anything. We had a picture of the gravestone, but it was a very popular style. There was a little building with a bulletin board on it. The map of the graves was not helpful when one didn’t have any clue where to look, but there was an important warning.

Caution! If you figure out what a spicket is, do not drink from it!

We drove around a bit and finally did find the graves.

Memorial for the next generation of Dyckmans 

And then we drove home.

Holy phototropism!

In last week’s episode, the Holy Family Potato had just sprouted roots. Shortly after I posted, a shoot came up, and then another. Interestingly, the shoots seem to be coming from places other than the spiky growth that the potato had before I planted it. The shoots are amazingly phototropic. Here is a series of photos tracking their movement toward the light from the window over the course of a day.

Friday, March 20, 8:11 a.m. 

11:00 a.m.

4:40 p.m.

And here is a photo today to show how quickly the shoots are growing. I hope the plant does not become too spindly before I can put it in the greenhouse.

Tuesday, March 24

Last week, Terry found a hawk pellet. I had never heard of a hawk pellet. I had only heard of owl pellets. If you have never heard of owl pellets, let me explain that owls occasionally hack up balls of fur and bones that they are unable to digest. I looked it up in our Peterson Field Guide to Animal Tracks and found that, sure enough, hawks do have pellets, as do Clark’s nutcracker, glaucous-winged gulls, and magpies. Who knew? I further learned that the balls of fur can be distinguished from mammal carnivore scat (poop) by the absence of “digestive residue.” The pellets are pure fur, feathers, and bone.

The pellet was about 2.5” long, which is big for a red-tailed hawk. The picture in the book says 1.5” to 2.” I was hoping it was evidence of a great horned owl, which would be way cool. The range for great horned owl, according to the book, is 1.75” to 4.25,” quite a range. The book goes on to say that there is so much variability in pellets that the only way to be sure who it came from is by knowing what kind of bird perches above where the pellet was found. On that basis we must conclude that it is, in fact, a red-tailed hawk pellet.

Hawk pellet as found, measuring 2.5" long

Yesterday I put on exam gloves and pulled it apart. For something that looked like a giant ball of dryer lint, it was surprisingly difficult to separate. The fur was packed tighter than I thought fur could ever be, almost felted. What I found were many, many tiny rodent incisors (curved orange objects in the photo) and jaws. These must be the most difficult parts of the animals to digest. It’s good to know our hawk is doing its part to keep the mice population under control.

Two tiny rodent lower jaws, above, plus orange incisors, below

More single incisors, far left, a somewhat larger rodent upper jaw, left, (note two rows of teeth) and lower jaw, right

Charcuterie, 2015 edition

A few weeks ago, I had nothing to post. Today I have more than one post will contain. But first, let me ask you, does this video from this morning look like spring break to you??

The weather was much nicer on Friday when we celebrated Terry's birthday by getting out the grill for the first time this season. The foil packs contain potatoes and asparagus.

I made Terry cook his own birthday dinner because I didn't have a skillet big enough for two porterhouses. Is that wrong?

We made sausage this weekend. Lots of sausage. Back in February, Terry contacted the butcher who sold us half a pig last year. Alas, pig prices were very low, and the butcher was selling all his pork cut up. We decided we would look for a good price on butt roasts to cut up to make sausage. We had in mind getting about 50 lbs. Interesting, butt roasts are cut from the pig’s shoulder. Go figure.

I was out and about and found pork butt for $1.68/lb at Meijer. I bought three roasts that were just shy of 7 pounds each. I reported that I had secured the first 20 lbs. Terry said that it wasn’t worth getting the equipment out for less than 40 lbs. of sausage. Yes, I said, I knew I had not gotten enough, but I didn’t want to take the whole inventory.

The following Monday, due to a miscommunication (code word for Terry NEVER listens to me well enough to remember what I've said), Terry came home with 50 lbs. of butt roast.

Fifty pounds?? First he said he forgot I’d gotten any. Then he said, of course he remembered, but 70 lbs. of sausage was still a good amount. I muttered and grumbled and found room for 10 more roasts in the freezers.

Last Thursday, I moved all 13 roasts into the spare refrigerator. By Saturday afternoon, they were thawed enough to cut. Terry was going to do everything on Sunday, but my recipes all suggest doing this the night before because the colder the meat is when you grind it, the better it goes. After supper we both grabbed knives and cut the roasts in strips, carefully boning out the oddly-shaped shoulder blade. We filled every stainless bowl we had.

Sliced pork chilling in the spare refrigerator (the sticks in the baggies are Terry's scions for fruit tree grafting--we have such an interesting life)

At 10:00 Sunday morning, we began by griding up 4.5 lbs. to make one batch of chorizo. I don’t use a lot of chorizo, and never use it in casings. So that was easy.

Terry loads the grinder

Hilda weighs the ground pork and puts it in a bowl

Following that, we made four 7-pound batches of Italian sausage. We would have made more, but we ran out of the pre-grated parmesan cheese. Here is Terry trying to find the end of the casing.

Terry sorts though the casing looking for an end

Hilda cranks the stuffer while Terry coils the sausage.

Terry and Hilda stuff the casings

Terry twists the sausage into links (which got longer and longer as the day went on).

Making the links

We made five 7-lb. batches of bratwurst. And stuffed them. We had to stow the sausages in the “walk out” refrigerator until we had time to wrap and pack the links for freezing.

Finished links on trays in the "walk out" refrigerator as the snow started Sunday afternoon. Actually, it was a good thing the weather got colder.

At 3:20, Hilda asked me, “Do you ever use ground pork in your meatloaf?”

“No,” I replied. “But I could.”

“You see where I’m going,” she replied.

We grated Parmesan the Hilda had in a block to make one more half batch of Italian sausage for patties, since we’d forgotten to leave any of the previous batches unstuffed. And we bagged up the last five pounds of pork for meatloaf or meatballs or something.

Terry started washing everything up while Hilda and I prepared the sausage for freezing. I tore the plastic wrap; Hilda wrapped two links up, and I put them in a zip-top bag, five 2-link packs per bag. We spread them out as much as we could among the various freezers so they would freeze as quickly as possible.

We finished up at 5:00 and were glad to be done. I totaled up the day—76 pounds. Clearly, Terry had brought home more than 50 lbs. There is a satisfaction to having, by Terry’s estimation, a year’s supply of sausage. I think we’ll be lucky to get through it in that time. I guess I don’t have to wonder what to make for dinner for a while…

Remarkable change

Gracie enjoying the afternoon

And just like that, spring is here. Here are the signs so far:

·         I heard sandhill cranes when I walked out of work Thursday afternoon.

·         On my way to work Friday morning, I had to stop for a tom turkey strutting his way across the road.

·         I saw sandhill cranes Friday afternoon.

·         Jane saw robins at her house on Friday and my house on Sunday. I saw them at my house today.

·         I smelled a skunk in the middle of the night last night.

·         Every country road is littered with raccoon carcasses. They are active all winter. I’m not sure what it is about spring that makes them stupid.

·         The creek has thawed.

No ice on the creek

·         Almost all the snow has melted. The only snow that remains is in patches of deep shade. (Ecology humor: when I was in grad school, we used to refer to serious trouble as “Whoo! I am in deep shade!”)

The shadows of the trees on grass this week when one little patch of snow in the deep shade

·         The prairie is flooded because the ground has not yet thawed enough for the meltwater to soak in.

Water on the prairie

·         A little bit of green is showing up under the trees. It’s garlic mustard, a nasty invasive alien, but still….

Garlic mustard greening up

·         I can walk wherever I want. I don’t have to stick to the trails through the snow. It’s very liberating.

Free to roam the yard

When Terry saw the robins, he had the presence of mind to hang the net in front of the windows under the deck. The robins like to nest in the deck beams and fly into their reflections to defend their territory. This makes a huge mess of the windows. I don’t know why robins have the scientific name of Turdus migratorius, but I have my suspicions.

Hilda and I changed the wood chips in the coop Sunday morning. I see that the before and after pictures don’t look much different. You’d appreciate it more if I could include the smell in my post. Or maybe you wouldn’t. In any case, it doesn’t make my eyes water to walk in there anymore.

Before--filthy, stinky wood chips

After--fresh, clean wood chips

A week ago, I planted the now-sprouted Holy Family Potato. Look at all that snow outside the greenhouse! It was a very pleasant 70°F in the greenhouse.

The Holy Family Potato with sprouts

HFP potted up in the greenhouse with snow outside

All week the potato didn’t seem to be doing anything. Upon closer inspection, however, there were roots all over the place.

After one week, roots appear as white fuzzy lines all over the pot. Sprouts are unchanged so far.

I know better than to think that I will be in the garden soon, but every day is one day closer. It’s just such a relief to be able to walk outside without the wind stinging my face. Terry just reported (at 6:15 p.m.) that it was still 70° outside. So good to be alive. 

A Beautiful Day

It is possible that spring might come after all.

The temperature at 1:30 p.m. today

The glacier on the path to the chicken coop has finally melted. The ground is still frozen, so I expect there will be ice again in the morning. The melt water ain’t going nowhere, as Terry would say.

Ice-free (for the moment) trail to the coop

It was such a warm and sunny afternoon that I invited Hilda to go for a walk. Where the snow wasn’t deep, the melting snow revealed the maze of mouse trails that had been hidden all winter.

Mouse trails, left; human trail, right

I neglected to consider the 4” of snow we got Tuesday morning when I thought about walking. I figured that the trail I had made two weeks ago would be melting down. Not so. It was hard going. Hilda went as far as the creek and turned back.

View of the homestead and our five oaks from back by the creek

It was pretty back by the creek with the shadows of the trees in the snow. The sky was bright blue and completely clear.

Shadows on the snow

I am always amazed at how the sun can heat up objects on top of the snow so much more than the snow itself. Even a bit of light-colored reed canary grass will melt down an inch or more.

Reed canary grass melting in

The whole west side of the property was more of a trudge than a walk. The snow came up over my boots. The south and west sides were clear, making walking a good deal easier. Even though it was more of a workout than I anticipated, it was wonderful be out on a day when the sun felt warm on my face. Finally.

Before I went in the house, I took some portraits of Gracie and Nadia for two of Hilda’s artist friends. In the process, I observed that Gracie has a lot more white on her than Nad does. 

Gracie

Nadia