Fall Corn

I found these in the stash of photos I have to blog about.

I had been on an inspection job in northern Wisconsin. The road I was on was lined with corn.

It was a beautiful October day with a high temperature in the low 70's.

I stopped. There is a unique smell to autumn corn waiting to be harvested. There are no words which can adequately describe it. It's earthy. It's somewhat "burned". It smells of corn. Seriously. You can smell the corn.

I remember, as a child, wandering through corn fields. In August, with the corn towering over you head, it would be a good 10 degrees cooler near the ground. The air in the rows smelled sweet. I remember the harvest. Inevitably, some ears would not be removed from the stalks. Dad would pay us a nickel per ear for every ear we'd find. We would pull a wagon, fill it, and empty it over by the pig pens. I remember making a good $2.00 one Saturday. To a 7 year-old, that was a huge amount of money.

On this day, I stood next to the field with memories washing over me. Part of me wishes I lived in a small town where the corn fields were adjacent to my yard. But I'm happy where I am and happy to have the chance to drive into the farmland.

Beverage:  Huckleberry tea

Deb

Fall on the Road

I've been on the road an awful lot in the past couple of months. It's not a "run into the city and back" kind of thing, either. We've had large jobs requiring a couple of hours in the car to get there. Fortunately, the late summer weather has been perfect so, although I'm tired of driving, the scenery has been great.

"Amber waves of grain".

Soybeans. Tofu in its natural state, if you will.

Corn awaiting harvest.

There's a smell that's only in the fall, the smell of ripeness, of crispness, a little burnt, but of the anticipation of harvest. It only comes in the fall. I swear the scent changes immediately on the autumnal equinox.

Leaves are changing.

One day, the bush is green. The next day, red has taken over. It's time for sweaters and pumpkins and apples and my favorite time of year.

Beverage:  English Breakfast Tea

Deb

The Things I See

I had a week of vacation and then work has been crazy. I've been in the city on a "we need it now" job. It's a lot of walking and a lot of photos, but people have been really nice and the weather was perfect for working outdoors.

As I was inspecting the exterior of a building, I happened to see this.

That's a little brown bat. It was quite deceased. My guess, given where it was, it hit the side of the building, although, with echolocation, you'd think bats would be able to avoid things like giant buildings.

But, what this says to me is that bats are alive in Chicago and that's a good thing for the ecosystem. Little brown bats eat insects, including mosquitos. We've had good conditions in Chicagoland for the mosquitos that carry West Nile Virus to live and reproduce. Bats will eat those. This project is not too far from the Chicago River so it's not all that surprising there are bats.

At one time, I was considering putting up a bat house in the yard. We need bats. They get a bad rap and I remember being scared of them while growing up on the farm. We had a colony living in the attic of the farmhouse. If you rattled the door to the attic, you could hear them squeaking. I remember a couple getting into the house, but dad and mom chased the intruder out. We didn't know that they are much better than bug spray for ridding an area of bugs. I hope, wherever this colony is, someone is watching over them.

Beverage:  Irish Breakfast tea

Deb

Things I See-November Edition

Here's another collection of things I saw worthy enough for a photograph.

I visited Carole at the end of October. On the way back, I needed a restroom and some tea. Dunkin' Donuts is my go-to place for tea, except, maybe, in western Pennsylvania.

I couldn't toss this even after I'd finished the tea because I can recycle the cup in my recycling. So, a Penn State item made its way into my Iowa Hawkeye house. The tea is always good, even if it came in the wrong color cup.

I've always wanted to make a braided rug. I used to have one that my great-great aunt made. She used wool scraps from a variety of sources. It wore really well for awhile and then disintegrated one day as I was, I thought, gently shaking out crumbs and dirt. I have a booklet that tells me how to make these kinds of rugs and it seems easy enough. It's a great way to use up fabric and is a craft that ties us to our ancestors.

What so great about these rugs, seen in a building I was inspecting, is that they are made from plastic bags. I'm not kidding. I saw these and knew, right away, what they were. I've known, for a long time, about places doing this. It's a great fund raiser for groups and a number of homeless shelters will have residents make rugs. If you accumulate a lot of bags and have no place to recycle them, it might be something you'd like to try. Here's a tutorial on the process.

I loved the colors in the stack. I didn't find out if they sold any of these or, because there were a lot of them, and bags, shoved onto this shelf unit, had the bottom dropped out of sale of plastic bag braided rugs.

This is coal.

Seriously. That's coal on the ground. Some of the people I were with had never seen real coal. Who knows how long it's been here. It's not something that's going to decompose quickly.

Seeing it brought back memories of the manual furnace that heated the farm house I grew up in. We used wood and coal. Coal gave off a smell, but burned for a long time and gave off a lot of heat, once you got it lit. Dad would start the fire in the fall with wood and then toss in the coal. We sometimes had to endure a warm house because he didn't want the fire to go out and have to start the process all over again if the warm spell was going to be just a few days. In the morning, the house was often chilly as the fire wound down, and we got dressed for school in the kitchen with the oven door open to remove the chill from the air.

The chimney had to be cleaned periodically because the layers of soot deposited on the inside could catch fire. We had that happen once. I remember sitting on the steps in the unheated back entry because the soot in the chimney caught fire. We were wrapped in blankets to keep warm. Mom and dad were dousing the red hot coal fire with water in an attempt to create enough steam to put out the chimney fire. Oh the smell and the smoke! Windows and doors were open to create drafts to get the smoke out of the house. I remember having to clean everything for weeks afterward because there was a thin layer of soot everywhere.

It's hard to see, but there is a spider the size of a half-dollar in the upper right corner of this door. Two of my co-workers are very scared of spiders. I would not have a tarantula in my house nor would I stroke one or pick one up or have one crawl across my hand. I'm not, however, terrified of spiders. I usually try to herd them onto the fly swatter or a piece of paper and toss them outside. They do more good out there anyway.

I don't think this gal spun a web in a food-rich environment. This was a courtyard, surrounded by 10 foot tall brick walls and covered with a mesh grating. I'm seeing very tiny spiders in the house now, spiders who were hatched at the middle of fall and who are looking for food before dying off in the winter. They just sort of show up, in the dish drainer, in the corner of windows, in front of books in the bookcase. I just look at them and wonder why they thought where they are was going to yield any sort of meal. Then I squash them.

Speaking of doors,

This was the main entry to a warehouse. The building was built in the 1930's and was reused in the 1980's as a warehouse. Security doors aren't made like this anymore.

A bunch of blocks. I was in a basement and these blocks date from the 1930's. What's so special about these blocks? Well, I don't know much about building construction, particularly older construction. They are interesting on their own and make me curious. What struck me was the Reg. US. Pat. Off. mark. Reguspatoff. I know it stands for "Registered, US Patent Office", meaning the bricks have a patent. It was also the name of a computer in a Saturday morning cartoon.

Someone told me it was in Rocky and Bullwinkle but that was the WAYBACK machine, which was an homage to the UNIVAC from the early age of computing. That age coincided with the germination in Jay Ward's mind, of a subversive cartoon which has just as much relevance to today as it did back in the late 1950's and early 1960's. Find and watch "The Boxtop Robbery" or "Wossamotta U". (The Wossamotta U fight song is directly purloined from the fight song for the Minnesota Golden Gophers. I can't hear their fight song without singing, "Wossamotta, hats off to you. To your colors, ocher and Alice Blue. We shall e're be faithful and true. Hail Wossamotta hail. Better we should be in jail. Hail Wossamotta U.")

Back to Reguspatoff. I'm almost certain it was in Underdog, but I can't find independent confirmation. Since I don't get cable, I can't watch Cartoon Network which might have Underdog on the schedule. Seeing this on these bricks made me snicker. I didn't point this out to my companions as I was pretty sure none of them had the same frame of reference I did.

Finally, I saw this in the basement of a building.

Did you ride face first or feet first? I could never get up the courage to ride face first. My brothers and sister did, but not me. I didn't mind being in the front, but I could never expose my face to a wipe out.

I would go again. Grab the great nieces and nephews, find a hill with a soft landing, put on layers and layers and go sledding. We would start up by the garage and, if lucky, you'd make it all the way down the hill past the barn and to the bridge over the creek. Sometimes, if conditions were right, you could get across the bridge, onto the flat beyond and up the other side of the hill a bit. Ice was the worst. Hit a patch and you lost control. We'd spend hours outside. It took a good 10 minutes to drag the sled back up to the garage to ride it down again, always hoping for just the right mix of speed and dexterity to go even farther up the other side than you had before.

Sometimes, it was too dangerous to go down the hill by the barn, so we'd try to see if we could make it around the windmill and over the hump by the house. Hairpin curves are not a sled's forte. You made wide, sweeping curves. If you had to swerve quickly, the best course of action was to simply fall off the sled, which resulted in faces full of snow and lots and lots of laughter. Yeah, I'd do it again.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Footsteps

There's been a cycle of rain, chill, warm, rain, chill, warm in this month. If I had the money, I'd get the drive redone to remove the puddles, make the drainage to the street better. I buy bags of gravel and spread it around but, over time, the gravel disappears and the puddles come back.

But if I got rid of the puddles, I'd deprive myself of this.

Raccoon tracks. Annoying buggers, they are. They come up onto the deck and mess up the birdbath. I'll have the feeling someone is watching me, turn to look out the office window and see a pair of beady black eyes looking in at me. About this time of year, I get the single males or females nosing about. During the summer, it's usually the juveniles traveling in duos or packs. The new garbage can has thwarted their attempts at dumpster diving, thankfully. I've had only one incident all summer of the garbage being strewn about.

Footprints remind me that we share our lives with all manner of animal. I never saw raccoons on the farm as I have seen them in suburbia. Skunks? Oh yeah, but not raccoons or opossums. Maybe they were too skittish, too wild, to be a part of farm life. In the urban environment, they have to be bold to survive. We enable them with our smorgasbord of foodstuffs just waiting to be picked and then we complain when they leave wrappers in the birdbath.

I think about getting another bag of stones and filling in this puddle before winter comes. Meh, maybe not. I think I'll wait until spring of next year.

Beverage:  Dunkin Donuts tea

Deb

The Things I Saw - Part the Twelfth

I was heading north on Interstate 81. Carole and I drove this route back in 2001 on our Civil War battlefields tour. I think I also drove this back in 2006, when I went to Williamsburg, Virginia for a Clan Thompson Society meeting. It was a gorgeous 9 a.m. and traffic was moving at a decent speed. I looked to the left and saw them.

I have no idea where I was on the trip north but those are what I would call "real" windmills. If you're traveling with someone, they could make a note that you're at mile marker 68 near the Center Road exit. But, when you're alone, you either scramble to find paper and pen, which is not advisable when you're driving, or try to commit some exit number to memory. As I don't have much in the way of empty memory anymore, for details, where I was is lost to the mists of time.

These two windmills looked to be in great condition. This technology, so much a part of farming last century, is rare to see. We had a windmill on the farm where I grew up. It pulled water from the well and pumped it to the cistern. From there, it was pumped into the house. To operate the windmill, you raised a wooden level on one of the legs. This lever was held down by a large piece of heavy gauge wire and the lever wasn't easy to raise or lower. If the windmill was operating and a storm approached, we'd have to go "tie down the windmill", but pulling down the lever so the whipping winds didn't break the spinning mechanism of the fins. I remember the hushed tones of sympathy extended to people whose windmills broke in a summer storm or a winter blizzard.

Yes, the windmill worked all year. Dad must have had to do some kind of maintenance on the gears, etc, to keep them operational in January, but it worked. I also don't remember any kind of motor attached to the windmill to run it when the days were becalmed. I also don't remember the windmill working much at night simply because there is an inherent grinding noise these things make that just prohibits sleep unless you are incredibly tired. Yet for sheer sustainability, you can't beat a windmill for doing what you need done.

Seeing these things in the distance along the Interstate made me wonder about why they are there. It might be the need to be low on the electrical totem pole that these are operational. Perhaps someone is truly concerned with power generation, maybe taking themselves off the grid. Or it could be someone just thinks they are cool. Whatever the case, they were an interesting item to see on the trip home.

Beverage:  Mixed Berry Seltzer

Deb

Some Assembly Required

If you live outside the middle of the country, something loosely defined as Colorado east to Ohio and Missouri north to the Canadian border. This sight on the roads is possibly as unfamiliar as the colored implement being hauled about.

Someone's getting a new tractor, a John Deere, made in Rock Island, Illinois. You might have the image of a tractor as being something like this, taken at a "Farm Days" event in southern Illinois.

While there are farmers who still utilize this and, at one time, this was top of the line, many farmers have something with an enclosed cab that's got more bells and whistles than an airplane. It has evolved that farmers who must spend the day outside want to be comfortable so their "work space", the cab of the tractor, should have a radio, a CD player, a GPS, a place to hook up an MP3 player and a computer, as well as be heated AND air conditioned. If you can't control the climate where you have to work, at least surround yourself with a climate you can control.

In the past, you went to the implement dealer in town to get yourself a tractor or you might have bought Reuben's when he had a sale because he and Agnes were moving into town and quitting farming. If you're buying one of the latest and best models, which cost the same as a Bugatti, you might still go to the implement dealer outside of town, but chances are very good your tractor is coming from John Deere; shipped on a flatbed just like the one that passed me outside of Davenport. I can't be sure this is the same tractor, but it's close. Taken from the John Deere web site.

Other than they both work in the field, there's not a lot to compare between the two shown. The 9000 series, which I'm fairly certain is what was being transported, bears no resemblance to what I learned to drive on. I did note a few other striking differences.

• You could move the middle tractor from point A to point B without needing "Oversize Load" tags and
• You don't have to put it together once it arrives. 

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Not Quite 40 Years Ago

Ron Santo was inducted, posthumously, to the Baseball Hall of Fame on Sunday. He was part of the Cubs franchise my dad loved. The Cubs were so much a part of his life. He told us stories about buying a train ticket to Chicago when the Milwaukee Road ran passenger service through Northeast Iowa. The train would arrive in Monona around 2 a.m. Dad and his friends would ride the train to Chicago, hop onto the red line elevated train and take that to Wrigley Field. Bleacher seats, in the war years, cost a buck. They would sit in the bleachers of the Friendly Confines cheering on the team and, when the game was over, reverse the process to get home. They usually arrived back in Monona around 2:30 a.m. A friend would drive him home and he'd get about 3-4 hours of sleep before starting the day. I don't know how many times he did this but he loved to tell the story.

Growing up, we had an old box radio about the size of my sewing box. It was brown, I remember that clearly, with a big dial on the front that moved the red line to the various stations. In the summer, when he would go out to the fields in the afternoon, dad would put the radio in the east southeast windows of the porch, meticulously tune the dial and fiddle with the antenna until we heard the first verse of, "Lets Go! Batter Up! We're taking the afternoon off! It's a beautiful day for a ball game!" Then the booming voice of Jack Brickhouse came out of the radio, "The Chicago Cubs are on the air!" It was a marvel to me, unknowing as I was about radio waves back then, that we were listening to something going on live in Chicago. Chicago! That's another place, a big place, so different from Cedar Rapids or Des Moines, the biggest cities I'd been to at that time.

It was someone's responsibility to listen to the game and, when dad came in from the fields, after about an hour or 90 minutes, tell him what the score was. Plus, it was not just tell him the score, it was also our responsibility to tell him who had hit a home run. He was a huge fan of Billy Williams and Fergie Jenkins, so when they were slated to play, it was doubly important to keep tabs on the game for him. That responsibility usually fell to me, as the oldest. My siblings didn't have the patience to sit at the table and keep one ear on a scratchy radio broadcast and do something else. They wanted these summer days to be filled with other things.

When we started taking family vacations, one of the first places dad wanted to go was Chicago, and, by extension, Wrigley Field. We'd gone to a minor league baseball game in Cedar Rapids, the Cedar Rapids Cardinals, in preparation for the Chicago trip. The team at that time, was affiliated with the hated St. Louis Cardinals. I don't remember anything about that game other than it was chilly at night and my grandmother, with whom we were staying, disapproved of the excursion. But, the trip met dad's expectations for us sitting for 7 innings so he bought tickets to the Chicago Cubs vs the Houston Astros.

Somewhere, I have the program for the game. I can't tell you if the Cubs are up or in the field. This was a Friday and "Ladies Day" at the ballpark. Women got in free to grandstand and bleacher seats. We had reserved grandstand seats which were discounted. Our tickets were not mailed. We had to go to something called the "Will Call" window, a term we were unfamiliar with. The smartly dressed ushers showed us where to go and dad handed each of us a ticket. I felt like I was on top of the world. This was Chicago! This was the Cubs! I didn't know anyone in my grade who had gone to a real live major league baseball game!

Billy Williams was still with the team at this point. Santo was gone. Ernie Banks, another stalwart of the Cubs, was managing the team after the then manager, Whitey Lockman, was ejected in a May game. Dad was in his glory pointing out all the players and where he used to sit when he came in the 1940's. We walked all over the park, from one end to another. We got hot dogs, cotton candy, soda, peanuts and ice cream. Dad taught me how to keep score. The scorecard and a pencil were 50 cents. It was a bit chilly in the shade but the atmosphere of Wrigley Field could not be matched anywhere.

The Cubs lost 6-4. I remember that. Dad and mom conferred and we came back the next day. We had seats to the left, on the third base side. I remember my youngest brother had to go to the bathroom, so dad took him. During that interlude, Billy Williams came up to bat and hit a homerun over the left field wall. Billy was rounding third base when dad got to the top of the ramp to see anything. He was very disappointed that he'd missed seeing it.

It's too expensive for me to attend a Cubs game now. It's relatively easy to get there. I'd take the communter train into the city and hop on the same red line elevated train to stop at Addison Street. The park is a 2 block walk west. There are statues of Ron Santo, Ernie Banks, Jack Brickhouse and Harry Carey around the park. Dad despised Harry Carey because he announced St. Louis Cardinal and Chicago White Sox games for years before coming to the Cubs. He replaced Jack Brickhouse in the announcer's booth, a move dad always resented of "his" Cubs.

All of this came back into memory as I read the stories of Santo's induction. I don't pay much attention to baseball anymore. I quit caring deeply when salaries became more than the gross national product of some small countries. I can't tell you, right now, where the Cubs stand in their division or who plays for them. I do know that it doesn't matter where they are in the standings, Wrigley Field will almost always be sold out for every game, such are the Cub faithful.

Dad never got to sit in the box seats down front. I was going to do that for him the year he died. He was going to retire and come visit for a week. We were going to take the trains to the ballpark and watch a game up close and personal. I thought of all that on Sunday. Ron Santo's induction should have come earlier but it's still important that he's in the Hall of Fame now. Some day, I should go visit Cooperstown.

Beverage:  Darjeeling tea

Deb

Heritage in Yard and Stitching

It's a lovely flower. The purple of the bud is quite distinctive. It is native to the Mediterranean and north to Scandinavia working east to Asia. It's impossible to miss as it's about 3 feet tall with large branching leaves which are covered with intimidating looking spikes. It blooms pretty much anywhere although it prefers disturbed soil. It's considered a biennial although much depends upon when its seeds sprout. These seeds are spread usually by the wind although humans and animals will also spread them. Finches love the seeds and will land on the plant to pick the seed heads clean. Studies show seeds can lay dormant for 5 years but it's not considered unusual for seeds to germinate up to 20 years. Clearly, this is one tough plant.

It's called the Cotton Thistle or, more notably, the Scottish Thistle, the national emblem of Scotland. I have one growing in my yard.

I didn't know that's what it was until it bloomed. It's off a corner of my neighbor's fence and it was out of sight until the purple blooms showed up.

I remember helping dad weed these things on the farm. They are tenacious and I thought they had it in for me. You must wear heavy, heavy gloves when handling them. Dad would cut the plant down and I'd be responsible for picking it up and tossing it onto a pile we were making. He'd then take the pile to the burn barrel and torch them. Cattle will not eat these unlike other thistles and a row of them is almost impregnable, due to the thorns on the leaves and stems.

I noticed today that the first blooming flower has gone to seed. I should probably snip off this seed head and all the rest of the flowers, put them in a paper bag and dispose of it. This really isn't something I want in my yard regardless of the connection it has to my heritage. I should also probably spray the remaining plant with Round-Up to make sure it dies and doesn't flower any more this year. Given that there is one plant here, that probably means there will be others sprouting in this location so due diligence will be needed.

And yet, I'm a bit torn because I used to have a goldfinch family in the yard and this is just the kind of plant they love. Given all the flowers on it, I could feed a couple of families or more than just goldfinches, (wince) but it's a noxious weed. Really.

For a number of years, I made these pins for the women in my clan. I found the thistle pattern in one of my cross-stitch books and it was clear to me it would make an excellent pin. I haven't made any in a few years as the backing was quite costly and I haven't been able to find anything cheaper.

How did the thistle come to represent Scotland and the Scottish people? No one knows. It's the stuff of a good legend. The story goes that a group of Scotsmen fell asleep while defending the country from attacks by Norsemen. The Norsemen came ashore at night, preparing to rout the Scots and claim the land. One of the Norsemen happened to step on a thistle in his bare feet, as boots were a luxury for the fighting man back then, and screamed in agony. This awoke the Scots and they routed the Norsemen and sent them home.

Whatever the real story, the thistle growing in my yard is synonymous with Scotland. Given the anguish I know it causes in a yard, can I summon up the will to remove it before it becomes a pest?

Beverage:  Darjeeling tea

Deb

It Still Works

Shortly after the front porch was built, we added a mailbox on a pole. When we bought the house, the mailbox was one of those small boxes that hang off the front next to the front door. We wanted something different and we wanted something unique.

So, we went to the local Ace Hardware and bought a steel mail box, a real "farmer's box", as I called it because it looked just like the ones every farmer had on a post out by the road. I painted the box black and painted a yellow Iowa Hawkeyes "tiger hawk" on the side along with our last name.  (For awhile, you could get a heavy gauge plastic mailbox, same size, that was black with the the Iowa logo. It was $80 and I was tempted, but never got it. Now I can't find anything like that anywhere.)

I repainted it about every 5-6 years but it's getting long in the tooth now and I haven't painted it in years, obviously.

The front door sits on the "work bench" in the basement. ("Work bench" is a loosely used term to describe a flat surface on which sits a lot of stuff, including, but not limited to, the front door of the mail box, hand tools, bolts, nails, cables, extension cords, etc, the detritus of life in a house.) The bolt that held it to the mailbox has rusted away on both sides. I'm not sure how I would reattach it for it to be effective. Unless the rain or snow is directly from the east, the mail doesn't get wet when the postman shoves it to the back. Plus, this will hold 3-4 days worth of mail and many packages of the size that I get, when I order anything.

It's quite rusted, although not rusted through on the body. It's really not falling apart other than it doesn't have a front door. There was a wasp nest at the front of the box in May but that was quickly removed. Darned if they aren't fast about building those things. If I were to replace this, say, put a new mailbox on my Christmas list, I'm not sure I could get it off the stand. I didn't look, but I'd wager the bolts might be rusted onto the pole. If I took some steel wool to the rust and then repainted it with a nice black enamel, this would probably still work. The door issue kind of bothers me, however. I really wish I could figure out how to reattach it. The mailman might be rather surprised as it's been several years since the door was on the front.

Perhaps some primer and then a coat of black enamel. The tiger hawk isn't hard to do. This would make the mailbox as spiffy as the front steps.

This was interesting. There's a stamp on the back of the box. It's the manufacturer and the location the box was made.

I might know where this place is.

Beverage:  Water

Deb

Dry

I believe I took the front windows off right around Memorial Day. I put them on, I think, the day after I took this photo, June 10th, but took them off again and haven't put them back on. If the top wasn't splitting along some seams, I'd have the top down.

It's dry, so very dry here. It's not quite the tinderbox that Colorado, Utah and New Mexico are but there was a report that fires and grills were going to be banned in forest preserves beginning this weekend. There will be no grilling for that family picnic for which you reserved your space back in February, on the first day you could reserve a space. It's just too dry. There is also talk that fireworks shows are in danger of being cancelled. The only "safe" place would be over the lake and I don't think the city of Chicago is doing fireworks at the end of Taste of Chicago anymore. I know that got axed last year in a budget cutting move. Navy Pier always does fireworks on July 4th, again off barges on the lake, so that may be the one place to see rocket's red glare.

It's to be 90 today and 104 tomorrow. I've had the windows open and the AC off the past 2 days. It was lovely this morning and had this been a weekend, I would have kept the windows open until around noon, when the heat begins to build. It will make the AC work less if it's cool inside. I closed up the house, checked to make sure the AC was set for 80 and came to the office where it was 68 in my section. I had to run my portable heater for a bit. The rest of the office is nice. My office is a refrigerator.

Weather people are likening this to the drought of 1988. In August of that year, we had something like 15 straight days of 100+ temperatures. I had a garden back then and I remember water rationing and trying to get the garden adequately watered on the days we could. Our ancient AC unit gave out on day number 10. The service man who came after the heat broke said the freon just gave out. We bought a window fan for the north window and set up other fans to suck the hot air through the house. We covered all the west and south windows to reflect the sun.

Funny how you get dependent upon the cooling ability of central air conditioning. I didn't have that growing up on the farm. I remember nights spent splayed across the bed wishing for any kind of breeze and moving every 10 minutes when your body heat had made the spot you were lying in warm. I can hear the buzzing of the insects from those hot summer afternoons spent lounging in the living room or on the front porch. I also remember Kool-Aid pops and Dad standing on the porch looking at the garden. "This hot weather is good for my tomatoes," he'd say. I remember walking to the corn fields after lunch and sitting under the canopy of stalks, the ground and air in the rows about 10 degrees cooler. You could hear the corn growing and the smell, oh the smell of the earth is a smell I love.

I also love the smell of the earth and the air after a heavy rain born of the clash between hot and cold. The ground almost sizzles when the first line of water hits. I remember a few times being in town and watching the steam rise off pavement and sidewalk after a summer rain during a heat wave. The smell of water and earth is intoxicating.

I'm watering my deck flowers but not the yard. I think watering a lawn is silly and a waste of water. It will return to green once the rains come. If it doesn't, reseed. Put in something that goes dormant in these hot Midwest summers, something that you don't have to water. I should wash the Jeep this weekend. That ALWAYS brings rain, right?

Beverage:  Raspberry Earl tea

Deb

That's Where They Come From

As you can see, I've been baking up a semi-storm. This leads to being out of basic baking supplies;  flour, sugar, spices, milk and eggs. I have one lonely egg in the fridge. But, it's no matter. Oberweis delivers tomorrow and I ordered more eggs.

At the Lincoln Park Zoo, they have what's called "Farm in the Zoo". It's a museum farm designed to show city kids that milk doesn't come from a plastic jug in a chiller at Dominicks. It's an okay concept but nothing near what it could be, although I think the rarefied air surrounding the zoo would object to the smells of a more traditional working farm.

I never really helped dad milk the cows. He quit milking when I was in 6th grade. It was just more work than he wanted to deal with. But, he loved the idea of raising something. We had hogs for awhile but mostly, dad went with chickens. And with chickens come eggs.

I don't remember how many nesting boxes he set up. I think this particular row had 10. Every day, someone (usually me) had to go check the boxes for eggs. I think we must have had close to 2 dozen hens and hens were always laying. There was one rooster and he had a nasty temper. I had to walk across the barn to get to the other boxes and dad kept a broken broom by the barn door. He told me to grab that and keep it with me, plus never wear shorts. When, not if, the rooster charged, you could whack at him with the broom which would startle him and send him scurrying away. By wearing pants if you weren't quick enough with the broom, he couldn't poke you with his beak through the fabric.

I remember being terrified of that bird. I know on a couple of occasions, with a basket full of eggs from the first row of boxes, I decided those other boxes could wait for dad to check because I just didn't like how the rooster looked at me. It seems to me, dad got tired of dealing with him too, got another rooster and we had chicken for dinner one weekend.

The chickens were allowed to roam free although they usually came into the barn at night. We would lose the occasional one to something but, for the most part, they didn't wander and were fairly secure. With this roaming, you'd occasionally go into the hay mow and find a nest with 3 dozen eggs in it. SCORE! But mom, with her sagacity, wouldn't take any of them for cooking. "You can throw those against the barn." For those of you wondering why we'd do that? Who knows how long the original eggs have been sitting. Yes, you could do a water or candle test, but with this many chickens, you're guaranteed a steady source of fresh eggs. We would muss up the nest we found and then have a field day hurling the eggs against the barn. They made such a great sound when they hit. You always knew when you'd get one that had "turned".

The industrial chicken farms have hens in cages where all they do is lay an egg. It rolls down a chute and into a container to be sorted, graded, packed and shipped. Oberweis doesn't buy eggs from industrial farms. Their egg suppliers allow their chickens some measure of mobility. I think it makes for happier chickens and better eggs and yes, the eggs are more expensive.

My egg gathering consisted of looking into the boxes to see whether anything was there, adding fresh straw to the empty boxes and getting the evil eye from a chicken occupying a box and unwilling to leave so I could get her eggs. When that happened, "just stick your hand under her and grab them. She'll be upset and may poke at you, but you'll be fine", dad said. Um...yeah. I can remember standing in the barn talking to a chicken. "Look, I have to do this. Would you just get up and leave so I can see if you're sitting on anything?" Right. That worked about as well as asking my girls if they would come let me cuddle them. My sister could do it but I rarely could. Sorry mom. Many of those times I came back to the house and said, "That's all that was down there", there was a hen or two in a box and I just couldn't bring myself to stick my hand under her.

When I pull an egg or two out of the fridge to be added to the next batch of whatever I'm baking, I reflect that I know where this comes from and what it's like to raise chickens and gather eggs. Could I stick my hand under a hen to see if she's sitting on something? I don't know. Couldn't we come to an understanding where she leaves when I walk in the door? And where's that rooster? He's giving me the evil eye again.

Beverage:  English Breakfast tea

Deb

Would It Work Today?

There is a huge market for "vintage" items now. A couple of the blogs I follow to the right; Smile and Wave and Thompson Family-Life; are penned by women who worship vintage, thrift relentlessly to find just the right piece that I look at and think, "I remember when that was new". It's amusing, in a way, to see my childhood now held up as a pinnacle of design or color or kitsch. But then, I remember cruising antique stores for the right chair or end table. My collection of Jewel Tea china, as an example, was once something  given away in oatmeal boxes. Hence I guess our view of what's called "vintage" or "antique" varies as the years separate us from when the item was new.

Where am I going with all this? Well, today's old photograph is of the gas station where my dad worked for a time. Yes, I grew up on a farm but I really think dad never wanted to be a farmer. It was the only way of life he knew, however, and he was sort of expected to farm. His father helped my parents buy the farm where I lived my life from age 3 to age 20, when they moved into town. Grandpa spent a lot of time with us, helping with everything a working farm does. It's not an easy life. It wasn't when I spent my years pitching hay nor is it now. I think my dad would have rather been a man working in a factory than a man on a tractor.

After grandpa passed away, farming became less and less what dad wanted to do. He started looking outside the farm, with its spotty income, and took a factory job. He worked that until the factory closed and then did a number of other jobs in and around my hometown. One of them was at this gas station.

I don't have the photo in front of me where I could read what I scribbled on the back for the identifying year. This was an open house at the station. For a 3-day weekend in the summer, the station had contests and discounted items. I remember a watermelon seed spitting contest, water balloons, a jar filled with marbles to guess how many, gift certificates to local businesses and discounted food and soda pop in the mechanic bay.

I can still hear the ding when you pulled into the station and ran over the line that activated the bell. Self-service was unheard of. Oh, in a small town, you could get by with it if the station owner knew you. I can remember my dad pulling into Smitty's and pumping gas because Smitty was busy with another customer, but usually, you waited. The oil was checked. Your windshield and back window cleaned. I remember the sound of the pump bell when you hit a dollar's worth of gas. I remember when gas was a quarter a gallon and the uproar of that. And I remember these small stations.

On the left was the retail area with a small office and a restroom tucked behind it. Unlike the markets that are attached to gas stations now, dad sold candy, gum, road maps, soda and small car aids like key chains, those trees that freshen the air and tire gauges. There wasn't much room and the soda machine took up a lot of it so retail was limited. Road maps HAD to be provided. It was just expected that if you wanted a road map, you went to a gas station. Given where we lived, he had maps of Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

To the right was a mechanic's bay. This would be unthinkable nowdays, to have your mechanic at the same place where you get your gas. Dad knew quite a bit about repairing cars but he learned a lot from the guy who owned this station. I don't remember his name. They sold tires and paid one of the local farmers to come take the old tires. Occasionally, they had one or two cars awaiting parts for repairs sitting next to the station, but this guy's mantra was to finish repairing one car before taking on another because he didn't like having a bunch of "broken down" cars around his station.

These small stations are pretty much gone, only a memory. The building above still stands and the concrete islands where the pumps are in the photo were still there when I passed by a year or so ago. It was a repair shop with a lot of broken down cars surrounding it.

This gas company represents another era. Midland, Sinclair, DX, Texaco all those names of gas companies who serviced small town America are gone, gobbled up in the 1980's and 1990's.

Our lives are different. Dad opened the station at 7 a.m. Sometimes, he'd close it at 6 p.m. This station was located in a town west of Monona, named Luana. If you needed gas after 6, you had to either call up the guy who owned the station and have him open a pump for you (It was a key that turned the pumps on and off and it hung under the counter below the cash register.) or you had to drive to Monona where the Shell station was open until 9, 10 on home football or basketball nights. If the Mrs. was expecting, you'd best make sure you had gas for the drive to Waukon, Postville or Elkader because there wasn't anyone open after 10 p.m.

These places were also hang-outs for the men of the town. Yeah, you could go to the Corner Tap, but people generally frowned on that. So, if there wasn't a car needing repair, men would gather in the empty bay, drink coffee or soda and shoot the breeze. On a Saturday afternoon in the summer, it wasn't unusual to see 8-10 guys just sitting around talking about the crops or fishing or hunting or the Cubs or the Twins. You certainly don't see that in the larger cities anymore. I wonder if they do it still in small towns.

And I wonder, would people frequent a place like this if someone decided to try to resurrect it or has the time passed where this would be profitable? Full-service gas pumping with the amenities. I know my grandmother refused to go to a self-service station. She went to the same guy for decades. His son took over when he became too old to run the business. I remember she was distraught when the son had to close the station because he couldn't compete with the self-serve that opened up the street.

I don't remember when dad left this place or if he helped close it down. The relocation of highway 18 was a contributing factor. The traffic didn't go through Luana anymore so you didn't get people deciding to stop on the spur of the moment. Would they drive out of their way now for a chance at nostalgia? Would they pay 10 cents more per gallon to have a pump boy, for lack of a better description, come pump their gas, wash their windshields and check their oil? I have read that margins are razor thin for those who franchise a gas station with a convenience store. Could you make the ends meet if you provided car repairs with your gas pumping or do you need to offer beer, soda, a deli, aspirin, newspapers, chips and day old pizza?

Vintage or nostalgia? We thought we were cutting edge at the time. Is there a market for this kind of experience?

Beverage:  African Rooibos tea

Deb

Rainy Days

This weekend's rain had me thinking about rain, specifically the summer rain.

That's Carole when she was 3. In the summer, we would grab umbrellas and go walk up and down the sidewalk in the rain. Many times, we would ditch the umbrella and let the warm summer rain soak us to the skin. We'd walk to the end of the driveway and stand in the gutter on those days when the rain was a "gully washer".

I can't find a photo I know is somewhere. Perhaps my mother has it. In it are my brother, Steve, and me with umbrellas, standing ankle deep in water in our farm driveway. I have such memories of sitting in the mud and making mud and pebble dams to divert the flow of water down the incline. We didn't have that opportunity for Carole as our drive, though partially gravel, was too hard packed to generate the required mud.

I remember being excited for rainstorms and permission to just stand in the driveway with or without an umbrella and let the water fall on and around me. I hope Carole has the same happy memories of doing that too. We would jump and splash in the puddles we'd fine. I'm sure the neighbors found it amusing to see a mother and daughter out in the rain.

Now days, I don't go for walks in the rain. I generally take a mug of piping hot tea and sit on the deck, getting soaked to the skin. Rain water is great for your hair and skin. I don't go for walks when there is lightning and thunder and I don't remember last year, there being a warm summer rain without the fireworks. That's the key. You need a rain in July or August, a warm rain, a steady rain, that comes without the explosions. This weekend, we had rains that started out okay but turned explosive. I'm going to be watching the rains this year, hoping for just the right one to sit on the deck and get soaked.

When I get to be a grandmother, I want to take my grandchild for a walk in the rain. I think I'd like that to be part of my legacy. "My grandmother would go for walks in the rain with me and we wouldn't use an umbrella."

Beverage:  Edinburgh's Finest tea

Deb

You Don't See This Around Here

It's spring. One of the many things done in spring is the clean up of winter debris.

Farmers, taking a cue from lightning strikes, burn sections of land which renews the growth and allows wanted grasses and plants to thrive while killing off unwanted plants. I must have seen at least 3 fires burning. The one above was close to the road.

I love the smell of the smoke. It brings back a lot of memories of the burns we used to do on the farm. This kind of burning is not allowed in my area anymore. I would love to burn off the peony patch, but I can see that not everyone knows how to do this and the end result could be disastrous. Plus, the smoke contains particulates which are not good for people with lung problems.

The Sunday night news made me giggle when they reported on fire departments having to respond to burns gone awry. I remember, when I was probably 6 or 7, dad did a burn of the corn field. It started out clear and calm but, as the day wore on, the wind kicked up and the burn got out of control. We called the fire department to keep the flames away from the farm buildings. Mom kept my brother and I in the house although we were allowed once to go out to see what was going on. I remember one of the fire trucks sunk, up the axles, in the mud of a newly thawed corn field. The fire eventually burned the entire field, which is what dad wanted but also went into the woods north of the house. For the next few days, we could see, at night, little patches of glowing embers and small knots of flame. It burned itself out after going into the woods about 10 feet.

It's a different smell than the one from burning leaves. I think this has more of an earthy smell in it than burning leaves does. Doing this is renewal. I'll bet this patch thrives this year.

Beverage: Africa Rooibos tea

Deb

So That's Where They Were

I'm out of shampoo excepting the stuff I use once a week for my gray hair. Trust me. That purple shampoo is NOT what I want to wash my hair with daily. For one, it's expensive and for two, it will make my hair look purple. Not Barney or eggplant but add a purple dimension to my gray color. There are a lot of crazy colors I'd consider as a joke. Purple is not one of them.

But I remembered having a couple of those free bottles one gets from hotels tucked away in the top drawer of the bathroom sink, at least I think there are a couple of bottles which will do until I can get over to the store. I also need kitty litter so it's a good trip.

I opened the drawer and saw this.

This is the tube of toothpaste I stuck in the drawer when I received the free tube to review for that survey. Mice. Mice did this. I rooted around in the drawer for the shampoo bottles (there were, in fact, 2 small bottles) and found more "evidence" in the bottom of the drawer for this being a camping location for mice. I have the mice with the shiniest teeth and least cavities on the block.

Now, while you're being grossed out, you need to realize I grew up in a big ol' Iowa farmhouse. We had mice in the walls. I used to have a couple of mousetraps in my bedroom and nothing scares you more than that snap occurring at 2 a.m., waking you from a sound sleep.

The thing is, I don't hear mice in my walls. Two years ago, Pilchard was bringing mice up from the basement on the average of 2-3 a week for a couple months. She doesn't go into the basement every night as she used to. She caught one 10 days ago, which I managed to catch and toss outside, but the activity we used to have has dwindled. I have not seen "evidence" of rodents anywhere else in my house, nowhere. The toothpaste went into the drawer in September so this is recent activity. I checked the other drawer and the area under the sink. No mice "leavings". I think it's because there are bars of scented soap and bottles of scented lotion in the drawer and under the sink. There was only the toothpaste tube, the bottles of shampoo and plastic travel cases in the drawer they occupied. I have since tossed a bar of soap in that drawer.

I took the flashlight to the basement and checked the foundation trying to find a hole, any way they could be coming in. I found it. It's really hard to see from both the inside and the outside but it's where a cable went through the foundation to the old air conditioning unit. Research on the internet says that stuffing the hole with steel wool will prevent mice from entering AND leaving the house. One of the basement windows is warped just enough to not close properly although I can't see a mouse wriggling in through that small gap. Still, I can't get the window closed to latch it so duct tape to the rescue. I couldn't find any steel wool in my house so I'm going to grab a can of spray foam that we have in the office which we use to plug holes in some of our machine boxes. I figure that will work just as well.

Finally, I had a talk with the resident mousers and encouraged them to find any vermin in the house and bring them to me so we can remove them from the premises. I'll be thoroughly cleaning and disinfecting that drawer this weekend.

Beverage:  Gingerbread tea

Deb

Iowa in the Fall

It's harvest time. Combines and tractors hauling grain to be loaded into trucks to be taken to the grain facility are everywhere this time of year. 

The smell of the harvest lingers in the air. If you have never smelled a corn field as it's being harvested, I can't really describe it. It's earth and plants and grain and summer's heat all rolled into one. I remember the bright orange of the corn as it was augured into the grainery in the fall in preparation for feeding the cows and pigs in the winter. We used to stand in the grainery and feel the pressure of the oats and corn as it tumbled around us. Mom would yell, "Don't come inside complaining to me you itch!" Corn and oat dust is really itchy and it quickly gets under your clothes and in the crevasses of the elbows and neck and knees. We would have to strip in the porch and scamper into the bath to wash it off. We were allowed to stand in the tumbling grain until it got up to our knees and then we had to get out. Corn and oat dust will suffocate you if you're in the confined space too long. Dad or grandpa or an uncle would climb in and smooth out the grain pile so more could be added. By spring, we'd be down to a corner's worth of grain and the stuff on the bottom was fermented and moldy. You never ever fed that to the animals. It would make them violently ill. 

I also remember dad paying us 10 cents an ear to walk the corn rows and pick up the ears of corn that the combine missed. Those ears would be used for fodder and the occasional squirrel. 

When I would pass the combines doing their work, I would slow down to get a nice whiff of the scent of fall in Iowa. I miss it. The fields around Dale's farm had been harvested. What was left to do was disc the leftover stalks into the ground as a natural mulch and fertilizer. On Sunday, the field near the house was being done by the guy who rents it. He was out there, working away at it, until at least 11 p.m. When I was growing up, tractors had front light but not the lights they have now, almost akin to UFO's. You plowed until you really couldn't see and many was the farmer discing by the light of the full moon in October and November. 

Most of you will never have the chance to follow this on a country road. 

It's easy to get 10 cars stacked up behind him as he moves his equipment from field to field. You don't go "fast" when you're pulling something like this or driving your combine from the field to the house for the evening. 

I couldn't be a farmer's wife. I've become too urban, but I am very grateful my upbringing included exposure to this way of life. I understand some of the trials and tribulations of the harvest. When you're in a hurry, it's easy to forget that these guys feed the cows that give you your hamburger or that provide the grains to make your veggie burger. 

Here's to another fall passing. I could smell the change of seasons in the air. I don't think it changes in the city quite like it changes in the country. 

Beverage:  English Breakfast tea

Deb

Getting Out of the House - Day 3

Punkin farm today!

I printed out a list of Chicagoland pumpkin farms and, after reading the list and looking them over online, I chose Goebberts in South Barrington. It was about a 45 minute drive there but there's no charge to just wander the grounds. Your fees come when you want to eat there or ride the rides they have going on all day. Plus, they have been open for fall business since September 24th unlike the other pumpkin farms whose opening day was today. A few less people. 

It's chilly. There is a stiff north by northwest wind. If you're out of that, the air temperature is cool. It was clear as I got there but clouded up and that made the wind feel raw. Still, I spent a good 45 minutes wandering all over the place. 

I came home with some goodies. I decided that I would buy only what I could carry. There would be no pushing a cart around. My eyes would be bigger than my wallet and that's not a good thing. I got a half a peck of Cortland apples. There will be applesauce, although I'm feeling the urge to make crisp or cobbler. I have vanilla ice cream in the freezer. Now wouldn't that be scrumptious on a fall evening, warm cobbler with vanilla ice cream. I got a butternut and acorn squash. There was some scent on the butternut squash that Pilchard spent a long time sniffing. Those will be baked until soft and then frozen for later. Butternut squash soup is on the menu in the next couple of weeks. There's Butter Pecan Syrup to go over these different pancakes I keep finding. Red popcorn kernels were something I hadn't seen in a long time. For you city folk, no the popcorn doesn't pop up red. That would be way cool. It's still white but I think there is a subtle difference in taste between the standard yellow popcorn and red popcorn. The last item is a dozen of Goebbert's famous apple cider donuts. No, I didn't get a pumpkin. I couldn't carry it and they had pie punkins as well as carving punkins. 

It was a very profitable trip. No, I haven't eaten all the donuts. They have a cinnamon sugar coating that is a bit crunchy and are way too sweet to sit down and eat the entire dozen. They will be perfect for breakfasts over the next few days.

I'm going to be out and about in the next week. I'm going to keep an eye out for farm stands or other pumpkin farms on my travels. If worse comes to worse, in a couple weeks, I'll go back to Goebberts and get a punkin there. Maybe one of these. 

Beverage:  English Breakfast tea

Deb

Last Minute Prep

Saturday, May 21st dawned crystal clear, gorgeous.

 

If we were looking for a sign, this was it. Not a cloud in the sky. A light breeze and mild temperatures. 

After breakfast, we drove out to the farm. Carole and her bridesmaids had been up early finishing the last of the decorating. There were bows to put on the porch.

Each table had to have the bag with decorations and the appropriate camera so the caterer could then set things out.


The arch was brought out of the barn and stuck into the ground. It had white lights on it so the extension cord had to be anchored. Then, these tulle flowers were placed along the path from the house to the arch.

  

Carole and Michelle had gone to pick up the cake and the flowers. When they got back, mom and I were charged with putting balloons on the mailbox and on the sign to the farm. Hop in the car and off we went.

First stop was the mailbox.  In the early morning, the mailbox is in full sun. By afternoon, however, it's in complete shade. When we left the reception to head back to the hotel in the early evening, the balloons on the mailbox were still floating. They were slightly diminished in size, but they were still floating. 

After decorating the mailbox, mom tied balloons to the farm sign. Because these were always in the sun, by the time we got back from the church, they were drifting just above the sign and weren't even floating at the end of the reception. I heard someone at the church say, "Just drive down Remington Road and look for the balloons." You could still look for the balloons on Sunday but they weren't floating.

What's more festive than balloons? I know all the stuff about letting balloons go and having wildlife eat them with disastrous results, but used to decorate, balloons just say "Party's here!" Back to the house we went. 

It was then we discovered a couple of oopses. The cake traveled from Safeway (Yes, a grocery store! It was excellent cake!) in a large box. It was three tiers topped with a white tulle ribbon and white silk flowers. 

The top tier was white frosting with green dots and shamrocks. The middle tier was green with white and the bottom tier was white with green. A small part of the side of the cake, to the left in the photo and you can't see it, had touched the side of the box as Carole and Michelle drove back from the store. Carole was upset but, as we looked at the damage, we realized the caterer had probably seen worse and they would be able to "fix" it, although a couple of the decorations on the side had been smushed. 

Another problem was with the flowers. This bowl of roses was a centerpiece. It was beautiful but had spilled into the box with the rest of the flowers. Oh well, we scrounged around for a tub to put the rest of the church flowers in. 

Carole selected potted orchids. We were able to find a plastic bin and the orchids all fit inside the bin. They were so pretty. 

The big problem was with the calla lilies. Each groomsman and the fathers had a single calla lily as a corsage. The bridesmaids carried a bouquet of three calla lilies tied with green ribbon. David had a white rose. We moms and my mother had a corsage of one white rose surrounded by greens and white miniature orchids.

Carole was supposed to get 15 "perfect" calla lilies. When she got to the florist, also in the Safeway grocery, she found out the supplier had sent 25 lilies of which only 3 would pass the florist's "perfect" standard. The florist had taken a scissors to some of the lilies but even the ones she had pruned of the dried brown did not meet what anyone would consider perfect. Carole was unhappy. The florist, however, substantially reduced the cost of the flowers.

Carole's bouquet.

In reality, flowers are just accessories to the event. While they complimented the activity, no one was walking up to someone and critically looking at the flowers. It was distressing that things were not exactly as Carole envisioned but the flowers were gorgeous. 

All the decorating done. Everything else fetched. David and the groomsmen were getting their tuxes and were dressing at the hotel. We had a few minutes to sit on the porch and collect our thoughts. We were finally at that day, the day 2 people who loved each other deeply had chosen to start their journey of forever. 

Beverage:  water

Deb