A sassafras strip canoe

My brother is not the only craftsman at work around my home. My husband has started his second strip canoe. I gave him the plans and forms for a Voyager canoe for Christmas. He decided to make his own strips from sassafras, a traditional wood for canoes. He started by cutting the planks into strips, planing and sanding them and then he put beads and coves on every strip.

The next step was to set up the forms on the strongback and then mold the inner and outer stems.














Here he is applying the first strip to the form. He staples the strips to the form and glues between the strips.
















After laying about four strips on each side, he laid the "football" on the keel. This makes the keel stronger; otherwise, he would have numerous strips ending at the keel line due to the shape of the canoe.




















The next strips on the side will have a walnut inlay and he cut the design into the next three strips.















Then comes a tricky part. He had to add tapered strips to each end. You can see one of the tapers in this photo, the second strip down. I think of these as reverse darts. He's out in the shop now laying on more strips and more tapers.

Building Bridges

The third tier of rocks have been lain. This is the north wall of the bridge.















And this is the south wall. My brother John is wrestling a large rock in place. He placed flat rocks at each end of the arched walls for seats and this seat will have a backrest.















That boy sure is strong, always was. I can't believe the way he lifts and places those large stones. Before I took this picture, I asked him if I could help and he just gave me a look. John is two years younger than me and the oldest of my three younger brothers. I remember walking to the house from the school bus and turning around to punch him as hard as I could in the belly when we were both in middle school. He just looked at me (probably the same look as he gave me today) as I rubbed my hurt hand. I clearly remember thinking, "Time to change strategies, Martha."

Bridge over Usually Not Creek

Day One
It was time to do something about the bridge over Usually Not Creek. The sides were eroding and gravel was washing out in the center of the bridge. We asked my brother John to fix the washout between the two culverts and to build wing walls to prevent the erosion along the side. John used a pick and shovel to dig out the center of the driveway and found a gaping cavern created by a large cottonwood root. The picture shows the gap between the culverts and eroded concrete from the root.






























Day Two - Digging the footers and starting the forms
John and I both came up with the idea of an arched fieldstone bridge. My husband was thinking of a simple wooden structure.


































Day Three - Finishing the forms and finding stones
Steve shrugged and let the sibs take the bridge where we wanted. The boys and I gathered all the fieldstone we had (shown below) which will only do the first row of one side of the bridge. A volunteer at work told me about several large piles of stones in her woods which I could have. Perfect! We will probably have enough to finish the bridge.




















Day Four - Pouring concrete and setting the first row
I love looking at this hint of what is to come and searching through the stone for the best specimens. We still have several truckloads of stone to pick-up. I'm using the term "we" rather loosely in this narrative.

















































































Day Five - Removing forms and filling in around the retaining walls
John is taking the next two weeks to help move his daughter and family to Colorado where her husband is doing his fellowship in pediatric neurosurgery. I'm sorry they will be so far away. John's granddaughters are both three, Sophia is three years and Victoria three months. They will likely not remember their GREAT aunt.

During the next two weeks, I will be poring over stones deciding which ones I want on top. I'm toying with the idea of embedding some other things to make this uniquely ours. My husband already has several fossils selected.

Mystery plant identified

In this post, I had a mystery plant in the woods. My sister guessed an immature pokeweed and Kylee guessed twinleaf. I found the same plant in the wildflower bed at work and the site's naturalist made the identification. It is Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides).

Princess Plants-a-Lot goes to a garden party

Twenty years ago, I was faced with empty beds after I ripped out the overgrown shrubs in my newly purchased home. So I came up with a scheme for people to give me plants, plants that grew well in this area. And so the plant exchange party began. I last hosted "my" garden party in 2004. Since then, Beth, the lovely lady in green in the picture below, opened her home for the plant exchange.

After we eat and socialize and scope out the plants, the exchange begins. This year, we moved to the garage because of the cold wind blowing across their lovely farmland. Here, our host is confessing to iris theft from the church and offering up bearded iris.
Next Vern brings out some tender bulbs. The lady selecting the bulbs flew in from Philadelphia for the party so you know how much fun we have.
Jennifer, my niece, has everyone's rapt attention as she explains the "garden in a box" that she brought. She brought coral bells for the front, hosta for the mid-section and garden phlox for the back. There may have been more but that's all I remember.

She did a good sales job, no wonder she is in marketing.

Here is one person's bounty.
Donna is getting started with the plants she brought. I've gotten to know Donna during the last year as we landscaped the church's new building and really enjoy her and respect her knowledge. Look at all the plants waiting to be given away. Donna's helper is Jennifer's daughter, Emily, my truly great niece.
Here's Emily with my tiara checking out the tub, perhaps for earthworms or maybe she is making a wish. Beth crowned me Princess Plants-a-Lot (P-Lancelot) in honor of 20 years of the plant exchange.

Beth offers up a hot item.

Here's an idea of the sheet number and variety of plants. Over the years, we've learned to limit the rampant growers, and people brought things like toad lilies, filipendula and sweet autumn clematis.
And a good time was had by all. The best thing is that you divide several plants to give away and you come home with literally hundreds of dollars of plants. This year I brought home garden phlox (I have is purple phlox and am hoping for some white and pink), rose flowered mother-of-thyme, calendula starts, centaura, hosta, and knautia. It's just unfortunate that I don't have more empty beds so I wouldn't have to show such restraint.

Releasing the wildflowers

I started tackling the garlic mustard in our woods several years ago. It is an endless task, but this year I may have seen some rewards. The appearance of these plants could be a result of the rain we received last winter, but please let me believe that it was the result of four years trying to eradicate garlic mustard, which prevents spring ephemerals from blooming.

As I was on my search and destroy mission against the garlic mustard enemy, I found a jack-in-the-pulpit. I had found one several years ago in the northwest corner of the woods, but this was the first time I saw one in the southeast corner.This is a trillium,trillium sessile, commonly called toadshade today but known as wake robin a hundred years ago. This is the first time I've seen it in the woods. It is clump forming and I am pleased to see two plants in my emerging clump.
Of course, this trillium, trillium grandiflora, is becoming abundant. It is so exciting to spot one in a new place in our little woods.This is known as lady's thumb. I heard a story about the "bloody" thumbprint and tried to find it online to no avail. She pricked her finger was one version and another version as she murdered her husband and left evidence on this little plant. Online I found a Scottish tale about the plant was at the foot of the cross. Or you can make up your own story!The mayapple patches are spreading. Steve and I wondered about the two distinct shapes in this patch. And this is my unknown but distinctive plant. The stems are a glaucous blue. No flowers yet. I'll have to keep monitoring it.

Spring is here, declares Earth Girl

Five sandhill cranes flew low over our house a few days ago. The spring peepers are serenading us at night. I've started my annual attack on garlic mustard in the woods. The red-winged blackbirds are calling for mates. Ducks and geese are checking out the pond as a potential nursery. My crocus are finally in bloom. The dogwood buds are getting fatter. One son is at a home opener for the Detroit Tigers and the other son is at Vero Beach, Florida. And I start work in the gardens at Gene Stratton-Porter State Historic Site in a few hours.

Spring is here.

Talk, talk, talk

With that title, this post could be about my sons. Both are quite the talkers. But, no, this post is about me and my willingness to say "YES!" when someone asks me to speak.

Thursday, February 28, Home and Garden Show, Allen County Memorial Coliseum, 5 PM, "Gene Stratton-Porter:Environmental Lessons from the Past"

Sunday, March 2, Allen County Home and Garden Show, 2 PM, "A Homeowner's Guide to Better Water Quality"

Monday, March 17, Huntertown United Methodist Senior's Group, after lunch (prepared by the culinary arts class at Carroll High School, which includes my son), "Restoring the Garden at Gene Stratton-Porter's Wildflower Woods"

Saturday, May 17, Unitartian Church's Garden Party, time unknown, "Jewels from the Past: Gene Stratton-Porter's Garden"

Every Wednesday until the end of April, I am co-teaching a class at church called "Godly Living, Green Living." During the last two classes, we covered scriptural basis and introduced water quality. This Wednesday will be practical tips to improve the quality of water, such as rain gardens, filter strips, septic care. Other topics will be cooking green, cleaning green, energy consumption, making sense of the science, sustainable agriculture, invasive species, air quality, and recycling and packaging.

So I'd better go finish my presentation for Thursday!

Lunar Eclipse

Are you watching the lunar eclipse? It is very cold here, so I'm running outside every few minutes.

Of Pruning and Foxes

Last weekend, my husband and I spent the morning pruning the timber trees at our tree farm. I love to prune. It is an art and a science: studying the tree to determine the dominant leader, envisioning the natural balance of the tree, thinking about the affect of sunlight, and removing deer damaged limbs. It is a physically and mentally active task that has aesthetic and financial rewards. It is also much different than pruning ornamental trees and shrubs, which I also love to prune. The point to pruning ornamentals (other than topiary) is to restore it to its natural shape, to encourage new growth and blooms, and to remove diseased branches or prevent disease. The point to pruning timber is to produce the largest and straightest trunk.

I took my camera planning to take before and after pictures of pruning, similar to the Purdue article linked above. After taking several "before" pictures of the first tree to be pruned and then several "after" pictures, Steve suggested that perhaps we didn't have time to both photograph and prune. Although, we did have time to hike down the river trail. It was much easier going down than going up.


I was glad I had my camera though, because we saw lots of animal activity in the snow. I didn't snap pictures of the bloody snow where some poor rabbit met its demise, but I did take pictures of the red fox tracks. You can tell it's a fox because of the size of the track and the track is in a straight line. Imagine keeping all four legs in a straight line while loping across woodlands. The other track isn't Bigfoot, but Steve leading the way.

Godly Living, Green Living

Starting this Wednesday and continuing for 11 weeks, I will be co-teaching this class at my church during its Prime Time Wednesday community classes. The class starts at 6:30 and ends at 7:30 and all are welcome to a join us for a meal from 5 to 6:15. This week we will be introducing the series and asking you what you want to learn.

I'm having fun researching this topic, learning what I'm doing right and what else I could be doing. I think my theme will be "Take small steps and don't feel guilty because you aren't doing it all." For example, if you are driving a car that gets good mileage, shouldn't you be driving a hybrid car? If you are driving a hybrid car, why aren't you riding a bicycle or walking? Another theme is "What did Grandma do?" except she probably heated with coal or wood, which is something that you shouldn't emulate.

Curious wet kitty

Just as I fell into a deep sleep during a heavy rainstorm this week, I heard a loud splash and gurgle of water. Disoriented, my first thought was that the rainwater was backing up through the tub drain. I stumbled into the bathroom to see what was happening. Miss Pippi leaped from the bathtub and streaked past me soaking wet. Quickly I grabbed a towel and threw it over her.

Miss Pippi, she is one curious kitty. To her surprise, Steve had not emptied the tub after using it to wet some wallpaper.

Grass-fed, happy cow

Several months ago, my brother John asked if I wanted to buy part of a cow, which his neighbor had been pasturing. Usually his friend will finish off the cow with grain the last two months, but I told John I was interested only if it was totally grass fed. John assured me that this was one "happy cow" as he has been watching it all summer. If you knew my brother, you would know how funny it was for him talking about happy cows.

When we divided the packages several weeks ago, John told us that the woman at the packing plant remarked several times how great the meat looked and she could tell the cow was not stressed. If stress affects our bodies, why wouldn't stress affect a cow's body? The cow continued to eat grass and was butchered within two hours of leaving the field. The packing lady said that cows stress out in 12 to 24 hours and it changes the taste of the meat. Here's John deciding how many steaks each of us get. And yes, the meat is very tasty. We don't usually eat much beef, but that has been changing.

Water

Snow plus more snow plus heavy rain equals another record discharge rate for Cedar Creek. It's at 5030 cubic feet per second today. Water from our pond is flowing through the overflow for the first time since a muskrat decided to lower the pond by burrowing several new outlets. We finally sent the muskrat down the creek by using smoke bombs. The dog didn't deter him. Neither did collapsing his burrows, filling them with rocks and setting live traps.

Thursday Update: It's still rising. 5120 cubic feet per second now.

The danger of growing Japanese maple seedlings

Maybe there is more to this story, but on the face of it, I'd warn my gardening friends to put LARGE labels on their Japanese maple seedlings.

Food and Fabric

Food and fabric sums up this week's trip to Shipshewanna with my mother-in-law. She's still doing good but tired quickly. This may be our last trip together.

Our first stop was E & S Foods. It's fun to try new things, but I don't recommend honey coated flax corn chips. There was no mistake with their cheeses and flours. I'm ready to bake some unusual breads now.

The second stop was Yoder's for fabric, which was my reason for the trip. I asked for retro apron fabrics and they had such a fun selection it was difficult to choose. But I fell in love with this fabric. These colors aren't true; the middle picture is the closest.


Then I tried dozens of contrasting material. The smaller designs that coordinated with the main fabric were too busy and the larger designs that worked well with the print weren't the right color. So I selected a plain color and then some polka dots for trim. My intent was to trim in rick-rack, but that didn't work without a secondary color to pick up.


So the plan is to use my grandmother's handmade pattern and make a reversible apron with a plain green pocket on the print side and a print pocket on the green side and use the polka-dots to trim the pockets and perhaps the yoke. Or maybe I'll make a polka dot pocket on the plan side.

I haven't sewn for almost 40 years and there are few instructions with Grandmom Diehl's pattern--just the word "apron" on the large piece and "Set in shoulder seam" on one end of the small piece shown below. I decided to mock up the apron using an old sheet before I cut into my fabric. No way could I figure it out. So yesterday I bought an apron pattern (and sewing shears and pins and thread. Also some fleece and a pattern to make a hat for my mother-in-law as chemo claims her hair.) This morning I looked at the handmade pattern and finally figured it out. The small piece is cut on the fold where it protrudes. The long end is set into the shoulder and the short end is attached to the apron body as it wraps around the waist into the back. The problem is that it didn't wrap around to the back of me. So now I have to decide whether to modify the pattern or use the pattern I bought. Stay tuned as I continue to get in touch with my latent sewing skills.

Excuse Me

I'm messing with my template as you may have noticed. I decided to add my own picture as the header (moss from last spring) and then wanted to pick up the colors from the photo in the template. However, I cannot change all the colors, only some. Gah, it looks bad and I can't revert. So come back later and see what it looks like.

Update one hour later: Now it's a spider from last fall and red is now brown. Who knows what I'll end up with. But my house isn't getting any cleaner as I mess with this.

Flood concerns

Cedar Creek at Cedarville, IN is now at 4790, but it looks like it may be cresting. I hope so. We pulled the riverboat onto shore of the St. Joe River, which shows no sign of cresting yet. The boat is now floating. If the water drops before it freezes, we will be OK. If the water freezes at the flood stage, the expansion will crush the pontoon tubes. Too bad we didn't move it to the barn.

Trying to set water records

With 60° temps and heavy rain, my crocus thought it was springtime. The foliage is just breaking through. Usually Not Creek, which runs through our land before feeding into Cedar Creek, is over its banks and gurgling over tree roots. The USGS Real-Time Water Data site shows Cedar Creek at 2720 cubic feet per second with the record at 2830 for this date. To give you an idea of how high this is, the 80th percentile is 401 cubic feet per second. Here's the link to the site but since it is in real time, I'm not sure you can tell much from it. But follow the link anyway and explore your favorite rivers.

UPDATE: I posted this and then viewed it and checked the link. Cedar Creek has set a new 60-year record flowing at 2880 cubic feet per second.

Update 2: It is now up to 3900 cubic feet per second and it is still raining.

As you look at these pictures of Usually Not Creek, remember that this is almost always a dry creek bed, it is the middle of winter, and none of this water has reached the already high Cedar Creek.

Stick a finger in my eye

What I've been doing: Cross my heart. Hope to die. Stick my finger in my eye.
What I solemnly swore as a child: Cross my heart and hope to die. Stick a needle in my eye.
Most likely the origin: Cross my heart and may I die, if I so much as tell a lie.

In fact, I have been sticking my middle finger in my eye ten times each day since Thursday. I'm getting contacts this morning and training the reflexes in my eyes.

I use reading glasses, but my eye exam showed a very significant change in distance vision also. So I tried on about ten thousand pairs of glasses, before deciding on a pair that definitely made a statement. Then we talked about bifocals with or without a line. Then I realized I needed some type of sunglasses. It was getting more and more expensive, so I finally said, "What about contacts?"

This afternoon I should be able to see the birds in the trees and bushes around our feeder!

Absolutes

It is absolutely guaranteed that my husband will love his Christmas presents if they are power tools. It is absolutely guaranteed that my sons will love their Christmas presents if they are electronic. It is absolutely guaranteed that I will love my Christmas presents if they are books.

Pickle Party

When my teenagers were starting grade school, my niece started having a pickle party for the children the Saturday before Christmas, which also coincided with her birthday and my birthday. Plenty of reasons for a party, eh?

What's a pickle party? She hides a pickle-shaped glass ornament on her tree and the children try to find it. The one who finds it gets the Grand Prize but she always has prizes for all the children. Here are my great nephew and niece searching for that elusive pickle.
And here are the original children, now teenagers, still pickle pondering.
And Ricky celebrating finally finding the pickle after a ten plus year domination by his cousins.I love that my family will pop the Christmas crackers and wear the crowns. No hesitation. No shame. Notice the gingerbread houses decorated that evening behind Jennifer (the gracious hostess). That's her mother in red, my sister.
I found Jennifer's not yet two-year old daughter behind the chair in this pose, pondering the unthinkable. "You mean one day I'll have boobs?" I love her pink cowboy boots. They would go well with my dress.

Food Trip

I asked my mother-in-law what she would like to do while she was still feeling well. After considering a trip to Nashville (Brown County, Indiana), she decided that she wanted to go to Shipshewanna shopping. So we took off for a day trip during the week after Thanksgiving.

Our first stop was Yoder's General store. The fabrics!! I have been reading A Dress A Day and getting the itch to sew something with pockets and my mother's vintage buttons. Since I haven't sewn for 30+ years, I may start with an apron using my grandmother's hand-drawn pattern. So one reason for a return trip.

Our last stop was E & S Foods. The food!! The entry I linked (the store has no web site) calls it the Amish Trader Joes. I stocked up for Christmas baking and have another reason for a return trip.

In between the fabric and foods, I bought myself a fringe cowgirl dress with pockets for $5. It gives me great joy. I tried it on for my husband the other night and was prancing around asking, "What do you think?" He was so intensely quiet, I had to laugh to see the effort he was making to formulate the right answer. It was obvious to him that I loved it and it was obvious to me that he didn't. Perhaps it is telling that I couldn't find anything in a Google search for "fringe cowgirl dress" other than for little girls or Halloween! Another clue that my husband may be in the majority was the large rack of these dresses with numerous mark-downs.

I'm not ready for this...

It's the night for merry-making and resolutions. My merry-making will be burning the brush piles in a snowstorm. Strange but delightful because I'm doing it with my husband. My resolution is to post at least once in December.

There has been lots of blog fodder, but mid-November we learned that my mother-in-law has lung cancer. Fast-growing and non-treatable. At first she was given 4 to 6 months. She decided to take chemo which will not cure it but may give her another 4 to 6 months. So I haven't posted because I wasn't ready to post this news and all other content paled in comparison.

I've seen a lot of "outtakes" of Christmas pictures, but usually it was the little ones goofing around that "spoiled" the picture. My husband's family decided (after we got there) to take a picture on Thanksgiving but it wasn't the little ones causing the problem. I thought the composition would be improved if I sat on my husband's lap, which ended up with us rolling on the floor. Of course, they snapped the picture then.