PA, Girl Scouts, and the Cabin!

I headed over to PA to visit son and his wife.  It takes about 8 hours to get there.  I stopped to visit my old teaching department at Slippery Rock University.  Only one professor and the secretary was around at 4:00pm.  Oh well, I drove around to see any changes in the last 4 years.

This is the side of the Field House off Keister Road.  A nice Fall day on campus.

I arrived with a friend's trailer and Ryan and I loaded it with oak and hemlock 1" X 12" X 12' pieces.  Ryan bought it rough cut from the Amish and planed it down himself.  It was a heavy load.  We took three loads of stuff from his garage over to the cabin he is re-modeling.

This is the cabin Ryan lived in while studying for his MA in History.  It only has one bedroom, but he has plans for an addition during the summer.  He is excited to have his own first house and has been designing all the changes needed.  He will do 95% of the work himself.

The planks are laid out on the carpet and will be stained and cut.  I asked about the carpet and Ryan said, "It is coming out and hardwood floors are going down next". So we cut and stained right on top of the carpet.

This is the before picture of the cabin's living room ceiling with a beam down the middle.  We then cut the 12' boards to fit and used a clear varnish.

Since his wife, Leslie, is pregnant and due in January, we didn't want her beathing the fumes.  That meant we really could make a mess inside the house and then just clean it up afterwards. The one wall is barn siding.

You can see the two sides have been finished.  Ryan decided to slide the panels in place and not nail them down.  Wife would inspect after we had it roughly in place.

Handling 12' planks that are 12" wide is tough for one person.  As you try to saw to size, the blade get pinched.  We finally got our system down and were really moving.  We started at 8 am and worked until 6 pm and finished it in two days  That is, we finished the baby's room, the living room and the kitchen. Next, it was time for the inspection by the Boss!  Wife came over and looked for a long time at our work. She liked the wood grain, she liked the natural stain, but she didn't like that some of the boards were still rough.  "How am I going to clean it?"    Suggestion taken and Ryan said he could take the boards down and sand them smooth and re-stain in one day now that the work was all cut and sized.  We Stauffers like to rush right along and it helps to have the Boss inspect every so often.

Last week, Ryan found three little kittens in the middle of the road that someone had dropped off. He built a kitten box by the front door. He already has two cats so no more cats.

 He has fed them and they are now healthy so I took pictures for listing them on Craig's List.  Free kittens, anyone? 

This is fluffy and she/he followed us all around as we worked. I'm not good on checking sex of little kittens.  They all look the same to me!

This is yellow cat.  Gee, every cat is different from that litter.  Does that mean three fathers?

This one reminded me of my pet cat when I was a young boy.  It arrived one day in our yard and I wanted to keep it.  I didn't know that my father took it for a ride and let it off about one mile from our house.  Two days later, the cat returned and became part of the family.

On Saturday, Ryan had to give a History, Geography and Geology of PA lesson to 45 Girl Scouts from 3rd grade to 8th grade.  This is part of his job at the Heritage School of Butler County Community College.  He works there as a full-time Blacksmith instructor and teaches in between.  It was great to be there to see my son present to the girls.  He had active learning stages set up and kept the girls going from 8:00 am to 2:30 pm.  I really like how he had them make name tags from a wood cut from a tree limb  Then he had them find out how old the wood was by counting the rings.  Then they had to go over to a large tree that was cut into several stumps and count those rings and identy where they would be if the tree was planted on their birthdate.

Then they laid out a rope in the shape of PA and had to identy where major towns, the capitol, and rivers were located.  They first did it on an handout and this was the reinforcing lesson.

For Geology, they had to identy three different types of rocks and  sort them out  from a pile that was given them.  I noticed the girls checking out the stones in the driveway after lunch.

I was very proud of his teaching.  Usually he is teaching adults in blacksmithing or how to play the bagpipes, but he loves to share his education in other areas with students. I think the girls liked his lessons, two girls came up and asked for his autograph! 

Ryan is teach a Venture Crew (High School scout progam for guys and girls) on Mondays.  They raised $2000 and bought an old Case Farm Tractor.  They have it all torn down and are re-building the engine.  The students do all the work and Ryan just supervises.  They will donate it to the program and it will haul the Hay Waggon they re-stored last spring. Someone donated a small lightweight airplane that crashed and that is their next project.  Boy, I wished I would have had a chance like that in High School.

Another 8 hour drive and I am now back in Michigan.  I leave Thursday for a month and a half in Key West.  Hopefully, I will post some stories from Key West.  I miss Jimmy Buffett and those frozen Mango Daiquiris!

Stay tuned!

Who likes Bumper Cars?

STREET LEGAL BUMPER CARS




It's easy for a gear-head to be discouraged about the state of


the world, especially in times of Carpocalypse and Cash for Clunkers.


But occasionally, a bright light of awesome renews the spirit.


Road-legal bumper cars do just that.






Yes, you read that right; these little beasties are street legal.


Either Kawasaki or Honda motorcycle engines for power, and retired


vintage bumper car bodies - transformed into the most awesome form of


mini-car we've ever seen.

There's seven of these little monsters floating around


California, and they're all the creation of one man, Tom Wright, a


gyro-gear loose builder on the outskirts of San Diego who figured the


leftovers of the Long Beach Pike amusement park needed a more dignified


end than the trash heap.


They were originally powered by Harley engines but rattled like heck and


Tom replace them with Honda or Kawasaki 750's... and a couple have been


'measured' [not run at] theoretically as capable of 160 MPH which is


terrifyingly fast in machines with such a short wheelbase. Doesn't mean


we would totally rock one should the opportunity present itself. In


fact, we now have only one burning desire, to see these things running a


go kart track with a clown in the drivers seat.

Think of the fun you can have driving this around town.

I love the license plates!

I think these are limited edition models.  Where would you find some around here?

Ok, clutch, brake, gass and shifter!  That is all I need.  Oh no, you can't pick up girls! :-(  No wait, it looks like a two seater!!

Just remember you have a bumper car, the others on the road don't!

Monday Fishing!

I love to fish Mondays on the Manistee River.  The weekend crowd is gone and I can wade where ever I want.  Today was nice and it didn't rain.  We are getting our 4-5 days of Indian Summer right now. 

I headed down Cardiac Hill and decided to use the flies I have been teaching in my Fly Tying class at Brethern High School.  I tied on the Black Leech and started drifting it down the river.

Looking upstream towards the Coffer Dam were two guys floating bobbers and egg sacs.  I decided to stay down by the bend.

I could just make out two guys below me and they were throwing bobbers also.

This is the North side right at the boat launch at Tippy Dam.  No combat fishing today.





I kept drifting my leech and doing repetitive casting.   Drift down, bump bottom, lift and reel in.  Throw out again, drift down, bump bottom, and reel in.  Over and over and then move a few steps down and do it again.  Whoa, what was that!  I go to set the hook and am fast into something.          The bottom!  I tugged but it didn't tug back.  Finally, the line broke and I had to re-rig.  Then cast and cast again.  The sun was out and a little windy but nice to be on the Manistee River.

Fish on!  A colorful Brown Trout hit the black leech!  Yeah, I can tell my fly tying class that the fly does work!

Back to the casting and drifting.  I fished from 9:00 - 11:45 am.  It was relaxing and fun.  This is day 159 of fishing for this year.  I have to teaching Fly Tying on Tuesday night and Glass Bead Making on Wednesday night and Thursday I am heading over to Slippery Rock, PA   to help my son, Ryan, put down new flooring.

So I only have a couple more days of fishing before I head down to Key West for 30 days of sunshine!

Not many people and lots of open space to fish...priceless!  I have to work on my boat trailer bearings so I get all the water out before winter.  I was going to start the job this morning but the nice weather beckoned me to the river.  I switched to a new style of  a leech.  This was made with marabou tail but petite Estaz black braid body.  I thought it would work as well and I tossed it out.  Second cast and wham!

The new Black Leech works as well as the old style fly.    Another Brownie!  Where are the Steelhead?

I switched to the Nuclear Egg pattern.  I told the class it was a great fly.  I snagged another one on the bottom and broke off my rig.  I re-tied and started floating the egg pattern down.

All right, a Rainbow trout that will grow up to be a Steelhead.  Ok, three fish and no Steelhead. I released everything to grow bigger.  I decided it was time to head back.  My Egg pattern caught a fish and my Leech caught two so I could report that fishing was good on the Manistee River on Monday!

As I started up Cardiac Hill I took this picture.

What do you see?  Notice the railing?

This shows the railing on both sides.  The wind gets pretty strong sometimes and last Spring it blew over several pine trees and bend the railing.  The hillside is rocky and the tree roots do not get a deep root here. The stairs were closed for 2-3 days before Consumers Electric cut up the trees and opened the stairway.

I carried up another bag of trash and noted that it still looks pretty good.  Remember what Smokey the Bear says....."Pick it up and pack it out".  At least, I think that is what Smokey told me last week!

History is Interesting!

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500s:












Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and they still smelled pretty good by June.. However, since they were starting to smell . .. . brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.






Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water!"






Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath... It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."






There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.






The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, "Dirt poor.." The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence: a thresh hold.






(Getting quite an education, aren't you?)






In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire.. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old.






Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, "bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat.






Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.






Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.






Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky... The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.






England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus,someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer...






And that's the truth...Now, whoever said History was boring ! ! !

November Fish Camp

November Fish Camp is now officially over.  Wednesday, some of the former actors in the great Canadian Fish Caper were present.  We had Gary from Elk Rapids, Chris from Interlocken, and Mikey-Pikey from Grand Rapids.  Gary arrived early and we went down to the Manistee River to fish for steelhead. We both had several fish on.  Gary was using Mepp type spinners and I was using Egg patterns and a black leech flies.  I caught a Brown Trout on an egg pattern fly and had 2 large steelhead on my black leech fly.  I managed to land one!

After the rest of the guys arrived, back to the river to fish.  Everyone had a few trout caught before dark.

Back to the house for a Fish Boil.  Gary brought his Turkey Fryer and put in fish, potatoes, and onions for a Boiled dinner.

The water and seasoning were boiling and it was time to start adding the ingredients.  It sure gets dark early.  I had to run to Brethern High School to teach my Glass Bead Class.  You can't keep 7 women waiting for their night of bead making!

The food wasn't ready when I had to leave but the guys will save some for me.

Arriving at school, I got the room ready for the propane torches and tonight's lesson on adding compound dots and encasing the beads.

The beads were coming out great.  We only have one more class and they are doing great.

After class, I hurried home and had some fish boil.  They guys were relaxing and watching the last game of the World Series.  Early to bed tonight because tomorrow may be another fish day.

We were afraid that the rain from Wednesday would carry over or worse!  But when we got up, the weather was not too bad.  It was cloudy but no rain!  So off to the North side of Tippy Dam.  We fished below the boat launch on the gravel bars.

My brother, Gary, was using his home-made Mepps type spinners and caught a few trout.  The water was cloudy and fast today.  The dam must have released water.  It was flowing pretty good. The Fall leaves are pretty much down but it is still pretty on the river.

I told you, Gary, to hold the fish out in front of you with your arm straight to get a bigger picture of that fish!  Oh well, next time it will be a steelhead when it grows up.

Chris has one on, I can tell by the expression on his face.  Chris loves to fish and is pretty successful up near Traverse City.  The wind was cold and the water was getting cold.  When you stand in the water for hours, it starts to sap your body heat.  Notice we didn't wade out above our knees.  Somehow, the guys don't like to wade in cold water up your waist.  It seems to make our voice go up an octave. Is that due to shrinkage?

Right next to shore was one of the last hold-outs from Salmon Season.  The tail is mouldy and this fish won't last long.  The salmon spawn in the Fall and die.  The steelhead and trout come in and feed on the salmon eggs but they spawn in the Spring.  Some will return to Lake Michigan and some steelhead and trout will stay in the river until Spring.  You can fish year around on the Manistee!

Mikey-Pikey is now Steely Mike!  Well, it is a small steelhead that is going to grow up to be a big steelhead.  Mike enjoyed the time in camp and catching a few trout.  Everyone caught fish this year so on one was skunked!

Gary said the weather wasn't as bad as he expected.  In fact, he said he was quite warm.  He just looks cold in this picture.

As afternoon approached, we headed back to my place for lunch.  After lunch we posed for our group photo.  You know the one where you try to hit the timer button and run back to get into the picture.  Ask the guys how many tries it took to get this last shot!   And I was reading the instructions!

This was the last Fish Camp before I head to Key West for the rest of Nov. and Dec.   We had a good time and are ready for the next outing.  Maybe we will have Ice Fishing Camp this year!  I have some shots to tempt you guys.

What do you think?   Heh, guys, you want to go ice fishing?

Cajun Trip to Louisiana

My brother, Gary, and my sister, Barb, and I headed down to LA for a visit.  We flew to New Orleans and rented a car for the trip over to Crowley, LA to visit my daughter, Molly, and Joey.  After we arrived Joey ordered two 20 # gunney sacks of live crawfish from a local farmer.  We picked up the bags and put them on the back porch.  We ran cool water on the bags several times as we waited for the crawfish to purge.

Here I am holding a pail of fresh crawfish waithing for their bath and hot tub!  We had the Turkey Fryer going with water and Cajun boil spices.

These critters are lively and we sort out all the ones that appear to have suffered a stroke or something else. Don't want any bad crawfish in our Hot Tub.

The local rice farmers flood their fields after the rice crop and the crawfish start reproducing.  Crowley is considered the Rice Capital and they have a huge Rice Festival.  Then the flooding of the fields.  We were a little early and the crawfish were only medium sized.

This is after the hot tub bath!  Any crawfish that have straight tails, instead of curled tails are picked out.  Then it is time to 'suck head and eat tail'.  Eating crawfish is slow process and half the fun is getting some ready to eat.  Everyone in the neighborhood stopped over.  The smell of crawfish in the air brings people out of the woodwork. About 12-14 people were here for our crawfish boil.

First, you make you own sauce.  Everyone makes the sauce different.  We start with some Mayo, ketchup, hot sauce, and some special spices.  It is mixed up in a bowl beside you and then they bring out the platters.

To eat crawfish, you first twist off the head and then you use your thumbs and first fingers  on each side of the tail to crack the shell and pinch the end of the tail to have the tail meat pop out.  Most shuck several tails before they start eating. The size of your pile of tail meat depends on how hungry you are.  Can you wait for a big pile?  Ears of fresh corn and new potatoes were in the hot tub with the crawfish and you have a complete boiled dinner.

My sister was a little hesitant to eat crawfish for the first time.  She thought she would only taste a few.  In a short period of time, she had a plateful of shucked crawfish and decided they were pretty tasty.  You can see the hot sauce and Tony Chachere's seasoning on the table.  What do you do with all those empty heads and tails?

You make puppets, of course!  My brother , Gary, was having a little puppet show to tell how much he liked those little guys.

After a day of rest we headed out for the Town of Mamou..  This was a little drive NE of Crowley.  A lot of interesting history was here.

We arrived at 9:00 am on a weekday.  What to see first?  Well, we could hear the music and saw the sign and our minds were made up.

That's right...the Mardi Gras was revived in 1950 right here at Fred's Lounge.  It was 9:00 am and the musics was blasting and some people were dancing on the top of the tables.  Being from the North, we had never witnessed such a sight so early in the morning.  Well, it was a sight and a site to remember.

A true story about Mamou.  A Judge was sentencing a man for being drunk in public.  He stood weaving back and forth in front of the Judge.  "How could you appear in court, 5 days later, and still drunk?" the Judge asked.  The man said only, "Sir, I am from Mamou".  Case was dismissed.

What a culture stop!  Zydego music, cajun music, and you don't say 'no' when asked to dance.  It ain't friendly!  Just about every weekend you can find a festival and a band going on somewhere.

 

   If you get to Louisiana, be sure to see some of the smaller town away from New Orleans. You will meet friendly people who know how to celebrate life.

Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez .... Let the Good Times Roll.