Giant Mouse of Pinconning

(Pinconning, MI) We took a side trip on our way up to Mackinac Island to visit the town of Pinconning today. Pictured on your left is a giant mouse outside of the Wilson Cheese Shoppe in Pinconning, a Michigan town noted for its cheeses.

I lived in Michigan for 25 years and traveled to the northern parts of the state more times than I could ever remember, yet I never ventured into Pinconning. As a child I pronounced the town as "PINE-cone-ing," like a verb associated with the gathering of pine cones. However, locals pronounce the place "PIN-con-ing."

Just so you know.

I think that retailers of cheese are the only businesses in which the presence of large rodents might be seen as a source of pride. The giant mouse standing guard at the Wilson Cheese Shoppe seems friendly enough, but I would not advise trying to jack him after dark.

Get it? Jack the cheese-bearing mouse? I kill me.

Unexpected Construction Snafus

Pictured on your left is the ceiling to our first floor bathroom, which contractors cut away to get better access to drain lines for out new upstairs shower. We knew that we had some leak issues, but the removal of the downstairs sheetrock provided us with a better view of the water damage.

So the contractors will be hanging around a few more days, and a few hundred more dollars will need to be invested in the old homestead. There are worse outcomes in life, are there not?

And tearing a few extra holes in the ceiling would still have been cheaper than relocating all the water lines and drain lines for the new shower, especially given the price of copper these days. Running new lines from the basement would easily have been an extra thousand dollars or more, not to mention the extra hours of pounding, sawing, and other renovation-related noises.

Where Once There Was a Shower

We are continuing in our efforts to help jump start the local economy by hiring contractors to help us remodel our house, and the picture on the left is our upstairs bathroom after Day One of renovations. Our bathroom was remodeled a few years ago, but the bathtub unit we purchased developed a crack, so we elected to install one of those step-in shower units with benches.

Assuming I live to a ripe old age (never a safe assumption given my prodigious consumption of fatty and fried foods over the years) I will be able to use this shower as long as I can still crawl.

The contractors we are using recently finished a few other projects, including the installation of a clawfoot bathtub in our downstairs bathroom and the relocation of our laundry room to the second floor. The workers are producing fine work, but the temporary disruptions associated with renovations have been getting on my nerves a bit. Yet despite the heavy traffic, the endless dog-yapping, and all the other unpleasantries of home improvements, we should have a brand-new bathroom by Thursday.

Now, to prepare for the property tax hike rebuttal I will need to compose once the county auditor gets wind of our renovative exploits.

Reconnecting with Japanese Spurge

In our quest to create peaceful garden spaces in my yard, one of the plants we chose for a shady area under a maple tree was Japanese spurge (also known as Pachysandra Terminalis). Over the past few years I did not tend to the spurge plants as well as I should have, and they languished a bit while I pursued a doctorate.

This year I vowed to revitalize the spurge garden, and I have been regularly watering their space. I also filled in some thin areas with a dozen new spurge plants, and I think the small shade garden is starting to prosper.

When properly tended, Japanese spurge provides a dense ground cover, and the plant produces white flowers in the early spring. Several patches still managed to thrive in the years that I paid the garden inadequate attention, and they have started to send out shoots with new plants for the first time in years.

I am also adding nutrient-rich leaf mulch to the spurge garden to help with moisture retention and to add a bit of acidic pH to the soil. The tree under which the plants grow is a notorious consumer of moisture and nutrient, but even my best efforts to neglect these plants could not kill the garden.

Violet Delphinium

I am not sure where I purchased the small Delphinium plant that is pictured in the accompanying photograph, but the plant has proven to be a hardy and colorful addition to my gardens. As an added bonus, in this growing region the Delphinium produces several rounds of flowers (this is the second for this plant this year), meaning that any garden with Delphinium is likely to receive plenty of color throughout the year.

The plant is quite toxic, though, so be sure to keep Delphinium away from small children and pets.

This perennial plant can be propagated from seed, or you can also split the rhizomes and start new colonies in other gardens. In this garden the Delphinium grew from a single stalk to six stalks in two years: moderate growth, but not the type of growth that takes over an entire garden.

Riding on a Canal Boat

Left: a restored section of the Miami and Erie Canal in Providence Metropark

Though I have lived in the area for over two decades, I previously never set foot at Providence Metropark. Moreover, as a historian who sometimes writes about the region of the Great Black Swamp, I am also a bit embarrassed to admit that I had never went on a canal boat ride on the restored section of the Miami and Erie Canal that the park boasts.

Thus, when my wife mentioned that she would like to take a canal boat ride, I readily agreed, and we set out to Providence Metropark.

The mid-eighties weather was perfect for a boat ride, and I was impressed with the knowledge of the tour guides, who wore clothing from the mid-1870s and peppered the tour dialogue with interesting historical tidbits (and no references to newfangled technology such as the spirometer). Sometimes when I take a historical tour I find myself gritting my teeth at the history being presented, but the three reenactors were well versed in the history of Ohio's canal era.

The site also features a working sawmill and gristmill that is powered by water. Visitors can tour the Isaac Ludwig Mill and see how lumber and grains were processed before the era of industrial agriculture, and the mill even cuts timber used in many of the area Metroparks.

Tour bus and group reservations are accepted for the canal boat tour, and you can call 419-407-9741 for more information. Tickets for the boat ride are quite reasonable: $6 adults, $5 seniors (60 and over), $4 children (3 to 12), and kids aged two and under are free. The canal season runs from late April to mid-October, and you can follow the above link to find exact tour times and dates.

Shark Cloud

I am sometimes accused of walking around with my head in the clouds. This is a charge that I would probably confess is true, though I would also argue that head-in-clouds syndrome occasionally has its own rewards.

Such was the case with the sunset images I took tonight.

Pictured on your left is a series of clouds in the western sky over southeastern Michigan this evening. The larger cloud formation reminded me of a great white shark, in small part perhaps because this is Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. There are some decidedly dagger-like appendages to the cloud that resemble razored shark teeth.

The smaller cloud might be an unsuspecting red snapper about to be sent to Marine Valhalla.

Rapid Rhetoric: PAVIOUR

This is an irregular feature - both in frequency and oddness - dedicated to a word or phrase I came across that I have never previously used.

paviour (PAVE-yer) n. a laborer who lays paving materials; a machine for laying paving materials; the material used in a paving project.

Also spelled pavior, the term paviour is of Middle English derivation, with origins in the word paven ("to pave"), and both words also trace back to the French word paver. I came across the term in an 1866 collection of Hans Christian Andersen tales; the source of the quote is from a tale called "Two Maidens":

Now, there are among us human creatures certain individuals who are known as "emancipated women;" as, for instance, principals of institutions, dancers who stand professionally on one leg, milliners, and sick nurses; and with this class of emancipated women the two maidens in the shed associated themselves. They were " maidens" among the paviour folk, and determined not to give up this honourable appellation, and let themselves be miscalled rammers.

In this translation the term paviour seems to be equivalent to "common" or "lowly"; at the very least street pavers appear to have garnered little respect in this nineteenth century translation.

Lowly and Dependable Marigolds

I think the first flowers I ever planted as a kid were marigolds, and they have always been among the elements of any flower garden I have planted. I like the fact that marigolds provide many months of color for a relatively small investment, and of course these are hardy plants that need little maintenance beyond an occasional watering. In fact, marigolds tend to thrive just on the edge of dry soil, as this forces the plants to root deeper.

Some horticulturalists despise marigolds, citing reasons such as their prolific spreading, their strong aroma, or the ease with which any schlep can grow these flowers. Yet I like to use them as border plants and to fill in areas that need some future work but which I do not have the time to invest. For example, one of our weigela bushes died last year, so I simply tossed some giant marigold seeds in the space and voila! Instant color.

I typically grow marigolds from seed, getting the seeds in the soil as early as possible. In my front yard the flowers began to appear about the 20th of May this year, and I will continue to have color from the marigolds until at least mid-October. That means about five months of color for perhaps three dollars worth of seed, and if I remember to harvest the seeds this year, these flowers will pay dividends for years to come.

Dark Red Sunflower

Over the past few years I have planted red sunflowers in my gardens, and I find these plants to add an interesting contrast to the lighter hues of nearby flowers. Among the red sunflowers that blossomed this year is the specimen on your left, which might be the darkest red I have ever seen in a sunflower before.

For the moment the hungry goldfinches have not begun their feeding frenzy on my red sunflowers, but this might be simply a function of quantity: I have dozens more yellow sunflowers that the goldfinches can eat, and most of these opened before the red varieties.

Regardless of the reasons, the red sunflowers are now in full bloom, and the yard is that much more enjoyable because of their presence.

Sunflower Mauler

Over the past few years an increasing number of American goldfinches have set up shop near my house. In part this is due to the thistle seed I provide these colorful songbirds, but in larger measure the presence of the goldfinches is a function of the sunflowers I plant around my yard.

The goldfinches especially like to tear apart the sunflowers just when the flower head begins to form seeds from the florets. The goldfinch in the accompanying photograph spent five solid minutes tearing apart a flower head before noticing how close I was getting to his perch.

The birds also exhibit the courtesy to wait a few weeks before attacking my sunflowers, allowing me time to appreciate the simple beauty of the flowers before having to watch them be devoured. By the time the feasting commences, the sunflowers have long since passed their floral prime, and the sunflower mauling provides the dying plant a new purpose.

Tomato Thief

While taking some pictures of sunflowers I heard some rustling in a nearby patch of tomatoes. I looked through the thick tomato leaves and noticed that one of my dogs was the source of the noise.

In fact, the dog in question was not merely passing through the tomato patch, but he was helping himself to a ripe tomato right off the vine. Pictured in mid-swipe is Shadow, a five-year-old terrier mix we adopted a few months ago. The shaded area in which he perched created a bluish effect in the image, but the tomato theft is well documented for future reference.

Our veterinarian recommended against feeding dogs tomatoes, by the way, as he noted that dogs who eat tomatoes are prone to bladder stones. Green tomatoes - plus the green stems and leaves - contain the compound atropine, which can cause tremors and heart arrhythmia.

None of our other dogs have shown any interest in eating ripened tomatoes from the vine before, so I will have to pay closer attention to Shadow when he wanders near the tomatoes.