Before I share a little more information on Frank Correia and Manuel Gomes. I want to mention that the Trustees of Reservations will be continuing the bluebird monitoring program started at the Ames Estate many years ago by Bob Hurd and "Doc" Everett. Dr. Everett is the father of one of Easton's rare Olympians, John Everett. John was a cross country and track and field kid while at Oliver Ames, but he also was the class valedictorian and ended up at a little school called MIT that just happens to sit next to the Charles River. During his first semester he joined the crew team and less than two years later he won a gold medal at the 1974 World Rowing Championships as a member of the US eight man shell. Everett finished ninth in the US eight at the Montreal Olympics in 1976. Early in 1980 Everett's eight beat the British team. Then Jimmy Carter decided to be the first American President to touch the Afghan tar baby and cancelled our participation in the 1980 Moscow Olympics to protest the Soviet invasion. The British team Everett's had beaten won the silver medal. You do the math, Mr. Carter. John Everett is a member of the National Rowing Hall of Fame and the Oliver Ames Athletic Hall of Fame.
Over at the Ames Estate, there are many rare trees, but right now only one is labelled. It is a little crab apple planted, the plaque says, in honor of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. If you watched the fantastic Opening Ceremony last night, you saw one of the cheekiest bits of British humor ever-the Queen escorted by James Bond parachuting into the Olympic stadium. Earning best supporting actor awards were the Queen's Corgis who looked really disappointed when they weren't allowed onto the helicopter. Corgis are my second favorite dog after Pomeranians.
OK, every Portuguese immigrant was apparently named Manuel Gomes. At least that's the way I feel after doing research yesterday. Remember we were trying to see if there was a connection between Gomes and Frank Correia who both allegedly came to America in 1911 and brought their wives over in 1914. The first stop were census records. Ancestry.com has just finished indexing the 1940 census and only Correia not Gomes appears to have still been in Easton then. The Correia's were a family of six. Frank, age 47 was a laborer in the Shovel Shop who made $540 in wages in 1939. During the week of March 24-30, 1940, he worked a 30 hour week. His wife Leolinda was a housewife. The oldest child was Ololia aged 23 (did you know that vowels are one of Portugal's leading exports?). Like all four kids she had been born in Massachusetts in her case in 1916 or 1917. She was working around the corner from the family home on Oliver Street at Stedfast Rubber where she made $360 as a heel trimmer. Frank, Jr., two years younger, also worked at the Shovel Compan making $260 in wages. The two children worked 23 and 24 hours during that March week. Do the short hours reflect an attempt by the shovel and rubber companies to keep workers on during the Depression with reduced hours? The other two Correia children were Dorothy, age 11 and Leolinda, age 9.
The Gomes family shows up in the 1930 and 1920 censuses. Gomes was 7 years older than Correia reducing the chances that they were friends. In 1930 both Gomes and his wife Rose were working at Stedfast Rubber, and despite living in the US for at least 15 years neither was listed as speaking English. They had three children, the oldest age 10. The record confirms the 1911 and 1914 immigration dates, but notes that Gomes married Rose when he was 29. He was 44 in 1930 so that means the marriage took place after Rose arrived in America. Had they been engaged before she emigrated? The 1920 census shows that tragedy was not unknown in the Gomes family. Born in 1916, 3 and a half year old Edward Gomes died before the next census. That 1920 census moves back the immigration date for both Manuel and Rose by a year to 1910 and 1913.
Which meant that ships' manifests had to be searched. The 6-10 Manuel Gomes who emigrated from Portugal to Boston and New York between 1910 and 1915 couldn't be definitely tied to Easton's Gomes, but none of them came over on a ship with a Frank Correia. Thus, it looks like the immigration dates in the survey forms were some kind of coincidence or even a recording error although we'll probably never know for sure.
Welcome
A curiosity shop is a place of odds and ends in a wide range of categories. One never knows what one will find on any visit, and that is the goal of this blog. Here you'll find postings on doings around Easton, the world's environment, history, recipes, fly fishing, books, music, and movies with many other things thrown in as well. Hope you enjoy it and keep coming back.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Friday, July 27, 2012
Why Does Local History Stop a Century Ago?
Well, dear reader, my answer to the question in the heading is that I've spent so much time remembering everyone else's stories, I don't remember my own. I've taken a few days off from the blog to prepare a new walking tour of North Easton. It wasn't another homage to the Ames family and H. H. Richardson, but the story of folks that were drawn to North Easton by the opportunities there. Over the last few years the Historical Commission has upgraded its historic house surveys particularly in North Easton. The researchers we have been using are professional historians with a lot of private eye built in so each house gets a history of residents along with a summary of architectural features. We're beginning to learn a lot from these surveys. In big history we now have a better idea of how the shovel company served as an engine of economic development for other smaller entrepreneurs like George DeWitt, Lemuel K. Wilbur, and Josiah Goward. We also have lots of names of people from the 1920s through the 1940s who have stories that need to be told. Unfortunately, the researchers are not "townies" so in many cases all they can do is give us a name and take a guess about things. It's the Eastoners in their 70's and 80's and even 90's who are letting us all down by not writing their stories like so many of the folks from the generation before them.
Take Frank Correia and Manuel Gomes. These men left the island of Madeira in 1911 and moved to Easton. Both left their wives back home and ended up in Ames tenements around the corner from each other. Exactly three years later both men brought their wives to Easton. I wanted to know if these two were men with a plan-come over on the same boat, work hard, and bring the wives over together a few years later. You'd think that both men would have lived into a time where someone now living would remember them.
My research so far consists of asking Portuguese-Americans I find at Li'l Peach if they remember these men. My 7th grade history teacher was there chatting with a friend so I went over and asked my question. The friend was Frank Correia's son-in-law. Only in Easton! I didn't get an answer to my question-neither man could place Manuel Gomes-they think he might not be one of THE Gomes, but I did get some great stories about growing up Portuguese in Easton and a listing of some old time characters.
For example, moonshine. Portuguese Americans brought with them a history of distilling which unlike home wine making has always been illegal unless you pay a huge tax to the federal government. I knew this because when I was at Bridgewater State, my friend Augie Furtado brought in a bottle of 151 proof anisette created by his grandfather in New Bedford. This apparently also happened in Easton where the original brew also had to be watered down in order to be drinkable. The stuff that wasn't watered down was used to douse the hapless (and headless) chicken that was being plucked for dinner. The home brew was lit on fire to singe off the chicken's pin feathers. News that a widow of an old Swede had sold his still drew the comment that "I never knew he had one. It's those quiet ones that surprise you." That drew two comments. First that wherever they mixed in town the Swedes and the Portuguese got along well and second you could always smell the Portuguese stills when things were brewing up along Baldwin St. I told these story-tellers that they should be writing these stories down, but was told that no one wants to read about "renegade" history. What do you think?
More on this tomorrow.
Take Frank Correia and Manuel Gomes. These men left the island of Madeira in 1911 and moved to Easton. Both left their wives back home and ended up in Ames tenements around the corner from each other. Exactly three years later both men brought their wives to Easton. I wanted to know if these two were men with a plan-come over on the same boat, work hard, and bring the wives over together a few years later. You'd think that both men would have lived into a time where someone now living would remember them.
My research so far consists of asking Portuguese-Americans I find at Li'l Peach if they remember these men. My 7th grade history teacher was there chatting with a friend so I went over and asked my question. The friend was Frank Correia's son-in-law. Only in Easton! I didn't get an answer to my question-neither man could place Manuel Gomes-they think he might not be one of THE Gomes, but I did get some great stories about growing up Portuguese in Easton and a listing of some old time characters.
For example, moonshine. Portuguese Americans brought with them a history of distilling which unlike home wine making has always been illegal unless you pay a huge tax to the federal government. I knew this because when I was at Bridgewater State, my friend Augie Furtado brought in a bottle of 151 proof anisette created by his grandfather in New Bedford. This apparently also happened in Easton where the original brew also had to be watered down in order to be drinkable. The stuff that wasn't watered down was used to douse the hapless (and headless) chicken that was being plucked for dinner. The home brew was lit on fire to singe off the chicken's pin feathers. News that a widow of an old Swede had sold his still drew the comment that "I never knew he had one. It's those quiet ones that surprise you." That drew two comments. First that wherever they mixed in town the Swedes and the Portuguese got along well and second you could always smell the Portuguese stills when things were brewing up along Baldwin St. I told these story-tellers that they should be writing these stories down, but was told that no one wants to read about "renegade" history. What do you think?
More on this tomorrow.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Lots of Bottles of Beer on the Wall
OK, finding out how much hops to use in a beer is complicated. We all know that different styles of beer require different amounts of hops-a brewer making a Budweiser knock-off probably just waves some dry hops over the vat while someone making an India Pale Ale would use lots of hops. Another problem is that most brewers use hop extract which is much more consistent than the flowers themselves. However, your intrepid reporter managed to track down a recipe that says you can need about an ounce of hops for 10 gallons of beer.
4300 lbs of hops is 68,800 ounces. Times 10 is 688,000 gallons of beer. There are 128 fluid ounces in a gallon so that is 88,064,000 ounces of beer. Pour that into 16 ounce bottles and you get 5,504,000 bottles of beer on the wall. Or enough bottles to drive from here to Pluto. So take one down and pass it around, and there's 5,503,999 bottles of beer on the wall.
Just a couple more things. You might run across hops at a historical site or in the backyard of a home brewer. Don't touch! Many people report getting a rash after touching hops and about 3% get horrible skin lesions that sound worse than poison ivy. Also, don't let your dog eat hops because it will cause a fatal case of hyperthermia. You probably shouldn't let your dog drink beer either; because then they wouldn't be able to serve as your designated driver.
Friday, July 20, 2012
How Many Bottles of Beer on the Wall?
The Easton Journal and its related papers are doing a supplement on local agriculture. I was contacted to supply some historical background for the articles. Chaffin's History of Easton includes a list of the most common farm products in 1875. In that year Easton produced over two tons of dried hops, the bitter ingredient in beer. Easton, it turns out, was probably the last town in Massachusetts to produce hops commercially.
Lots of farmers in Middlesex County grew hops in the 18th century because somebody had to help out that ne'er do well Sam Adams and other local brewers. When farmers moved west into the fertile fields of New York and Ohio, hop growing moved with them. Hops grew well on those fertile soils and then the Erie Canal opened and made it cheap to get their crops to market. The demand for local hops declined. Here's what happened, from my Easton's Neighborhoods:
Lots of farmers in Middlesex County grew hops in the 18th century because somebody had to help out that ne'er do well Sam Adams and other local brewers. When farmers moved west into the fertile fields of New York and Ohio, hop growing moved with them. Hops grew well on those fertile soils and then the Erie Canal opened and made it cheap to get their crops to market. The demand for local hops declined. Here's what happened, from my Easton's Neighborhoods:
Cyrus Howard married Joseph
Hayward’s daughter Elizabeth and moved to Hamilton, New York in 1799.
Coincidentally, around 1825 farmers in Howard’s part of upstate New York began
to grow hops and after a decade their competition severely hurt the business in
Middlesex County. One of Cyrus Howard’s sons, Eliphalet Smith Howard, returned
to Easton and settled on the east side of Howard Street directly south of the
school house. He soon began to grow hops on his farm and built a hop kiln for
drying this popular beer flavoring ingredient. The Hayward family quickly
adopted the crop in their neighborhood, and other hop kilns sprang up in other
neighborhoods as well. Thus, while hops production in the rest of Massachusetts
was declining, Easton farmers were able to keep it as a cash crop until many
years after the Civil War.
Hop growing, became the chief
"industry" on the Hayward farm about the time of the Civil War. The increase
in German immigrants and the new emphasis on temperance which hurt hard liquor
consumption led to a spurt in beer production for which hops were a necessity.
For the first few years, Hayward took the hops to the drying kiln in the Howard
Neighborhood, but in September 1868 Captain Washington and his son E. R. Hayward
built their own kiln west of Captain Washington’s house. The hop fields
themselves were on the current land of the Southeastern Regional School.
According to the account of Edward
B. Hayward, Captain Washington's grandson:
The
hops were set out and allowed to grow one year. Thereafter the hops came up
each spring, and a hop pole was set in each hill. As soon as the vines began to
grow they were trained around the poles and fastened with a string twisted so
as the vine grew the string would untwist and not cut the vine. This hop tying
was one of my boyhood jobs, but I always had plenty of help so that the task
never became arduous.
In
late September or October the hops were harvested. Great boxes were taken to
the fields and each box divided into four compartments and four boys and girls
picked into each box. The poles were pulled up and laid on a support across the
box and the hops were stripped from the poles into the boxes. Boys and girls
came from the country round to earn their spending money for the year.
As
fast as the boxes were filled they were emptied into huge burlap bags and taken
to the hop kiln. A fast picker would pick two boxes a day, but by far the most
were out for a good time more than for spending money, so the average was much
less than one box. Pickers were brought from North Easton in express wagons
making an early start so as to get back by seven o'clock as was the usual
custom.
The
hops were spread out over a screen floor in the hop kiln and hot fires were
kept going under them all night until they were dry. Then they were pushed
through a chute into another room ready to be pressed into bales for shipping.
All was not quite as idyllic in
the hop fields as the previous account might indicate. Historian Frank Mennino
has recovered an article from the Easton
Journal of September 5, 1884 which
could be a headline story today:
An
80-year-old man. Edwin Fisher of the Centre, was attacked by a gang of youths
who were returning from E. R. Hayward’s hop fields. When the old man offered
some apples to the hot, tired youths, the ungrateful thugs beat him with pails
and dinner plates. Hayward has about 50 boys working in the fields and they
often help themselves to fruit from the orchards lining the route to work. They
are not industrious workers while they are at work, and we wish they were not
so industrious afterward. They often make for merry workers and poor examples
for our children.
I mentioned this to Frank Mennino yesterday and he told me that the Trustees of Reservations has a historical researcher developing a 100-200 page report on the history of the Governor Ames Estate to help in the management of the property. Apparently, the Trustees actually use research to manage their properties while other conservation groups in Easton simply put such studies on the shelf. Anyway, Frank noted that the researcher was fascinated by a sketch of a hop kiln we have on the wall at the Historical Society. She told him that in her years of researching across Massachusetts it's the only sketch of a local hop kiln she has ever seen.
That's the history, but I wanted to know how many gallons of beer 4300 pounds of hops could flavor, and that leads us to the science of hopping. More on that tomorrow.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Foods, Recipes, and a New App
Just downloaded a free iPad App from the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra that allows you to listen to about 250 pieces that cover the whole history of chamber music from the Baroque to the present. Not only can you hear the pieces, but you can get extensive notes on the performances. A very nice way to explore classical music.
I forgot to mention I bought a cup of Old Chatham Sheepherding Company Sheep's Milk Yogurt with Ginger. This costs about three times what a Chobani yogurt costs. If you've ever milked a sheep, you'll understand the cost. This is the creamiest, most delicious yogurt I've ever tasted. Sheep's milk is higher in calcium, protein, vitamins, and zinc than cow's milk. It's also easier to digest than cow's milk. Still, its the flavor that makes it worth a try if you ever run across it.
My mother was a dedicated collector of cookbooks so I have dozens around the house, but when I'm looking for a recipe or recipe idea, I go to my iPad for the cookbooks I have there. Two of the books are the online versions of the regular and vegetarian How To Cook Everything. The other is Big Oven. Big Oven allows you to search through about 250,000 recipes. Yesterday looking for recipes for chanterelle mushrooms Big Oven offered me 26. However, I decided to go with a variation of the basic recipe for Cranberry Beans and Porcini from the vegetarian version of HTCE. The very easy variation is called Fava Beans from Chanterelles. Using some info from Big Oven and Wikipedia, I added frozen pearl onions. I blanched and skinned the fava beans and set them aside. Using the hot bean water I defrosted the pearl onions. I cleaned the chanterelles and chopped them. In a sauté pan I melted a good amount of Kate's Butter and added some greek seasoning (salt, pepper, garlic powder, and oregano) In went the chanterelles which I sauteed til they softened and released a wonderful citrusy aroma. Then in went the onions which had been carefully drained. Finally the beans were added. The chanterelles have an amazing mild flavor which is really complemented by the beans and onions. The original recipe is for cranberry beans and porcini and serves four. It has detailed measurements, but with just three main ingredients its easy to improvise.
As I mentioned yesterday, I bought some Speck at Wegman's. This is a dried pork product from the Tyrol region in Italy. Think of it as prosciutto with the addition of juniper berries and other spices. A little research turned up a sandwich idea that is very good. It starts with rye bread, horseradish sauce, and kosher dill pickle slices and a generous amount of Speck. I added a very thin slice of onion and a slice of provolone cheese. Turns out this traditional idea is a very flavorful blend of sweet, salty, and savory.
Today, I visited the Foxboro Cheese Company to try to convince them to join our Farmer's Market. They make their own fromage blanc and asiago. Over the next couple of days I give you a review. On Wednesday I'll be touring the Simpson Springs Company, America's oldest beverage company. You can try Simpson Spring's wonderful soft drinks and spring water at the Farmer's Market tomorrow.
I forgot to mention I bought a cup of Old Chatham Sheepherding Company Sheep's Milk Yogurt with Ginger. This costs about three times what a Chobani yogurt costs. If you've ever milked a sheep, you'll understand the cost. This is the creamiest, most delicious yogurt I've ever tasted. Sheep's milk is higher in calcium, protein, vitamins, and zinc than cow's milk. It's also easier to digest than cow's milk. Still, its the flavor that makes it worth a try if you ever run across it.
My mother was a dedicated collector of cookbooks so I have dozens around the house, but when I'm looking for a recipe or recipe idea, I go to my iPad for the cookbooks I have there. Two of the books are the online versions of the regular and vegetarian How To Cook Everything. The other is Big Oven. Big Oven allows you to search through about 250,000 recipes. Yesterday looking for recipes for chanterelle mushrooms Big Oven offered me 26. However, I decided to go with a variation of the basic recipe for Cranberry Beans and Porcini from the vegetarian version of HTCE. The very easy variation is called Fava Beans from Chanterelles. Using some info from Big Oven and Wikipedia, I added frozen pearl onions. I blanched and skinned the fava beans and set them aside. Using the hot bean water I defrosted the pearl onions. I cleaned the chanterelles and chopped them. In a sauté pan I melted a good amount of Kate's Butter and added some greek seasoning (salt, pepper, garlic powder, and oregano) In went the chanterelles which I sauteed til they softened and released a wonderful citrusy aroma. Then in went the onions which had been carefully drained. Finally the beans were added. The chanterelles have an amazing mild flavor which is really complemented by the beans and onions. The original recipe is for cranberry beans and porcini and serves four. It has detailed measurements, but with just three main ingredients its easy to improvise.
As I mentioned yesterday, I bought some Speck at Wegman's. This is a dried pork product from the Tyrol region in Italy. Think of it as prosciutto with the addition of juniper berries and other spices. A little research turned up a sandwich idea that is very good. It starts with rye bread, horseradish sauce, and kosher dill pickle slices and a generous amount of Speck. I added a very thin slice of onion and a slice of provolone cheese. Turns out this traditional idea is a very flavorful blend of sweet, salty, and savory.
Today, I visited the Foxboro Cheese Company to try to convince them to join our Farmer's Market. They make their own fromage blanc and asiago. Over the next couple of days I give you a review. On Wednesday I'll be touring the Simpson Springs Company, America's oldest beverage company. You can try Simpson Spring's wonderful soft drinks and spring water at the Farmer's Market tomorrow.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Driving Two Hours for Groceries
I can presumably die happy now; I've been to Wegmans. Today I joined the library's Foodie group on a trip to Northorough to visit the new Wegmans supermarket there. Wegmans based in Rochester, New York has about 80 stores in the Northeast. They are ever so slowly moving into Massachusetts with this store being the first followed by a much smaller store in Chestnut Hill in fall, 2013 and another in Westwood by 2014.
The store has 140,000 square feet and 650 employees. We got a welcome Q and A from the Service Manager who told us that customer service is the key to Wegmans' success. They are one of Fortune Magazines top ten companies to work for and spend a lot of money training their employees. Tomorrow for example members of the fish department are going out of Boston on the day boats to get an idea of how their product is handled. Most of Wegmans' fish nationwide come from the Boston market so we are getting the freshest fish in the chain. They are all about educating their customers too. The Fish Department had a full large striper on display along with a full halibut. The meat department had a display case that showed the steps in dry aging beef. The finished product, all US Prime, was on sale for about $22 a pound.
That's also a Wegman's secret. Each major station has an over the top gourmet division and a reasonably priced section. The regular beef is US Choice, the normal grocery offering at normal prices. They actually had a chart comparing their prices to Whole Foods and BJs. Their regular offerings matched BJs prices. Don't forget that a big chunk of Wegmans is a grocery store like the three in Easton-I got two liter Polar Seltzer for 99¢ each.
You may have heard that you can get truffles at Wegmans for only $999.99 per pound. A helpful produce person reminded us that truffles have a strong flavor and a very light weight so that an $8 chunk is all you need for most recipes like a big truffle risotto! One day maybe, but I was pleased to find fresh chanterelles for only $19.99 a pound. I picked up a couple of ounces, a nice pile, for a supper tonight-more on that tomorrow.
The Cheese Section is a lot like the one at Whole Foods with great choices from around the world. Better than Roche Brother's, but not enough to make me drive an hour-well not until I taste the three I bought! The Deli Section is typically Wegmans: a take-a-number section with a good range of selections and a charcuterie section with premium cured meats from around the world. I'm trying two prime hams in my sandwiches this week-a juniper flavored ham called Speck and a Spanish Serrano. The Serrano was cured for 450 days!
You can buy food to make recipes from scratch or buy a vast number of prepared dishes-they have $6 and $8 dinners for example, but you can also eat at Wegmans. Amazing! When we arrived, there was dim sum-eight different Asian dumplings. There's a sushi bar, a coffee and pastry bar, a sub and pizza shop, an american hot food bar, an Asian station, and a hot and cold veggie bar. The dim sum were fantastic. For lunch I passed on the great looking ethnic food and went veggie with two wonderful dollops of prepared salad (out of about a dozen) and a variety of hot veggies-mushrooms cooked with French herbs, the ubiquitous jalapeno poppers, a veggie General Gau's Chicken, and two Indian-style potato, cheese, and peas cakes. There was more! Much more, the best cafeteria food I have ever eaten. Talking to the check out lady, I learned that Wegmans hires graduates from places like Johnson and Wales to cook their food.
So is it worth a trip? Yes, come hungry, come with a list of specialty items and enjoy a store that combines a regular grocery with a Whole Foods without the attitude. It makes food fun. I can't wait to the store opens in Westwood. The Northborough store sits in a mall with the typical store. Planned right you can grab a meal, go shopping, come back, grab a second meal, and do your food shopping.
The store has 140,000 square feet and 650 employees. We got a welcome Q and A from the Service Manager who told us that customer service is the key to Wegmans' success. They are one of Fortune Magazines top ten companies to work for and spend a lot of money training their employees. Tomorrow for example members of the fish department are going out of Boston on the day boats to get an idea of how their product is handled. Most of Wegmans' fish nationwide come from the Boston market so we are getting the freshest fish in the chain. They are all about educating their customers too. The Fish Department had a full large striper on display along with a full halibut. The meat department had a display case that showed the steps in dry aging beef. The finished product, all US Prime, was on sale for about $22 a pound.
That's also a Wegman's secret. Each major station has an over the top gourmet division and a reasonably priced section. The regular beef is US Choice, the normal grocery offering at normal prices. They actually had a chart comparing their prices to Whole Foods and BJs. Their regular offerings matched BJs prices. Don't forget that a big chunk of Wegmans is a grocery store like the three in Easton-I got two liter Polar Seltzer for 99¢ each.
You may have heard that you can get truffles at Wegmans for only $999.99 per pound. A helpful produce person reminded us that truffles have a strong flavor and a very light weight so that an $8 chunk is all you need for most recipes like a big truffle risotto! One day maybe, but I was pleased to find fresh chanterelles for only $19.99 a pound. I picked up a couple of ounces, a nice pile, for a supper tonight-more on that tomorrow.
The Cheese Section is a lot like the one at Whole Foods with great choices from around the world. Better than Roche Brother's, but not enough to make me drive an hour-well not until I taste the three I bought! The Deli Section is typically Wegmans: a take-a-number section with a good range of selections and a charcuterie section with premium cured meats from around the world. I'm trying two prime hams in my sandwiches this week-a juniper flavored ham called Speck and a Spanish Serrano. The Serrano was cured for 450 days!
You can buy food to make recipes from scratch or buy a vast number of prepared dishes-they have $6 and $8 dinners for example, but you can also eat at Wegmans. Amazing! When we arrived, there was dim sum-eight different Asian dumplings. There's a sushi bar, a coffee and pastry bar, a sub and pizza shop, an american hot food bar, an Asian station, and a hot and cold veggie bar. The dim sum were fantastic. For lunch I passed on the great looking ethnic food and went veggie with two wonderful dollops of prepared salad (out of about a dozen) and a variety of hot veggies-mushrooms cooked with French herbs, the ubiquitous jalapeno poppers, a veggie General Gau's Chicken, and two Indian-style potato, cheese, and peas cakes. There was more! Much more, the best cafeteria food I have ever eaten. Talking to the check out lady, I learned that Wegmans hires graduates from places like Johnson and Wales to cook their food.
So is it worth a trip? Yes, come hungry, come with a list of specialty items and enjoy a store that combines a regular grocery with a Whole Foods without the attitude. It makes food fun. I can't wait to the store opens in Westwood. The Northborough store sits in a mall with the typical store. Planned right you can grab a meal, go shopping, come back, grab a second meal, and do your food shopping.
A Beverage Mystery
California Carlson was Hopalong Cassidy's sidekick. Whenever he came into town from the Bar-20, he was always threatening to bust loose at the saloon and always ending up ordering sarsaparilla. When I asked grandpa what that was he told me root beer. This morning Wikipedia told me the same thing. However, I was at the Easton Farmer's Market yesterday and discovered that Simpson Springs produces both Sarsaparilla AND Root Beer. Until I take the tour at Simpson Springs on Wednesday, here's what I know now.
There are five plants worldwide that are named sarsaparilla. They don't seem to be closely related. According to Wikipedia the drink was made from "these roots." One of the roots, Smilax regelli related to our catbriers, was used for medicinal purposes. Wikipedia assures me that this was used for the drink in America. Old timers like me still occasionally call soda "tonic" and early carbonated beverages were an attempt to make patent medicine more tasty. I've had second thoughts about good old California Carlson since I've learned that from 1820-1910 Sarsaparilla was in the US Pharmacopoeia as a cure for syphilis. Not to be unkind this may explain the drink's popularity with 19th century cowboys who were more Gus McCrae than Roy Rodgers. Lonesome Dove, by the way, remains one of my favorite novels ever.
The drink is not widely available in America anymore, but it is still popular in the Philippines, Malaysia, Australia, and southern India. Root beer also includes sarsaparilla root, but really features licorice root along with some of the following: cherry tree bark, nutmeg, acacia, anise, star anise, molasses, cinnamon, clove, and honey. In the olden days sassafras and sarsaparilla was the basis for root beer, but there is some concern about the carcinogenic and liver damaging properties of sassafras roots main component safrole.
There are five plants worldwide that are named sarsaparilla. They don't seem to be closely related. According to Wikipedia the drink was made from "these roots." One of the roots, Smilax regelli related to our catbriers, was used for medicinal purposes. Wikipedia assures me that this was used for the drink in America. Old timers like me still occasionally call soda "tonic" and early carbonated beverages were an attempt to make patent medicine more tasty. I've had second thoughts about good old California Carlson since I've learned that from 1820-1910 Sarsaparilla was in the US Pharmacopoeia as a cure for syphilis. Not to be unkind this may explain the drink's popularity with 19th century cowboys who were more Gus McCrae than Roy Rodgers. Lonesome Dove, by the way, remains one of my favorite novels ever.
The drink is not widely available in America anymore, but it is still popular in the Philippines, Malaysia, Australia, and southern India. Root beer also includes sarsaparilla root, but really features licorice root along with some of the following: cherry tree bark, nutmeg, acacia, anise, star anise, molasses, cinnamon, clove, and honey. In the olden days sassafras and sarsaparilla was the basis for root beer, but there is some concern about the carcinogenic and liver damaging properties of sassafras roots main component safrole.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Invasives
It's difficult for me to write about invasive species control on conservation properties since one of my biggest failures at the NRT was my inability to convince the Board, Executive Director, and Property Manager to take a serious approach to this issue. If you want to see any of the ten most common invasive plant species in Massachusetts go to Sheep Pasture. Wait til next year, and you'll be able to see more. A state listed endangered orchid is on the verge of being swamped by a small patch of glossy buckthorn on an NRT property. By the time I left in June nothing had been done about this despite having had a rescue plan developed by the New England Wildflower Society available for several years.
Man-made landscapes and farm land are most prone to invasion so neglect control efforts for a few years or a few decades and you are bound to have a problem. Undisturbed, unfragmented natural environments are less likely to be invaded, but we don't have many of those environments here in Easton where our "forests" are farms and estates reverting to woods.
Luckily, the Ames family seem to have done a very good job of controlling invasive species on the Governor Ames Estate which has now become the property of the Trustees of Reservations. With 25,000 acres to manage the Trustees have thought long and hard about invasive species. A little searching through their website will lead you to a 22 page PDF file on the issue. This document explains what an invasive species is and how they damage the environment. It then lays out the reasons to attempt to control invasives. One reason is to protect biodiversity, another is to set a good example of best land management policies, and a third is to protect cultural landscapes (gardens, landscaped estates) and agricultural productivity that are most prone to attack from invasives.
The next section of the document outlines best practices beginning with removing invasive species from designed landscapes before they invade minimally managed environments. When prevention fails or on new properties early detection becomes key. All properties are monitored especially along roads, property boundaries and in areas of human or physical disturbance. You can help by learning the major invasives and reporting any you see on the Ames Estate. After early detection the Trustees would use the least disruptive methods to remove and dispose of the new invasive.
In acquiring a property the Trustees do an inventory of both invasive and harmless species already present. This includes searching for rare or at risk plants. Once the inventory is completed, a management plan is developed. This is a much more complex task than preventing the introduction of an invasive species. Unless carefully implemented invasive species control of an established plant can become a Sisyphean task of annual removal. The Trustees recognize this and make restoration of native plant communities part of their control efforts. Ultimately, the Trustees have developed two control methods that they call weed-led and site-led. I'll talk about these strategies in a blog next week.
Man-made landscapes and farm land are most prone to invasion so neglect control efforts for a few years or a few decades and you are bound to have a problem. Undisturbed, unfragmented natural environments are less likely to be invaded, but we don't have many of those environments here in Easton where our "forests" are farms and estates reverting to woods.
Luckily, the Ames family seem to have done a very good job of controlling invasive species on the Governor Ames Estate which has now become the property of the Trustees of Reservations. With 25,000 acres to manage the Trustees have thought long and hard about invasive species. A little searching through their website will lead you to a 22 page PDF file on the issue. This document explains what an invasive species is and how they damage the environment. It then lays out the reasons to attempt to control invasives. One reason is to protect biodiversity, another is to set a good example of best land management policies, and a third is to protect cultural landscapes (gardens, landscaped estates) and agricultural productivity that are most prone to attack from invasives.
The next section of the document outlines best practices beginning with removing invasive species from designed landscapes before they invade minimally managed environments. When prevention fails or on new properties early detection becomes key. All properties are monitored especially along roads, property boundaries and in areas of human or physical disturbance. You can help by learning the major invasives and reporting any you see on the Ames Estate. After early detection the Trustees would use the least disruptive methods to remove and dispose of the new invasive.
In acquiring a property the Trustees do an inventory of both invasive and harmless species already present. This includes searching for rare or at risk plants. Once the inventory is completed, a management plan is developed. This is a much more complex task than preventing the introduction of an invasive species. Unless carefully implemented invasive species control of an established plant can become a Sisyphean task of annual removal. The Trustees recognize this and make restoration of native plant communities part of their control efforts. Ultimately, the Trustees have developed two control methods that they call weed-led and site-led. I'll talk about these strategies in a blog next week.
Friday, July 13, 2012
Trustees News and My Favorite Portuguese Food
I led the library's tree walk yestereday. When originally designed, the walk would have gone from the Italian Garden through Queset to Oakes Ames Hall and the Rockery. Then the Trustees of Reservations opened the Governor Ames Estate and everything changed. The estate is the 107th Trustees property and the area around the mansion is essentially an arboretum. Giant specimen trees dot the large lawn including Sweet Gum, Beech, Larch, Balsam Fir, and Ginko (that doesn't exhaust the list!). The wilder rear section of this 36 acre property is also spectacular by the way.
Much to my surprise Dennis Camp, the regional supervisor for the Trustees, came over from his headquarters in Canton to take the tour! No pressure there since he clearly knows more about trees than I'll ever hope to, but Dennis was sooo helpful-pointing out a Balsam Fir the size of a large Christmas tree that was actually a branch of a much larger tree that had toppled long ago, and identifying two small trees that had eluded my field guides. He then surprised everyone with a tour of the mansion and carriage house.
Speaking to the tour group, Mr. Camp urged everyone to visit often and to send in ideas for programming to the Trustees website. They are looking for a niche in the programs already provided by the Children's Museum and the NRT. The historic Carriage House will definitely be maintained, and Dennis noted that the Trustees are looking for a use for the 1950s mansion and urged us to come up with ideas as the Trustees plan for the future.
Yesterday, the Globe published a story about the new Trustees President which you can read here. The man on the far right is Dennis Camp. The Bird Estate in Walpole is one of the properties he is in charge of-he urged us all to check it out due to its similarity to the Ames property. By the way, you can subscribe to the Trustees e-newsletter at their website. As I have noted before, the website also gives detailed information about the Trustees properties. Here's a link to a really good article on controlling invasive species that I'll be blogging about tomorrow.
I won't be visiting the Bird Estate until next week since this weekend is all about food. On Saturday, I'm "opening the market," part of my job as Agricultural Commission Chair. Just want to remind everyone that the Farmer's Market isn't only about vegetables. You can actually eat a full meal on the grounds from Simpson Spring beverages to delicious cheeseburgers or slices of sourdough pizza. Dessert could be fresh berries or cookies, pastries and cakes. Samples of wine are also available.
Sunday I'll be joining the library's Foodie Group on a pilgrimage to Wegman's. I'm sure you'll be getting a report on that.
I've been listening to a wonderful audio book called The Thousand Autumns of Jacab de Zoet, a story of Nagasaki in the days of the Dutch trading concession there around 1800. At that time Japan was officially closed off from the European world except for this one trading post. This decision had been made 200 years before due to the activity of Christian missionaries brought in by the Portuguese and Spanish. Most of the story is fictional, but some events are historical. In researching the history I discovered that the Portuguese brought a popular dish called peixinho-da-horta to Japan. The dish is still popular to this day and is known by another Portuguese derived name: tempura. Yup, the wonderful batter dipped veggies and fish we are all familiar with at Japanese restaurants traveled 360 degrees around the world to get to a restaurant near you!
Much to my surprise Dennis Camp, the regional supervisor for the Trustees, came over from his headquarters in Canton to take the tour! No pressure there since he clearly knows more about trees than I'll ever hope to, but Dennis was sooo helpful-pointing out a Balsam Fir the size of a large Christmas tree that was actually a branch of a much larger tree that had toppled long ago, and identifying two small trees that had eluded my field guides. He then surprised everyone with a tour of the mansion and carriage house.
Speaking to the tour group, Mr. Camp urged everyone to visit often and to send in ideas for programming to the Trustees website. They are looking for a niche in the programs already provided by the Children's Museum and the NRT. The historic Carriage House will definitely be maintained, and Dennis noted that the Trustees are looking for a use for the 1950s mansion and urged us to come up with ideas as the Trustees plan for the future.
Yesterday, the Globe published a story about the new Trustees President which you can read here. The man on the far right is Dennis Camp. The Bird Estate in Walpole is one of the properties he is in charge of-he urged us all to check it out due to its similarity to the Ames property. By the way, you can subscribe to the Trustees e-newsletter at their website. As I have noted before, the website also gives detailed information about the Trustees properties. Here's a link to a really good article on controlling invasive species that I'll be blogging about tomorrow.
I won't be visiting the Bird Estate until next week since this weekend is all about food. On Saturday, I'm "opening the market," part of my job as Agricultural Commission Chair. Just want to remind everyone that the Farmer's Market isn't only about vegetables. You can actually eat a full meal on the grounds from Simpson Spring beverages to delicious cheeseburgers or slices of sourdough pizza. Dessert could be fresh berries or cookies, pastries and cakes. Samples of wine are also available.
Sunday I'll be joining the library's Foodie Group on a pilgrimage to Wegman's. I'm sure you'll be getting a report on that.
I've been listening to a wonderful audio book called The Thousand Autumns of Jacab de Zoet, a story of Nagasaki in the days of the Dutch trading concession there around 1800. At that time Japan was officially closed off from the European world except for this one trading post. This decision had been made 200 years before due to the activity of Christian missionaries brought in by the Portuguese and Spanish. Most of the story is fictional, but some events are historical. In researching the history I discovered that the Portuguese brought a popular dish called peixinho-da-horta to Japan. The dish is still popular to this day and is known by another Portuguese derived name: tempura. Yup, the wonderful batter dipped veggies and fish we are all familiar with at Japanese restaurants traveled 360 degrees around the world to get to a restaurant near you!
Sunday, July 8, 2012
On Display Today
Today from 1 to 5 the Easton Historical Society will be displaying something you've never seen before: pieces of one or perhaps two Revolutionary War cannons. Chaffin's History of Easton tells us that Captain James Perry made cannons and cannonballs during the Revolutionary War. Legend holds that George Washington came to Easton to visit Perry's blast furnace during the siege of Boston. The size of his furnace probably precluded casting cannon big enough to fire from the American lines into Boston. But what size cannon could Perry make?
Down range from the Old Pond Dam is an embankment that was used to catch the cannonballs fired during the proofing of the cannons. Several of these cannonballs have found their way into the Historical Society's collection, but not all have been connected to the embankment which is the only guarantee that a cannon big enough to fire the cannonball actually existed. Perry simply could have made large shot for ship cannons that already existed so the question of the size of his cannon remained.
Casting a cannon in one piece with the bore included was fraught with problems. First, as with all castings there could be imperfections caused by an improper pour. Second, the molding that created the bore might be slightly crooked or not of uniform size. These problems were so severe that by the time of the Revolution some cannons in Europe were cast in one solid piece and then drilled out. This was actually tried in a furnace in Sharon, but it was too difficult a technical feat to succeed given colonial machinery. Here in Easton, the way these problems were overcome was to overload the new cannon with extra powder and shot and fire away. If the cannon didn't explode or send a cannonball off in some wild direction, it was saleable. Otherwise, in theory at least, it could be melted down for another try.
The great local historian Kippy Grant once told Duncan Oliver about pieces of a cannon that were fished out of Old Pond during the Depression and sold for scrap. Frank Meninno tells a story about someone finding a piece of a cannon many years ago. Recently, however, two different groups of people have discovered pieces of what are certainly one or more cannons. The pieces are large fragments and suggest that they exploded on proofing. They seem to come from about the same spot which may have been a dump for Perry's furnace although why the chunks weren't remelted remains a mystery.
Several people have used everything from Captain Elisha Harvey's military calipers to geometrical calculations, to setting cannonballs, coffee cups, and soda bottles in the bores to determine the caliber of the gun. This is a complicated process. First, the fragments only give us a chord of the bore not a radius thus creating a difficult problem in geometry. Second, English cannons were standardized by the size cannonballs they fired with 3 and 6 pounders being common for field artillery, for example. However, they also wanted to standardize the bore in good old English inches or reasonable fractions, but a three pound ball doesn't work out to an easy 3 inch or 3.5 inch bore.
Then there is windage, the amount of space you leave between the cannon's interior wall and the cannonball. By British standard this was supposed to be a proportion of 21/20, a pretty tight fit. When a round shot is fired in a smooth bore, the ball actually bounces up and down in the barrel as it is fired. A good relatively tight fit makes the bouncing small and gives the gun accuracy. Too much windage and wear on the barrel increases and the shot is liable to fly out of the barrel with no consistency. After studying this situation for a week, we feel that colonial cannon makers probably allowed more windage then their British counterparts to make up for inferior bore casting.
What does all that huffing and puffing mean? We're pretty sure that one piece is from a 4 pounder. This was a piece of artillery that could be fitted on a galloper carriage for use with the infantry in the field. It was probably a piece this size that Captain Harvey pushed over a cliff to prevent their capture by the British during fighting around New York. The chord of the bore on a second piece is harder to measure, but it seems to have come from a smaller cannon perhaps a 2 pounder although this is by no means certain.
Mysteries remain. Yesterday, we took two cannonballs to the Easton Farmer's Market to be weighed by Val Souza who has the traditional hanging scales. One ball weighed in at about 3 and a quarter pounds and the other at about 4 and three quarters pounds. Neither were standard sizes much may be caused by a variety of things from rust to the problem mentioned above-you can have standard weights or standard calibers, but you can't have both! The overweight 4 pounder was found in the embankment area so it likely fitted one of Perry's cannons. We have one larger ball that we didn't weigh yesterday for fear of breaking the scale, but one thing all this math has taught us is that the weight of the cannonball increases much faster than the diameter of the ball. The caliber (the diameter) was used to determine the other proportions of the cannon so our 4 pounder was between 15 and 25 calibers long-4 to 6.5 feet. A 9 pounder, our best guess at the weight of the biggest ball, would only have a caliber 1 inch bigger than the 4 pounder meaning the barrel length would fall in the 5 feet to 8.75 feet range. Since the daily pour of the blast furnace had to be at least enough iron to cast one whole cannon (they weren't cast in pieces), these calculations show that if the furnace produced enough iron to cast a 4 pounder, it could probably produce enough to make a 9 pounder.
All this speculation from some rusty pieces! It makes me long for standardized parts, but the point is we are showing off parts of a cannon forged during the War for American Independence in Furnace Village, not North Easton, by somebody named Perry, not Ames. Come see it!
Down range from the Old Pond Dam is an embankment that was used to catch the cannonballs fired during the proofing of the cannons. Several of these cannonballs have found their way into the Historical Society's collection, but not all have been connected to the embankment which is the only guarantee that a cannon big enough to fire the cannonball actually existed. Perry simply could have made large shot for ship cannons that already existed so the question of the size of his cannon remained.
Casting a cannon in one piece with the bore included was fraught with problems. First, as with all castings there could be imperfections caused by an improper pour. Second, the molding that created the bore might be slightly crooked or not of uniform size. These problems were so severe that by the time of the Revolution some cannons in Europe were cast in one solid piece and then drilled out. This was actually tried in a furnace in Sharon, but it was too difficult a technical feat to succeed given colonial machinery. Here in Easton, the way these problems were overcome was to overload the new cannon with extra powder and shot and fire away. If the cannon didn't explode or send a cannonball off in some wild direction, it was saleable. Otherwise, in theory at least, it could be melted down for another try.
The great local historian Kippy Grant once told Duncan Oliver about pieces of a cannon that were fished out of Old Pond during the Depression and sold for scrap. Frank Meninno tells a story about someone finding a piece of a cannon many years ago. Recently, however, two different groups of people have discovered pieces of what are certainly one or more cannons. The pieces are large fragments and suggest that they exploded on proofing. They seem to come from about the same spot which may have been a dump for Perry's furnace although why the chunks weren't remelted remains a mystery.
Several people have used everything from Captain Elisha Harvey's military calipers to geometrical calculations, to setting cannonballs, coffee cups, and soda bottles in the bores to determine the caliber of the gun. This is a complicated process. First, the fragments only give us a chord of the bore not a radius thus creating a difficult problem in geometry. Second, English cannons were standardized by the size cannonballs they fired with 3 and 6 pounders being common for field artillery, for example. However, they also wanted to standardize the bore in good old English inches or reasonable fractions, but a three pound ball doesn't work out to an easy 3 inch or 3.5 inch bore.
Then there is windage, the amount of space you leave between the cannon's interior wall and the cannonball. By British standard this was supposed to be a proportion of 21/20, a pretty tight fit. When a round shot is fired in a smooth bore, the ball actually bounces up and down in the barrel as it is fired. A good relatively tight fit makes the bouncing small and gives the gun accuracy. Too much windage and wear on the barrel increases and the shot is liable to fly out of the barrel with no consistency. After studying this situation for a week, we feel that colonial cannon makers probably allowed more windage then their British counterparts to make up for inferior bore casting.
What does all that huffing and puffing mean? We're pretty sure that one piece is from a 4 pounder. This was a piece of artillery that could be fitted on a galloper carriage for use with the infantry in the field. It was probably a piece this size that Captain Harvey pushed over a cliff to prevent their capture by the British during fighting around New York. The chord of the bore on a second piece is harder to measure, but it seems to have come from a smaller cannon perhaps a 2 pounder although this is by no means certain.
Mysteries remain. Yesterday, we took two cannonballs to the Easton Farmer's Market to be weighed by Val Souza who has the traditional hanging scales. One ball weighed in at about 3 and a quarter pounds and the other at about 4 and three quarters pounds. Neither were standard sizes much may be caused by a variety of things from rust to the problem mentioned above-you can have standard weights or standard calibers, but you can't have both! The overweight 4 pounder was found in the embankment area so it likely fitted one of Perry's cannons. We have one larger ball that we didn't weigh yesterday for fear of breaking the scale, but one thing all this math has taught us is that the weight of the cannonball increases much faster than the diameter of the ball. The caliber (the diameter) was used to determine the other proportions of the cannon so our 4 pounder was between 15 and 25 calibers long-4 to 6.5 feet. A 9 pounder, our best guess at the weight of the biggest ball, would only have a caliber 1 inch bigger than the 4 pounder meaning the barrel length would fall in the 5 feet to 8.75 feet range. Since the daily pour of the blast furnace had to be at least enough iron to cast one whole cannon (they weren't cast in pieces), these calculations show that if the furnace produced enough iron to cast a 4 pounder, it could probably produce enough to make a 9 pounder.
All this speculation from some rusty pieces! It makes me long for standardized parts, but the point is we are showing off parts of a cannon forged during the War for American Independence in Furnace Village, not North Easton, by somebody named Perry, not Ames. Come see it!
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Save a Life Through the New CPR
I had pretty much exhausted the video on demand section of Verizon during the recent heat wave and ended up watching an episode of the creepy antiques show Oddities. This is the show that features skulls, old time medical devices, and voodoo curse materials. This particular show highlighted a client who was searching for a death mask, and the topic of L'Inconnue de la Seine came up. She was a teenage suicide pulled from the Seine in the late 1880s whose striking Mona Lisa-like smile caused the Director of the Paris Morgue to have a death mask cast. Other death masks were apparently created from photographs of the corpse. I'll spare you the picture from Wikipedia; it is haunting. Having a bust of L'Inconnue became all the rage in Bohemian Paris just like having a skull in your study was common in Shakespeare's time. Her tragic beauty became an epitome of good looks for turn of the last century Europeans. Fast forward to 1958 to two guys who were looking to create a doll to teach CPR. Yes, the face of the original CPR doll Resusci Anne was cast in latex from an old death mask of the L'Connue. The unknown girl who died sad and lonely has become the most "kissed" face in history.
Yesterday CPR came to the fore again when I was having lunch with some friends. While I had been off exploring the Governor Ames Estate, they had had their round of golf delayed by emergency vehicles arriving on the course to take away a golfer who had collapsed. Did the guys in the gentleman's foursome know CPR? My friends couldn't say because the group left the course with their friend.
So here's the point. Last night back at video on demand, I was watching a favorite comedy and a public service announcement came on about hands only CPR. It's been determined that the best thing you can do if a teenager or adult collapses is to first call 911 and then apply chest compressions at the rate of about 100 per minute. This, it turns out, is about the rhytyhm of the old disco tune "Stayin' Alive." Who knew-something good about cell phones and disco! No more stopping chest compressions to do mouth-to-mouth. Given modern EMT response times the chest compressions alone will keep blood circulating enough to prevent brain damage.
The compressions should be applied hard and in the center of the chest on the sternum. You can get the best pressure by putting the heel of one hand on the chest and then linking your other hand. The American Heart Association has a quick, fun, and informative website on the topic where you can learn all you need to know in just a few minutes. Try the app that let's you practice your disco rhythm. Pass this along-we can save thousands of lives a year!
Yesterday CPR came to the fore again when I was having lunch with some friends. While I had been off exploring the Governor Ames Estate, they had had their round of golf delayed by emergency vehicles arriving on the course to take away a golfer who had collapsed. Did the guys in the gentleman's foursome know CPR? My friends couldn't say because the group left the course with their friend.
So here's the point. Last night back at video on demand, I was watching a favorite comedy and a public service announcement came on about hands only CPR. It's been determined that the best thing you can do if a teenager or adult collapses is to first call 911 and then apply chest compressions at the rate of about 100 per minute. This, it turns out, is about the rhytyhm of the old disco tune "Stayin' Alive." Who knew-something good about cell phones and disco! No more stopping chest compressions to do mouth-to-mouth. Given modern EMT response times the chest compressions alone will keep blood circulating enough to prevent brain damage.
The compressions should be applied hard and in the center of the chest on the sternum. You can get the best pressure by putting the heel of one hand on the chest and then linking your other hand. The American Heart Association has a quick, fun, and informative website on the topic where you can learn all you need to know in just a few minutes. Try the app that let's you practice your disco rhythm. Pass this along-we can save thousands of lives a year!
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Psst! It's Open. Pass It On.
I'm doing a walking tour on trees next Thursday in North Easton Village. I'm discovering that the nice familiar trees I'm used to at Sheep Pasture are not very common in the area around the library. Yesterday, I went looking for some easy trees and discovered this sign on the Governor Ames Estate.
It seems that the Trustees of Reservations have done the long rumored soft opening of Easton's newest open space. Lately, they have been busy putting up fencing to delineate the edge of their property on the Island and to block the Olmsted Bridge into Mrs. Oliver F. Ames' property, but I didn't expect the welcome sign when I drove onto the property yesterday on the Fourth. Driving in may have been a holiday special since the rumor mill indicated that the estate would be closed to cars for a while until the Trustees get the parking situation sorted out.
For those of us who haven't been trespassing for years, the Ames Estate has much new to offer. There are a number of specimen trees including many large beeches an at least one sweetgum. A really fine little Japanese maple is next to the entryway of the mansion. Behind the mansion's historic carriage house is a frog pond that by the sound yesterday is full of bullfrogs. Aside from the road that runs through the estate and the long driveway to the mansion there are no really delineated paths at present. Visit now and you'll get the feeling of walking about your own estate. Well, what your own estate would be like if the McMansion didn't fill up the whole acre. Finally, t he bank of Shovel Shop Pond on the Trustees side is much better for fishing than the Pond Street side, but watch out for poison ivy along the edge.
I bumped into a neighbor who was out for a walk and decided to check out the car that invaded the park. He noted the Trustees may have a problem with kids who park at 50 Oliver Street and then invade the new park after dark. Hopefully, a live-in caretaker will some be in place.
This reminds me of a story told by my preacher cousin about his days as a youth pastor in the late 1960s. He was chaperoning an evening event when he realized a young couple had disappeared. A little quiet investigating revealed they had been overcome by teenage hormones and were making out beneath a headstone in the adjoining old cemetery. "I resolved to let the Good Lord punish them," my cousin said, "when I realized they were sitting in the only poison ivy patch in the whole cemetery."
Maggie has been a little disoriented with the lack of a daily visit to Sheep Pasture. She's a girl who likes to stick to a schedule because she seems to think that all her sniffing and peeing is necessary to bring order to the world by asserting her Alpha personality. The Ames Estate isn't very large and it doesn't have the variety of habitats of Sheep Pasture, but it looks like a great spot for a daily walk!
For those of us who haven't been trespassing for years, the Ames Estate has much new to offer. There are a number of specimen trees including many large beeches an at least one sweetgum. A really fine little Japanese maple is next to the entryway of the mansion. Behind the mansion's historic carriage house is a frog pond that by the sound yesterday is full of bullfrogs. Aside from the road that runs through the estate and the long driveway to the mansion there are no really delineated paths at present. Visit now and you'll get the feeling of walking about your own estate. Well, what your own estate would be like if the McMansion didn't fill up the whole acre. Finally, t he bank of Shovel Shop Pond on the Trustees side is much better for fishing than the Pond Street side, but watch out for poison ivy along the edge.
I bumped into a neighbor who was out for a walk and decided to check out the car that invaded the park. He noted the Trustees may have a problem with kids who park at 50 Oliver Street and then invade the new park after dark. Hopefully, a live-in caretaker will some be in place.
This reminds me of a story told by my preacher cousin about his days as a youth pastor in the late 1960s. He was chaperoning an evening event when he realized a young couple had disappeared. A little quiet investigating revealed they had been overcome by teenage hormones and were making out beneath a headstone in the adjoining old cemetery. "I resolved to let the Good Lord punish them," my cousin said, "when I realized they were sitting in the only poison ivy patch in the whole cemetery."
Maggie has been a little disoriented with the lack of a daily visit to Sheep Pasture. She's a girl who likes to stick to a schedule because she seems to think that all her sniffing and peeing is necessary to bring order to the world by asserting her Alpha personality. The Ames Estate isn't very large and it doesn't have the variety of habitats of Sheep Pasture, but it looks like a great spot for a daily walk!
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
A Naval Edition
Last week I did a tour of the Village Cemetery. Included on the tour was Rear Admiral George Francis Faxon Wilde, Easton's only admiral "so far" as a proud navy mother was quick to point out. Anyway, he entered Annapolis in 1861 and retired in 1905 so I figured there was a career to research. There is, but you are not going to hear about that today. What you are going to hear about is the ease with which research can be done today. Without leaving my recliner, I now know everyone who was at Annapolis with him and every ship he served on. I've found references to the documents that tell of the inquiry into that time he almost sunk a battleship and a newspaper article on the wreck with maps. I really love electronic research, but I'm old enough to remember the days of actually visiting archives that are referenced in this interesting article from The Times Higher Education. My high school days actually occurred in the dark ages when you actually had to hand write notes rather than xerox pages and underline. What a revelation getting to college and discovering the old wet process copy machines!
The Admiral Wilde paper, if it ever comes, will be written on Scrivener, a writing program dedicated to helping writers of long pieces organize their work. So far it's been great because it allows a writer to create a system much like the index cards that Buddy Wooster and Willis Smith insisted upon in the dark ages at OA! Here though chapters or sections can be linked to chunks of reference materials which you can view in a split screen.
Some tidbits from my initial research. Wilde is interesting in that he may be one of the first US Navy officers never to have served in an all sail vessel. The promotion system used today in the Navy was in place in the 19th century. By 1897 everyone in Wilde's Annapolis class was a Commander or out of the service. None were Lt. Commanders and none were the next highest rank, Captain. Part of the Wilde story is how he was able to wreck one of our most important ships and still make Admiral.
In other sea related news, Great White Sharks have been sited off Chatham. What makes a shark Great instead of just Pretty Good? I suppose having an entire week of cable TV and three blockbuster films devoted to you helps, but have you ever wondered if there are Not-So-Great White Sharks? Well, it turns out all the living Carcharodon are Great, but it's just a way to make them feel good because the other species in the genus Carcharodon, the extinct Megalodon, was really, really great. The Great White tops out at about 20 feet and 5,000 lbs. Megalodon, which had a 25 million year run as a top predator, reached 52 feet in length. Instead of picking on itsy-bitsy seals, Megalodon ate whales. In fact one theory of Megalodon extinction claims the big shark ate all the slow whales and ran out of food when the climate cooled during the last Ice Age. So in reality Roy Schneider didn't need a bigger boat, he needed an animal psychologist who could discuss overcompensation issues with Jaws.
For a less facetious view of Megalodon check out the really good article in Wikipedia.
The Admiral Wilde paper, if it ever comes, will be written on Scrivener, a writing program dedicated to helping writers of long pieces organize their work. So far it's been great because it allows a writer to create a system much like the index cards that Buddy Wooster and Willis Smith insisted upon in the dark ages at OA! Here though chapters or sections can be linked to chunks of reference materials which you can view in a split screen.
Some tidbits from my initial research. Wilde is interesting in that he may be one of the first US Navy officers never to have served in an all sail vessel. The promotion system used today in the Navy was in place in the 19th century. By 1897 everyone in Wilde's Annapolis class was a Commander or out of the service. None were Lt. Commanders and none were the next highest rank, Captain. Part of the Wilde story is how he was able to wreck one of our most important ships and still make Admiral.
In other sea related news, Great White Sharks have been sited off Chatham. What makes a shark Great instead of just Pretty Good? I suppose having an entire week of cable TV and three blockbuster films devoted to you helps, but have you ever wondered if there are Not-So-Great White Sharks? Well, it turns out all the living Carcharodon are Great, but it's just a way to make them feel good because the other species in the genus Carcharodon, the extinct Megalodon, was really, really great. The Great White tops out at about 20 feet and 5,000 lbs. Megalodon, which had a 25 million year run as a top predator, reached 52 feet in length. Instead of picking on itsy-bitsy seals, Megalodon ate whales. In fact one theory of Megalodon extinction claims the big shark ate all the slow whales and ran out of food when the climate cooled during the last Ice Age. So in reality Roy Schneider didn't need a bigger boat, he needed an animal psychologist who could discuss overcompensation issues with Jaws.
For a less facetious view of Megalodon check out the really good article in Wikipedia.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Signal Hill, Canton
Maggie's been having some trouble with the heat wave so yesterday she stayed in the air conditioning while I climbed Signal Hill in Canton. This is another Trustees of Reservations property. It's an unusual 150 acres that was donated to them in 2005. Some one looking for a day hiking could combine this property with the Bradley Estate reviewed last week or enjoy this property and then head to the restaurants in Canton Center.
Getting to Signal Hill is easy. Drive up Bay Road through Canton Center and take a left onto Dedham Street. Dedham Street goes by the golf course. Cross the bridge near the old Cumberland Farms plant, and take a sharp left onto University Drive. Many of you have probably been driving by University Drive for years since Dedham Street is a well known "backway" to Rt. 128 north.
This is a strange place for a conservation property. It seems to be in an industrial park and the sounds of Route 95 can be heard through the trees in the lower part of the park. Bear with me though, this is a cool spot for a hike and more.
Signal Hill is only 188 feet high, but as you can see from this photo it has some interesting red rocks. These rocks are part of the Wamsutta Formation. This is an interesting grouping of rocks that include both igneous and sedimentary rocks. A little sliver of this formation runs through Easton, but most of it is buried out of sight. The red rocks where Route 24 meets Rt. 128 are part of this formation also. For this old geology minor these alone are worth a trip back.
Information is scant, but a Paleo Indian site was excavated here which means that Native Americans visited around 10,000 to 11,000 years ago. In colonial days a series of beacons could be set afire on hills to call out the militia-hence the name Beacon Hill. Great Blue Hill was a key part of this system and Signal Hill still has a great view of Great Blue to the north and Moose Hill to the south.
The area at the base of the hill and a path through the field is mowed. This is a little controversial among some naturalists because it opens up a habitat for human interference, but it also opens that habitat for study. Without the path people would be tromping around stepping on the wildflowers instead of standing on the path to check out the flowers and the butterflies. Mowing the base of the hill creates a great vista.
The path leads into the woods and an old cart path takes you up to the summit. Too many statins have made even a gentle slope a challenge for me-I wished that I had Sherpas and oxygen-but for normal folks its a short pleasant walk to the summit.
The view is definitely worth it. This should be a prime spot for leaf viewing in the fall or a picnic anytime (please respect the pristine summit). At first glance it looks like you'll have to turn around to go back down the hill, but take a look at the sign.
It took me a couple of minutes to find the trail down. A couple of hints. First, the cart path really does turn into a trail. Second, here's what the trail looks like once you start down it:
Once you reach the bottom of this trail you can turn left and in a few steps be back at the parking lot, or you can turn right and pick up another cart path. As you travel along a red maple swamp is on your left and through the trees I-95 while on the right is the slope of the hill with a mesic forest. You'll shortly come to the canoe landing.
According to the canoe rental guy, there are fish in this part of the Neponset River, but "the Russians" have taken the big fish. The Russians are immigrants who fished out the carp which are also immigrants. The trail wraps around back to the field and parking lot although there is another trail that leads back to the Neponset.
Admittedly, it was 95 degrees, but the canoe rental guy and I were the only people on this wonderful property. In fact, there were very few signs of people or dogs. Imagine a hundred and fifty acres of varied habitat and deep history all to yourself only a few minutes away from restaurant row in Canton Center.
Getting to Signal Hill is easy. Drive up Bay Road through Canton Center and take a left onto Dedham Street. Dedham Street goes by the golf course. Cross the bridge near the old Cumberland Farms plant, and take a sharp left onto University Drive. Many of you have probably been driving by University Drive for years since Dedham Street is a well known "backway" to Rt. 128 north.
This is a strange place for a conservation property. It seems to be in an industrial park and the sounds of Route 95 can be heard through the trees in the lower part of the park. Bear with me though, this is a cool spot for a hike and more.
Information is scant, but a Paleo Indian site was excavated here which means that Native Americans visited around 10,000 to 11,000 years ago. In colonial days a series of beacons could be set afire on hills to call out the militia-hence the name Beacon Hill. Great Blue Hill was a key part of this system and Signal Hill still has a great view of Great Blue to the north and Moose Hill to the south.
The car in the center of the photo is the gentleman who rents canoes on weekends and holidays. The spot to the left of the car is a small cattail swamp located in a depression. I'd recommend a pair of binoculars to check out the bird life in the swamp and hawks from the summit.
The path leads into the woods and an old cart path takes you up to the summit. Too many statins have made even a gentle slope a challenge for me-I wished that I had Sherpas and oxygen-but for normal folks its a short pleasant walk to the summit.
Admittedly, it was 95 degrees, but the canoe rental guy and I were the only people on this wonderful property. In fact, there were very few signs of people or dogs. Imagine a hundred and fifty acres of varied habitat and deep history all to yourself only a few minutes away from restaurant row in Canton Center.
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