Michigan 101: The Little Deers and Other Critters

Since living in West Michigan we have seen a lot of animals in our yards. Even living in the 'village' deer run through the yard and fox and owl can be heard at night.

When we lived in a newly built house in the woods every spring Mama Deer had two fawn. Mama would come around the house every day, just like she had for years before the house was there. The brazen fawn is below. Mama and the twin stayed in the woods.

Other critters in the yard included a Box Turtle, who migrated from the woods to the sand to lay her eggs, and a Wood Frog who lived in a hole in our fence one summer. I could not find our frog, so I am sharing my brother's.

Tom Turkey and his family came through regularly, eating the acorns from the oak trees.

Later we lived in a house near farmed land and an open field. We had lots of amphibians.

Mud Puppies are pretty yucky looking!

And with the amphibians came the Sandhill Cranes.

My brother took this photo of a Sandhill Crane.

My brother's cabin has a nice spring feed pond that hosts salamanders.

And also attracts lots of frogs.

My brother has the ability to sneak up on animals. He gets great shots. Photographic that is.  Like the racoon below who did not notice my brother for the longest time.

'Peekaboo' Beaver above and Possum below!

Great Blue Heron above and Trumpeter Swan to the left. We had hundreds of Swan in Montague's White River.




And we have snakes. Lots of Hognose in the sandy areas around Lake Michigan. We once found a Milk Snake in our son's sandbox. Thankfully I never saw a Massasauga Rattlesnake!


















My brother has a motion camera and a salt lick and gets pics of the night life at his cabin, like this coyote.

Plus Michigan has Loon, Pileated Woodpecker, Redheaded Woodpecker, Flickers, and ducks and geese and gulls... And Bald Eagle have lived near most of our houses in the last ten years. Black bear have been seen in our area here. Bobcat sightings have occurred around the state.  And the Wolves are returning Up North.

I was shocked to hear that in Oakland County north of Detroit the deer have been running into the roads and making a mess of rush hour traffic! Coyote were seen in Woldumar Nature Center just outside of Lansing. And Peregrine Falcon live in the city park in Clawson, MI.

It is wonderful that animals who lost their natural habitat are returning to many places in the state. But I don't think the Plains Buffalo will be seen in Coldwater, New Buffalo, or anywhere else along the southern tier where they originally roamed. Except in the Buffalo ranches!

Love Entwined Update and Pan American Redwork Reproduction

I finished the second corner basket last week. I am eager for the 15th of the month when  the next basket pattern is released! Love Entwined is Esterh Aliu's reproduction pattern based on a 1790 appliqued marriage coverlet found in Averil Colby's book Patchwork. The medallion style quilt has seven borders, three densely appliqued.

See more about the project at Esther Aliu's blog:
 http://estheraliu.blogspot.com/p/love-entwined-1790-marriage-coverlet-bom.html

The pattern is available to members of the Yahoo group found at:  http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/estheraliubom/info

I am also working again on my Pan American Redwork reproduction quilt. I am using the Blu Hill printed fabric from several years ago, and adding more blocks by tracing the patterns from the Pan American Redwork quilt I purchased last January.

Here is the 1901 quilt.

And here are the blocks I have finished. The Electricity Building is the first one I traced from the vintage quilt. President McKinley and the American Eagle is also from my vintage quilt. The rest are from the Blue Hill fabric which I embroidered. I use DMC #304 embroidery floss, three strands mostly but 2 for detailed areas. The background fabrics are not all the same, as I could not completely match the Blue Hill fabric background. I think the setting blocks will be varied so it will all work out in the end!

The printed fabric can still be found at times on eBay and also at Quilt In A Day's website shop:
http://www.quiltinaday.com/shoponline/fabric_display.asp?i=41936

Michigan 101: Water Wonderland.

Where ever we move in Michigan a river or lake... or a Great Lake...is not far away. The Department of Natural Resources reports there are over 11,000 lakes in the state! Above is a canal feeding into Cass Lake in Oakland County where my brother lives. A view of lilies on the canal is below.

My dad bought a cabin on Lake St. Helen, 2,400 acres big, seen below. Most of the land fronting the lake is undeveloped. Eagles can be seen regularly there.

When we lived in Lansing, Michigan we were a short few blocks from the Grand River, pictured below, which stretches from near Hillsdale, where we lived for seven years, to Grand Rapids--252 miles! Every year the city holds a day to clean up the river shore.

Of course Michigan is surrounded by the Great Lakes. My husband remembers taking a ferry from the Lower Peninsula to the Upper Peninsula, and the excitement of the opening of  Big Mac bridge that now spans the Straits of Mackinac (Mac-en-aw), which is 5 miles wide.

For several years our family rented a cabin near Cheybogan on the Straits of Mackinac. We could walk a block to the shore and watch the freighters cruise by.

On that trip we took the Sunset Cruise under Big Mac. It was impressive!

Another year we rented a cabin in Tawas on Lake Huron. My husband's grandmother was born in Tawas.

Shipwrecks remains can be found along the Great Lakes. Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary is located near Alpena, MI on Lake Huron.

The Tawas Lighthouse.

My husband took our son camping in the Upper Peninsula while he was growing up. They visited Lake Superior. The scenery is spectacular! Shipwreck remains near the Hurricane River, Pictured Rocks and Miner's Castle along the coastline.

One of our favorite cabin rentals was on Lake Louise on Thumb Lake, site of a cottage community and a United Methodist church camp which my husband attended as a teenager. You drive through a deep woods to get there. The cabins are nestled in the trees so the shoreline looks natural.

For four years we lived a few blocks away from the White River and White Lake. They had a marina and the channel from the lake leads into Lake Michigan. In the early 20th c. the lake was badly polluted by a tannery. I have a 1966 Life magazine article on White Lake with piles of old hides still in the waters.While we lived there they were exploring ways to clean the polluted lake sediment.

The White River Lighthouse sat where the Channel from White Lake entered Lake Michigan.

When we lived in Norton Shores we were  just on the other side of a sand dune from Lake Michigan. A few blocks away, Mona Lake was dying because of the runoff from fertilizers used on the lawns of the houses along the lake shore. It is part of the Muskegon Watershed. The city of Muskegon is on Muskegon Lake, which covers 4,149 acres and feeds into Lake Michigan. It was one of the most polluted lakes, but starting in 1985 a massive clean up of polluted sentiment has brought it close to being taken off the Most Polluted list. 

We still live withing a few blocks of Lake Michigan, so close that we can hear the waves roar in high winds. Last October we went to the beach to take photos. The whipping sand was so bad, I was spitting out sand for a long while after we left.

During the summer thousands come to the bed and breakfasts, camping ground, marinas and cabins to enjoy the beach.

I was born near the Niagara River, which runs between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, interrupted by Niagara Falls. I grew up on Dad's motor boat.

When I was a girl Lake Erie was a dead lake and Niagara Falls frothed from phosphorus pollution in the water. In 1972 President Nixon signed the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement which set limits to pollutants dumped into the lakes. Huge progress was made in cleaning up the lakes. But the battle is ever going. Invasive species and new pollutants are always being introduced. Mercury in our fish. Algae blooms. Zebra mussels.

Today micro beads from cosmetics have been found in our Great Lakes. Thankfully, some of the cosmetic companies are already acting to phase out their use. But in the meantime the pollution continues. And this product never goes away. Micro beads are plastic and they are not biodegradable. No one knows what the impact of micro beads in the food chain means. It is the latest pollutant to threaten our water.

We can not relax in our diligence to keep our waters pure and clean. We each need to consider the choices we make. We can read labels to learn what is in the products we buy, and choose to use all natural ingredients. We can change our expectations, how we spend our money, and how we impact our environment. Our water and our air and the future of our children is in our hands, and our job as stewards of the earth is one of the most important responsibilities we have.

Michigan 101 Part III: Greenfield Village Quilts

Growing up in Michigan means school visits to Greenfield Village in Dearborn, MI.  Henry Ford collected historical buildings from all over America, including the Wright Brother's bicycle repair shop and Edison's laboratory. He also collected American artifacts of all types, from train engines and Presidential cars to woven coverlets and quilts. It is a beautiful place to visit. One visit I photographed the quilts I saw in the houses there.

A simple cabin represented an African American home during the depression. The quilts were made of salvaged cotton from clothing perhaps, but surely not just meant for warmth. They add beauty and color to the newspaper wallpapered walls.

A 19th c house had a whole cloth whitework quilt and a Candlewicking quilt on display.

I am sorry I did not change how I saved my photos so I know which houses the quilts were displayed in. Here are some more.

This rug photo I labeled as being from the Noah Webster House. It is amazing!

There are some great quilts in the Henry Ford Museum that are not on display. You can learn about them at Quilting Genuis, a virtual tour of the collection http://www.thehenryford.org/exhibits/quiltinggenius/default.asp

The museum has a collection of quilts by Susan McCord. Most quilters would recognize her Trailing Vine quilt.You can find her quilts at the Quilt Index:
 http://www.quiltindex.org/search_results.php?keywords=Susan+McCord&search=go.
 Barbara Brackman, Shauna Christensen and Deb Rowden 's book Susan McCord: The Unforgettable mastery of an Indiana Quilter can be found at:
https://www.pickledishstore.com/productDetail.php?PID=1040

Fons and Porter published Quilts from the Henry Ford, which includes patterns to make 24 quilts.

http://www.edisonfordwinterestates.org/store/Quilts-From-The-Henry-Ford.html

Other links for more information about the Henry Ford Museum quilts include
http://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2012/06/newly-discovered-susan-mccord-quilt.html

http://blog.thehenryford.org/2012/02/cozying-up-to-a-new-acquisition-susan-mccord-triple-irish-chain-quilt-circa-1900/