Riverbend Journal

  Just do to everything else going on, I haven't posted much on this year's garden so here is a picture that is hot off the press and maybe only two days old. We try to rotate out garden somewhat so last year we started planting from the right and worked left. This year we started left and are planting right, mostly. My wife did stick some sweet potatoes up next to the strawberries and garlic beds on the right so the vines don't compete with the peas which were the last row we planted on the left.  Last night we were under a freeze warning but I think we were fortunate and it didn't quite get to us. My low was 34 degrees F. Our cherry blossoms had already been blooming for a week and winds have blown most of them off so I'm hoping we snuck our cherry crop pollination in if it did get colder than what I saw on my thermometer when I got up in the morning.  Here are some of our warmer weather stuff growing in the greenhouse. The tomatoes and peppers on the left are act...

  Since I have moved away from film finishes and staining, finished is a lot easier and less daunting process than it once was. My go to finish these days is Osmo Polyx Hard Wax Oil. I think it came about as a durable finish for wood flooring until wood workers discovered that it would also work well in furniture finishes. It is simply a wipe on followed by wiping off any excess after a few minutes so there aren't any worries about runs or drips like I always did with film finishes. Also, because is not a stain, it is incredibly easy to touch up or to apply on any missed areas because you don't have to match colors. If something were to happen, I just have to sand out any imperfection and apply some more hard wax oil on that spot and it will blend in perfectly. After two coats and eight hours, I'm left with an incredibly durable finish that I can touch up years from now if needed without much effort. Above is a photo of the underside of the top of the bookcase showing off a...

  The above picture was the ship on which Clara Kuck sailed home at the end of her stay in Europe. She spent several days looking for her trunk which had been sent from Berlin to the port of Hamburg before she finally found it and could arrange for it to join her on the President Lincoln. She also had troubles cashing a check and had to make a trip to the dentist. 

  After scanning all the pictures, I turned my sights on some of the smaller loose things in my tub of Clara Kuck's belongings. I found her birth registration, a Christmas card, a baby book for her grand niece Beth and two of the above books. They are just slightly smaller than three inches by five inches and came new with about 20 pages of blank paper. One belonged to Clara and one belonged to her older sister Bertha.  They were given in 1888 when Clara was around 5 and Bertha 7 so the inscriptions were likely written by their mother Elizabeth and indeed, the first pages of both are notes written by Elizabeth too her daughters. Clara's book reads, " My dearest Clara, Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth. Your loving Mother, Elizabeth. " Beneath that is the date November 2, 1888.  On the rest of the twenty pages are more notes of similar nature written by family and friends, some of which are unknown to me and will require a bit of research to figure out. One...

  For the last few years, I have not had a lot of success when it comes to hunting morel mushrooms. In fact I'm pretty sure I blogged that perhaps last year would be my last year. But every spring, about this time of year, especially with idle time on my hands, I find myself fighting the morel madness as I call it and it doesn't take my heart/stomach long to convince my brain that perhaps this time will be THE time when I pick a mother lode of morels under a mushroom machine producing tree. And so with idle time on my hands this Tuesday, and a wife conveniently unemployed, we made the drive out to the farm to enjoy a walk if nothing else.  We found a small mess of grey morel mushrooms, all under elms that had been deceased for a good number of years and no longer mushroom machines. (Note to newer readers, a recently dead elm can produce as many as 50+ mushrooms around it's roots for a year or two after it's death and hence my term of mushroom machine.) We had to probabl...

With my mistake fixed, I proceeded to do a lot of sanding and then was able to glue the shelves in place. Because I am working with real solid wood, which tends to shrink and expand with changes of temperature and humidity, I couldn't fully attach them along the width of each shelf. Instead they are essentially doweled only in the center of each shelf on each side to the side panel and the edges of both shelves just float in the air for now. Since it is a book-shelf, meaning heavy objects might be placed upon it at some point, I will need to add further support. I had flirted with the thought of some sort of floating mortise and tenon joint similar to a "bread board" table to accomplish the same thing but at the end of the day, I just purchased some small brass brackets which I will pin the underside of the fronts and backs of each shelf to the sides. This will allow them movement for seasonal changes and support for heavy objects. While that was drying, I got to work on ...

  I've been so caught up with cranking out posts on my latest woodworking project or some new find among Clara's Things as I refer to them in my head, that I am neglecting to show signs of spring which are definitely present around here. This picture, taken three days ago as you read this, gives you a good idea of what it is like here in the Midwest. The Serviceberry tree is blooming which for me is always the official start of spring. The Redbuds too are blooming but I don't have any up in my front yard where I can easily monitor them. I do have one down in the ditch and despite my efforts over the years, I've never been able to transplant one or grow one from seed. Above you can also see the two apples and one small sour cherry trees are all leafing out and will be blooming shortly. Below is a shot of our spring garden which we planted nearly a month and a half ago. It is coming up but due to the frequent cold spells we have been getting, has been slow growing. But pr...

  My wife is currently unemployed and has been looking for something to pick up the time. Long story short, ever since the Affordable Care Act was passed, the medical industry has been going through rapid changes and part of those changes have been massive corporations gobbling up and absorbing all the private practices. After several mergers and trades, the clinic my wife practices at was finally just closed since it is without a hospital facility where all the money making procedures occur. Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements generally are only enough to pay the bills and vary state to state. Iowa ranks 50th out of 52 regions in the United States for the amount reimbursed by our federal government under the ACA and so rural places where the population tends to be older and on Medicare and Medicaid are struggling to remain solvent, unless they are partnered with a hospital where more lucrative things like MRI's, ultrasounds and other specialty tests are done.  Despite all th...

  Clara Kuck wrote on the back of this post card that she was seeing the next Emperor of the German Empire though as fate would happen, he never made it and instead ended up without a country. Crown Prince Wilhelm's father would be the last Emperor before German fell during World War I and his father abdicated the throne. He was kicked out of the country for awhile but eventually was allowed back only to try and cozy up with a man named Adolf Hitler to try and regain his kingdom. Hitler would have no part of it. Eventually he fled again to avoid the Russians who seized his estates during the concluding days of World War II. He was captured and held in captivity for awhile as a war criminal but eventually released and died of a heart attack in 1951. The above postcard has writing from Clara Kuck to her older sister Bertha and reads: Dearie; Please save these cards for me. Put them away out of the dust, won’t you? Oh dear, I’m all in from reading about that beautiful "Titanic...

  My post yesterday included this picture of Herbert and wife Clara in the context of Clara's life but blogger friend Steve over at Shadows and Light asked what Herbert was doing in Bahrain which written on the back of the photo above, he was evidently departing for by train. I did not know the answer but I had a bit of time on my hands when responding to Steve's question and so I thought I would just do a quick search to see what there was to find. Prior research told me that Herbert was born in Canada in Oct of 1887 so he was actually 4 years younger than Clara. He immigrated to the United States around 1912 at the age of 25 and married his first wife Annie who was a native of New Zealand six years later at age 31. According to the census records he was a boat builder/designer living in Berkley, California. Annie would died after 20 years of marriage to Herbert at age 54 in 1938 and I have found no records of them having any children. One year later, he married Clara Kuck an...