Riverbend Journal

I wrote earlier as an intro to a different blog topic that my spouse had lost her job. Her entire clinic had closed, the second one in the last year in our town and one of thousands all around the nation. Back in 2010 when the Affordable Care Act passed over 60% of physicians worked in private practices. Fifteen years later that number is under 40% and falling according to latest estimates. I'm not surprised, not because I dislike the ACA. It fixed some serious issues in our healthcare system. But whenever we change something quickly and without much discussion from those in the know, i.e. doctors, there are likely to be side effects that happen that no one saw coming. This was one of those things. It is what it is. Fortunately, though this clinic was by far the largest in our town and likely a 20 mile radius in every direction, there are still some left. When news broke, my wife and I talked it over and after refusing to retire, we decided we didn't want to move with one kid s...

  During my initial conversation with the Salvage store owner, she mentioned a hand drawn family tree which excited me greatly. I have poured a lot of time and effort into tracking down Kuck descendants over the years in hopes of finding pictures to replace the ones likely lost by my great grandparents in the missing semi incident. After maybe 25 years of searching, I found what I was after in a salvage shop of all places but I am not complaining. Another reason for my excitement is that despite all this research, one branch on this side of my family tree remains the shortest one on my entire tree. I have mentioned it many times on here but my third great grandmother, Mary Meyer Kuck, John Kuck's first wife, died young along with five of her children of diphtheria and left very few records behind, so few, I have never been able to identify who her parents were. My hope was that perhaps this hand drawn family tree might identify her parents.  Above is the very hand drawn family...

  Hopefully you can enlarge the above photo enough to see the morel mushrooms hidden like easter eggs everywhere. It is what I call a mushroom machine and I probably picked over 30 large yellow mushrooms within the frame of this picture. It is not something I find every year but when I do, I am thankful. This one tree alone filled up both the bags we had brought with us so I had to carry those two bags back to the car about a half mile away and bring to more bags which we filled maybe half way. It was my best year in a LONG time for morel mushroom hunting. It is hard to show scale of our haul but this is the largest mixing bowl we own and it is full to the top of morel mushrooms, mostly yellow ones this time around. They are soaking for a bit right now and later tonight I'll cut them in half to check for bugs but seeing that it is still a week or before I normally find them, we saw very few bugs and absolutely no ticks which in a typical year can coincide with the latter parts of m...

  Above is a photo in my "box of stuff" and on the back is written: Feb 22, 1901 Room W, Gridley Inmates - Wright and Kuck. I'm not sure how to decipher what is written other than it likely has something to do with John Kuck. I have looked a bit and haven't found any Gridley that lived in Charles City, Iowa in 1901. Curiously though there is definitely a comma after the "W" and before the "Gridley" which makes me want to interpret as "Room W" and "Gridley".  But three things capture my attention that make me think I know exactly where this room is despite what it written on the back. If you embiggen the photo, look at the pictures on the top of the drop leaf secretary desk and you will see one that is quite familiar. I will post it below for you so so you can see it in more detail. Mine didn't come in a large cardboard frame but this is definitely the picture and is of my 3rd great grandfather John Kuck on the left, his wife...

  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...