Mother Nature always has her way: Coastal erosion is a fact of life in East Anglia (England) as well as Lake Michigan. These two pictures of Easton Bavents in Suffolk were taken 20 years apart, almost to the day… latest pic 18th Dec.
Dec 1999: Easton Bavents in Suffolk England
(Photo by Mike Page)
Dec 2019: Mother Nature has her way with the Easton Bavents in Suffolk England. (Photo by Mike Page)
Morton House Holiday Open House
Homemade sweets, tea and wassail served – homemade cookie bake sale and the Morton House decorated for the season.
Christmas Mantle setting
This was a nice day for flying and just generally cruising around. Sometimes the pictures I take are of the same general area’s but at different times of the year so one can see the differences, especially when comparing them to pictures from years ago.
Today was a special day for me in that several months of planning came to fruition with Taras Lyssenko of “A and T Recovery” discussing his book on the recovery of “The Great Navy Birds of Lake Michigan”.
The Morton House Museum of Benton Harbor sponsored Taras Lyssenko’s presentation and book signing. In addition we were fortunate to have the support and facilities of the Benton Harbor Regional Airport made available. Can you think of a more appropriate place to talk about airplanes?
Taras has an interesting way of presenting the history and recovery of these historical aircraft. He begins by having a slide presentation on auto as he is speaking. He encourages the audience to stop him and ask questions on the slides and or his comments as he progresses.
Tara’s begins his talk about how he got started in aircraft recovery, then the trials & tribulations in working with local, state, federal agencies and the glaring efforts by the Navy to actually inhibit the recovery and restoration of these magnificent historical war birds.
Bonus items included information on the two aircraft carriers used in Lake Michigan to train pilots during which the subsequent losses of over 150 aircraft during this training are the aircraft he is recovering. In addition to aircraft found, he has located a underwater forest from +7,000 years ago, numerous shipwrecks, and even a WWI German submarine off of Chicago.
Though no specific details were presented, it is possible that the Chicora, owned by the Morton & Graham Steam ship line of Benton Harbor, has also been located. It is hoped that live coverage of its ROV exploration by A and T recovery will be done and made available for viewing at the Morton House Museum at that time.
If this is something you would enjoy attending keep reading the local Herald-Palladium because Taras will be presenting his story to several Museums and interested parties in SW Michigan.
Benton Harbor Regional Airport (KBEH) – MI.
There were still sites to see other than Fly-In’s and airplanes this Saturday. Here are a few other pictures of the sites in between airports.
Interesting Lawn Art (Between Dowagiac & Niles, MI)
Dowagiac River Dam was scheduled to be removed 2018. But obviously NOT yet!
This is the Berrien Springs bridge on old US 31 crossing the St. Joseph river. Up stream to the right is the Berrien Springs Hydroelectric Dam
Old dump site- as the storm waters flow past they uncover “possible” hidden treasures.
Glass and ceramic shards abound.
By the way, Its not often you drive around a small town and find an Army Tank as a lawn ornament.
“Tanks” for looking
As this site is called “On the Hunt for Treasure” today was one of those special days where I actually got to go out looking for some. Jim, the manager of Wolfs Marine Dive Shop in Benton Harbor, had gotten a call looking for some one to recover a lost ring. Since Jim was not wanting to dive this day he gave me a call to see if I was interested. Yep! I was.
So on Tuesday we drove up to South Haven Mi to see how accurate the rings owner was in placing an X in the river to mark the splash site. The river waters feeding Lake Michigan have been fast and high this summer and the Black river flowing thru South Haven was no exception. In fact the Black River had a very notable seiche this year which was a temporary disturbance in the water level caused by changes in atmospheric pressure. It actually pushed up the already high water lever to flood the docks.
The river takes its name from the dark brown color of its water, which is caused by suspended sediments and organic materials picked up along its course. The river supports a variety of wildlife including trout, snapping turtles, leeches, and many other varieties of flora and fauna. What this sediments & organic material means to a diver is the visibility is going to be poor to non-existent. I was not disappointed!
If you have ever lost something in the water from swimming or from a dock, pier, or boat its often very hard to really say exactly where the splash really was so you make a mental X on the water. From vast experience that X on moving water is just that, a moving target.
So the rings owner showed me where he was on the boat, how the ring was lost, and where he believes it went splash. So, I handed him a penny and said to throw it in at the splash area. He did so and noted that the penny splash was pretty close to the splash point. So I then took the remaining 9 pennies from my pocket and threw them in at this new splash point. Jim helped me suit up and enter the water from shore then positioned a drop weight and line from the back boat platform establishing a defined reference point.
Swam up to Jim on the platform, checked buoyancy and then Jim handed me my metal detector. Once on the bottom I started my search. Locating my first penny I knew I was in the proper area. Then I found three more pennies and then BINGO, the ring.
As you can see in the photo he was VERY pleased with the outcome and was darn lucky. The area where the ring was in was clear of junk and was mostly silty mud. A couple feet in any other direction the bottom turned to a junk yard of every thing especially rusty metal. If it had been in that area finding that ring would have been almost impossible to find, if found at all. The owner was happy and I was happy. A good ending for us all.
Your busy, you have pressing issues, does it really help for you to take a few minutes and stop, even if just momentarily, to look, see and appreciate that which is around you?
Does stopping to see and feel your surrounding calm the restless and bothered soul? Does it mean that you should take a moment and be grateful? To take a moment and relax. Take time for yourself- if even for just for those few moments.
Everyone already knows the expression “stop and smell the roses” is not simply about flowers, but rather about how to fill your life with a deeper appreciation of the world around us. It reminds you to slow down and notice the little things that make life worthwhile. Despite a busy life, it is important to know how to be present in the moment; otherwise those moments will pass you by.
Be present in the moment with the people around you. It’s easier now to multi-task with modern technology, but it often lessens the experience of “being in the moment.” Take the everyday experiences more memorable by sharing them with someone.
By paying more attention to the moment, you experience more about the world around you. Burnout happens because you are constantly reacting to stimuli. When you unconsciously take a moment, it lessens the reactivity of the mind. Those brief moments reshape your thoughts which will often enable you to have a better sense of how to achieve your goals in daily life.
So, take that deep breath and look around you. While there are things that you wish could be better, be grateful for the things that you have, and the beauty of living. You only have one life to live, and it is yours.
Not sure what this is but I found it to be pretty and interesting.
Sept 2, 2019
For the longest time I had been thinking of going to the Hesston Steam Museum in Indiana but never got around to it. Well this labor-day weekend was different in that a friend of mine knew I had never been, called me up and scheduled a day for us to go for a look-see.
Now the Hesston Steam Museum is an outdoor museum operated by the Laporte County Historical Steam Society in Hesston , Indiana. It started out on 22 acres and now occupies 155 acres.
Some of the interesting items to see in working operation includes a steam powered sawmill, the first electric plant powered by steam to provide electric power (60 KW DC current) to the LaPorte County, IN courthouse, a Browning locomotive steam crane, and added several first steam locomotives.
Hesston now has four different gauge railroad tracks beginning with 7 ½” “real small” scale tracks & engines, 14” Miniature Railroad with 1/4 scale locomotives, and a 24” & 36” narrow gauge rails handling full size locomotives like the 1929, 67-ton Shay logging locomotive. As a side note to the trains, their rides are way longer than I would have imagined!! They go through the woods, over bridges, and through fields. It makes you feel like you are on a real train ride!
If this were not enough to go and see, they also have numerous other pieces of steam traction engines, sometimes referred to as a steam tractor, vintage farm equipment and a fully functional rustic blacksmith shop.
Add in Doc’s Soda Fountain, the market building, and concession stands, and you pretty much had everything you could want. And yep, I’ll be going back there again!
Sept 1: Faces of the Nations
A pow wow is a social gathering held by many different Native American communities. A modern pow wow is a specific type of event for Native American people to meet and dance, sing, socialize, and honor their cultures.
Pow wows may be private or public. There is generally a dancing competition, with many different types of traditional dances, music and regalia, often with significant prize money awarded. Pow wows vary in length from a one-day event, to major pow wows called for a special occasion which can be up to one weeklong.
You may have missed it but the 33rd Annual Kee-Boon-Mein-Kaa Pow Wow was held over the Labor Day Weekend at the Rodgers Lake Campus in Dowagiac, Michigan.
This event is considered a traditional pow wow. The Band’s long-running Kee-Boon-Mein-Kaa Pow Wow during Labor Day weekend is a contest pow wow, where dancers compete before judges in different categories. A traditional pow wow is a lower-key event focused on bringing the community together.
The 10th Annual Oshke Kno Kewéwen Traditional Pow Wow was also held at the Rodgers Lake Campus on May 25-26.
Oshke-Kno-Kewéwen in the Potawatomi language refers to a new eagle staff, which is much like a national flag. The Pokagon Band veterans constructed two eagle staffs, which hold dozens of eagle feathers, each representing a tribal family. This pow wow honors the staffs and the hundreds of Pokagon veterans and past tribal leaders represented on it.
Part family reunion, part traditional ceremony, the Oshke Kno Kewewen Traditional Pow Wow is a time for native people to celebrate their identity and to visit and share with their friends in the greater community and for traditional drum groups to sing their songs, for tribal dancers to perform their steps, and for craftsmen and women to display their handiwork.
There was no entry fee and it was open to the general public. If you have never been to the “Kee-Boon-Mein-Kaa Pow Wow” put the Labor Day event on your “list of things to do” I think you will find it very enjoyable and educational. Here are a few Faces of the Nations.
Here are the Faces of the Nation:
