26 June 2014 - T'rivers, Wisconsin - It's worth the trip

While attending the Wayzgoose in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, the first thing I learned from the locals is that it is correctly pronounced T'rivers.  

It is a charming, sleepy little town at the point where the Twin Rivers meet before emptying into Lake Michigan. 

Since my class started bright and early Thursday morning, I flew in on Wednesday, hoping for an afternoon to explore the area. The four days of the 'goose were foggy and rainy. 

Covered bridge and painted signs-- hard to see through the fog. 

Despite the weather, I did get to the Woodland Dunes, which is supposed to be wonderful for birdwatching.  I certainly can see how it should be, but in the rain and mist, not to mention hoards of biting insects, the sightings were dismal. After walking several of the boardwalks, decided this was not working. Just as I turned the ignition on in my car, the sun broke through. Sheesh. 

The boardwalks were lovely. This little pond had quite a few red-eared sliders. 

 These birdwatching blinds were great. Camera or binocular slots at levels comfortable for tall and short people. 
 

Another part of the boardwalk disappearing into the field.

A pair of ospreys were using a nesting platform. This is the male. he had just flown in with a fish and was busy tearing it up and feeding the three hatchlings.  Mom sat off to the side and watched for a while. She finally snatched the remains of the fish and flew to the top of a nearby telephone pole and snarfed up the last bit. 

I did see several great blue herons. It is disconcerting when you can't see them for the reeds, and then they come thumping up as you get close. Whew! 

There were many goldfinches, chickadees, cliff swallows and red-winged blackbirds. The new-to-me bird for the day was a gray catbird. That certainly made the foggy, misty, mosquito-y day worthwhile. 

I have to talk about breakfast. There is a little dinner that overlooks the West Twin River. It has a fabulous view of a hand-cranked railroad trestle. When the train was expected, men would take a boat out to the trestle, crank a monstrous gear which would turn the trestle to connect with the tracks on both sides of the river.  What an amazing feat of engineering. There is a channel on both sides for boats. On top of the cement pillar is the massive gear that swivels it around. 

 I have to admit that most of the time it looked pretty ghostly in the fog. 

But I digress, back to breakfast.  For $6.50 I had a breakfast too big to eat. Okay, so I misunderstood just what was coming. The plate had two eggs, two sausages, three pieces of bacon, toast,  hash browns and two large pancakes. And all the coffee I wanted. Whew.  I looked around at what some of the locals were being served, and decided that my plate was Farmer Lite. Some of those old boys were eating from  plates with twice as much as I was served. Good though!

Another wonderful feature of Two Rivers is the Mariner's Trail. It is a 6 mile paved trail along the lakeshore from Two Rivers south to Manitowoc. It is wide enough to accommodate walkers, joggers, bicyclists and rollerbladers without anyone having to move to the side. There are beautiful views of the lake and the trailside gardens are maintained by local businesses or individuals. It is lovely.  These heron sculptures are in one of the little gardens. They are about 8 feet tall.

 In addition, this trail connects north of Two Rivers and runs another 6 miles up to Neshota Park. Our motel rented bikes--a wonderful idea. 


Ever noticed how towns near lakes or oceans are so different than landlocked towns? 

 

 This is a pier-head lighthouse built in 1886. It presides over the historic fishing village where you can climb into a fishing tug, walk through fish sheds and visit the Great Lakes Coast Guard exhibit on shipwrecks. 

The back of the motel was about 30 feet from Lake Michigan. The beach was covered with thousands of gulls and even more alewives that had committed suicide on the shore. The gulls were looking for live ones. 

Love the flotsom you find on beaches. Bones, water plants and clam shells. Normally I'd call this kelp, but not on a fresh water lake.

Can't forget some of the alewives. 

And of course, it is mighty picturesque. Bridge over East Twin River.

Obligatory small town church. 

The second and more important thing, in my mind, is that Two Rivers is where the ice cream sundae was invented. Naturally I had to eat a sundae.  Marjorie was happy to have a sundae for dinner so we went off to the historic Washington House.  What fun!

One of the ladies who works in the ice cream parlor makes fresh rhubarb sauce. I had a sundae with praline pecan ice cream, rhubarb sauce and caramel sauce. Thought I'd died and gone to heaven. 

Once an inn, the Washington House is now a museum in addition to hosting the ice cream parlor.  Built in the mid-1800s, it also has a visitor center, an original 1890s saloon, a ballroom, plus ten rooms are devoted to historic displays including a doctor's office, dentist's office, barbershop and more. Upstairs the ceilings and walls were beautifully painted and stenciled. 

Two Rivers. A great place for a vacation!  Just as the sign says:

24 June 2014 - Hamilton Type Museum & 2014 APA Wayzgoose

I have just had way too much fun in Wisconsin at the Wayzgoose. I hear voices in my head all asking "What the heck is a Wayzgoose?"   In the early days of printing, before electricity, printers often had to work by candlelight in the fall and winter.  Before this could happen, the Master Printer would host a Way-goose for all his journeymen--a dinner celebration around St Bartholomew's Day on August 24.  

The earliest use of this word was seen in Mechanick Exercises, by Joseph Moxon from 1683.  He writes:  

 The Master Printer gives them a Way-goose; that is, he makes them a good Feast, and not only entertains them at his own House, but besides, gives them Money to spend at the Ale-house or Tavern at Night. ... These Way-gooses, are always kept about Bartholomew-tide. And till the Master-Printer have given this Way-goose, the Journey-men do not use to Work by Candle Light.

These days a Wayzgoose is a meeting of printers. It can be local, state, regional or national meetings. I attended the APA Wayzgoose in Two Rivers, Wisconsin.  And what a treat! 

There were classes:  Engraving on wood type. I took this class and am enamored with the whole concept. 

We had some quick instruction on various gravure tools: including scorpers and spitstickers. Great names.

This is a simple router for clearing large areas of wood

and a ruling machine. Yep. Lust in my heart for this one!

Ky Wrzesinski

Talk about a heads down experience. I got tickled looking at the table across from me.  Here is our instructor, Jim Horton showing good form:

And participants emulating him.

L-R: Jeff Waldvogel, Jeryl Jones, Cindy Iverson

 Each person chose a letter to engrave. We were given a block of wood, traced the letter shape onto the block and engraved our design. 

Then we anxiously watched as Scott Moore worked out the math to get ready to cut out our letters with his wood type pantograph. 

Resulting in this:

My letter is the second O with the jellyfish. Jim will print this and we will get copies in the APA big tube mailing.

Poster layout and printing.  This was going on during my class. I don't think I saw any samples from that class.

Weaving type, image and structure. Wow. This class was taught by Jessica Spring and Jen Farrell who are amazing and innovative printers. The class printed large sheets covered with wood type, then used the printed to piece to cut up for weaving and folded projects. Really interesting stuff. 

Laurie Taylor Walters

Marjorie Wilser

Honeycomb book made from printed many Bs

    

Pressure printing, the first pass on a many layered project

Wood type (history, design and pantograph)

Here Tom Parson shows off a just-completed piece: a wood ornamental bracket he made using Scott Moore's pantograph and patterns. 

There were speakers: Greg Walters on European Type Specimen books plus he brought over 100 of his old and rare books for us to leaf through. Very carefully leaf through.  

His slide show was amazing. But I got a bad case of the giggles when I saw the screen.  Seriously over engineered. 

Greg also gave another talk on water marks in paper and how to find them. 

Jim Moran spoke about the Hamilton Type Museum's recent move and their future. 

There was a swap meet! Caveat emptor. It is not a good idea to fly to a Wayzgoose unless you really need a reason not to buy anything. It's hard to carry heavy metal type, books and accoutrements on a plane.  But look! Table after table of good stuff.

There was a benefit auction for the APA. Great fun with cheering for the winners and lots of oohs, ahhs and laughter. 

The museum itself was wonderful. Many examples of wood type, lots of presses, room for classes,  and many posters made from wood type hanging on the walls. 

This 2 was printed from a piece of wood type that is 46 inches high. 

It was wonderful to gather with so many people who all speak printerese. Even better was meeting so many of them in person. I have received so much help and advice via email--it was great to actually meet them in the flesh. 

How many ways are there to say what a splendiferous time? 

17 June 2014 - Snow

We are four days away from the Solstice and the first day of Summer. And oddly enough, it is currently 39 degrees. Not only did we get one and half inches of rain today, but it snowed above 6000 feet. 

Looking at Mt. Olympus, you can see the fresh dusting of snow. Not sure if this is a record for late snow or not. Still...it was a surprise. 

I took advantage of the water rushing down the street and diverted it into my front strip which never gets enough water. It got soggy today, and that's a good thing. 

16 June 2014 - Bees and Brothers

What do bees and brothers have in common? Both are industrious and both are full of surprises. 

My brother kept bees for many years. Just by being around him I soaked up a lot of knowledge about bees. Mostly by osmosis, not because I am interested in becoming a beekeeper. But I do like to know things, how they work and why and I have observed many different bees and their behaviors. 

Honey bees are in dire straits right now: they are being killed by farm pesticides and fungicides at an alarming rate, In addition there are colony collapse disorder and varroa mites doing them in as well. 

This has spawned a lot of interest in solitary bees and how essential they are as pollinators. David and I both have seen solitary bees in our respective yards. I have seen quite a few websites about building insect housing to attract good bugs to your garden. Fascinating stuff. People in Europe and the UK are quite enlightened about bees and bugs and the bug condos being built over there are downright amazing. This photo is from Permaculture Magazine, issue 59. It is made of stacked pallets.

 Or they can be fairly simple. Gardener's Supply Catalog sells these.

Because I have bamboo in my yard, I cut the stalks and made something similar to the one above for my brother.  I have enough cut bamboo to make another for myself, just haven't done it yet.

Here's the funny part. Today I was using the googler trying to find out what kind of miner bee I have in my lawn.  In doing the research I found a site about the mason bee houses like the bamboo house above. It said to hang them in the sun, but to make sure they are protected from the weather. 

I was writing an email to my brother telling him this when he showed up with his tool bag. I told him what I'd found out and he started walking around my yard, looking for perfect spots to put one. Of course I'm laughing at him because I haven't made mine yet. 

Turns out, he made me a mason bee house and was delivering it. And it had a perfect little roof to keep the rain off. David also charred the front as he had been reading that female bees prefer darker wood.

Siblings. It is scary when we sometimes act like there is a master hive mind connecting us.

So here is my brand new mason bee home! All installed. 

You can bet I'll be monitoring it daily to see when the bees find it. 
How fun is this?