…and on the bridges.
If I’m going to get the windows washed before it snows, I’d better get at it. Pretty soon we’ll have to roll up the hoses for the winter.
Frost on the local pumpkins…
by CJ | Oct 14, 2013 | Journal | 31 comments
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I *have* a recommendation. A carwashing mop…a hose, and a can of Sprayway Glass Cleaner.
Sprayway has a little petroleum in the mix, just enough to cut grease and such. It’s stinky. But it’s got a powerful spray: I was able to hit the high windows with it, standing safely on the ground: the limit of what I can reach with the extendable-handled mop. Hose off, spray with Sprayway, scrub with mop, hose down, move on. I got the whole front and side of the house done. I’ll do the few back windows tomorrow. And we will have a good clear view of the world.
Sprayway is something we first met in Texas, at an Allsup’s [sort of a gas-station convenience store chain] in the Panhandle, where they have BUGS. I don’t mean your measily cool weather bugs. I mean jumbo-sized shellac-for-bodily-fluids flying fortresses. Those windshield-scrubber sponges convenience stores provide for their gas customers? In the Texas panhandle, those sponges are in rags from trying to get bug-shellac off the windshields under hot Texas sun. Instant-dry, that shellac. Especially above 30 mph.
In self-defense, Allsup’s sells Sprayway. Which can, if allowed to set for just a moment, dissolve bug stuff into a piffle…sparkling clean windshield.
Amazon sells it. We bought a case when we got home. We carry a can in the car. When everybody else is scrubbing and scrubbing at the gas station trying to remove bug-juice, we spritz and wipe.
You want the picnic table glass clean? House windows? That table your nephew visited? The glass paperweight collection that hasn’t sparkled since 1950?
This is your stuff. No kidding.
We haven’t had any frosts yet in England, but the thing that really makes you feel the year is dying is the darkness – heavy low cloud and rain for over a week now means lights on when you get up in the morning, headlights on when you’re driving, curtains drawn, lights and the fire on when you get home in the evening. Yet October evenings can often be so pleasantly mild that you don’t want to come in out of the garden even though it is dark.
CJ, I’ve been wanting to ask, do you like The Big Bang Theory?
I keep forgetting you’re 420 miles further north than I am…..even with the influence of the Pacific Ocean as a thermal stabilizer, you still get colder temperatures and earlier snows than we do here in W.C. Ohio.
BTW, I pulled out my copy of “Roadside Geology of Ohio” this afternoon, and every time I look at it, it reminds me of you, because you suggested the book series to me. Thanks again. I didn’t realize how much my particular area of Ohio is geologically significant. Just 5 miles north of my hometown is one of the most seismically active areas in Ohio, a small town named Anna. (Honda has their engine factory there.)
When I was working on my pilot’s license (never finished, ran out of money), I ran into a line of thunderstorms that made me use up more of my gas than I expected. I ended up setting down at a small uncontrolled airfield called Wapakoneta to refuel. Until I got back in the air, it didn’t click that I had landed at Neil Armstrong’s home field.
I cannot recommend the Roadside Geology series highly enough for anyone interested in rocks. Have you ever made it to the Falls of the Ohio?
Hmn, it ate my comment, which was, nope, haven’t seen that one, re big bang. And yep, we’re further north and far from the moderating influence of the Pacific current…more like 2000 foot elevation next to the Selkirk Mts, which have already gotten snow…
Genealogy Question: I found the box of most of my parents’ genealogy work, but alas, no diskettes with the box. This includes a binder of printouts from a now-ancient (~20ver years) version of Family Tree Maker for the Mac Plus. (Hah!) Any advice on getting all that hand-entered into a new version of Family Tree Maker? Also, should I go with some other program?
I have not yet come across where I stored the wayward photo of an Indian woman from Texas who was a many-times great grandmother, I think she was one of my 2xG or 3xG grandmothers. I know she was from my mother’s father’s side (my maternal grandfather), and I think she was his grandmother. This was, if my memory serves, a photo taken in the mid to late 1800’s. She was fully Indian, the marriage approved as far as I know by both spouses’ families. The photo shows an Indian woman with braids, wearing typical pioneer white clothes, and I think there was a teepee in the background off to the side. She’d married into the Thompson family. The location would’ve been likely northeastern Texas, possibly near Altus, Texas. She may have been Cherokee, but could have been Chickasaw, Choctaw, or Comanche, I don’t know and I don’t think my mother nor my mother’s father, aunts, and uncles knew the woman’s tribal affiliation anymore. (But there is a connection with, as far as I know unrelated, Thompsons and Cherokee, a very favorable one, from those times. The earliest known Thompson ancestor for my lineage was an English or Scottish doctor who had emigrated to the USA in the 1800’s, around the 1840’s or 1850’s, if I recall. I didn’t get that binder out to read over, but will look further in the next few nights. A certain young feline was getting too playful despite admonishments not to, since those are records I want to keep safe. …I am getting a better storage box than the (ahem) plain cardboard storage box they were in. I’m still looking periodically for the photo. It and others have to turn up. When they do, there will be much rejoicing, and I will re-scan the photo and post it, in case someone might know more about her. (There’s always a chance.)
Why my mother didn’t write more down and truster her and my memory, and why my great-uncle (her uncle) who also remembered didn’t write it down or tell his children, I wish they had! His daughter knew nothing about the family history. My memory wasn’t as good as I thought, after time and loss of loved ones. — Lesson: Write down known facts. Write down conjectures, hunches, family stories, area history. Write down your own guesses, but be clear what’s fact and what’s conjecture and source citations. Keep a paper copy and a computer file copy (CD or flash drive or SD card) *with* the paper copy, darn it, even if you keep a computer backup with your other computer storage media.
I’ll be looking for that photo again this weekend. It can’t have gone too far astray.
I’m off to sketch some. 🙂
Reconsider the pace of technology and lifespan of any particular technology. Inscribe it on vellum, no, real vellum, with a good ink and it will be readable a millenium from now! 😉
Can you still read a 5 1/4″ floppy? What about the 8″ floppies we used before that? No, I seriously doubt it–I have all the hardware still but the 2708/2716 UV-EPROMs in our late 70’s could only remember their programming for 10yrs–15 at the outside.
Very true, Paul. The files my mom had saved were on (lol) Mac 3.5″ HD floppies, 1440 KB, I think. I’d be very surprised if anything from then (such as font source files I worked on at the time) are still readable on floppies that old. I was surprised to find (very cheap) they still make 3.5″ floppies (with a USB adapter, no less) one can plug into one’s modern “computational device” (machine à calculer!) and (apparently) read/write on old, old floppies. I remember the 5.25″, and I’ve seen, but not used, the old 8″ floppies. Very luckily, I didn’t have to try an Apple II with a (!) cassette tape drive.
By the way, where *did* that translation *tape* go, Py-an-far? ;p
Lol—who knows what they’ll come up with *again*. Disk is nothing but a flat tape. 😉
Hey Ben…at the risk of dating myself I have to tell you that an Apple II with cassette drive was the very first computer I used…..it wasn’t mine tho! 😆
Mmm. Your relative could also be Kiowa…but one of the 5 tribes is possible for early Texas…counting the couple could have met in Oklahoma and moved to Texas. One of my lateral relatives, eg, was a translator between Sam Houston and the Cherokee, as I recall, who fought a small war with Houston.
Re putting that stuff into modern form, I’d suggest you take the printout and get a copy of FTM 2014, and just start entering. That has the virtue also of a) picking up more modern research [more families, more data] and b) familiarizing you with your own family names. The fact that the DB will start recognizing these names and supplying part of the typing will help speed this along.
Has anybody here some experience with Open Source genealogy software like GenealogyJ or Gramps?
Ah, forgot to mention GeneWeb.
No experience with it, but anything that can output a GEDCOM file can shift its content into other major softwares, paid or not. That’s the thing to look for: the potential for a GEDCOM save as well as whatever they’re using.
On every person you want: name (birth name, not married name)
date of birth
place of birth
any details
date of death
place of death
any details
spouse
date of marriage
place of marriage
any details
The ‘any details’ is kind of a ‘notes’ basket. If you have things in that order and use the date format DD/MM/YY with the zeroes and with the 3-letter version of the month, your GEDCOM will be translatable into just about anything.
Thank you very much for your hints.
Another question: noticing that you, CJ, and others have ancestors from indian origin and knowing that your hometown is named after an indian chief I wonder if this has left some traces in the colloquial language. I remember, for example, words like “kindergarten” (from the German words Kinder – children and Garten – garden), “gedankenexperiment” (German Gedanken – thoughts), or chutzpah (from Yiddish – impudence). Are there words of one of the indian languages used today in common speech?
There are many, many words from several Indian languages used today in common American speech. They’re so common, most of us don’t think about them being borrowed from Native Americans. There were all sorts of strange animals and plants the European settlers had never seen before. They gave names from their own European languages or invented words, but they also borrowed Indian words, or what they thought were the Indian words, which might often be altered to suit the European tongues or poorly translated, such as, (European) : “What’s that?’ (Indian) : “I don’t know, what are you pointing at?” (This happened in Australia too.) American foods and some clothes and actions also were borrowed from Indians in many cases.
Some examples of common American things the Europeans borrowed from the Indian nations:
turkey!, skunk!, puma, cougar, pemmican, succotash, coffee, cocoa / chocolate / cacao, guacamole (Indian word, not Spanish), atlatl, kayak?, canoe?, wigwam, teepee, wampum, squaw, papoose, Appaloosa, Palouse, moccasin.
The English word “corn” changed from a generic word to a very specific word. “Corn” originally was English for any sort of grain (compare barleycorn, acorn, modified from ancient oak-corn, which is what it is, peppercorn, etc.). The English settlers didn’t know what to call this new grain and plant the Indians used. It didn’t exist in Europe. So it was simply that corn, and somehow the word stuck with a specific meaning for what Americans call corn today. — I’m not sure of the derivation for maize, maíz (Spanish), maize (French), whether those were borrowed from an Indian word or native Latinate source-words.
There are also all sorts of Spanish words borrowed into English in common usage, from the American Southwest and the cattle and horse trades. But in the strange way of things, English “cowboy” is a man or boy who herds cows or is what we think of as a cowboy today, and is probably a loose translation of a Spanish “vaquero,” a cow-boy or cow-man, what we think of as a cowboy. (From la vaca, the cow, + -ero, like -er or -or in English, the “one who does/makes something,” an agentive suffix. The C in vaca changes to QU to keep the hard K sound before E, I, or Y. The U is silent there: vah-keh-roh, un vaquero.)
Perhaps you’re lying in your pajamas on the verandah of your 1930’s bungalow. Three Indian words.
Psssst! (whisper, whisper)
Not that “indian”? Never mind! 🙂 😉
OK, seriously, indian placenames abound all over America.
ISTR “buckaroo” is our derivation from “vaquero”.
And apropos of totally missing the point in naming, there’s the old story of how the “Shis Indé” got called the “Apache”. “The first known written record in Spanish is by Juan de Oñate in 1598. The most widely accepted origin theory suggests Apache was borrowed and transliterated from the Zuni word ʔa·paču meaning ‘Navajos’ (the plural of paču ‘Navajo’). Another theory suggests the term comes from Yavapai ʔpačə meaning ‘enemy’. The Zuni and Yavapai sources are less certain because Oñate used the term before he had encountered any Zuni or Yavapai.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache
One might well doubt the Zuni word means just “Navajo” while the similar Yavapai word means “enemy”. (That’s the way I first encountered the story.) The pueblo indians had a long history of strife with the late-coming Atabaskan invaders! “Most commonly, Europeans learned to identify the tribes by translating their exonym, what another group whom the Europeans encountered first called the Apachean peoples. Europeans often did not learn what the peoples called themselves, their autonyms.” [op cit.]
Ok, ok, I should have asked more aimed 😉
Indeed, I knew some words already like cacao, chocolate, or tomato (Kakao, Schokolade, Tomate in German). And I knew of geographical names like Spokane, Missouri, Ohio, Tuscaloosa, or Manhattan.
I was wondering about words of the languages of the north american natives maybe more with a spiritual background.
That’s a good question, jvp. 🙂 By the way, it wasn’t my intention to babble on and on, or to step in when I probably should’ve waited, since you’d asked CJ, not me. 🙂 You, and your question, are quite welcome here. Please continue!
Hmm…spiritual background, or other more culturally specific or significant words? I’m not sure. There are ideas from Native American Indians on things like that, some of which made it into English as fully translated terms, e.g. a sweat lodge, vision quests, and so on. Or (over in Australia) the “Dream Time” and walkabout. But native words? I’m not too sure. I’d like to know too!
tobacco and peyote are two, and I think tequila may be another…
Thank you, thank you! — Good to know the Kiowa would be a possibility also.
If my memory serves, I think the photo was from around the 1880’s, now that I think more about it, but I don’t recall if there’s a date written on it, or a place name, or what. There is *something*, and in pencil, I think.
Re Oklahoma and Texas, that’s very possible. My great grandparents (my maternal grandmother’s parents) were on the line for the opening of the Territory for white settlement, if I haven’t mixed up the dates. (In history classes, I could remember events, the stories and motives, and often the names, but had trouble keeping the dates solid.) Back into that multiple-great grandmother’s day, it would’ve been Oklahoma Territory, fairly newly separated from northern Texas, post-Republic, post-statehood, post-Reconstruction and re-entry as a state. My memory of what my mom knew from the photo, handed down from her dad and her uncle and her (paternal) grandmother, is that the photo was taken in what was Texas at the time, probably northern Texas. But it wouldn’t preclude the couple (the multi-greats) meeting in Oklahoma Territory or in Texas, either one. I don’t recall ever hearing how the two met, only that it was approved by both sides of the couple’s family, the (white) husband’s (Thompson family) and the (Indian) wife’s (tribal affiliation not handed down that I recall).
At any rate, I can’t make an official claim as Cherokee, even if it turns out she was Cherokee. I’m at least one generation too far removed for that. But I’m more interested in knowing who she was, what people she was from, her relatives and background, to reconnect that part of the story.
There’s a very possible or probable Cherokee (or Five Civilized Tribes) connection on my dad’s side, going back to the Revolutionary War era, before and after. Unfortunately, that ended badly for all involved. But that, or something like it, could be the source of the “family story” that “there’s Indian blood in the family.” In this case, it could be likely. There are historical reports surrounding that, but no mention of progeny per se. My dad believed the two men involved were not only war buddies, but in-laws or blood brothers, and best friends, making the outcome that much worse. But if so, it would add support to the idea of a connection there in the family tree. I don’t know of any surviving records, though, from either the courthouse or the family. Fires both places, accidental (lightning, stove, etc.) or man-made (prior to “the War Between the States” or to cover robbery or, well, whatever mischief from whoever might have dared invade the courthouse or else my ancestors’ family home at the time. No connection between them and the courthouse, though, which was in the county seat (of course) not in their town, formerly called Old Martin’s Station. Now barely a bump in the road that has gone by another name for, hmm, over a century or more? …Oh, good heavens, I’ve just realized how many run-ons in this paragraph. Ugh…. Blame it on enthusiasm, or lack of sleep.
Very glad to hear the suggestion re current FTM 2014. I’ll get it before or around Christmas.
If I’m very lucky, that binder might have a notation or two about the photo and that woman relative.
While I’m babbling, there is also a Brodie who was a small town Texas sheriff in the 1800’s, in the Thompson line and ultimately Scots, though he himself was Texan. This was complete with a shootout in town with some bad hombre. The sheriff won. Heh. The event was documented in a small book, novella sized, non-fiction account, which…had better be still in its box, which is to be (re-)-located. …One apologizes for the scattered presentation, but one is eager to share and is quite low on sleep, no one’s fault, just (rotten) insomnia as happens too often.
No, Goober, we’re not going Outside today. Rain (heavy) is imminent. Trust me, you’d find that quite unrefreshing! LOL! That, and you’ve tried to *stay* Outside twice lately, and have lost the privilege for a while.
Anyway — CJ, thanks very much for the advice and pointers re possible lineage, places, points of contact that might aid a search.
Goober remains undeterred. He is most resolute, nadi, in his wish to go Outside. It’s just the back yard, but it’s not Inside, you see….
jhn89ii <– Goober's opinion on the matter, walking across the keyboard.
Just to give you a picture of the times: my great-grandfather was Wm Pinkney Cherry, son of David, who married Louisiana Carolina Boone, d. of Lafayette [Lafe] Boone, of, yes, *those* Boones. Wm, Carolina, David; and ultimately about 10 kids, ran cattle from Grayson Co Texas across the Red River up into Oklahoma, most times living in Oklahoma (which was then Indian Territory) in what was called Indian City, in what became Payne County OK, up northeast of Oklahoma City. Indian City was between modern Cushing and Drumwright OK, but it no longer exists. [A namesake, as a Native American exhibition center, exists today down by Anadarko, but it has nothing to do with this one but the historic reference.]
The Sac and Fox tribes lived at Indian City until a smallpox epidemic wiped out the town. My great-grandfather William is buried there. My grandfather was born there. Carolina and most of the kids survived the epidemic and lived her last years bringing up my father down in Addington, so. of Duncan OK. Addington today has 114 residents, so it was no metropolis.
First smallpox, then the Spanish Flu—and no docs. It was not an easy time or place to live.
Hey CJ, thank you. (And thanks to jvp for the Open Source suggestions.) My maternal grandmother’s brother and sister still live in Duncan, where their parents eventually put down roots. I have cousins there and in Norman and in Oklahoma City. It’s possible I’ve been through Addington on the way up to visit in Duncan. I’ll have to ask my great-uncle and great-aunt if they knew anyone named Cherry. The family name is Rayburn for that branch of the family, nine kids in all, my grandmother’s siblings, so (lol) there’s an above average chance. 🙂
The Falls of the Ohio is a Devonian fossil bed in Jeffersonville, IN. Prior to the locks being built it was a two mile stretch of rapids where the Ohio drops 26 feet in 2 miles. It was only passable by flat boat during the spring floods. Otherwise they had to be taken out of the river and carted around the rapids.
Do you have any concerns about petroleum distillate near your pond? I still can’t forget the time (long, long ago) when my sister was assured by the guys who got rid of the yellow jackets nests in the lawn that their stuff was perfectly safe. Two days later, all the fish (which her grand daughter had named) were belly up in the pond!
Knock wood, we are enjoying one of our mild Southern New England falls. Night time temps are in the forties, days up in the high fifties and sixties. The beech and swamp maples are changing…..the oaks will be later….a darker, more subtle color that means winter is coming for sure.
Morning glories, moon flowers and dahlias are blooming madly……a true treat as they were planted very late…..the early plantings all rotted away in the June Monsoon. The fish pond is getting its net, but we won’t pull the pump yet. My swimming pool leaf work is much easier since we cut down most of the sassafras. Water temps are still above fifty and our foolish goldfish are huge, fat, and happy!
We haven’t been able to get moonflowers to grow at all. We were going to have blue morning glories on one side of the moon gate, and white moonflowers on the other…the morning glories were beautiful, but the moonflowers have fizzled twice.
Re petroleum: I keep Polyfilter on hand and permit no spraying near my pond, at least on my premises. It’s a worry, because it is so lethal. But enough Polyfilter pads could give you a fighting chance if you realize your neighbor is spraying.
Mama nicks them at the tip, soaks them in warm water overnight, and plants them three to a cup in a muffin tin. From a packet of seed, she will get three to five sprouts. Moonflowers are recalcitrant!
It’s been cool and rainy here (TX panhandle) for the past couple of days, 50’s and 60’s and doesn’t look like it will get above 70 F before Sunday. Has been cold enough in the house that I had to put socks on, and I’ve been sleeping with the spread on, too, not just the sheet — LOL! Rain never goes amiss down here. Definitely fall.
Clear and sunny here, a little off-shore push from the Palouse. (Thanks CJ!) That means the mornings are chilly. Upper-60’s highs, low-40’s for lows. So the Riesling have had several days to ripen some more. We’re picking Saturday! Morning grass will be soaking wet. Rubber boots.
I expect many here would like to know this:
“Cat Owners Can Carry on Stroking their Four-legged Friends Without Worry”
In a study published recently in the journal “Physiology & Behavior” an international team of researchers examined whether cats living in multi-cat households are more stressed than cats housed singly. Many media outlets responded to the study with an incorrect interpretation of the results and published such as “Cats Hate to be Stroked”. The co-author Rupert Palme of the Institute of Medical Biochemistry at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, explains: “As a matter of fact, the majority of the cats enjoyed being stroked. Only those animals that did not actually like to be stroked, but nevertheless allowed it, were stressed.”
with 4 cats, 3 of which like to be stroked, and the 4th one wanting to be, but too afraid to come near, the only stress is on me……..