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My grandson knows how to have fun. Pulling weeds and watering are not on Noah’s fun list. Besides, he’s too young for that sort of thing.

His sense of wonder makes him love to follow the paths between my garden’s rows. They’ve grown together enough to no longer resemble the two strips of lawn they were in spring. To Noah it must look like a wonderland of vines, enormous leaves and exotic vegetation that creates a maze-like path. Dodging tomatoes, prickly squash leaves and shiny peppers he twists around one obstacle after another. He carefully protects himself from threatening tendrils with an out-thrust elbow. Then he reverses it or decides to make the return trip down the next strip.

I don’t know what type of temperament turns a weedy, overgrown garden into a playground but I like Noah’s outlook on life.

The flood bypasses the garden to go into and through the garage. The studio was spared.

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…our garage, that is. Several time a year we get very heavy rains that convert our backyard into a lake and our garage into a flowing river bed. Last night’s 5-7 inches (our 5 1/2 – inch rain gage was full) of rain caused the flooding which narrowly missed the garden. In the photo above you can see that the water surrounds the lettuce & bean patch at the left. The main part of the garden is on a little higher ground.

The effect on the garden remains to be seen. We are supposed to get more rain today.

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I’ve often wondered if scarecrows actually work. Ever since I saw a large bird perched on a garden scarecrow’s shoulder I have become a doubter and yet people continue to make scarecrows.

I’ve tried to think of a way to keep the rabbits out of the garden without putting up a taller fence midway through the gardening season. I wondered if there would be something I could use to frighten them that would not be expensive, obnoxious to my neighbors, or deadly to the rabbits. Our rabbits have become sort of like the cousins who came for a visit but have worn out their welcome. I want them gone but not dead.

Even as the bunnies first emerged from their nest in our yard, I knew I’d have to deal with them in a more adversarial way later. But early on they were a good time. We developed a relationship with two of them. They “taught” my 1 1/2 – year-old grandson to chase them in exactly two circles around the yard. It was a wonderful game they played almost daily.

Okay, back to the scarecrows. Actually I am less concerned about crows than I am about my now-grown rabbits. We’re still friends but discovering them inside the garden fence, well – that crosses a well-defined line.

Last year I faced the same issue but the summer weather was very damp and grass and weeds were growing so fast and were apparently so tasty that the rabbits didn’t think it was worth the extra effort to jump the fence. This year they’ve had the taste of seven varieties of lettuce and Kentucky Wonder pole bean plants. They return each day!

As a child I spent a lot of time observing animal life in the wild. I found this relaxing, educational and sometimes amusing. (Nevermind how amused my friends were watching me do this.) This developed into my having a pretty good sense of animal behavior.

It struck me that small mammals do have a fear of snakes and for good reason. I have heard of people putting fake snakes in gardens to keep critters away but these have been largely unsuccessful. They work for a while and then the garden thieves return sort of like the bird sitting on the scarecrow’s shoulder.

Rabbits and crows know the same thing. Something that doesn’t move is not a threat. By moving I don’t mean all flashy and wiggly. I mean moving from one place to another.

My “snake” is actually a section of hose about 6 feet long. It looks just enough like a snake to give a bunny pause. I find myself in the garden saying “Do you feel lucky – Well, do ya punk?”

Early on I didn’t change my snake’s position. It would work for exactly one day before the rabbits returned. But changing it once each day has kept the rabbits completely away. I’ve had no problems with rabbits at all for a couple of weeks now.

I like to think that my hours of watching animals as a kid has finally paid off. It’s also turned me into Dirty Harry.

Scarebunny

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Agency Says Company’s Evidence ‘Scientifically More Robust’ than Independent Research<

By Danielle Ivory
Huffington Post Investigative Fund

Companies with a financial interest in a weed-killer sometimes found in drinking water paid for thousands of studies federal regulators are using to assess the herbicide’s health risks, records of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency show. Many of these industry-funded studies, which largely support atrazine’s safety, have never been published or subjected to an independent scientific peer review.

Meanwhile, some independent studies documenting potentially harmful effects on animals and humans are not included in the body of research the EPA deems relevant to its safety review, the Huffington Post Investigative Fund has found. These studies include many that have been published in respected scientific journals.

Even so, the EPA says that it would be “very difficult for someone to put a thumb on the scale” to slant the outcome.

Atrazine is one of the most widely used herbicides in the U.S. An estimated 76 million pounds of the chemical are sprayed on corn and other fields in the U.S. each year, sometimes ending up in rivers, streams, and drinking water supplies. It has been the focus of intense scientific debate over its potential to cause cancer, birth defects, and hormonal and reproductive problems. As the Huffington Post Investigative Fund reported in a series of articles last fall, the EPA failed to warn the public that the weed-killer had been found at levels above federal safety limits in drinking water in at least four states. Some water utilities are suing Syngenta to have it pay their costs of filtering the chemical.

Now the EPA is re-evaluating the health risks of atrazine, which was banned in the European Union in 2004 due to a lack of evidence to support its safe use. That ban includes Switzerland, where atrazine’s manufacturer, Syngenta, is headquartered. The EPA expects to announce results of its re-examination of the herbicide in September 2010. It could take action ranging from restrictions on its use on crops to an outright ban. Or it could permit continued use without additional restrictions.

The company, one of the world’s largest agribusinesses, says the chemical has been used safely for decades and restrictions could prove devastating to farmers who are heavily dependent on the inexpensive herbicide. Atrazine poses “no harm” to the general population or to drinking water supplies, said company spokesman Steven Goldsmith.

EPA records obtained by The Huffington Post Investigative Fund show that at least half of the 6,611 studies the agency is reviewing to help make its decision were conducted by scientists and organizations with a financial stake in atrazine, including Syngenta or its affiliated companies and research contractors.

More than 80 percent of studies on which the EPA are relying have never been published. This means that they have not undergone rigorous “peer review” by independent scientists, a customary method to ensure studies are credible and scientifically sound before they can be published in major journals.

At the same time several prominent studies by independent academic scientists in well-respected scientific journals – showing negative reproductive effects of atrazine in animals and humans – are absent from the EPA’s list.

That finding may raise concerns about how the agency is doing its work. Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees environmental regulators, told the Investigative Fund, “it’s critically important that EPA use all of the information at its disposal.”

Agency scientists may review studies not on the list, but EPA senior policy analyst William Jordan said that the 6,611 studies are those considered “relevant to the assessment of atrazine.”

‘Not Just Atrazine’

EPA spokeswoman Betsaida Alcantara said the list was not exhaustive and that some studies may not be on the list because they were not given an eight-digit “master record identification number,” which the agency uses to keep track of studies. There is “no uniform practice” for assigning numbers to studies submitted by people other than those working for herbicide, fungicide or pesticide manufacturers, she added.

EPA officials said that with a limited budget the agency must rely heavily on research sponsored by parties with a stake in the outcome. The agency’s “test guidelines” governing how experiments are conducted – the types and number of lab animals to be used, for instance. These provide sufficient safeguards against skewed results, officials said.

“Companies have a very strong incentive to follow the guidelines,” said EPA senior analyst Jordan. “We hope and think that we have written the guidelines with enough detail that it would be very difficult for someone to put a thumb on the scale, as it were, to slant the outcome, [or] to make something look safer than it is.”

Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist specializing in health issues at the Natural Resources Defense Council, argues that relying on a company to test the safety of its own product – an “inherent conflict” of interest – is part of a larger pattern at the EPA. “It’s not just happening with atrazine,” she said.

Hundreds of herbicides, pesticides, and other chemicals are regulated by the EPA, whose decisions can have significant implications for public health and on the abilities of an array of multinational companies to earn billions of dollars in the U.S.

By law, industry influence often is built into the regulatory process of the federal government. At the Food and Drug Administration, for instance, clinical trials conducted by pharmaceutical companies are used to determine whether pills and devices work and are safe. Makers of pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides also must pay for studies on their products. If they meet agency rules for conducting the testing, the EPA must accept them.

The ‘Funding Effect’

But is industry-funded research always reliable? A pair of scientists funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the EPA scrutinized a Syngenta-funded Canadian study – one that is not on the EPA’s list. The scientists said they found numerous inaccuracies and misleading statements.

The scientists who questioned the study, University of South Florida biologists Jason Rohr and Krista McCoy, published their critique in the March 2010 issue of the journal Conservation Letters. In all, they tallied what they said were 122 inaccurate and 22 misleading statements, of which 96.5 percent appeared to support atrazine’s safety. The widely cited study focused on the herbicide’s effects on fish and other aquatic creatures.

Rohr and McCoy also asserted that the Canadian study, which was done in 2008, misrepresented more than 50 other studies. For example, it incorrectly suggested that only one scientist had demonstrated the chemical’s gender-altering effects on frogs. In fact, several other scientists demonstrated such effects.

The study dismissed one of Rohr’s papers as invalid, noting wrongly that the researcher had filtered atrazine out of a water tank while trying to assess the chemical’s effect on the aquatic organisms in the tank.

The Canadian study also misrepresented results, figures, and conclusions of other studies, according to the University of South Florida biologists.

Rohr, who served on an EPA advisory panel examining atrazine last year, told the Investigative Fund that he felt compelled “to set the record straight given the potential policy and environmental implications of these misconceptions and inaccuracies.”   

The author of the Canadian study, University of Guelph (Ontario) biologist Keith Solomon, declined to respond to questions from the Investigative Fund about his financial ties to Syngenta, the company’s influence, or the inaccuracies and mischaracterizations the South Florida biologists said they had uncovered. Solomon noted that other scientists had come to similar conclusions, and that governments in the U.S. and Australia had not found any significant risk to creatures living in water.

While the critiqued study is not on the EPA’s list, several other studies by Solomon are.

Wendy Wagner, an expert in environmental policy at the University of Texas law school, said that the criticism of the Canadian study demonstrates a phenomenon sometimes referred to as “the funding effect.”

“It is next to impossible to squeeze all of the discretion out of a researcher, and when he has a strong incentive to find a particular result, the result can be unreliable and badly biased research,” said Wagner, an authority on the influence of politics and special interests on science. “There is compelling evidence that bias still pervades sponsored pesticide research – research that presumably is done in accord with EPA’s guidelines.”

Meanwhile, some independently-funded academic research published in major scientific journals is missing from the list of papers the EPA is using to make its decisions on atrazine. Absent are studies published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Environmental Health Perspectives, and Nature. Many works by independent academic scientists such as Tyrone Hayes and Rohr – who have demonstrated a range of potential reproductive and hormonal effects of the chemical – are not on the list.

Some peer-reviewed studies from prestigious journals fail to meet the agency’s standards, said EPA analyst Jordan, citing as an example work by scientists such as Hayes, who recently found that low doses of atrazine could turn male frogs into female frogs.

Jordan explained that the agency couldn’t rely on Hayes’ and the other scientists’ research in part because the government lacked protocols for testing chemicals on frogs. So the EPA developed those guidelines and asked Syngenta to study the issue. The company’s researchers reported that they were unable to replicate Hayes’ findings. Jordan said the Syngenta study “superceded” Hayes’ and the other scientists’ studies. The EPA, on its Website, currently states that atrazine causes no such adverse effects on frogs and that “no additional testing is warranted” to address the issue.

Environmental groups have in the past criticized the EPA for allowing chemical companies to wield disproportionate influence over regulatory decisions. While evaluating the safety of atrazine in 2003, the EPA allowed representatives from Syngenta to participate in closed-door negotiations with the agency, according to documents obtained by the NRDC in 2004.

Missing Evidence

Dale Kemery, an EPA spokesman, defended the practice of omitting some studies. The agency’s safety “review may not include every study that has been conducted, since some may not meet the standards that are appropriate for a regulatory setting or they may not be on target for the issues to be assessed.”

The EPA considers industry-sponsored studies “scientifically more robust than are the studies generated by people in academia,” said Jordan, the agency’s senior policy analyst. “That’s generally because companies spend more money on their studies and can attend to details that are potentially important that people in academia just can’t afford to do.”

Jordan added that agency oversight of the thousands of unpublished studies on the list is just as rigorous as a peer-review by scientists prior to publication in a scientific journal. “I know that people might not agree with this proposition, but I believe that the scientists at EPA constitute a peer-review,” he said. “Our scientists go over the studies with a fine tooth comb.”

EPA officials said they were not able to provide a list of all omitted research.

A spokeswoman for CropLife America, the Washington D.C.-based trade association that represents pesticide and herbicide manufacturers, said EPA oversight is thorough, regardless of whether studies have appeared in peer-reviewed journals.

“Whether or not they have been published, the studies submitted to EPA for registration support of pesticide products are subject to scientific review by EPA scientists that is equally, if not more, rigorous and demanding than the pre-publication peer review conducted by any scientific journal,” said spokeswoman Mary Emma Young.

Some people are skeptical about the rigor of the EPA’s scrutiny. “What worries me,” said the University of Texas’ Wagner, “is the possibility that there isn’t time or energy within EPA to give a lot of oversight to this unpublished, industry-funded research, especially when the number of unpublished studies for a chemical like atrazine are in the thousands.”

A former EPA official, epidemiologist Lynn Goldman, said it is normal and necessary for the agency to accept unpublished and industry-funded studies, most of which would not be interesting enough to publish in scientific journals.

“This is the way that the system was built by Congress.  It could be changed but the EPA does not have the authority to turn the system upside down,” said Goldman, a former assistant administrator for toxic substances during the Clinton administration.

The existence of a list of relevant research for EPA review has played a prominent role in public arguments for the herbicide’s safety. Journalists, scientists, and advocates for atrazine have frequently cited the “6,000” studies.

In 2005, Anne Lindsay, then a top official in the EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs, brought up the number of studies during congressional testimony. “Atrazine is one of the most well-examined pesticides in the marketplace,” she said, noting that “there are nearly 6,000 studies in EPA files on the human health and environmental effect of atrazine.”

Syngenta now cites the number in its press materials and on its website – not merely as a tally of studies but as proof of its safety. “Atrazine passes the most stringent, up-to-date safety requirements in the world,” said spokesman Paul Minehart. “In 2006, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) re-registered atrazine in 2006 based on the overwhelming evidence of safety from nearly 6,000 studies.”

EPA’s List of Scientific Studies on Atrazine

Last year I documented the war being waged in my garden. My “Winged Monkeys” came to my rescue in protecting my broccoli from green worms.

This morning I walked into another battle. A flower spider intended to make a Japanese beetle its brunch. I’ve rarely witnessed a spider taking on something more powerful than itself.

flower spider vs. Japanese beetle - Here, it's advantage spider.

Running to get my camera early in the match, I wondered what the outcome would be. My mind raced. I thought that if the win goes to the spider, would I perhaps be able to order flower spider eggs to control the Japanese beetle infestation currently eating my pole beans? Should I consider raising them and telling my Organic Gardening forum friends I’ve found the answer to this awful problem?

The chase went on for several minutes. Around and around the grape leaf they went. The spider wrapped the beetle with its thread, the beetle tore it up and escaped, only to be confronted again by its determined foe. Neither one seemed to have a clear advantage.

Like any neighborhood brawl, a crowd began to gather. Both a long-legged fly and a ladybug watched from a safe distance.

You can see here what I saw as I first brought my camera to the scene.

After several attempts the Japanese beetle was the victor. He retreated within the relative protection of new leaf growth a little ways away from and out of view of the spider.

It looks like I will need to continue using my old peanut butter jar full of water to solve my Japanese beetle problem. (I couldn’t find it in me to put the battle-worn beetle in the jar.)

captured!

escape!

capture again!

A long-legged fly watches the drama from a safe distance.

It's not over yet! He escapes with the spider in hot pursuit.

The Japanese beetle is putting some distance between himself and the spider.

It's over. The winner escapes with his life.

With today’s post I want to introduce some gardens other than my own.
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Two of my “city kids” have gardens. Andy is in Pilsen in Chicago and Jesse is in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. They both have very limited space for growing vegetables but that doesn’t seem to stop them from rather ambitious plantings.

Andy says, “It’s really amazing just how much you can grow if you have enough room and decide to devote enough space for plants. I’ll be totally set with tomatoes for the summer with three plants. Oh wait, actually four plants.”

In addition to the tomatoes Andy is growing:

• habañero and jalapeño plants from seeds Jesse gave him from last year’s plants

• herbs: thyme and basil

• a two-year old strawberry plant that hasn’t yet produced any fruit

• mustard greens

• a forget-me-not plant

It’s important to note that all of Andy’s plants are inside his second-floor apartment in front of his large north-facing windows.

Andy says, “I’ve been using Terracycle plant food, which is the worm crap fertilizer and it has worked pretty well. I also like how they recycle old plastic pop bottles for the packaging. I guess one thing about container gardening is that you have to keep up with watering because the dirt in containers dries out very quickly.”

Andy's Chicago garden

Jesse also has an amazing garden in a very small space. I asked him last evening if he could send me a photo. He answered this way,

i saw your message and directly went and shot a photo of my tomato plants. there was supposed to be a storm tonight and this was just as the rain started coming down. those are in my bedroom window. they are growing strong, but they have not fruited yet. many brown leaves. perhaps i am not watering enough? i have a feeling this is it. nothing i have is in the ground and i think the water runs out quickly. it is also possibly very crowded. i have five large plants in my window. in my other bedroom/office/darkroom window i have my squashes and one other tomato plant. they are doing similar. the squashes have been fruiting slightly, but they have fallen off when they do . i will keep at it.

Jesse also notes that container plants need to be watered more often than ground plantings. I would also add that tomato plants are self-pollinating. That is, they don’t need insects to pollinate. They DO, however, need wind or something to make this happen. With indoor tomato and pepper plants you may need to tap the flowers gently to get them to pollinate. Some people use an electric toothbrush to make this happen! Since Jesse’s are on an outside window cage he should be fine. I do wonder a little about Andy’s north light for tomatoes! And… wait a minute… Did Jesse actually say that he has squash plants in his window?

Jesse's Brooklyn garden as the rain begins to fall

Brandywine (Sudduth's Strain) tomato

There are a lot of stages of growth in a garden. Waiting for seeds to germinate, seeing the first “true” leaves, and finding the first squash blossom are landmarks I look forward to each year. Probably my favorite is finding the first tomato.

I have been reading recently on the Seed Savers Exchange forum that the Brandywine (Sudduth’s Strain) variety has some, well… difficulties. Half of my tomatoes are – you guessed it – Brandywine (Sudduth’s Strain). Posters have been using words like “temperamental” and “difficult” regarding this variety. One even called it “legendarily temperamental.” One poster suggested using an electric toothbrush a couple of times a day to vibrate the flower clusters. This is “to allow the pollen to fall from the anthers onto the stigma.”

So I’m to brush my tomato plants’ “teeth” two times a day, huh. Gosh, I hope they don’t need flossing. It is actually nice to know that there are ways to pollinate plants when ideal weather conditions or lack of bees cause fruit to not set. This situation could certainly be encountered by both greenhouse and high-rise patio gardeners. Although tomatoes are essentially self pollinating, some varieties may need a little help. I really recommend the knowledgeable people on the Seed Savers and Organic Gardening forums

I’m happy to report that my tomato plants seem to have produced tomatoes without the toothbrush routine. This weekend I came upon first tomatoes of each of the three varieties I grew.

As usual, I’d welcome any stories about your gardens.

** an update from one of my Seed Savers forum friends regarding the tomato pictured above – “…as is very typical with Brandywine Sudduth’s and other varieties of that era, you can see that that’s 2 merged blossoms. You’ve got a double! That could produce a VERY large tomato.”

Cherry Roma tomato

Red Brandywine tomato

my grandson's cousin enjoys some baby carrots

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I made an obvious decision to forgo writing about and photographing my garden so far this year. It was a nice break that actually allowed me to enjoy getting my patch of green off and running without the encumbrances of camera and computer. Gardening is a messy business and I recall last year finding sudden inspiration while having muck up to my elbows. Dashing to the camera or computer in such a state required significant clean up which somewhat interrupted the flow of both the gardening AND the inspiration. This year when inspiration came I simply said, “Eh…” and returned to pulling weeds in the rain.

A friend on Facebook asked me “What do you have in your garden?” That’s my reason for returning to this.

I am experimenting with new varieties of mostly heirloom vegetables. This year I have purchased nearly all my seeds from Seed Savers Exchange, an organization dedicated to preserving and sharing the heirloom seeds of our garden heritage. With any luck this year’s garden will contain:

• Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans from SSE – This is a wonderful old standby that I grew in my first garden in 1973. It’s the only bean I’ve ever grown. For next year I have my eyes on some Rattlesnake Snap beans. I don’t think I can resist “dark green pods that are streaked with purple – very fine flavor.” I like the name too.

• Wisconsin Lakes Pepper from SSE – I’ve always grown California Wonder peppers but wanted an heirloom variety with seeds I can save for next year.

• Jalapeño Peppers from Burpee – just one plant in a bucket from last year’s left over seeds

• Summer Crookneck Squash from SSE – I love the nutty flavor.

• Burpee’s Fordhook Zuccini – I used some leftover seeds from last year.

• Sweet Dumpling Winter Squash – I got these seeds from my son who grew them in Brooklyn.

• Purple Top White Globe Turnip from SSE – I’ll plant a fall crop of these too.

• Scarlet Nantes Carrot from SSE – I’ve finally discovered that the secret to growing carrots is deeply-tilled ground.

• Cherry Roma Tomato from SSE – These are replacing my Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes from the last two years. We’ll see…

• Red Brandywine Tomato from SSE – These are replacing my Better Boy Hybrids from Burpee. Those were pretty good but I want to save my seeds for next year and I can’t do that with hybrids.

• Brandywine (Sudduth’s Strain) Tomato from SSE -another experiment in flavor and seed saving

• Calabrese Broccoli from SSE - I was looking for larger heads this year which I didn’t get from the DeCicco variety I grew last year.

• Giant Noble Spinach from American Seed - These are left-over seeds from last year. My twenty-month old grandson likes this!

• Lettuce a variety of nine lettuces including a Gourmet Blend from Burpee, Black-Seeded Simpson, Burpee Bibb, and Roman Emperor (romaine)

• Mary Washington and Jersey Giant Asparagus from crowns I purchased at Home Depot

Please feel free to leave comments, questions, useful information or idle chat below. Maybe you can tell me what’s in your garden. There is more to come. I promise.

And thanks for asking, Mark.

The photo below represents for me a similar time warp. The lupin photographed today began its life 28 years ago and 1,200 miles from where it was photographed.

When we lived on the Maine coast, our family came to love the lupins in our flower beds. In 1982 when we were about to move to Illinois I saved a film-cartridge full of their seeds so we could bring a bit of Maine to our new home. The seeds were put in the freezer which we also moved.

As a photographer I have always kept my film in a freezer as recommended by the manufacturer to maintain its “speed” and color. The seeds and their container became lost among similar-looking but film-containing cartridges. Months became years and years became nearly three decades.

Last year I discovered my lupin seeds and wondered what might happen if I planted them. Looking as dead as so many Lost characters, the seeds had a surprise for me as you can see in the photo.

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lupin

I’ve always found it humorous when people will say, “Well, Great Aunt Flo would have been 107 years old” – except she’s not because she’s been dead for a decade.

I guess I should have more patience with others that remember their loved ones in this kind of time-warped manner. After all, my father would have been 100 years old today.

Having spent the day in a historical frame of mind, it made me think of all the old things we found when we moved into our house 23 years ago. Even then it was an old house. Many of these things are the kinds of items my father – or his parents – might also have used.

Mrs. Miller, the previous owner, gave us a brief history of the place. It was built as a farm house in the late 19th century and remained a working farm through much of the Miller’s time here. Although they mostly grew vegetables and raised chickens, the owners previous to them built the place as a horse farm. The horses were used to aid in digging the basements of the houses in the area. That would explain why digging around our garden occasionally yields a horseshoe or two.

Our purchase agreement with Mrs. Miller included allowing her to leave anything she wanted on the premises. That resulted in our filling at least three 20-yard dumpsters but a number of interesting items we saved – including an unfinished bottle of Scotch.

Today I quickly gathered a few smaller things that I thought were interesting to photograph. (I don’t even know what some of them are and could use some help identifying them).

Seeing some of these old things did make me think a truly time-bending thought. During my father’s lifetime there was more-than-likely someone that had been alive when George Washington was alive. Figure it out if you care.

In the mean time, take a look and tell me if you know what some of these things are.

I can identify some but what’s the thing with the circle and handle leaning against the left side of the box? Is it for canning? I’m not sure I want to know why the original owner of our house had a single large-caliber bullet hidden in the box.

found in an old metal cigar box

Old photos are always a thing of beauty for me. We found these Civil War-era daguerreotypes in the house. The link to those photographed is now broken and it’s sad. We’ll never know who they were.

Civil War-era daguerreotypes

This is a reminder that we live on a former horse farm. The tag says, “VEHICLE TAX CITY OF CHICAGO 1915 ONE HORSE WAGON”. The owners may have used this wagon to take produce to the market in Chicago.

"One Horse Wagon" tax tag

We found containers of all types. These are the smaller ones and include Kraft cheese boxes, a metal cigar box, many, many old canning jars and my favorite, an old lunch box.

old containers

One of our cheese boxes stored a few light bulbs and a small glass jar.

a box of old light bulbs

Lunch Box

recycled label

I found this two days ago while digging a new section of garden but had found others in the greenhouse in past years. Mr. Miller used old metal machine labels to make labels that suited him for his garden and orchard. I can only assume this was more to label an apple tree than a commentary on some of his produce.
Recycling was a way of life for the Millers and many Americans during the Great Depression.

original side of old metal label

In future editions I may feature some of the larger items we discovered in our house. This would include our old Chambers stove (which we use) and Mrs. Miller’s ancient White Star canning stove in the basement. (She figured that a basement stove would not heat up the house in August and September). A finely-built redwood chick incubator that we found above our garage is used in our family room as a catch-all table. We did throw away the 1/4 mile spool of barbed wire. It would be useful in our garden but not very neighbor friendly in our suburban yard. A complete set of late nineteenth-century Encyclopedia Britannica went to a history professor friend.

And finally, tucked away in the basement’s Mason jar room, behind one of the larger canning jars was this half-empty Scotch bottle. I suppose in a depression environment, nourishment came in the canning jars and courage from a hidden bottle. Happy birthday, dad.

a toast to my father