Summer games

Summer means family gatherings, often accompanied by loud, raucous family games.  Croquet was popular among the neighborhood kids on a hot summer afternoon.  Our back yard, at forty feet wide and sixty feet long, was an ideal court. The game often was set up at family picnics.  Children, parents, grandparents and great-grandparents played—my great-grandmother sending an opponent ball clear down the yard to cries of “Hit it hard, Marcia, hit it hard!” 

Uncle Hank had a lathe, and he turned new threaded ends on many a toilet plunger handle or a handy broom to replace a mallet handle severed enthusiastically from a mallet’s head.  That game dwindled in popularity as the adults grew older, and especially as the children grew older and pre-teen boys saw the mallets as handy weapons to settle rule disputes.  Dad put the set high in the garage rafters; effectively ending croquet games.

When we moved to this house the big front yard could not go to waste.  Croquet was passé, but Uncle Hank introduced us to bocce ball, and the tournaments began.  At every picnic, no matter who was here, teams formed and bocce was played.  Uncle Hank, half English, half German, lived in a Polish suburb; he knew bocce and he captained one team.  Our friend Marilyn, a tough Hungarian, born with bocce blood, captained the other.  The rest of us just played.

There were tough and exciting games one summer, reminiscent of the old “Hit it hard, Marcia!” days. We played on down to Labor Day, when the winning team would be declared. So many people came to that party there was an audience, as well as two teams.  A lot of cheering would be done.

At a time out in the game, when Uncle Hank and Marilyn were nose to nose on a point of order, Scuffy, the corner dog came trotting down the road.  Scuffy was the company dog of a business along the main road.  Although he had a dog house behind the fence, weekends found him lonely.  Being a terrier, he often went under the fence and in search of adventure.

One of our guests, Danny, is a police officer in a neighboring city. Danny was concerned the dog was lose.  He would even take Scuffy back and figure out how to get him over the fence. We told him to be patient; it was about time for our police patrol car to make the rounds.

The township black and white came down the road, the officer waved at all of us assembled on the porch and lawn, Uncle Hank and Marilyn still nose to nose.  Then the officer saw Scuffy, called him over and put him in the car.  Danny said now he’d seen everything; a town so small the police knew the names of the dogs, too.  He would have a story to tell at work. The patrol car came back up the road, Scuffy’s head out his window, riding back home.

The rule of the game was settled, in Marilyn’s team’s favor.  I have no idea who won, but it was a great tournament. That was the last summer we played bocce.  Mom’s next summer was spent in declining health, she was gone in March of the next year and Uncle Hank that fall.  The game used to be in the garage; Tom’s probably hung it from a rafter, out of the way.

How does your garden grow?

My garden crew has done an enormous amount of work that I have not bored anyone about, possibly excepting them. They cleared out the long dormant weed infested bed on the other side of the porch, and we planted RASPBERRIES!  This year's crop is small and making some birds quite happy. Next year.....

We moved the huge bed of orange lilies down to take over the small area around the lower drive.  When Hamilton was exhausted from digging trenches he got the thumbs up to send two wheelbarrow loads tumbling over the hill into the woods.  We sent them down with plenty of earth clinging to their rhizomes; I except the whole bank to be a blaze of orange next year. Or not.

All those lilies on the left--gone. The girls planted their mosaic stones and a few flowers while we consider what to do.

In the event anyone wonders about the lettuce tower, it is dwindling.  The greens now make salad for six, no augmenting with store lettuce.

Though the deer have not visited the lettuce tower they have munched on through the pansies.  Aided by the skunks, no doubt; I often smell they have passed when I go out in the morning.

It was so cool this morning after more rains over night the garden crew was assembled early to battle a grassy infestation in our mulch free sections.  Taking advantage of our hard work! Emily and I spent two hours and dispatched the worst; Laura and Hamilton cleared the colchim leaves that have died back.

A picture from last fall.  Colchim are fall blooming crocus.  In late July we can dig up this twenty five year old bed, replant many and make friends happy with the rest.

All this work this morning so Laura and I could go on a spending spree for marked down replacements for the pansies.  We only bought two more plants than the two we left for.

We put succulents in the old pebble pot.  For years it has held only the soccer ball; time for an upgrade.  The mustard pot now has little geranium types.  Really inexpensive plants may be without tags.  I have no idea. An old pot of pansies remains, to entice the deer.

Because instead of a cheap plant to fill the other pot, we found a cheap rose.  With lots of thorns.  I know from experience deer love roses.  May they get bloody lips from this one.

And a new hanging basket refill.  The plants from the old hanging basket went around the mosaic pavers.  We do recycle.

By the time we were done Laura and I were hot and sweaty and dirty.  One watering can was dispensed on the flowers around the pavers, where the sun had passed. The rest could wait until it was not so darn hot.

Right on schedule, thunderstorms from the heat of the day.  Rain forecast all day tomorrow. Good job, garden crew.

Dressing Boston Park

       

Dress:  Middle English, from Anglo-French drescer, dresser to direct, put right.

Our road guy who maintains the town hall grounds is, as my grandmother would have said, persnickety about their appearance.  I teased him once about adding soil, raking, seeding, generally grooming the hill that leads to the septic tank cover.  “It needs dressing,” he said of his fussing.    And, it’s no longer a weedy embankment, it’s a small, grassy hill with a large iron cover atop.

You remember Doug, the fellow who’s seen the president’s plane go over, and who helped save Sunny last summer.  At the last town board meeting Doug reported they began to dress Boston Park. 

That word again. I know I heard it often as a child, but in today’s world of stripped out communication, it too may be lost in a generation. 

Doug was pleased with the progress made dressing Boston Park; in the clean-up they uncovered hand cut sandstone walks they are resetting.  I went to take a look.  What a little gem.   There are hand cut sandstone walks, cut and fitted like a jig saw puzzle. 

These are being lifted from under years of sod.  There is a large stone planter, almost like a wishing well. 

It is an old time vignette, framed by cedar.

I asked the people I know about the Boston Park, and have an earful of fantastic and fantastical stories.  The stone planter was built by Shy Dickerson.  It was built for Shy Dickerson.  It was built in the 1930’s. The planter used to be a bubbler, fed by a spring up the hill behind the ski area.  The spring was piped down, filling first a stone watering trough on the west side of Riverview, then supplying the bubbler on the east side.  I heard someone up the hill was mad at someone down the hill and used the spring as a latrine, ruining it forever.  I even know the name associated with that story.  When Riverview was relocated a township resident petitioned both the county and the National Park to keep Boston Park intact, and succeeded.

This is all wonderful stuff if you like history.  I do.  Love the stories.  If they aren’t recorded, they’re lost.  And for Boston, it’s a struggle against the National Park, which is rewriting our history.  We maintain a history tab on the township website; the most visited part of our site.  It has languished recently, so I’ve thrown a challenge to the community to write the best history of Boston Park we can and post it on our web site.  Then, pick the next piece of history to save.  Boston Mills, for instance, is Boston Mills.  The Park doesn't get it; they call it Boston Mill, on their fake railroad station that used to be Shy Dickerson’s store and everywhere they mention it.  It’s time to dress Boston Park’s history, too, and then start on Boston Mills.

This National Park replica of a train station calls itself Boston Mill.  You see Boston Mills road east and west; Riverview Road is at the top.  Boston Mills crosses the Cuyahoga River a few hundred feet east.

I did not get the date of this picture; it's early 20th century.  There is a covered bridge over the river.  The triangle that is Boston Park is in the foreground, with a wooden road marker cross.

Number 3 is Boston Mills Road.  Number 2 is Riverview Road.  The top of the picture is south.  Use 5 and 6 as the base, visualize an equilateral triangle, and you;ll see Boston Park trees.   This map is 1954.

Finally, lifted right off the Summit County website, the platt for Boston Park.  Riverview runs north and south, Boston Mills east and west.  Old Riverview Road and the cut off road to Boston Mills Road drawn in.  Boston Park was the small triangle.  The cedar grove, stones and planter are at the intersection of Boston Mills and Riverview Roads.

When Riverview was relocated, about then years ago, a resident petitioned both the County and the National Park to leave Boston Park intact.  It was scheduled to become road right of way.  And  it is, but with about four inches of topsoil, a sign that says Boston Park, and a cedar grove in the corner. 

An inflorescence of yucca meets rain and wind…

A week’s worth of hot sticky days ended in a several hours of lightening, thunder, wind and rain last night.

The weather alerts came often, preceded by the annoying attention signal.  This is a dangerous storm, take shelter indoors.  The wind gusts were sixty miles an hour, as promised.  Out back a limb of our struggling old elm come down.  It’s reduced to two branches reaching skyward.  And the kid’s watermelon rind hole.

The elm is at the bottom of a small ravine.  The end of its snapped limb can be seen at the top of the hill.  The hole in the trunk is at least sixty feet away; the kids stand along the deck rail and wing their rinds at the hole. A surprising number make it. The deer and the squirrels are happy.

The rain gauge is nearing three inches.  I’m sure it was three inches; the wind blew the rest straight over the top.

In the front, I've kept my eye on the yuccas, slowly coming into bloom.  I wanted photos of an inflorescence of yucca when several plants bloomed. 

That may happen yet, but in the meantime the big guy needs a crutch.  A round of applause; it took sixty mile gusts that brought down an old elm’s branch.  But, as the day went on, the yucca sagged lower and lower; we staked it up.

Emily and I repaired Laura’s flower basket corner.  The basket was so heavy with water and the ground so waterlogged, the basket holder sagged to the ground

 Every trip through the front door, Toby wants to know if we brought him leaves. There are oak leaves and twigletts scattered at the front door and back; Toby needs more, more, more.

Barns

Many barns have crumbled to dust and been removed in the twenty five years I have lived in this community.  They have succumbed, on the whole, to progress.  Some are waiting for progress to catch up. And progress has overtaken others.

Many years ago the plight of barns in this old farming community interested me, and I drove around a little, here and there, taking barn pictures.  I came across two of the pictures when I scanned all the photos on hand.  There were more, but they are gone, like the barns.

Both these barns are gone.  They are no more.

This barn is south on the main road, in the old township that was annexed by the greedy city to the south. Progress has come to the east side of the road; there is a steel and industrial plastics company.  The west side lingered for years, the old farming acres relatively undisturbed.  Even the skeet shooting club decamped in the face of city regulations, and their old barn declined. Traces of the last paint job remain under the eaves.

For the last couple of years the land has been undergoing remediation.  A developer will be building a large senior living complex on all those acres.  But first he had to pick up all the lead shot!  Actually, tons of earth were trucked away and other tons trucked in to replace it.

This old barn was part of some manufacturing complex.  I assume that was its second life. Other buildings include the original farm house, some smaller farm outbuildings, and a recently built (less than a hundred years ago) concrete block building with six loading docks and a couple of yard offices at the end.  It’s for sale.  Not including the horses across the street.  Comments anticipated.

This barn sits unused in a field near us.

This barn is on a small road near us.  Several horses are generally about.

This old homestead is near us.  There is a pond with a picturesquely deteriorating dock and an equally decrepit row boat on the bank.  Only a glimpse of the old barns is visible from the road, but the property is both deserted and for sale.  We ventured down the grass filled old gravel drive and found posted signs covering the front of the house.  I’ll go back some time with Emily; she’s braver than Jan.  It’s Emily’s barn, in any event.  She says she’s spotted it way in the back.

I see old barns frequently, out and about, and intend to be more diligent in recording them.  Like Gilderoy Lockhart and the joined up writing, I can take pictures with my phone now.