gravegardens

Did you think I died????

2012-02-01T21:18:00.005-05:00

Baaahahaha! Just a little cemetery humor for you.

Still here but my life changed for awhile. Quite a while.

You see, my friend from another state and her 10 year old daughter needed a place to stay for a bit while she looked for work and a place to live. That meant I had to use every spare minute I had getting my home ready for guests. Then once here, my time was spent visiting and/or cooking for guests.

After about a year of living with us, she did find a job and her own place but it has taken me almost another year to get caught up back to where I actually have some time to blog. So here I am.

One other thing happened since I last posted - I switched to a Mac computer! Yes, I crossed over to the dark side. And right away I noticed my blog and website don't look right anymore so I guess I have to figure that out in the near future.

I would say I sorry but I'm....

The right way to bury a dead cat

2010-01-01T23:00:00.005-05:00

If you have read my previous posts, you may remember the one titled “They’re going to find a dead cat” which told the story of how not to bury a cat in a cemetery. Well, this one tells you the right way.

About a month before Thanksgiving, my mom’s other cat died. It was almost 20 years old but acted 40. Just like the first cat that died some years ago, my dad insisted that this one was to be buried at the cemetery with my mom too. Only this time it was up to me to bury it because my dad is now confined to a wheelchair and my brother refused to help because he was afraid he wouldn’t get away with it twice. I strongly suggested cremation because scattering ashes is so much easier but he refused.

In case you didn’t know, burying an animal in a cemetery meant for humans is illegal, at least in Michigan so it has to be carefully planned.

Here is a sure fire way to perform the task.

First of all, pick a date shortly before Christmas. If the time of death does not coincide with this timing, use a spare freezer that isn’t being used for food to keep the cat in as my dad did. Be sure to wrap the cat in a nice towel first though. To be honest, he put the cat in the freezer because I was out of town when it died. The rest of the plan came later.

Buy a small Christmas tree and decorate it appropriately for a cemetery. Nail a wooden cross on the bottom of the tree trunk to keep it from tipping over

Arrive at the cemetery at dusk so that it is just light enough to allow noisy neighbor to see that you are delivering a Christmas tree but dark enough so that they don’t notice the other small detail that you will slip in, namely the burial of the cat.

Set the tree (and the cat) down and “notice” that the tree will easily tip over, even with the wooden cross nailed to the bottom, in case the neighbors are looking at you. Talk about it with your spouse for a time. When the lighting is just right, dig a hole a little larger than necessary to “bury the tree” which will help it stay upright.

It should be pretty dark now, and no one will notice as you slip the cat into the bottom of the hole. Kick some of the dirt over the cat and then set the tree into the hole. Finish filling in the hole, firmly securing the tree and hiding the cat forever.

By the way, the picture shown of the Christmas tree is not where the cat is buried. I had to use a decoy in case someone familiar with the cemetery reads this.

If tears could.....

2009-11-18T22:50:00.007-05:00

Build a stairway and memories a lane, I’d walk right up to heaven and bring you home again.

I don’t remember the first time I seen these words at a cemetery but I do remember thinking that it was nice. But that was before I had seen it waaayyy too many (as in hundreds) of times. It makes me grateful for the few original verses that I happen to find.

They come in all sizes and shapes, from dollar store plastic stones to those made by a loved ones own hands. And, even though I have had enough of them, I always take a picture.

Just a random thought

2009-10-26T19:42:00.004-04:00

I order from a certain plastics company regularly as part of my job. With every order, they include some sort of religious pamphlet to help spread the word of God.

This last pamphlet was a collection of stories by a number of people each telling their own personal story of how God heard and answered their prayers.

I scanned through the pamphlet and came across the story of a woman who was concerned that her husband was not saved. I don’t have permission to write exactly what she said but it concerned her prayer group lifting him up and saying something along the lines of if he was saved, give her peace and if not, knock him down. Well, the next day he had a heart attack! He didn’t die that day but did a couple of months later due to heart problems.

I mentioned the story to my husband who said “it was probably a coincidence.” He missed the point I was trying to make which was: Here is a story of a deeply religious woman who truly believes in the power of prayer. She and her fellow church members believe that God answers prayers. So why in the world would they even mention “knocking him down?” Why dare God to “knock” anyone down? Why not a simple “please let him be saved?”

I don’t know about her, but I think I would feel pretty darn guilty that I may have played a part in his dying.

Holy cow !!!

2009-10-07T23:05:00.003-04:00

It’s been a long time since I posted. It’s not that I lost interest; I just haven’t had a moment of free time in the last 6 weeks.
My sister went in for what should have been “routine” surgery and it was anything but routine.

A couple of days stay in the hospital has turned into:
a week at the hospital (not the one in town, but the one 60 miles away of course)
then to a nursing home for some rehab (it lasted less than 6 hours)
back to the hospital for a week (staff infection)
the the nursing home for 5 days
back to the hospital ICU for a week (bleeding ulcer from the pain meds)
then the nursing home for 6 days
back to the hospital ICU for a week (TWO bleeding ulcers)
She’s now back in the nursing home, swelled up like a fricking blowfish and itching from some kind of rash. And no one knows why of course.

I knew before, but her experiences have reinforced my conviction that hospitals are not for the sick. If you need a biopsy, have a non-complicated baby delivery, or most outpatient procedures and you will probably do just fine. It’s when you have to get some actual care that they often fail. There is no communication between anyone, many of the nurses were down right mean, and no one seems to care about anything other than gossiping. It’s all about treating the symptoms and getting you out of there. And when I say symptoms, I mean the ones that caused the hospitalization, not the ones that crop up DURING the hospitalization, like for instance, the massive swelling over her entire body. I heard “Oh, is she more swollen than usual”? And “we’re giving her lasix, that should work, just give it time”. And “maybe she’s allergic to something, it will probably go away”. Should? Maybe? Probably? Well it sounds like MAYBE I could do your job without any specialized schooling.

She has just passed a week out of the hospital and we both hope she doesn’t ever have to return. I sure will feel better about it once the swelling is gone though.
So, that’s what I have been doing the last 7 weeks. The only positive point was that I did a lot of stair climbing during my hospital visits!

Everything and everyone dies

2009-08-13T20:23:00.006-04:00

sooner or later, regardless of how much you pray or wish against it. As you age, the deaths become more frequent. I was also going to say harder to deal with but I'm not sure that's true.

My first memory of death happened when I was a toddler and it was not a person; it was a chicken. My parents decided to raise chickens and the day came when it was time to butcher one of them. I'm pretty sure that it happened before I even knew what death meant. All I knew was that the whole family was there to watch as my dad held an ax high over a chickens head, which was flung over a stump (of course), and he couldn't go through with it. My grandmother had to grab the ax from his hand, swearing the whole time, and whack its head off. The next thing I knew, a headless chicken came running across the yard right to me. No matter where I ran or how much I screamed, and boy, did I scream, it would not untangle from my legs. I remember the blood all over me and the terror I felt. I remember some people laughing and others trying to help. I also remember running by the head laying by that stump and seeing it blink. That death was very hard for me to deal with and I am sure that it played a part in me becoming a vegetarian later in life.

Lots of deaths have happened since then and each one has burnt a permanent memory into my brain. Watching my pet cat flipping around after get getting hit by a car. Hearing that an old boyfriend was murdered and left in a drainage ditch. The last look my mother gave me before she fell asleep and never woke up again. The sound of the fading heart monitor and my cousins words of of love to his mother as we each held a hand at her bedside watching her die. He trying to assure her it was ok to let go, even though we didn't believe it.

This month I experienced another death. Not a person thankfully, but my grand old octopus of a mulberry tree. The spring freeze predictor I have written about here in previous posts. A cancer had invaded it a few years ago and slowly, trunk by trunk, it began to die. I woke a few weeks ago to find that its last three branches had dropped withing inches of the ground. I'm sure that my neighbor is singing to the heavens because the birds will no longer be able to eat the delicious berries and leave those horrible and permanent purple stains on her car or cement driveway.

I am not going to tell her that I plan to plant another to take its place as soon as I can. How else will I know when it is safe to plant my flowers each spring?

We took a little vacation

2009-07-15T23:17:00.031-04:00

down south recently and of course, I made sure we stopped at a few cemeteries. If it had been up to me we probably would have stopped at every one we passed, but unfortunately my husband doesn't share my fascination with cemeteries to the same extent as I do so we had to compromise.

One of the biggest surprises was the cemetery in Asheville, North Carolina that we stopped at, just by chance. As I was walking around this huge cemetery, I came across the graves of Thomas Wolfe and O Henry. I found it interesting that both headstones were relatively small and neither was adorned except for some small stones and other items that visitors left. Does anyone know why people leave stones on graves?

Here is Thomas Wolfes

Just a short distance away is O Henry! It’s a good thing they had a sign pointing it out because I would not have recognized it by his real name. Again, quite an unimpressive stone.

What a coincidence to find the graves of two famous people without even trying!

I found that cemeteries down south have some similarities to those up here in Michigan. For instance, they like plastic flowers.

And they like to over decorate.

The differences? Well, they tend to mound the graves.

They hyphenate when needed

They fence them in to protect them from ????

They use stones that have fallen to create sculptures and build bridges

It was a fun time. I can't wait to get on the road again!

Leaving trinkets

2009-06-25T22:39:00.009-04:00

at grave sites is something that never occurs to me so I find it interesting when I come across graves decorated with numerous knickknacks, usually accompanied by lots of plastic flowers. It’s not that there is anything wrong with these decorations. In fact, sometimes I feel there must be something wrong with me to find them so amusing (sometimes sad) since there are so many of these colorful graves.

Are the decorators simply bringing gifts that they think their loved one would enjoy? Or, are they trying to reveal (to me) as much as they can about their loved one by filling their four by eight space with items that truly meant something to that person in the grave? Maybe it’s a combination of the two. Whatever the intention, there are many times when I have walked away from a grave site having gained a some knowledge about the stranger buried there. And sometimes I walk away craving more.

That's alot of plastic

A little moss would make all the difference

The baskets looked like they cost more than the flowers

A boiler maker, harley riding, fishing and dog loving man

The American bow hunter

Frogs and Christmas

The headless horseman...opps horsewoman

He loved his cocker spaniel

And he loved his weiner dogs

The twins

The Mad Rush

2009-06-02T22:49:00.005-04:00

is over for planting. I still have a few things to get into the ground at home but the cemeteries are done at least.

Here are a few pictures of interesting things I found in urns while I was visiting the various cemeteries this spring.

Notice that the beer can takes precedence over the flowers. At least the color of the can matches the flowers.

Everything about this is sad.

I was actually a little freaked out when I peaked into this urn. The eyes of those cats were spooky!!! And don't they know that birds and cats don't mix?

This was found in the urn of a small child who had died. He died only a few years ago so I was very surprised at the lack of flowers on this grave. Very sad. Maybe I'll go back and put something on this grave.

Squirrels and rabbits. Very popular for grave decorations. Next to dogs that is.

By the way, if you have taken any weird or interesting grave pictures, feel free to send them to me, I would love to see them. Maybe I'll even post them here!

Whoa!

2009-05-18T22:19:00.003-04:00

Sometime between my job, mushroom hunting, and visiting the area greenhouses, the last couple of months flew by. Where in the world did that time go? And why can’t winter go by that fast?

This week will be a busy one for me. Lots of planting and flowers to deliver. It is still pretty cold for the end of May but the Mulberry tree has begun to leaf out so I think it’s safe to plant.

I don’t have any new cemetery pictures but I can share a few from my mushroom hunts this spring.

This is why these darn mushroom are so hard to find. Look how well they blend into their surroundings.

I almost tripped right over this little guy. It’s a baby sandhill crane.

His mom and dad were trying their best to distract me so I quickly snapped a couple of pictures and went on my way.

What an eerie feeling it was to stand in the middle of these flooded pines.

The picture makes him look huge, but this blowsnake is just a young guy, maybe 10 inches long.

The time of year I like least

2009-03-24T22:11:00.003-04:00

is almost over. If you live in an area where you have clearly defined seasons like I do here in Michigan, it's that short period of time (but sure seems to last forever) that occurs between winter and spring.

I call it the D season. The final lingering snow piles are dirty; the tree, shrubs, and flowers look dead; the spring peepers are still deep in their holes; the mostly sunless days are dreary.

Once I hear the frogs and see my daffodils everything will be OK.

I sure did think

2009-02-25T21:00:00.001-05:00

that I would be able to spend more time on my blog once winter hit but that certainly didn’t happen did it?

I just keep finding more stuff to fill my days. Lately, it has been cross-country skiing. I told myself that this year I was going to learn how to ski “skating” style. So far, I have not had much success. Maybe I should have tried to get a better handle on the classic style first?

I also flew down to St. Thomas in the American Virgin Islands - my first ever tropical vacation. Quite an interesting little island that is. Especially Coki Beach. It was a beautiful beach filled with an eclectic mix of people and as an added bonus (for me, anyway), it had a tiny private cemetery. I was not allowed to enter the cemetery but I did manage to take a few pictures from outside the fence.

Something to consider

2008-12-24T08:56:00.003-05:00

When selecting a headstone/cemetery for a family member (or yourself, if you’re the kind of person who wants it all taken care of before hand), please remember this:

If you select a flat stone and live in a state that gets snow, it will be very, very, very, hard for family and friends to find your grave in the winter. Even if they visit it all the time when the weather is good. Even if they have a map from the sexton. Take it from someone who spent almost a half hour looking for my Aunt and Uncles’ graves this Christmas season.

So, if you want a nice wreath at Christmas or a visit on your winter birthday, pick out a headstone that will stand above the snow and a cemetery that allows them.

My favorite ornament is this little guy

2008-12-15T20:42:00.009-05:00

I found him some years ago while cleaning out my aunt’s basement after she moved into an assisted living center.

The tag reads “To: Mrs. Cogshall, From: Florence Nelson (my grandma). It is dated 1914. I wonder why she never gave it to her?

In that same box of Christmas stuff, I also found some vintage GE Ice light bulbs

and a small bag containing about $15 in silver dollars. It almost made up for the weeks of pouring through hundreds of boxes trying to decide what was going to auction and what to toss in the trash hopper. Almost. Since I inherited all the same pack rat genes as my aunt and grandma, sorting through all that history was not an easy chore for me.

Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T17:56:00.008-05:00

is almost over.

I did all the cooking and I am tired, but it was a great day. To me, anytime the family gets together is a good day. We laugh and we bitch, but in the end it's all OK. That's what families do.

Later I watched the news. A guy was being interviewed and he was bitching because he was laid off and couldn't afford to buy a turkey for his family. I almost felt sorry for you but I didn't. First of all, you were smoking a cigarette. I am not one of those anti-smoking crusaders, in fact I use to smoke. And because I used to smoke, I know that if you had cut out 4 or 5 packs of cigarettes over the last couple of weeks, you would have had enough money to buy that turkey. Second of all, you didn't look like you needed a turkey dinner. If fact, you looked like you never missed a turkey dinner or any other meal in your life.

I know that sound harsh, if not downright mean, but how about thinking about the things you could be thankful for? Let me help you count your blessings. You were able to talk, you had legs and stood unassisted, you have a family, your clothes looked clean and warm. You are better off than many if we just stop there.

No matter how bad you think your life is, it could be so much worse. Every time I start to feel like I deserve more, I remember a photograph I saw that brought tears to my eyes. Let me share it with you so that you will be thankful too.

Ok, now tell me again what your problem is.

This is the war we should be fighting. In today’s world of gluttony and waste, NO ONE should have to live and die like this.

It is estimated that the cost of the Iraq war is $255 million per day, or a little less than $1.8 billion a week. That figure includes both military and non-military spending on things like reconstruction. Just one week's worth of that money would stop this tragedy. It all sounds so very simple to me. But it must not be, right?

Just some pictures

2008-11-13T20:49:00.006-05:00

It's pretty safe to assume he is not still with us...so why didn't anyone engrave the date he died? And look how good these pictures still look!

FIX THESE!!!

Seashells! I wonder what this looked like when it was new?

A dead rose for the dead.

A country cemetery

Self Portrait

Here lies Abraham Lieuzadder

2008-11-04T19:55:00.005-05:00

He is not the interesting part of this story. The fact that he served under George Rogers Clark, the brother of William Clark (the Clark from the famous Lewis and Clark team) is still not the most interesting part of this story.

What I found interesting was this. A co-worker of mine, who is an avid hunter, decided to travel some 300 or so miles down to southern Ohio to bowhunt whitetail deer. His destination was a 12,000 acre parcel of state owned land. He wandered around looking for just the right tree to place his stand. He climbed a hill and reached a flattened spot of land. Looking around, he saw two trees, on opposite ends of the plateau, that he thought would work for him. He selected one and headed towards it. As he approached the tree, he noticed headstones with American flags next to it. Both stones were for Abraham but one could not be read due to its age. Someone or some organization had placed another stone next to it to document the grave.

So here’s a guy, walking around 12,000 acres, who just happens to stumble across a single grave that is over 180 years old. Now add the fact that this same guy is also an avid reader of historical books dealing with early Americana and had read the autobiography of George Rogers Clark! What are the chances of that anyway?

In Oakwood cemetery, located in Muskegon, MI

2008-10-28T22:28:00.023-04:00

are the graves of 4 members of the Cogshall family.

Father James Henry

Mother Electra Force

and two of their five children:

son, William Ellsworth

and daughter, Rose Adelle

I do not know where the other children, Jennie May, George Theopholis, and Bela Nelson Lavern are buried.

I am not related to the Cogshalls, nor have I ever met any relatives of the Cogshalls (that I know of) but I know a lot about them.

I know that James had a large department store in downtown Muskegon in the late 1800’s and in his later years ran for a school commissioner position. I know they were Masons. I know they had a son who ran away as a teenager so he could fight in the Civil war and that his mother wrote a letter to the government demanding his return. I know their daughter, Rose, never married. I know what they all look like.

Why do I know all this? Because all this information and more was collected by my grandmother and was inherited by me when she died. I have pictures of them, letters written by them and newspaper clippings about them. I have more pictures of the Cogshalls than I do of my own grandparents.

My grandmother worked for them in the art department of the Leahy Store when she first came to Muskegon. She and Rose, although a little older, became best friends. I can remember her talking about Rose and her family all the time.

Oh how I wish I had listened as she rambled on and on about these people that I had no interest in whatsoever. Because maybe then I would have a clue as to how to track down possible relatives and pass all this information on to them.

Someone tell me not to worry....

2008-10-21T22:07:00.009-04:00

Please.

This past summer, I was driving down the road with my 3 ½ year old granddaughter, Dezi, and her brother Bailey. Out of the blue, Dezi loudly announced, “Grandma, I’m ready.”
“Ready for what?” I asked.
“Ready to meet Jesus” she replied.
The hair on my arms and neck rose in direct proportion to my foot easing off the gas pedal. Where did that come from? Maybe something she heard in Sunday school?
I asked her what she meant and she said, “I’m just ready to meet him.”
I drove very carefully home without asking any more questions.

This past weekend, the grandkids stayed with us. On Saturday, we went for a ride looking for a little farm market to pick out pumpkins. Along the way, I stopped to explore a little cemetery that we came across. As I walked along, I realized I could hear Dezi quietly singing. I turned but could not see her. I followed the singing back to her and found her lying on the ground singing Jesus Loves Me. A beautiful song but the memory of the “Ready to meet Jesus” statement came flooding back. TIME TO GO!

The next day, Sunday, we were all looking at funny animal videos on You Tube. All of a sudden, Dezi screamed. I looked over and seen blood all over her face and hands. She had a bloody nose! She didn’t fall or get hit or anything. It just started bleeding. I picked her up and ran into the kitchen to find some towels.

Ok, so as I’m cleaning her up, I’m thinking about her singing in the cemetery, the “I’m ready to meet Jesus”, and Albert Ingalls. Remember Albert from Little House on the Prairie? The adopted brother of Laura who was diagnosed with leukemia on the show? Albert, who's first symptom was nosebleeds?

I am not normally a superstitious person but I was a little uneasy the rest of the day. Then came the final blow. As I was explaining the nosebleed to my son in law he said, “that’s funny, she’s always talking about her nose bleeding but it never has. Maybe she has a sixth sense or something.”

It’s just a series of meaningless, unrelated events… It’s just a series of meaningless, unrelated events… It’s just a series of meaningless, unrelated events… It’s just a series of meaningless, unrelated events………

Do you see a cemetery

2008-10-14T18:59:00.003-04:00

in this picture?

No? How about now?

Still no? Try this one.

For years I have heard rumors about a very old indian cemetery hidden in the woods . It's not too far from the other Indian cemetery from my previous blog. This past weekend I explored the area and found it. Up these stone steps are the graves of indians who lived on this land that was once a reservation. These particular indians were converted to Catholicism and were given a christian burial.

At the base of the steps lays an assortment of items. A small amount of change, rocks and a beautiful "Dream Catcher" have been left as, what I presume, offerings.

On the top of the hill, the graves are widely scattered although I do wonder if many more are buried that are not marked with headstones. To be honest, I don't know how they buried anyone on this hill. The pictures do not capture it, but the entire hill seemed to consist of rocks from the size of marbles to the biggest boulders I have ever seen around this area.

The grave of Chief Pay-Baw-Me. He died in 1870. His was the only headstone that was engraved with both his indian name and his christian name, Joseph Papahme (or Pabahme, I couldn't tell). All of the other headstones were engraved with only the christian names.

There is also a historical marker about a quarter mile away from this cemetery.

This man drowned in 1871. Note how the grave has an old flower pot at the base.

Together forever.

This area, about 15 feet in diameter showed recent (ceremony ?) activity. Note that the grass is trampled but not quite dead yet. There is a small carved plate and buried under the grass next to the rock was a much older plate from an earlier time.

The activity seemed to be directed to this cross.

This urn seems so out of place.

I plan to return in the next couple of weeks to see if I can get better pictures.

Egelston Cemetery

2008-09-25T21:50:00.006-04:00

Part II

A headstone, urn, numerous flower arrangements, bench, statues, pictures, wind chimes, and solar lights are not enough. Lets add a cross. A big cross.

I didn't actually count all the crosses but I bet there were over 50 at this relatively small cemetery.

My help is not needed

2008-09-24T21:29:00.014-04:00

at this cemetery.

For years, my sister and aunt have told me that I have to visit Egelston Cemetery in Muskegon, MI. They called it "the cemetery without rules".

I finally made it over there last week and boy, they sure were right. It is really quite an amazing place, especially considering it's the start of fall, a time when cemeteries usually start to take on an "abandoned" look. I can't wait until next year. This one will definitely be on my Memorial weekend tour.

A few of the many benches brought in by family members

Meet the family

This is a guy

And this is what he liked to do

To be Continued......

Holy cow, look at all this stuff!

2008-09-21T18:57:00.008-04:00

OH MY GOSH!!!!
Do you see it? Do you see the little animals in front of the headstone? Are them the same little animals that were on all those graves from my last post? The ones in a different cemetery located almost 50 miles away from here?

Yes! They are the same! They look newer, but they certainly are from the same manufacturer. I do a lot of shopping for kids and I have never seen these in a store, yet I find them at two different cemeteries less than a month apart.

I am just dumbfounded. Could the same person have left these at both cemeteries?

A few interesting gravestones....

2008-09-10T22:54:00.009-04:00

This one is very hard to read. It states simply "Two babies 1900". I thought it was very sad.

In a very old cemetery, I came across these and many more headstones, each with a tiny dog, cat, cow, or some other animal beside them. It looks like they had been there for some time. Quite a few were laying down but I stood them back up. Who put these here? Why?

I never even noticed the pinching bugs on this headstone until I seen the picture on my computer. I was too busy trying to solve the mystery of the little animals.

I'm thinking she's forgotten by now.

I am a walker

2008-09-03T12:36:00.012-04:00

my husband is not because it doesn't involve gas or motors. He spends his spare time with anything that takes gas - mopeds, three wheelers, motorcycles, leaf blowers, riding lawn mowers. I am sure that if they would make a razor that ran on gasoline, he would own one.

My best days are those when I have the opportunity to pull on my mud boots, pack some water along side my camera in a fanny bag, pick up my walking stick and just start wandering through the hundreds of acres of woods, swamps, and farmland that surround our small cabin.

I climb over fallen trees, creep under tangles of scrub brush, and cross small streams for the chance to see and explore a new area.

My husband will not accompany me on my journeys. He thinks I’m nuts. Even when I can talk him into short little walks on well traveled two tracks, I have to answer his many questions to ease his mind: No, that’s not poison ivy. I would run I stepped on a bee nest. You can’t get lost in one square mile of land (for too long anyway). Bears, mountain lions??? Geez…. we live in an area where a sighting of either would make front page news of every newspaper within a 200 mile radius. If that is how my life ends, by some predatory animal attack, well, maybe the great power above decided my spectacular ending at the very same moment he started my heart.

So I walk alone, which is just fine by me. I see beautiful things, I think through my problems, and find treasures – things like arrowheads, antique brass padlocks, and fawns laying motionless in the grass.

One day, if I am so fortunate, wheels will be a necessity to move me from point A to point B. Until that time comes, I am going to take full advantage of my working legs.

The Indian Cemetery

2008-08-21T21:56:00.009-04:00

Located on the left side of a Catholic Church in Oceana County, Michigan is an Indian cemetery that goes back many, many years. The right side of the church has a traditional "white people" cemetery.

Plain wooden crosses mark the vast majority of the graves, others use rocks. Only a handful have traditional headstones. I am not sure why no effort was made to identify who is in the graves. I could not see any carved or written names on the crosses or stones. Did the person(s) performing the burials even know who they were? Was it against their faith to put the persons name on the grave? If you know why, I would appreciate an email.

A very interesting monument

2008-07-31T22:38:00.009-04:00

My first thought was: holy cow, that must have cost a ton of money. Followed by: boy, their family sure loved them. Then I studied it and began to wonder about the look on the man's face. Just what is he thinking about? His sentiment at that time must have been very relevant to the person(s) who designed this grand monument. So much so they wanted to share it with anyone who might come across, as I did.
I showed it to my husband and, almost immediately, he said: "she must have been a nag.” Funny, but I am sure that they would not use a monument of this scope to communicate such a message.

It's been awhile

2008-07-29T22:00:00.007-04:00

since my last post.

My life is busy, sometimes too busy. As time goes by the more I seem to take on, trying to experience everything while I still can. There is a song I listen to from time to time - “When the Crowds are Gone” by Savatage, that contains the line “I wasted my time till time wasted me”. I don’t ever want to think that I wasted the time I was given.

In July, besides all the gardening and my normal daily job, I spent three days at the Rothbury Festival, volunteering for the “Green Team”. Which is a glorified name for manning a recycling/compost/garbage station. It was a fantastic time even if I did have to work part of it. There were 40,000 attendees, primarily in their early 20’s and every one I meet/talked to was nicer than the one before. It gave me so much hope for our future generations. And I was starting to really worry about it given some of the people I have to deal with in my day-to-day endeavors. Here is a link to my Rothbury blog, which shows some of the pictures I took.

I also spent time at the Muskegon Bike Time weekend. I am not a Harley girl, but I love to people watch and, boy oh boy, can you get a lot of people watching in at a motorcycle gathering. I volunteered for this event too, but only for 4 hours. Unless you count the 20 or so hours before the event that I spent making my first ever movie showing how Harley Davidson fork springs are made.

Quite a year so far, my first web site, my first blog and my first edited movie. Hmmm, what’s next?

To keep with this blogs theme, I came across this monument. I just don’t know what to say about it other than I sure like people with a sense of humor. What do you think? Is she there?

Time flies

2008-06-16T22:34:00.005-04:00

whether you’re having fun or not.

It is the past the middle of June already!! I don’t even have all of my garden planted yet and I am starting panic. Outside weeding today, I actually wished I had the nose of Samantha Stevens. You know, the witch on the old Bewitched sitcom. I so badly wanted to just twitch my nose and have everything weeded and planted. Or be rich and pay someone else to do it. I can’t remember a year when I have been so far behind.

On a very different note, here are a couple of pictures of graves that I found interesting.

Boy, you must really, really, really, really, really love Elvis to want him on your headstone. Or maybe you didn’t. Maybe your family just thought you might want him there.

Notice the arrowhead lying on the headstone. What’s really interesting about this one is that two weeks later I walked by and it was still there! Amazing considering that one year someone stole the flowers right out of the ground from my mom’s grave at this cemetery.

So, I had sixteen graves

2008-05-29T20:34:00.005-04:00

to take care of this year for Memorial Day. Because of cold weather, I had to wait until the Friday before I could start to deliver/plant flowers.

On Tuesday I was back at the cemeteries covering the flowers I planted and removing the ones I had set out in pots because of frost and freeze warnings. After work on Wednesday, I redelivered and uncovered. I went home, watched the news and was informed that they had miscalculated (imagine that) and the temps would dip below freezing again that night. Geez, I checked at noon and they said a low of 40. Back to the cemeteries I went. Thanks to the gas prices, I lost pretty much all my profits for the year. Grrrrrr. But hey, the flowers survived, the graves look great and that’s the important thing, right?

A little off topic but in my front yard is an enormous Mulberry tree that my grandmother planted. I can remember her telling me to never, ever plant anything in the spring until the leaves sprout on that tree. She said that Mulberry trees know when the last frost of the year is going to be so if you see leaves on them you can safely plant even if the calendar says it's too early. Guess what? So far, that tree has never been wrong. I checked it yesterday and could not find a single tiny green leaf. I planned to plant my garden this weekend but if I don’t see any leaves by then I will definitely wait.

Success!

2008-05-28T22:48:00.005-04:00

Over the memorial weekend, in between cemetery visits, I found 21 huge
mushrooms. I cooked and ate them all in one sitting. What a wonderful meal that was – the mushrooms along with grilled, fresh picked asparagus, grilled shrimp, and beer. A feast for a king I tell you.

This mushroom season sucked

2008-05-18T20:44:00.006-04:00

for me, at least. I hiked miles and miles and found less than 50 this year. Oh well, at least I got my exercise. I’m probably wasting my time but I still plan to look one more week before giving up for good.

I saw more deer than I did mushrooms. This was the only one who would pose for me.

I also stumbled upon this bad boy. It's a snapping turtle, with a shell about a foot in diameter, for those who don't know their turtles. He was trying to hide from me in a rainwater filled tractor rut.

And the best part of the week? I saw a bobcat. Twice. It was probably the same cat but on two different days. He walked right in front of the cabin in broad daylight. Of course, my camera was not ready either time. I am going to try putting bait out to see if I can get a picture of him.

Back to the hunt.

Vacation

2008-05-08T09:40:00.003-04:00

I am heading out to spend an entire week mushroom hunting. I am not sure that I will be able to survive without a computer. In fact, I'm sure of it. I will have to locate a library somewhere.

I am not a prejudiced person

2008-05-07T22:04:00.006-04:00

but I sure do wish there was a way to set an "English" default so that when I click on "next blog" I am able to actually read the next blog. I swear that sometimes I have to go through 10 - 15 blogs before I come to another one that I can read. Google owns Blogger for Pete's sake! Google has the best search engine in the world and Google Earth, but cannot figure out a way for us to filter out the ones we want (or not want) to scroll through?

I have mushrooms on the brain

2008-05-05T20:40:00.006-04:00

It’s morel mushroom season here in Michigan. This time of year, I think about those little bastards morning to night. I spend hours and hours and hours out looking for them.

To be honest, they taste great, but if you convert the time I spend looking for them into money, I could buy mountains of regular old buttons and Portobello’s. And, I could fry them in a pound of butter like I do morels and they would taste (almost) as good.

Case in point: On my first hunt this season, I spent 5 hours hiking and found just this one tiny mushroom.

I don’t know if you have ever looked for morels but it is a frustrating hobby. You can read books on how to find them, talk to other mushroom hunters, and walk for days without finding a single mushroom. They're hard to find for many reasons. Here are the main ones:

Looking too early.
Looking too late.
Not enough rain.
Somebody beat you to the spot and already picked them.
Looking in the wrong areas. Or looking in the right spot but one or more of the other reasons above is the culprit.

So, if you look and don’t find any, you can’t just say: Oh well, no mushrooms here. You have to go back a week later in case you were too early. Or, a day or two later after a rain because they can pop up overnight after it rains and you have to beat anyone else that may look in “your” spot. And, you have to keep going back until you are absolutely positive you will not find anything this year. Then you repeat it all the next year in case it was because someone had beaten you to the spot.

I have found spots where I have picked bags of them and, in subsequent years, return to find only a few or worse, none. And yes, I pick them the right way – using scissors or a knife to cut the stem. I have also stumbled across masses of mushrooms in areas that I have walked through for years on the way to my normal spots. Were they always growing there and I didn’t notice them all those years?

So far this year, I have spent approximately 15 hours hunting and have found a grand total of 25 mushrooms. I have found some other interesting things like one of these:

And one of these:

And many of these:

The season has just started so I am still hopeful. I always start out hopeful.

They buried my aunt yesterday

2008-05-01T13:31:00.004-04:00

She died in December but this cemetery doesn't bury people in the winter, so they waited until the ground thawed.

I found out something very interesting from speaking to the funeral director at the burial. They do not store "winter" bodies in a freezer. Or a refrigerator. They just put them in the basement of the funeral home. And yes, if you purchase a non-sealing casket (as we did for her) you will be able to detect the smell of decomposing flesh. The funeral home has a filtered ventilation system to take care of the odors in the basement.

I told him that I couldn't smell anything and he said that was because they had arrived over an hour ahead of time so the smells had dissipated. Hmmmm.

Grandparents, part III

2008-04-29T20:58:00.002-04:00

I have only vague recollections of my paternal grandmother. Her house, however, I remember well. It was a small, two story traditional house, sitting on a tiny city lot. 504 Orchard Street was the address. I didn’t think it was small back then however, because I was small too. It had an outhouse and a garden shed in the backyard. I don’t remember if it had an inside bathroom, but it probably did. What I remember best is the staircase leading up to the second floor. It had narrow, small wooden steps that spiraled around and forced anyone over 5’8” or so to bend over on their way up to avoid hitting their head on the ceiling. The walls were painted in pinks, tangerines and yellows.

My paternal grandparents were Pennsylvania Dutch, and the house sat in a neighborhood consisting of other Pennsylvania Dutch people. Back then every ethnicity was segregated. Polish, Swedish, Italian, Greek, Black. Whatever they were, they each had their own neighborhood, and there were fine territory lines that were rarely crossed.

My cousin and I spent a lot of time at her house. We each had one of those little peddle cars and we would speed up and down the sidewalks for hours on end. We made “pipes” by sticking a toothpick in an acorn and then went door-to-door selling them for a penny each. After we had made a nickel or maybe a dime, we would walk down to the corner store (every neighborhood had a corner store) and blow it on candy. You could buy a bunch of candy with a dime back then. And, you didn’t have to have an adult with you when you walked down to the store.

My grandmother developed Alzheimer’s and moved to a nursing home when I was still very young. My cousin and I would accompany his mom to go visit her but I don’t remember her talking to us or anyone else for that matter. I just remember her lying silently in her bed. The house grew decrepit and was torn down some years later. Every few years I will drive over and stop in front what use to be 504 Orchard Street. I try to imagine the old house that sat on the narrow strip of land that remains but cannot fathom how any house could squeeze in there.

I have only one item from that house - a mirror, with hand painted roses, that hung on the back of one of the bedroom doors. The mirror now hangs on one of my bedroom doors where, sometimes when I look into it, I think about my grandmother and the times I spent at her house.

The mystery of the unknown graves

2008-04-25T09:00:00.007-04:00

has been solved…sort of. I will never know exactly who is buried in the graves, nor will anyone else, but how they ended up in the cemetery I now know.
The answer was related to the big old brick building, as I suspected.

I began by asking a few of the town locals about the cemetery and building and found out that the building was originally the county poor farm and the cemetery was where they buried the people who died at the farm. No one that I spoke with could tell me when the building was built or why there were so many headstones marked unknown in the cemetery. Poor people had names too after all.

Next, I called the County Historical Society and spoke with a very nice lady who told me that she really didn’t know anything about the farm but she thought she remembered seeing an old book that contained a little article about it, and I was welcome to come down and look for it. She added that they are open on Wednesdays only. Between 10 am and 4 pm. Hmmmmm….I would think that someone working at a historical society would have some actual knowledge of the town history. Or at least be willing to look it up and call back. Why is she working there anyway?

I explained that I live about an hour away and work everyday so it wouldn’t be easy to get over there. I went on to explain that I was just looking for some general information such as when it was built and why so many graves were marked unknown. She had no idea when it was built and thought that since everyone back in that time period was poor, there was not any money for carving names into headstones. So, they had enough money to engrave “unmarked” but not a name? I don’t think so.

I gave it one more shot. I asked if she knew anyone that might have some knowledge about the poor farm. Finally, I asked the right question. She provided me with the name and number of a cemetery aficionado who might know something.

From her I was able to find out the following information:

The County Farm, originally the poor farm, existed in every county in Michigan. They were built by the state in the early 1880’s, although some were built in the late 1870’s. They were all closed in the early 1970s. Many now serve as rental units or homes for the aged or handicapped.

The farm accepted anyone who didn’t have a home, regardless of age or physical ability. Children that were orphaned or abandoned stayed here until either a suitable home was found for them or they were shipped off to other facilities to learn a trade and were sometimes adopted. Older people with mental illnesses who were non-violent and could be cared for without great difficulty might stay here; others were sent to the state asylums. Great fires sometimes sent large numbers of people to the farms until other arrangements could be made. Unmarried pregnant women, tramps, women of loose morals (including, sometimes, those convicted of prostitution) all found shelter there.

Sometimes families paid to have their daughter sheltered at the Farm until after her child was born and adopted.

Those that were able, were expected to work. Many farms had sizeable dairies, fields and gardens.

Most of those buried at this particular cemetery were buried with a grave number and not a name. The original records of burials were lost in a fire at the Farm some time ago.

Interesting. I will have to return to see if the graves have a number on them. And figure out a way to get to that damn Historical Society to learn more.

I love old junk

2008-04-20T10:08:00.002-04:00

Not all junk. For example, I hate the junk that is thrown out on otherwise scenic back roads by low life idiots. I mean good grief, can’t they at least wait until dark and sneak it into a store or rest area dumpster like regular idiots? What is wrong with them? I picture these toothless, big bellied, beer drinking, tobacco chewing guys (and girls) in huge 4 x 4 trucks, or maybe a Ford Taurus sporting a doughnut wheel or two, creeping down back roads looking for “just the right spot”. I bet they drag their kids along too, which will assure us of idiot behavior for another generation.

The kind of junk I love is the mostly buried junk piles, holding good old antique stuff that I stumble across when I am hiking through unexplored woods and fields. The junk left by people long since gone.

Every country house threw their garbage outside in piles before trucks came along that could transport it to dumps. Most people would dig holes, throw their garbage in, and when full, cover it with the dirt dug for the next hole. Others simply constructed junk hills.

I will always pause my hike to conduct an amateur archaeological excavation of a site. Sometimes I find some good stuff – a pretty colored bottle or maybe a glass dish. But, for the most part, everything is chipped or broken. Occasionally I will pack an item and carry it back with me, but usually I leave everything for the next explorer.

As I dig, I wonder about the person who left it – who they were, what kind of life they had. I hold a broken plate in my hand and try to imagine the last food it held. A single small shoe tells me that at least one child probably stood in the same exact spot where I stand. A smoking pipe inside a rusty tin box hints at the possibility of an agonizing death.

Eventually time forces me to move on. Sometimes I will look forward to returning. Sometimes, knowing I will never return, I stand back and try to carve the view into a spot of my brain where, on a lazy rainy day, I can sit and visit it again.

I have questions.......

2008-04-14T21:11:00.009-04:00

about this.

I came across a small and very old cemetery. In it, there are a number of these graves - 10 or more, with only one word printed on their headstones. Unknown. How sad is that?

How can it be that so many of these people are unknown? NO ONE knew their names? What did they do, find dead people laying along the road and bury them? It was surrounded by farmland - maybe a farmer dug them up when clearing or plowing his field? Seriously now, I suspect it has something to do with a big old brick building across the street but still...why didn’t they at least engrave a date on the stone?

Somewhere there must have parents, brothers, sisters, children, friends. Somebody. Somebody who spent the rest of his or her life wondering what happened to them.

I don’t think I will be able to rest until I find the answers. I am going to have to investigate this cemetery further.

Grandparents part II

2008-04-10T22:36:00.007-04:00

I insist that I have a memory of my maternal grandfather who died the day before my first birthday. No one believes me. They say it is impossible to remember anything at that age. They're wrong.

My memory is of me in my mother’s arms, and we are standing on my grandparent’s porch. My grandfather reaches his arm out the kitchen door, grabs for my nose, and does the old "I got your nose trick". I didn't see the humor in the trick. I swear I can see it in my mind as if it happened yesterday.

My grandfather was 100% Swedish and, by trade, a house builder and mason. The stoneworker mason, not the secret society mason. He could pick up a rock, roll it around a little to study it, and with a swift tap of a hammer in just the right spot, split it clean in half. He built each of his children a house, most of my neighbors houses, along with many others spread throughout the town. He was especially well known for his fireplaces.

I now live in the house that he built for his family. Every year when I wander around the property I find all kinds of items that belonged to him - sharpening stones for his garden tools, old cement trowels, moss covered decorative bricks and blocks. In one of my flowerbeds I have accumulated a little pile of these items. My own little tribute to him I guess.

He was 57 years old when he died of a heart attack. According to my grandmother’s diary entry for that day, he thought it was just heartburn.

Every year, as I plant flowers on his grave, I ask him questions that, so far, he has not answered:

Why did you always cover your beautiful hardwood floors with carpeting?
Where did you get those gorgeous chunks of glass that you incorporated into y(our) fireplace?
Did you really squirrel away lots of money and hide it somewhere in the house like Grandma always claimed? If so where, because I think I have checked everywhere now.
Where did you bury your old copper still after grandma found out about it?

I hope that one day I will find out the answers. It would be nice to find out about the money now though.

Grandparents, part I

2008-04-08T20:02:00.012-04:00

I did not grow up with a grandfather.

My paternal grandfather died of cancer shortly after I was born; my maternal grandfather died of a heart attack the day before my first birthday.

When I think about it, I feel cheated. Everyone should be able to grow up sharing his or her childhood with at least one grandfather. Someone to take you swimming on hot, summer days. Someone who lets you tag along on their vacations. Someone to hide behind when your mom’s chasing you down for tracking mud on her freshly mopped floor.

I am embarrassed to admit that, literally, the only thing I know about my paternal grandfather is that he traveled all over searching for a cure for his cancer. My dad said he spent every last penny he had on snake oil cures. He died in a car on his way home from a trip he had taken with my uncle. They had gone out west to visit a doctor who assured him that he could heal his cancer.

As I sit and write this blog, I realize I could know so much more. Not only is my dad alive, he lives right next door, and could answer all my questions. I don’t even know where my grandfather is buried for crying out loud! How can I have a business planting flowers on the graves of strangers, but have never so much as visited my own grandfather’s grave? I know it’s right here in town somewhere. What is wrong with this picture?

Mental note to myself: tomorrow, get my ass over to my dads and ask him about my grandpa.

I am not young or old,

2008-04-06T22:15:00.002-04:00

but somewhere in between.

My age is relative and changes depending on whom you ask. A twenty year old will describe me as that older lady, the seventy year old as a young lady.

I am at that age where I am no longer immortal. I am reminded of it many times a week when reading the obituaries. People my age and younger are dying, some “unexpectedly” but most “following a courageous battle”.

I am at that age where I hesitate when I hop down off a chair because I fear hurting a knee or ankle when not so long ago, I would put on a pair of shorts over a pair of tights, pin a towel around my neck and jump off the neighbors fuel oil storage tank, arms outstretched, screaming SUPERMAN!

I am at that age when, sometimes, every headache is a brain tumor and every chest twinge is an impending heart attack.

I am at that age where, in my mind, I am still 25, but after a day of gardening my body screams otherwise.

I am at that age where, as I walk through the cemeteries, I realize that one day, I too, will be in the ground with them.

And it scares me.

They're going to find a dead cat

2008-04-01T21:31:00.005-04:00

When they bury my dad.

Shortly after my mom died, one of her two cats died. It never occurred to me, but it did to my dad, to take the cat to the cemetery and bury it with her.

In the cover of darkness, my dad drove my brother, the dead cat, and a post hole digger to the cemetery. My brother dug a skinny, deep hole just slightly to the left of my mothers grave. And, when I say slightly to the left, I really mean in my dads plot. My dad put the dead cat, head first, into the hole and then my brother covered the hole back up.

I don't know why it didn't occur to either of them that when it came time to dig the hole for my dad, they wouldn't be able to do so without disturbing the cat. It was the first thing I thought of. When I conveyed my concern to my dad, he said "why do I care? I'll be dead by then."

My web site

2008-03-31T11:13:00.007-04:00

Is up. My first website, done all by myself! I absolutely love technology!!!

What a long way we have come from Space Invaders and Kaypro computers.

I’m speaking Greek to all but a couple of you, aren’t I? Oh well. Believe it or not, it was exciting back then.

When I look at some of the older headstones in the cemeteries I wonder what the people buried there would think if suddenly they could rise up and come back to life.....But most of all, I am sad to think of what I will miss after I am gone. I hope I have time to own a flying car like George Jetson.

www.gravegardens.com

I love cemeteries

2008-03-29T20:49:00.005-04:00

Always have. When I was a little kid, my parents would take me along to help decorate our families gravesites. They really didn't let me help much, so I spent most of the time wandering around, reading headstones and wondering how they died. Back then no one worried about perverts kidnapping their kids so I had free range of the cemeteries, some two or three blocks long. From the very old, unreadable limestone headstones to the beautiful massive granite life story tributes, I loved them all. Now, as an adult, my fascination continues.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not a morbid person. I am, however, an extremely curious person who finds the whole life/death experience a pretty interesting subject.

For instance, the whole tradition of burying your loved ones in cemeteries, next to strangers. I know that there are now laws about how and where people can be buried, but cemeteries go way, way, back. Way before laws. Even before Christ, people were buried in areas set aside for just that purpose. In some cases, I have heard that the areas were considered sacred so people wanted to be buried there, so as to be closer to their God or heaven. But what about all the other areas? A somewhat modern example - Boothill cemetery in Arizona. In a small town, surrounded by thousands of acres of empty land, people would deliver their deceased family members or friends to this cemetery and others like it. Why not a private place? Why not pick a spot in a beautiful meadow next to a bubbling brook or even their backyard? Some did, but why not the majority?

Oh, to have a time machine. Buts that's another story.

My virgin post

2008-03-28T21:03:00.001-04:00

My very first post of my very first blog. It is a rare day that I even read someones blog, so what am I doing here?

Well, It all started when I decided to turn my hobby (grave tending) into a business. Everyone knows that you can't have a business without a website, right? Rather than pay someone to make one for me, I decided to try it on my own. What was I thinking? The only thing I knew how to code in HTML was b and br. So, off to college I go. First I took an online class for website building. I spent the next few weeks trying to create my first website using only HTML. That was a little too challenging for a site that needed to look professional so I sprang for Adobe Dreamweaver, a WYSIWYG website creating software. Wow, great software but again, quite the learning curve! A few weeks later I decided that Adobe Photoshop was going to make everything so much easier. I found it to be only partially true. Overwhelmed, overwhelmed, overwhelmed. But, as someone who loves a challenge, I also found it so much fun.

I finished my site last night and will have it up and running in the next day or two.

So, tonight I sat in front of my computer thinking "now what"? Hmmmm...Maybe I'll try a blog to tie in with my website/business....