Midland Painted Turtle

My little dog has one type of bark that means, "The UPS truck has stopped in front of our house. You ought to know about this." He has another type of bark that means, "The UPS guy is on our porch! Right here! Right now!" It can also mean, "The raccoon is climbing the fence! Hurry and help me catch him!" or, "I've cornered a woodchuck in the back yard! Hurry or he'll kill me!" In this case it meant, "A turtle is wedged against the fence and waving its little arms and legs trying to get loose! I've never seen such a thing!"

I'm glad the dog told me about it. I would never have noticed the poor turtle stuck there.

Anyway, I rescued the turtle, took some pics to post in the IN Nature group on Facebook for help with ID, and set it loose.


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Wild Gooseberries

These little shrubs or canes were blooming in my field in late April. I believe they are Gooseberries.


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The little flowers are not spectacular, but I think they're pretty.

I am going to have to find these things again in a couple of months to see what the berries look like (if the critters leave any for me).

Someday I'm Going to Murder the Bugleherb

I was out mowing my field, trying to reclaim it from the Pale Dogwood before any birds build nests out there, when I noticed these lovely little purple flowers with reddish leaves, growing where nobody had planted them.


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After identifying them and doing a little research, I learned that I have to kill them. They are Bugleherb, a non-native invasive species.


(Link for those of you who don't know the song that gives this post its title: https://youtu.be/ug-pRQydlRs?si=JNsdnVkVirX4COCX)

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In happier news, the two or three Mayapples I found at the edge of my field a few years ago have now become a whole colony.







That's a big leaf, isn't it? (Hand for scale.)

Birdhouses of Ainsworth

An incredibly talented photographer has managed to capture the heart of Ainsworth for the Project Birdhouse blog. I wonder who it could possibly have been.

"Destroying Church"

In September 1963 the old Trinity Lutheran Church at Main and Second was demolished. The Gazette printed a photo of the beginning of the end …


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Hobart Gazette, 12 Sept. 1963.

… and the very end, as the last wall fell.


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Hobart Gazette, 19 Sept. 1963.



On a personal note, it appears that I am too old and tired to do everything I've been doing and still maintain a history blog. I'm hoping that when the spring yard and field work is done, and the foster kittens have gone back to the shelter, I'll be able to post more often.

Hobart Then and Now: The Bale House/A Pink Boutique

Many years ago, I posted a then-and-now shot of the Bale house. Here is another version.

Circa 1900, and 2024:

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Historical images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society, Hobart, Indiana.







The people standing in front of the house in the top photo are not identified, but I'm guessing they are B.B. and Emily Bale. I get the circa-1900 date from handwritten notes on a copy of one of the photos in the historical society's file indicate, and there is nothing in the photos to contradict that. The home was built in 1870.[1] I do not know why the Bales waited some 30 years after construction to get photographs of their house. You'd think they'd do that sort of thing in the first flush of new-home pride. But, of course, photographs were a little more difficult to get in 1870.

Nor do I know when the house was demolished. Per the county assessor's records, the building that houses A Pink Boutique was built in 1950.

Here is a detail from the 1902 Sanborn map showing the area, with the Bale house circled in red, to give us some idea of what we may be seeing in the background of these photos.


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The only thing I actually recognize is the steeple of Augustana Lutheran Church, above the head of the man holding the horse in the second photo. Between him and the church, we may be looking at the old wooden Pennsy station.

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[1] That's according to two sources, the Gazette obit of 1927 and the undated 60th-anniversary article, reproduced in my post about the Bales; but the News obit (also reproduced in my post) says the Bales "bought" the house in 1870, suggesting that it had been built earlier.

Inside a Hornet's Nest (Minus the Hornets)

I might as well post these photos since apparently my brain is broken and I can't do history at the moment. This is a hornet's nest that was built in an elm tree over my back yard last summer. I never knew it was there until the leaves dropped in the autumn. It has been slowly deteriorating all winter, and then recently a strong wind blew most of it down from the tree.


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I hope my brain rights itself pretty soon.