Crankin' It Up

Tonight's selections are Rudy Vallee, and Harry Lauder. I still have three more sides of Harry Lauder to post, so everyone can have a nice collection of his delightful records. Rudy and his Connecticut Yankees perform 'Lover Come Back to Me' from "The New Moon," a musical comedy. This song was recorded in 1929, so it was an electrically recorded performance. You will notice that Rudy croons instead of shouting into the recording equipment. My dad's mother idolized Rudy Vallee, and I think this was one of her records. When she came to visit she always greeted us with a 'Heigh-Ho Everbody!'

Business Risk

One of my landowners purchased this very nice white oak/red oak/ hickory woods when he was twenty-five years old. He is now fifty-seven, and we have done a couple light commercial thinnings and two non-commercial thinnings. We will be doing some burning in the next ten years to improve his advance regeneration, and he is planning on doing the final harvest of the current stand when he is seventy. The trees will be about 120 years old then. The tree you see with the ring around it is a hickory he has killed to make a little more room for his white oaks.

One of the summer storms that went through recently had a little twister that reached down and tagged one of his choice white oaks. We know it was tornado because the top that was ripped out is upwind of the tree it came from. This was a close call. One white oak damaged is not a real big deal, and he can leave it alone and accept the damage, or harvest it now.

As timber nears maturity you worry about it more, and after a storm front goes through, wise landowners go out to check for damage.

Only A Week Away!

The Midwest Old Settlers and Threshers annual reunion will start the Thursday before Labor Day!

On display will be an astounding variety of old machinery.

Free entertainment is available on the grounds, and it is guaranteed to make you feel like a kid again. A favorite of mine is the medicine show featuring Professor Barnswallow T. Farquar and his lovely wife, Polecat Annie. His songs are all at least 100 years old, and his jokes are even older!

Major Watkins has been showing old cars at Mt. Pleasant every year since the reunions began in 1950. He was one of the "Youngsters" back then.

You can't see it all in a day, so block out the weekend and head for Mt. Pleasant. Our family usually attends four days, and sometimes we stop in for part of Labor Day, too. I'm already dreaming of steam whistles.

The last two photos have been graciously donated by Engineering Johnson. Thank you, EJ!

Where There's Smoke

During a recent Iowa trip to see Mom, we were out for a walk at 7:00 in the morning. I stopped during the walk because I had caught a whiff of white pine smoke, which can mean fire in an old house in much of the Mid-West. We looked at every house around us, but saw no smoke, and couldn't catch another smell of it either. We decided it was probably someone's backyard fireplace, since there was construction nearby with lots of old white pine scrap.

During our 5:00 PM walk, the fire trucks ran. A house was on fire six blocks from where I had smelled it ten hours earlier. A neighbor had spotted smoke leaking out of the house. No one was home, but three dogs died inside.

Sandbars Make Me Nervous

I always preferred camping on shore; here's why. If they had been camping on a bar in the river they really could have lost everything.

Not My Victrola

'Keep You Sunny Side Up' is from the 1929 movie 'Sunny Side Up.' This is a great song to help you get moving on Monday!

Monday Again!

Back to the old grind!

Projects Without End

We are always working on something out here in the country. Last summer we began rebuilding this little storage building, and now it has lots of new treated wood, new siding, new tin roof, and 'new' porch posts. The barn is calling now.

Weekend Steam

This is a very nice photo from the March, 1923 American Thresherman. Mr. Thies and his brother are moving an old school building with their Reeves 16 HP engines. We learn from this Mr. Thies' correspondence that it wasn't only George and Abraham gazing down at the students in one room school houses; this particular school also had Martha Washington to inspire the kids. I hope she survived the trip. The building had 10" x 10" oak sills, 2" x 10" oak floor joists, and 2" x 8" joists overhead. It had a double floor and a 1" ceiling. They dragged it down the road three miles on two 8" sills. I bet those engines were snorting.

Crankin' It Up

Tonight's Harry Lauder special is "She is My Daisy" Harry recorded this one in 1909, and again in 1924; this is the latter recording.

The Red Label record is John McCormack performing a popular number. I tried looking up the date for this record, and couldn't find it in the online discographys. I will have to do some more looking to find the age of this one.