The Ghost of "Father" John Fostler

The year was 1895.  An early settler of Chippewa Falls passed away.  The local paper described it in this fashion:

They used his correct name, which was unusual. In general he was referred to on the rare occasions where his doings were noted under the name John Fostler.  Here's his story.

John Klinck came to Chippewa Falls in 1855.  This was about the same time as Catherine aka "Mother" Fostler and her husband Andrew came to the fledgling community.  Klinch worked in the mill.

Mother Fostler ran a saloon, one of the first on the Chippewa Falls side of the river.  As I've discussed previously there were several over in the suburb of Frenchtown, but only one confirmed tavern that preceded her.

I'm not sure whether she started this effort earlier, but circa 1857 the Fostlers had to move after a fire, and started a drinking establishment down at the far end of River Street.

Andrew Fostler joined the Union Army at the start of hostilities.  Mrs. Fostler kept running the hotel/tavern.  Now, maybe she needed more help. And maybe she got lonely.  Even in that era the ratio of men to women in town was pretty lopsided, so she probably got plenty of attention.

Andrew Fostler came back from the war.*  Actually he was only away for about a year.  But he did not come back to Catherine.

John Klinch just stepped into the role, and was generally referred to as John Fostler.  He was a sort of local character, doing various outrageous things in the bars, living in the tumbledown ruins of the former Fostler House.  

But he seems to have been at peace that morning in 1895.  I'm assuming he was enjoying the morning sun, which would probably put him on this location at the intersection.  Now it is City Hall, but then he'd have been sitting on the doorstep of a friendly tavern, one of many on that street.

Obituaries for those on the fringes of society are often more honest than for the titans and magnates.  John Fostler/Klinch's concludes by saying:

"John acquired some money and property, but also the habits that scatter both, and of late years, in a little shack just back of the ruins of the old hotel, he has lived supported by charity."

I don't know if spirits linger on after death.  But if they do they'd likely persist where they were the happiest in life.  Perhaps this spot, where John Fostler/Klinch spent so many happy nights and his last cheerful moments, would be where you'd find him.

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* Mother Fostler's obituary a few years later says that Mr. Fostler #1, Andrew, died in the service.  I suspect this was a polite fib.  

Oh, Deer!

A good three generation hunt.  My son actually got this nice buck, but there was a fair bit of tracking in the dark and hauling out of the woods to do.  My grandson is the best tracker in the family, while I take pride in having a durable back well suiting to dragging deer, including this really big one, out of the dense underbrush.

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I had of course planned a "below the fold" addendum called "Oh Deer Me!", but the critters have thus far outsmarted me.   Grumble, grumble.....

Robot School Third Update

Robot School rolls along.  The kids have the main project bot moving now, but there's still a lot of work to do to optimize ball pick up, transfer and launch.  Among other things they are learning the concept of "kludge" when designs behave a little differently in the real world than in CAD!

I do like the target that the build team has constructed.  It's adjustable, so we can modify it a bit depending on what sort of trajectory the final full power shooter can manage.

So far it would not come anywhere close, alas.

Other things are also happening.  We had an epic nuts and bolts sorting competition.  This was a good opportunity for them to show team work and cooperation.  It also helps us get thing sorted for the upcoming high school team season.  We basically try to use only two sizes of bolts.  Everything that is "close but not quite right" needs to be identified and taken off the hardware cart.  Sure, you need the occasional weird metric bolt, but we have a special quarantine for them!

We've also had the kids doing a bit of CAD work.  Designing signs seems like a good first project.  In fact, we had a couple of them work up a sign that has all their names on it.

The new router enclosure they built contains the sawdust very nicely, so clean up was easy.  Here's a few shots of the sign in process.  Mostly shot through the clear vinyl curtain.

Deer Hunting Third Report - Avoiding Boredom

The deer are not cooperating.  Various theories are in circulation.  The venerable Moon Deer Theory that posits a full moon changes their activity.  The Acorn Cycle Theory, which notes a multi year cycle whereby that tasty treat has a bumper year in 2025.  So they could be camped under Oak Trees, lolling about.  The upshot - no pun intended - is that we trying multiple sites trying to figure them out.

I set up a ground blind back at the spot where I got my first deer back in 2020.  Golf Course Corner has converging trails where they go on and off the abandoned course.  Basically a big green deer feeder that covers many acres.

For a ground blind you need to be wily.  This is where my Grandpa skills, specifically Hide and Seek and Blanket Fort building pay off.

Behold, the Blanket Fort of Doom.

Camo fabric wrapped around some trees and posts.  Then festooned with the dead ferns that grow everywhere in this section.  Not bad I'd say, the point is to break up your outline.  Deer's eyes are like using your photo editor with the Contrast function dialed way, way up.  Of course I'll be sitting in there and my head and shoulders will be visible.  So.....

Sometimes I think this is all just goofing around, avoiding boredom.  Forts, dress up costumes, all sorts of Grandpa activities.

On this particular night I decided to leave the crossbow at home.  Deer have a degree of memory from one day to the next.  So I figured it would take a while for them to not be interested in this new patch of brush.  By the way, every trip there I'll add a few more handfuls of dried ferns.  Maybe I'll put some on the hat too!

So you'd assume that a gigantic buck would have stopped 20 yards off and viewed me with disdain.  Well, nope.  But for the first time sitting out I actually did see some deer in the distance, far out of bow or even rifle range.  Dancing about safely on private property.  Alas.

More boredom relief.  For ground blind hunting you should have a bow rest to stabilize your shooting.  I have an entire basement workshop full of robotics surplus.

Here's my fancy robotics bow rest.  It's one leg of a damaged camera tripod bolted to a section of 80/20 aluminum extrusion that we use for prototyping.  With a spike attached to the bottom to plant it in the dirt.

Should work until said dirt is frozen solid.  Chilly days are coming, but probably have a few weeks yet before that.

Tree Shaped Tombstone - Barron Wisconsin

Today an unusual exception to the general rule that if you find one "Tree Shaped Tombstone" in a cemetery you'll always find at least one more.  Nope, this specimen in the cemetery at Barron, Wisconsin, seems to be a loner.

I've been by here a number of times in the past year and so its surprising that I've not stopped to search.  

Barron is an unusual community.  It started out as a typical small Wisconsin farm town.  Cows, implement dealers.  Catholic and Protestant churches.  Lots of taverns, which for all I know also have denominations.  

But by virtue of some industries in town it has a large population of immigrants.  So there's a mosque.  And back when my oldest was playing soccer this little town had an absolute powerhouse team, since many of the families came from places where Futball ruled.

Anyway, its still a nice little place where everyone seems to get along.  The tombstone above is a fairly typical medium style.  Ropes, ferns, an unrolled "scroll of life".  Nice coating of that very specific yellow lichen you find on these.  There's a subsidiary marker that is hard to read.  But of course it just says FATHER.

And then there's this odd little thing on what looks like a corner of the family plot.  I'm not sure what it is, and I don't recall seeing one before.  A corner marker?  Seems sort of drab, and it has no buddies at the other edges.  Was this the mount for some auxiliary object?  Like a planter perhaps?  Seems a bit small for that.  I did cautiously nudge it with my toe to see that it was firmly planted.

Thank goodness it was.  I don't need L.F. Whittemore coming back to haunt me!

The Great Idea - And the Fatal Flaw

I was back for another round of the great Clean Up/Clean Out of my parents house.  It's not for the faint of heart.  I was often dreaming of being off in the woods, watching the trail for a deer to turn up, breathing that fresh North Country air.......   And I had an idea.

Without exception, everything you find in a project like this comes in multiples.  Bottles of an over the counter pain med or vitamin?  Dozens.  Walking canes?  I think I came across eight of them.  And I got an idea.  Not a good idea, nay, it was a Great Idea.

One area we favor for bow hunting is a special type of public land.  Because it is along a river you can hunt there, but not put up any stands or blinds that stay overnight.  So, its pack everything in, and pack it out.  Quietly.

For me that is a fold up blind, my trusty folding chair, my crossbow of course, and ideally a rest for same.  I'm a good shot out to 30 yards with a rest.  The problem is that the one I like to use is a bit big and klunky.  So....why not just modify one of these walking canes?  Lightweight, adjustable, and there were so many that I just took four or five home for experiments!

Here's my first version.  Simple is best.  Just use hose clamps to attach a spike to the bottom.  This lets you just stick it into the ground at the proper spot.

And the crossbow rests very nicely in the original hand grip.

So, what did I forget?  What is the fatal flaw?

I'd forgotten that when I came home with these things that Hank the Dog immediately stopped his happy pup celebrations and started sniffing them with intense interest.  I won't trouble your day with the long list of odors that could be grabbing his attention, but rest assured, any deer within a couple of miles would notice!

I had him check out the final product just to be sure.  Yep....sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff.....

Well, maybe if I cut off the foam hand grip and bury it in a pile of leaves and bark for a couple of weeks, then spray it with anti scent stuff...........

Second Hunt - 2025

I've been dutiful in getting out to hunt this fall.  Sometimes at the cost of aches, pains and not enough sleep.

Here's the crossbow ready, well still needs to be cocked and loaded with an arrow, for action.  And the blue tub???

Unless you are a hunter you likely have no concept of how much of an advantage deer have.  Sight, smell, hearing courtesy of those big bat like ears....they have every opportunity to detect our presence.

Odor control is a big consideration. Hank the Dog has been banned from the hunting land for about the last month.  And as for other smells, well, there are all sorts of scent blockers and laundry soaps.  Also sprays, I think toothpastes, etc.

But once you have your camo garb all de-scented, how to keep it that way?

Pack it into a tub full of leaves!

I won't bore you with the many photos of me peering out of a blind or stand looking at, perhaps, a few frisky squirrels.  So far no deer has wandered into what I would consider reasonable crossbow range.

The other evening we had a three generation hunt.  I sat in a ground blind with my grandson.  His eyes and ears are better than mine.  A lot better!

Excellent camo and a fairly good job of being quiet were not rewarded.  This time.

My son was hunting on the other side of a river that was less than knee deep.  But when he got a deer just before dark we had a problem.  The deer was evidently not that bothered by an arrow stuck into it from about 3 yards range, and ran off into the night.  The next morning we spent a long time tracking it.  Two observations:  The sumac and maple leaves were actively turning red as we scanned the ground for drops of blood.  And, we figure the deer swigged some sort of video game Potion of Healing, because after a quarter mile or so the drops ceased entirely and the deer was Gone.

We'll try again this weekend.

The Black Bag at age 75. Or thereabouts.

My dad was an Old School physician.  Although he practiced in Minneapolis, his approach to medicine was not much different than that of the country doctors he saw in his youth, showing up at the various farm houses with a horse and buggy, carrying the traditional black bag.  He still did house calls in an era where they were becoming obsolete.  And he carried a black bag when he went.

I remember it.  Mostly I remember its presence, not it being used all that much.  By the time I was actually paying attention to such matters I think his house call days were nearly over.  But he still toted it when he visited his patients in the nursing homes.

Here's the bag.  I of course found it when the duty fell to me of clearing out the room at my parents house that had a high percentage of his medical stuff.

It looks a little less "black bag" now.  That's partly the lighting and partly the underlying leather showing through after all this time.  How much time?

There's a little name plate on it.  When you look on ebay and such places you'll see claims that this is a "Vintage" item from the 1920's or 30's.  But no, the patent date is from 1940.  My older brother claims that there was actually an even earlier bag once, but it got really beat up and was discarded.  I'd guess this item was acquired in the 1950's when he was back from military service and starting out in practice.  He had two different office locations I think, and also did many home, nursing home and hospital call.

The contents of the bag were sort of a time capsule.  Lots of stuff for treating migraines.  More injectable vitamins than you'd expect.  Some sort of under the tongue asthma medicine I'd never heard of.  And this stuff:

As you can guess from the name it was an anti nausea drug used to treat morning sickness.  I looked this one up, it was discontinued in 1969 for causing liver damage.

That sort of fits with the overall contents of the bag.  I think it was in use early in my dad's career then just set aside in the late 1960's.  If I remember it after that it was either as something sitting in my dad's office, or perhaps just my imagination.

Black doctor bags used to be a thing.  They still were when I graduated medical school in 1982.  Every graduate got one for free, courtesy of a drug company.  I didn't use mine much, just a bit in residency.  I have not seen it for a while but its probably around here somewhere.  In keeping with my new one item in, one or more items out policy I will probably ditch it next time I run across it.

The medications that were in the bag were all so old they were likely inert, but I still took them down to the medication disposal box at the local police station.

My dad's old black bag I'll keep.  I cleaned it up and aired it out on the porch for long enough that the nasty medicinal smells have lessened.  I'll pack it up with various mementos from his career and leave an explanatory note in it for when my kids run across it someday.....

Robot School Days

Good progress since the last update.  Even with one session mostly ruined by a false "Intruder Alarm" where everyone was supposed to shelter in place.  I just picked up a really big hammer and waited for the all clear, but it was a big distraction.

The enclosure for the CNC router is done, and I think turned out well.  It has thick vinyl sides, with the front featuring a "shower curtain" so you can open and close for loading material in and out.

We will be adding more team "stuff" to the outside.  Right now its just bumper numbers and a couple of old robot parts.  Oh, in case you wonder why an enclosure is a good idea....

The main project, a robot that can pick up and launch volleyballs, is coming along well.  But I'm going to tease that a bit....

Various experiments with metal fasteners is ongoing.  The power rivet gun is of course their favorite tool.

And software has been programming some mini robots.  Here they are running races through a little maze the kids designed and built.

All good stuff.  But tiring.  Fifteen middle school kids with power tools.  It's a lot.

Deer Hunt 2025 - First Report

I got out hunting a few times earlier this week.  A spell of ridiculously hot weather finally broke, with the usual cold rains.  So my first session was cold and unproductive.  Next morning I did a walk through of an area that I've hunted before.  Great bounding herds of fat and happy deer!  Of course when I spent some time there the next sunrise there was....nothing.

This season I'm hunting multiple spots in two different areas.  Here's some views of pretty, but unproductive landscapes....

A ground blind.  Yesterday six deer had gone prancing right past this spot.

The view from one of our enclosed box stands.  Nice and dry.  Good enough light to read a ponderous historical novel....

And just for variety the view from a high up tree stand.  More woods to survey, but still no deer.  Although to be fair I did have a little excitement when a juvenile black bear went running through at a clip that suggested Goldilocks was eating his porridge. 

Weather and other obligations make the next expedition tbd.

Oh, one more thing.  As the modern age now reaches into the back woods I have to turn off all sound on my phone.  Wouldn't want to get a spam call when a big buck was just strolling into range.  When I got back from the woods I decided, hey, lets just leave it on silent mode.  I don't need to pay that much attention to the distractions of modern technology.

The Remarkable Doctor Dutch

Every once in a while you run across a story so strange it is impossible to summarize it.  You just have to read it through.... 

If you want the "short form" version it is as follows.

An unusual man turned up in Chippewa Falls in the pre-Civil War era.  If it indeed was in the "early '50's" there would have been only a few hundred people in town, divided between Chippewa Falls proper and the rather improper adjacent community known as Frenchtown.

Who he really was is unknown and presumably unknowable.  If you are trying to escape your past you really couldn't do much better than to turn up in a pioneering lumber town and insist that your name was Danelia Mahomet Le Duche.

The writer of this piece was Thomas McBean, a fairly keen observer of the local scene.  In general I have found his accounts of the early days - this one by the way was published in the local paper in 1897 - to be reliable.

McBean was pretty sure the guy was English and that he had served in the British Army.  His fluency with languages suggests an educated man.  

Whether he was indeed a physician and whether his interest in matters relating to India was more than a bit of harmless nonsense is hard to say.

Thomas McBean comes across as a bit harsh with respect to the state of the medical profession in the 1890s.  I guess you have to know that his father was the first physician in town, arriving in 1856.  So there were likely some strong opinions in the McBean family regards the laxity of medical licensing in that era.

Dr. Dutch apparently was many things.  A drunk.  A story teller.  A gentleman who would tip his hat to the most humble woman of the community.  And a person it would have been well worth knowing.

Vindolanda Wraps for the Season - And, What Was Going on in The Dark Ages?

The excavations at both of the sites run by the Vindolanda Trust have now wrapped it up for the year.  Some really good work done at each of them.

There is a natural tendency to be very invested in the areas you've personally gotten down and dirty in.  And in my case that enigmatic Dark Age structure that was slopped on top of the nice, neat right angled cornered Roman features.  I've talked at length about it HERE

An end of season drone shot shows it in a bit more detail.  I've put solid lines around the obvious parts and dashed lines where things are "maybe" extending further back.  Weird...

I generally don't like to speculate too much on these things.  I was only there for a single session, and have not had a chance to study the skimpy collection of artifacts that came out of this layer.  But I can probably say one or two things it is not.  Not Roman for instance.  It's running right over late Roman structures, and besides, they would not build things in that shape.  Or partly blocking the main road for that matter.  From the outline you could speculate on it being a livestock pen, but the sheer volume of rocks in this heap make that implausible.  Too much effort for penning up critters in a big, tall, sturdy enclosure.  Besides, the fort walls were likely standing tall at this time so cattle thievery was probably not the major industry it became later.

Ah well, if I'm lucky enough to be back next year in May that will be about the time this area is finished off, so maybe I'll find out.   

Here is the end of season Vindolanda video.

And I don't want to shortchange the Magna excavation which also finished up recently.  A good season with much uncovered.

Woodsy Wednesday

This is about the time I started bow hunting last season.  But I've not been out yet.  It has been unseasonably warm and I've been unreasonably busy.  But we have the trail cams out, and have been watching the deer.  Perhaps they've decided to watch us too......

Hope to have a more detailed report next "Woodsy Wednesday".