Regimental Steins Part Two - Reservist Christman

Photographing a one liter beer stein is not easy!  I've rather shortchanged the cool top on this.

Of the two regimental steins my father brought back from Germany circa 1951, this is the one with all the "stuff".  There's a lot to look at, but as we'll see it is a bit more pedestrian than the next one we'll visit.

Presumably that's Reservist Christman depicted in the central image.  It is almost certainly not "him" in an artistic sense, just a generic young artillery man.  These were created with a combination of stencils and paint.  One way to sort it out is by touch.  The base image of the soldier is smooth, so probably stencil.  But the buttons on his uniform and the gilded stuff on his hat is raised, so added by hand!

There is never a first name on these things but the markings indicate he did his active service time as a recruit/conscript between 1898 and 1900.  The spidery, hand applied script indicates he was in the 3rd Company of "foot artillery"* of an artillery regiment based in Mainz.  Unhelpfully I can't be sure of the regiment, but it is probably the 117th, aka The 3rd Grand Ducal Hessian, aka the Grand Duchess regiment.  I am at least sure of Mainz, which narrows it down to three options, and there is a 3 among all the scribbles and abbreviations.

On one side we have this serious image and saying.  It translates to, more or less:

"It is the Artilleryman's job to make a powerful argument"

Around the top is another serious saying:

"Canonen donner ist unser Grufs"**

Cannon thunder is our Greeting.

But this stein is not all cannon thunder and bluster.  It does not photograph well but when you hold the empty stein up to a bright enough light you can see that there is the image of a man and a woman sitting in a tavern stamped into the base in what is known as a Lithophane.  One of the many ways to tell a real from a repro regimental stein is the content of the lithophane.  This one is typical.  Nudes are all fakes.

On the other side is something along the lines of: "Today the last shot was fired because I must go home".  Certainly the kind of sentiment that one would expect at the end of military service.  Being launched homeward by the cannon and waved off by your kamerades seems to fit.

So, what ever happened to Reservist Christman?  Absent a first name we shall never know.  But if he did his main military service on the dates listed here 1898-1900 he would have gone out of the most active reserve status by 1905.  He would have then spent 10 or 11 years in a second line sort of organization called the Landwehr.  So by 1914 he'd have been getting a bit old for soldiering.  Maybe mid 30s.  He'd still be a member of the lowest level of reserve, called the Landsturm, but by the time they got down to calling up those fellows he'd be pushing 40.  Let's hope he was not marched off to the last years of The Great War at that age.  Of course specialized skills were always in higher demand, and he was after all, an artilleryman....

* Foot artillery would be attached to an infantry division.  The guns would in general still be moved by horses.  Horse artillery was much less common, but cavalry divisions did have a few light field pieces they'd haul around with them.

** Among the oddities here is that the "f" depicted is a double s.  So, Gruss, or Greeting.

Regimental Steins - Part One

My dad picked up some antique beer steins when he served in Germany right after the war.  They even appear in the detailed inventory of things he shipped back home.  I find them fascinating.  There's really not an equivalent in our culture.

In Germany during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, almost all men did a period of required military service, then went into the Reserves.  After that they still got together for drills on a regular basis.  It would be other guys from your community, and there were definite social aspects to the experience.  Evidently, near every major training base, there were special military shops where you could order a custom beer stein to commemorate all this.  Specific to branch of service, regiment, even the names of the guys in your company.  They vary a bit in level of seriousness.  As we'll see, they will have the dates of the man's active service as a roughly 18 year old Recruit.  So these were a sort of keep sake of your "Army Days" and something you'd get out when the other guys from your company got together for drinks.  Presumably Old Stories were told over these.

I have two examples.  Each is worth close study and will get its own post.  Here's a couple of teaser pics.....

Although fascinating artifacts these things do not have particularly high value on the antiques market.  They made a lot of these.  And there are many more repros attempting to fool buyers.  For these two the provenance is rock solid, some staff sergeant did a complete inventory of all Lt. Wolter's stuff that was being shipped home in 1948.  These are listed.

Robot School Wraps it Up.

Open house for the fall 2025 version of Robot School.  

Ten minutes before guests arrive, the robot broke.  Robots hate mankind.

Of course the combined efforts of students and instructors got it all happy again, just in time.

Nice turn out of family and other guests.  Big robots driven.  Mini robot obstacle course navigated.  A table full of swell robot parts given away.  All the students had to do was tell one of the adults manning this station what they'd done in Robot School!  Of course I was way too busy to get pictures of any of that stuff.  But the project robot - Mayo - came through in the end....

I wish I had video of the high school robot extending its elevator to block a shot!

I get to rest now.  Robot School is a lot of work.  But all 14 of the students are expected on the high school team in the future.  Some soon, others in a bit.

An Indifferent Student

I seem to recall myself as being a rather clever student.  I learned to read early and was a voracious consumer of, well, anything.  Big stacks of books from the branch library at Jordan Junior High.  But....was I as smart as I remember myself being?  A case study, based on artifacts dredged from the basement of my parent's house.

Looks promising.  It contains among other things my report card from 3rd grade.

Now, back in that era you got either an S for satisfactory or an N for needs work.  That's it.  No Excellent or anything like that.  Opening it up I find that I got Needs Work for:

First half of the year, Works Well with other Children, Follows Directions, Works Well Independently, Begins and Finishes Work on Time, Uses Time Wisely, Listens Attentively, and Reads Independently for information and Pleasure.  OUCH.

The only thing I got an "N" for both halves of the year was for Writes Legibly.  Hey, I was destined to write prescriptions, gimme a break!

A bit of a come down.  I did get recommended to move up to Grade 4, and to my credit only was absent 1/2 a day, while turning up to be a mediocre student a full 176.5 days.

The Report Card was signed by my teacher, Mrs. Schwaub, and by both my parents.  My M.D. father's signature was very poor penmanship indeed.  The card was also marked with a stamp from Arthur T. Nelson, the Principal.  I remember him being chased down the hallway by a kid with a knife, who actually lived on our block.  Ah, the idylic 1960's.

I'm not sure what to make of this one.  In faint red ink up at the top it says "Please use your pencil".  Was this an instruction from the get go that I impudently ignored?  

I gotta say, in black Crayola crayon my penmanship, or shall we say penchildship, was pretty darn good.  You can see through the paper to some black crayon math that young "Timmy" as I then styled myself, absolutely crushed.

More stuff from "Timmy" age 6 1/2.  Now that I have a grand daughter about that age I can say, hey, that's outfit's a bit much, don't ya think?

 

Geeze, I hope this was from high school.  Geometry was the only math I every actually liked.  I got 18/20 on this page.  The preceding page was more word problems.  For example: Consider two simple closed curves which intersect at points A and B.  Consider a point C which is in the interior of one of the curves.  Various options were given, to each of which I had to respond True or False.  

21/30.  Guess I never really got to the Truth of Mathematics.  And for what it's worth I got out my pen and paper and tried to puzzle this thing out.  I think the teacher marked me off a couple of points incorrectly.

Subsequent finds of report cards from other years of grade school and Junior High did not, alas, show any sudden flourishing of academic genius.  And high school?  Lets not talk about high school.

Deer Hunting 2025 - Symphony of the Seventies....

Perhaps you thought my last hunting related post was a bit hard on the "gals".  Does are really quite excellent creatures.  Highly devoted to their children and generally sensible.  It's just during that one week of hormonal insanity that they are, well, floozies.  But what about the bucks? Am I letting them off too easy?

Nah.  They are plenty foolish in their own ways.

In general you want to sit and wait in total silence for deer to mosey past.  But for bucks, you can try to fool 'em.  You can for instance clack together some antlers.  This suggests to them that other bucks are duking it out somewhere in the area they plan to claim for their own little harem.  They sometimes come over to take issue with this.  Allow me to demonstrate:

Alas, this is a bit hit and miss.  Early in the mating season they are very territorial.  My son lured his large, albeit distracted, buck in this way.  Shortly after my virtuoso performance seen above a buck did appear in front of me.  For about ten seconds, running fast, and at the upper limits of my accurate range with a crossbow.  I clacked and clacked but he never reappeared.

You can also make sounds allegedly similar to bucks grunting.  Same general theory.  My grandkids gave me this device.  I think its legit.  But the little stinkers may have simply handed me the equivalent of a Whoopie Cushion to make flatulent noises.  I'd not put it past 'em, and if so, well played.....

I don't think this device - for the grandkids I dubbed it the "Buck Tooter" did anything.  Oh, and there's also a little noisemaker said to mimic a doe saying something like "Hey there, sailor!"

As I've mentioned before, bow hunting this year has been frustrating, but also a learning experience.  I've put in lots of time.  I've seen deer.  I'm learning quite a lot about the acreage that we bought specifically to develop as hunting land.  But despite those exciting moments when a deer is oh, so close to stepping into the right spot, there's a lot of time just sitting.  My brain goes to odd places when idle.  I started wondering if the three musical instruments above could be used to compose, well not a song, but a little melody.  Something inspired by the rather racy stuff that was on the radio back in the 1970's.  Thinking Marvin Gaye and "Let's Get it On", although that particular song lacks any clacky parts.....

Here's my final word on "Bucky" the insolent 6 pointer who keeps turning up near my cabin base.  You may notice a bit of white stuff in some of the above images.  Yes, snow.  So when Hank and I were out for walkies he was very excited and distracted.  So much so that he did not notice Bucky standing in the driveway of our next door neighbor's cabin.  Sigh.  Apart from the inconvenience of three or four laws I could have just stayed in bed until 9, rolled over, pointed a rifle out the bedroom window and bagged him - a la Groucho Marx - in my pajamas.

Hank remained oblivious.  This was perhaps my last outing with medieval weaponry.  I've been in rifle range of about a dozen deer over the last few months, so eventually they shall Pay for their Insolence.  I think.....

 

Party Week for the Deer

Deer live mostly boring lives.  They munch on stuff.  They drop little piles.  For the ones who are not dumb enough to jump in front of cars there are few major predators left.  They really only have complicated lives for two weeks out of 52.  Rifle hunting season, of course, and approximately the first week of November.

Bucks and Does don't interact much the rest of the year.  Our trail cams over the spring and summer show sweet little families of moms and fawns.  And loosely organized gangs of bucks.  The latter just seem to hang out together.  Critter Bros.

But one week out of the year the deer go hormonally insane.  They run around, chasing each other, heedless of danger or consequences.  For instance:

Yesterday coming up to hunt I saw a six point buck loitering around the four way stop near our cabin.  Broad daylight.  Today I saw him again, same spot, 10 am.  Hah, I figured, I'll just set up there.  Sitting around for a fair bit of time...nuthin.  Gave up, walked out and started putting stuff in my car.  And saw a doe run across the road with Bucky in hot pursuit.  Heading right where I had been.  Here's what he was seein'

This by the way is the first AI generated image I've ever used.  The parameters are: show me a cartoon deer with lots of cheap makeup.  I specifically said not to use anything under copyright by a gigantic media and theme park corporation.  I don't wanna cross the Doom Mouse and his lawyers.  Even if the mother of a certain beloved character was a round hoofed floozy.

Well its been a bit frustrating but I remind myself that this is just the second year I've bow hunted, and my success last year may have been a fluke.  The learning goes on.
 

Hank Shall Not Pass

Hank the Dog is rather single minded in his efforts to protect us from The Squirrel Evil.  His passion is commendable, but he's torn up some shrubbery rather badly.

So I was tasked with creating a fence.  Criteria:  Zero budget, can't look too bad, has to keep him from charging right through it.

Take One:

Plastic mesh fence.  Decorative metal posts.  A stern lawn gnome.  He seemed to be deterred.

But I was then advised that the gnomes need to be put in the shed for the winter.  Well, I am trying to get rid of junk I've hauled back from my parent's house.  How 'bout a ceramic bank I made in high school art class?

That's got him thinking.  Accomplishing that is no easy task!

The Lactose Maniac

So much stuff coming up from the basement of my parent's house.  This is archaeology plain and simple.  You dig through different layers trying to divine the importance of strange artifacts.  For instance, there was a considerable assortment of mint condition pamphlets from various public health agencies.  No surprise really, doctor's offices still have them.  But these were often from before my dad was actually in practice.  From the 1920's, 30's and 40's.  Did he save them as historical curios?  And how to explain the Lactose Maniac?

This dude....

Looks to me like he's enjoying himself a little more than you'd expect from a bottle of milk.  Even allowing for the fact that it was all whole milk then, none of this wimpy Skim or 2%.

There seemed to be quite the enthusiasm for milk running clear through these pamphlets.  Pregnant women for instance were supposed to slam down a quart and a half every day.  The pamphlet on Diet of the Expectant and Nursing Mother says right on the front:

Drink More Milk, Eat More Butter - For Your Health and Prosperity.

Guess you can see where the Lactose Maniac got his start down this path.   In utero.

We'll meet up with him again in a bit.  But first...

I'm putting a discrete thumb on this image.  It had, shall we say, Coppertone Ad qualities.  

But in this age of heightened awareness and of AI scraping every word and image off the internet, I'm not taking chances.

This tome is from 1935, and was printed by the Department of Labor.  (This was a 1943 reprint).  Hmmm, maybe the Good Ol' Days of child labor were not quite over?

The actual advice was pretty simplistic.  Wear good shoes - unlike this tyke on the nude beach - stand up straight, don't get rickets or scurvy.

Various exercises and play strategies are endorsed.  Some of them involving climbing on ladders and unsafe things!

Oh, and here's the Lactose Fiend a bit older.  Maybe middle school now, but he's still a two fisted milk drinker.  He's finished his glass while little Bitsy sitting next to him hasn't touched hers.

The motto on this one says: We strike at one of the roots of physical unfitness when we teach good food selection to all children whether they appear to be malnourished or not."

It comes out very strongly for school lunch programs.  In fact, it makes vague reference to a study being done where white rats were fed on the lunches kids brought to school.  One assumes the kids were as a replacement, given more nutritious fare, washed down with plenty of milk.  Oh, and the rats?  "Many of the rats failed to grow and some died as a result."  

By now you've started to detect a theme, no?  On the back of one of the pamphlets (The Public Health Nurse works with you to Protect your Family) is this revealing logo...........

Happy Halloween

A fun holiday.  For kids, certainly.  For adults, increasingly.  For dogs...not so much.

 Hank goes berserk every time the door bell rings.  He's not sure if it is People to Love, Burglars, or Giant Squirrels.  His response as such is a mixture of alarm, adoration and Red Alert.  It gets old fast.

So it has been suggested that this might be a good time for me to take him on a long walk.  But, he can't go out without a costume!  I won't make dogs wear things they hate.  Hats for instance.  I think LED lights would be a bit much.  But he has an insulated dog jacket.  One that is in an orange hue for protection during hunting season.  Perhaps with just a little modification.....

Orange Dog Good.

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.

----------------------------------------------------------------

* 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.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.