Photos around Cape Archives

November 1, 2014

Happy Hallowthanksmas

Mother, Curator Jessica and I had a productive day roaming around southern Illinois and Southeast Missouri. With the late afternoon sun taking a dive to nap time, we decided to head home from Cairo by way of Charleston so my Ohio curator friend could see some of the buildings there.

This would be a good time for me to knock off Boomland, I told my passengers. I’d never been there, but it seems like it would be the kind of place a lot of my readers would enjoy.

We missed the Charleston store, but the signs said we would find another one at the Benton exit. I had to explain to Jessica about the Benton Hills.

Halloween and Thanksgiving

What I took to be a Halloween pumpkin and some corn, which might symbolize, Thanksgiving were by the front door.

Christmas trees on Halloween night?

In at least two display windows were Christmas trees. Christmas trees!!!

On HALLOWEEN night.

I don’t want to say this is rushing the season, but I was always taught that it was good etiquette to wait until the corpse got cold before asking the widow to dance.

P.S. I didn’t coin the phrase “Happy Hallowthanksmas;” someone else did, and Wife Lila passed it on to me.

P.P.S. Boomland is a fireworks joint at heart, so I won’t blame them for rushing the 4th of July.

October 31, 2014

African Methodist Church Cemetery

When I did a post about the huge quarry just south and west of Old Appleton in July, Dennis Mize and Tom Mueller mentioned that there was a small African American cemetery located near the quarry.

On the way south from dropping Wife Lila at the airport in St. Louis, I decided to check it out.

They were right

Dennis and Tom were right. Just west of Hwy 61 on KK was the African American Church Cemetery marked by a sign that listed some of the names and family histories of those interred there.

Alexander Hull died in 1898

Alexander Hull was born in 1892, and died in 1898, before his 5th birthday. His stone was one of the easiest to read. It looked like it had been reattached to its base recently

Graves at quarry edge

When I strolled down the hill into a wooded area, the quarry popped into view. This grave was almost at the edge of a dead (pun not intended) drop-off. I could only wonder how many bones had been crushed along with the limestone over the years.

A huge hole

I’m going to guess the stone walls rising above the water are at least 75 to 100 feet tall. Apple Creek runs between the quarry and the farmland in the background. It must have been a challenge to keep ahead of the water when it was an active quarry.

Didn’t feel like exploring

I didn’t spend much time walking around that area of the graveyard. The ground sloped down toward the quarry and some of the overburden didn’t look stable. I had no desire to end up as a splash or worse.

Nature’s color palette

The late-afternoon sun and fall leaves made it a place of quiet beauty. A quick Google search didn’t turn up much information about the cemetery or the church it served.

Blasting area

I’m sure the cemetery is a lot more peaceful since it’s neighbor, the old Appleton Quarry, has ceased blasting.

Quarry from the air

This aerial photo taken in 2011 clearly shows how the quarry left a little plug of land where the cemetery is located. It’s much like how the cement plant quarry has mined around the Natatorium.

Click on the photos to make them larger.

October 30, 2014

Leaf Pictures in Jackson Park

Monday was a blustery day triggered by a cold front moving toward Cape. There was a bunch of yard tasks to accomplish that took most of the day, so I didn’t have much time to shoot. I was really hoping to put together a video of trees bending down, branches whipping and leaves falling like snow.

I took a few seconds of video of some of the trees in the yard, then loaded Mother into the car and headed over to Jackson’s City Park. It has lots of trees, plus Hubble Creek meanders through the middle of it, offering the possibility of colorful leaves floating on moving water..

By the time we got to the park, though, the wind had died down, the sky had gotten overcast and I was afraid we had lost the good light.

Off in the distance there was hope. I saw some small kids running and frolicking.

Is this a photo shoot?

When I got closer, I noticed there was a woman with a professional-grade camera who was directing the kids and setting up shots. I’m always careful not to butt into somebody else’s shoot as a matter of professional courtesy.

I asked Krista Taylor if she was working, and she said, “Not today. I’m just taking family photos.”

With that concern out of the way, I could fire away without my conscience hurting. I tried to stay out of her frame, all the same.

I have one of these at home

Since I have a grandson back in Florida about Mason’s age, I enjoyed watching him charge through drifts of leaves that were almost as high as he was tall. From time to time, he’d stop to make sure he knew how to get back to the rest of the kids.

Chiggers on my mind

You know how you can tell that you are old?

While I was watching Kolton, Alexis and Khole making leaf angels and covering each other in leaves, all I could think of was, “If I did that, I’d wake up in the morning as one huge chigger bite.

I’m sorry I ran out of time and energy before I had a chance to edit the video. I had to drop Wife Lila off in St. Louis on Tuesday, and I’m headed back up to the Gateway City on Thursday to pick up Curator Jessica for a brief MO to OH road trip. Maybe I’ll give it a second look when I get back to whatever my Zip Code is. I filled out a form the other day and couldn’t remember it.

Click on the photos to make them larger, but not so large you can spot the chiggers.

October 28, 2014October 28, 2014

Blunt Nosed Chevrons

Ernie Chiles and I were puttering around in the air someplace between lost and found when we spotted these strange structures in the Mississippi River.

You’d think Ernie, my former Central High School earth science teacher would be all up on this kind of thing, but he dodged my question by either (a) pretending he couldn’t hear me over the engine noise, or, (b) saying “look it up and get back to me by the start of class on Monday.”

Click on it to make it larger.

So, I looked it up

You are looking at blunt nose chevrons. Here’s what the Upper Mississippi River System Environmental Design Handbook has to say about them:

Blunt Nosed Chevrons provide nose protection for islands while providing slower moving waters for fish habitat. Large rock used to provide structural stability and openings for habitat benefits. A navigation structure called a chevron dike was developed to improve river habitat and to create beneficial uses of dredged material. These structures are placed in the shallow side of the river channel pointing upstream. Their effect is to improve the river channel. When dredging is needed to improve the main navigation channel, dredged sediment is deposited behind the chevron dike. These small islands encourage the development of all four primary river ecosystem habitats. In addition, various microorganisms cling to the underwater rock structures, providing a food source for fish.

Fifty-one fish species and a highly diverse group of macro invertebrates have been collected in and around the structures. The 8 years of data also show a high presence of young … and juvenile fishes inside of the structures, which suggests that the structures are being used as nursery habitat. The data also shows that the outside edges of the chevrons are providing excellent habitat for quality-sized catfish. Catch rates inside the chevron have been more than double the catch rates outside of the structures.

[I couldn’t tell where the experimental blunt nose chevrons had been constructed.]

Where were we?

Based on photos taken on either side of the structures, I’d have to guess we were south of Commerce. I tried to find the structures on Google Earth, but the river was a little higher than when Ernie and I were up, so they may have been mostly covered with water. The foliage in the foreground might be on Goose Island, west of Horseshoe Lake.

I hope my extra credit homework will result in Ernie raising my grade in Earth Science circa 1963.

Oh, and in case anyone asks, these are called “river training structures.” The rock things we usually see going from the bank and pointing downstream are called “wing dams.” Newer ones are “notched,” which still help maintain the river channel through “scouring,” but do a better job of creating diverse habitats than a solid dike.