the tailor shop

I adore the Loftus Store. They have fun stuff to buy and the owners are always pleasant. You can really tell that they like what they're doing and are happy to be doing it.

After I got back from De Smet, I took a look at the Loftus Store website (loftusstoredotcom) because, well, I wanted to feel like I was there again. I hadn't noticed it last time I looked, but there is a blurb there now saying that the adjoining building (Prairieflower-n-Gifts) is the original building of "Mary Powers' tailor shop... Laura worked for Ms. Powers to earn money to help send her sister Mary to blind school."

Even though it was Tom Power (not Powers) who was the tailor, not his wife (Ms.?), and as far as I know Laura Ingalls never worked for Mr. Power, I would like to respectfully point out that the Tailor Shop wasn't next door to the Loftus Store.

The town of De Smet was originally laid out in four blocks that were each 350 feet square. There were fourteen 25-ft. by 165-ft. lots facing Main Street (Calumet) and seven 50-ft. by 165-ft. lots facing Poinset and Joliet. There was a 20 ft. alley between east- and west-facing lots. Some buildings on Calumet were built on two lots, so they were 50 feet wide. The Loftus Store was built on a 25-ft. lot. All of the original businesses in Block 3 (where the Loftus Store is) were the same width, except for the Kingsbury County Bank at the south end of the block; it was 50 feet wide.

I don't know how the Kruses heard that the tailor shop was next to the Loftus Store, but the deeds prove otherwise. There was a residence between the Loftus Store and Tom Power's Tailor Shop; it belonged to Mr. Davis during the "Little House" years. If you start at the corner of Second Street and Calumet and go south along Block 3 (right to left in the photo above), the businesses when Laura lived there were: Fuller's Hardware (Burkart Brothers in the photo above), Bradley Drug (Mallory and White in the photo above), the Loftus Store, E. Davis's building (later an icecream parlor), Tailor Power Shop, Tinkham Furniture, Scofield Store, Noyes Store, Sam Owens' Shoe Shop, Schockley residence, Miller residence, Frazier residence, then two lots on which the Kingsbury County Bank stood (and is still standing, btw).

I thought that perhaps when Laura Ingalls Wilder sketched the town of De Smet (it's with the manuscript for These Happy Golden Years), she had placed the tailor shop next to the Loftus Store - and maybe that was where the confusion came from - but she didn't. Laura was wrong in her placement, too. She drew the block as follows: Fuller's Hardware, Bradley's Drug, Power Tailor Shop, Tinkham Hardware, Loftus Store, Noyce [sic] Store, vacant lot, then Ruth's Bank. LIW left out a lot of businesses, and not just in this block!

If you want to know where something was, or is, DEEDS are the answer. The tailor shop was never right next door to the Loftus Store. But I sure would like to know if those great six-sided window panes are still in place under the siding at the front of the Loftus Store!
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:59 AM

 
come look at this funny grass

Ma had never seen a grass like it. The grass heads were like barley beards, except that they were twisted, and they ended in a seed pod an inch long, with a point as fine and hard as a needle, and a shaft covered with stiff hairs pointing backward... The stiff hair followed the needle-point easily, but kept it from being pulled back, and the four-inch-long, screw-like beard followed, twisting and pushing the needle-point farther in. (See Little Town on the Prairie, Chapter 9, "Blackbirds")

Laura Ingalls Wilder makes this grass seem quite sinister, but needlegrass is planted as a forage plant. It's only nasty (and usually avoided by animals) in late summer when the seeds are dry and dispersing. It can do exactly what Laura wrote, though; it can screw itself into your clothing and prick you like a pin.

Needle-and-thread grass (also called porcupine, panic, or spear grass) is a member of the genus Stipa. For some reason, Latin names of many of the grasses were changed a few years ago, so many sources have switched to the newer genus nomenclature of Hesperostipa. Stipa spartea, Stipa comata, Stipa curtiseta, and Stipa viridula are all needle grasses with charasteristics Laura describes.

Needlegrass has been planted on the Ingalls Homestead, along with other native grasses such as buffalograss and bluestem. I've picked seed heads of needlegrass and placed them on the shoulder of my t-shirt; the seed pods stick like velcro. The awns twisted as they dried and the seed heads worked their way through the fabric when I forgot they were there. You remember them quickly when you think you've been stung by something: "Ouch!"
- posted by pioneergirl at 2:00 PM

 
one for the crow...

While Laura Ingalls Wilder mentions that blackbirds destroy the crops in Little Town on the Prairie, she also introduces crows into the picture when she has Grace and Pa chant the planting rhyme: "One for the blackbird, one for the crow, and that will leave just two to grow."

Were there also crows in De Smet? Certainly. Did they also get into the corn and oats? Surely. Did the Ingalls family eat crow as well as blackbird? Hmmmm?

The American crow is Corvus brachyrhynchos. The crow family, Corvidae, includes jays, nutcrackers, magpies, jackdaws, rooks, choughs, ravens and (of course) crows. The genus Corvus includes both crows and ravens.

I had always heard that people don't eat crow, that you just plain don't eat animals that chow down on carrion - in addition to everything else on the planet from soup to nuts. Then again, pointed out many I talked to, that we eat things like pigs and blue crab, and pigs eat almost everything and crab are bottom feeders, for pete's sake. There are lots of stories about the source of the saying, "Eating crow," and not one of them is positive.

An article published in the Atlanta Constitution in 1888 claims that, towards the end of the war of 1812, an American went hunting and by accident crossed behind British lines, where he shot a crow. He was caught by a British officer, who, complimenting him on his fine shooting, persuaded him to hand over his gun. This officer then levelled his gun and said that as a punishment the American must take a bite of the crow. The American obeyed, but when the British officer returned his gun he took his revenge by making him eat the rest of the bird. This is such an inventive novelisation of the phrase’s etymology that it seems a shame to point out that the original expression is not recorded until the 1850s, and that its original form was to eat boiled crow, whereas the story makes no mention of boiling the bird.

Crows are much smarter birds than blackbirds. Crows are territorial and post guards to warn other crows of danger. They can quickly learn the difference between, say, Pa with a gun and Pa with a hoe in his hand, and will flee from one while not bothering the other. (If it had been crows in the corn, would they have flown from Ma and the girls swinging their sunbonnets if they had also been carrying guns?) They are nusiance birds and can destroy crops in a hurry. They will learn that your melon patch is closer than the nearest water source, so they'll drink your fruit juice rather than waste the time and effort to go for water. Crows will crack other eggs and can affect the numbers of water fowl in an area. They even have been known to attack small sheep or other farm animals.

Crow is now a protected species, and the hunting of crows is limited -- there is a crow hunting season. Although mostly hunted to reduce the crow population, there are many who believe that crow is as dainty a dish as blackbird. The meat harvested is usually the two small pieces of breast meat only, each the size of a small lime. Perhaps Ma made fried crow on occasion; I don't know, and Laura never told us. To fry crow, dip meat in beaten egg, then flour. Fry in hot oil. You can let me know how it tastes, since I was one of those persons raised to believe that eating crow was nasty business.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:21 PM

 
new member of the family
Sitting in a five-gallon bucket on my front porch is the newest member of the Cleaveland family. It's a rooted cutting from one of the cottonwoods on the Ingalls homestead in De Smet! In the spring, if you cut off a piece of new growth just below a leaf node and insert it in moist soil (dusting the end with rooting compound doesn't hurt), it will put out roots if you're lucky.

If I have to, I can leave this "tree" in a pot for several more years before planting it. It's only about eight inches tall right now, and it shouldn't put out more roots than a large pot can handle in that length of time.

So. Now all we have to do is find a place to settle and plant our own little piece of Ingalls history in our own yard. I am looking forward to it...
- posted by pioneergirl at 12:41 AM

 
i was not amused
This morning I woke up in De Smet. Now I'm in Bozeman, and as tired as I've ever been in my life. It was a long day, but I am safely here. I was going to write that I am safely "home," but I can't get something from this past week out of my mind... I was sitting and talking to Linda Peavy and Ursula Smith (they lived in Bozeman before we moved here; they were speakers at the event I attended in De Smet), and Ursula asked when I was was going home. Then she stopped and said that she should be asking when I was going back to Bozeman, since it seemed like I already was at home, meaning De Smet. Whoa nellie, that's one smart woman.

I phoned to check in when I stopped in Billings. As I was driving through Livingston (20 miles east of Bozeman), the car phone rang. It was Ginny, saying that she knew I was fairly close to Bozeman, and would I stop and buy something for dinner.

I almost turned around and headed back to South Dakota.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:59 AM

 
happy harry potter day

I am not finished with or even in the middle of reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince! Okay, I couldn't stand it, so I did read the first two chapters when Ginny and I got home from Barnes & Noble at 12:17 this morning. Our receipt for the books says they were purchased at 12:03 a.m., and we were first in the "A-C" line. Ginny, of course, stayed up all night, and as I knew she would, she's been trying to tell me stuff today. I am getting good at covering my ears in a hurry and running from the room, let me tell you.

I am heading to South Dakota at dark o'clock on Monday morning, so I'm doing my level best to avoid my HP book (and all HP discussion groups and emails) this weekend. I plan to listen to HBP on c.d. as I drive across Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota. I know from past trips that Harry Potter makes the drive seem like nothing (it's like magic!). I can only imagine how exciting it will be to be listening to the book FOR THE FIRST TIME as I drive.

It's times like this that I'm a little glad that we live in a smaller town. Even with only a few bookstores, there was only a pleasantly crowded scene at Barnes & Noble last night. I'd say that children, young adults, and we older muggles were about even in numbers. And young and old alike were in costume (I wore my HP Convention t-shirt with "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good" on the back). There were refreshments, contests, and fun and games. The costume winner was a college-aged young man who looked exactly like Lucius Malfoy. His friend was dressed as Dobby, complete with one sock on. "Mr. Malfoy" gave me a chill as he walked by; he swished his cloak, he tossed his hair, he had that cane, and he was sneering at Dobby hovering at his heels.

I discovered Harry Potter early on, thanks to the Maud Hart Lovelace listren and a friend in London. Ginny and I were sent book 2 from the U.K., and it was a hot item passed among Ginny's friends in the days before it was available in the U.S.

I often think that maybe there was a similar excitement when the "Little House" books came out -- wouldn't it have been great if there had been parties and events and contests connected with the book releases back then? I can't even imagine having to wait a year or so to find out "what happened next" to Laura's family, but I know what a special part of history I've participated in connection with the Harry Potter books. Surely there were children and adults eagerly awaiting each "Little House" book with similar excitement?

Happy reading!
- posted by pioneergirl at 2:01 PM

 
a dainty dish

In Little Town on the Prairie (Chapter 9, "Blackbirds"), the Ingalls family eats the pesky blackbirds that destroy the oats and take over the cornfield. They fried in their own fat, and at dinner everyone agreed that they were the tenderest, most delicious meat that had ever been on that table. Later, Ma bakes twelve of the birds into a blackbird pie.

Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote that at first their fields were infested with only common blackbirds, but these were joined by yellow-headed blackbirds and blackbirds with red heads and a spot of red on each wing. I don't think that Laura meant the common blackbird from Australia (Turdus merula). I'm sorry, but who in their right mind would eat anything with the name "Turdus"?

The American common blackbird is actually the common grackle - Quiscalus quiscula. The red-winged blackbird is Agelaius phoeniceus; the yellow-headed blackbird is Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus. You will need to know these for the final exam.

The Little House Cookbook (Walker, 1979) has a recipe for "blackbird pie," only it says you can't hunt blackbirds in the United States, so you should use the European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris), which may be hunted.

I say we should be authentic and use blackbirds. You can hunt blackbirds in South Dakota, and almost everywhere else, for that matter. Especially if they've eaten all your oats and you can't keep them out of your corn, even when you run up and down the rows waving your bonnet.

Blackbirds are native migratory birds and thus come under the jurisdiction of the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act, a formal treaty with Canada and Mexico. Blackbirds are protected by Federal Law (Title 50, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 21.43) in the United States except that they may be killed when "found committing or about to commit depredations upon ornamental or shade trees, agricultural crops, livestock, or wildlife, or when concentrated in such numbers and manner as to constitute a health hazard or other nuisance." Some states and local governments may have additional restrictions on killing blackbirds. Starlings were introduced from Europe and are not protected by Federal law. (Barbara Walker wrote that starlings were introduced in the 20th century, but it was actually in 1890.)

Blackbird hunting, anyone?
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:55 AM

 
a hard word and dreadful
This was the prescribed "cure" for diphtheria during the De Smet epidemic of July 1892:

Pour equal parts of turpentine and liquid tar into a tin or cup and set fire to the mixture. A dense resinous smoke arises, which obscures the air of the room. The patient immediately seems to experience relief; the choking and rattle stop; the patient falls into a slumber and seems to inhale the smoke with pleasure. The fibrous membrane soon becomes detached and the patient coughs up microbicides. These when caught in a glass may be seen to dissolve in the smoke. In the course of three days the patient entirely recovers.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:41 AM

 
m.i.t. weblog survey

If you blog, please take a minute or two and complete this survey. Just click on the image above and you will magically be transported to the proper place. Oh, wait a minute. Wrong obsession...
- posted by pioneergirl at 9:15 PM

 
sssssssnakes

It's not a typical hike unless I see a snake. Today I saw four. (And I see no good reason to pass this information along to my mother, trust me.) Usually I see snakes in time to stop and stamp my foot or toss a pebble behind them to send them on their merry way. Today, I almost stepped on one, but at that point I was close enough to see the whites of its eyes (okay, the shape of its eyes) and I knew it wasn't venomous. I'm not very savvy when it comes to identifying snakes, and as long as they don't drop out of a tree on me, I usually don't panic.

Since I'm heading to South Dakota soon, I guess I ought to pack the snake gaiters. But I'll be darned if I'm going to wear them on daily hikes when I want to be wearing shorts.

There's only one venomous snake native to South Dakota -- the prairie rattlesnake -- and they're not even supposed to be native to Kingsbury County, but that doesn't mean they didn't move in like the Germans and Dutch, who aren't native to Kingsbury County either.
- posted by pioneergirl at 7:43 PM

 
where there's a will

[Ma] put the button in the center of the square of calico. She drew the cloth together over the button and wound a thread tightly around it and twisted the corners of calico straight upward in a tapering bunch. Then she rubbed a little axle grease up the calico and set the button into the axle grease in the saucer. -The Long Winter, Chapter 19, "Where There's a Will"

I know it's the wrong time of year to be thinking about winter things, even though I did have to wrap myself in a blanket and wear my snowboarding hat in order to stay warm last night during the fireworks. Ah, the joys of living in Montana! Now that the fourth of July has past, it's time for winter to think about setting in.

Once upon a time, I bought some axle grease and I made an honest-to-goodness button lamp. This day and age, axle grease doesn't come in a round wooden box, it comes in a tube that fits in your caulking gun. Today I found this: how to make a coke can / salad oil lamp. Same principle as the button lamp, updated for today's modern society. All you need is an aluminum can, a piece of an old sock, and a tablespoon of cooking oil.

Take the aluminum soft-drink can and very carefully cut it in half around its equator. Wear protective gloves! Use pliers and fold about a half inch of the cut edge down inside the can and crimp in place; this makes a safer rim. From the top half of the can, remove the "pop top" by bending it back and forth. Put the rest of the top of the can in the recycling!

Cut a 1-1/2 inch by 3/8 inch piece out of an old sock. Cotton sock? Polyester sock? I don't know... but I'd say you can't go wrong with cotton. And you could always use an actual piece of wide flat wicking, which you can buy at craft and camping stores. Twist the socking and pull it through the pop-top until about 1/4 inch sticks through.

Place the pop-top-and-sock wick in the bottom of the can, with the extra socking heading off downhill in the direction of the side of the can. Look at a coke can bottom; it's raised in the middle.

Pour a tablespoon of salad oil (corn oil, olive oil, soybean oil, etc.) into the bottom well of the can. Let the wick absorb some (or rub the oil onto the wick, like Ma did). Light and enjoy. The length of the wick determines the height of the flame. If your flame is smoky, try it with less sock pulled through the tab. A tablespoon of oil should burn for three to four hours.

"You're a wonder, Caroline," said Pa. "It's only a little light, but it makes all the difference."
- posted by pioneergirl at 5:46 PM

 
the glorious fourth

The 38-Star Flag became the Official United States Flag on July 4th, 1877. This flag was to last for 13 years, so it would have been flown during all of the years covered in the De Smet "Little House" books published by Laura Ingalls Wilder. (On the Way Home and West From Home were published posthumously.) This was the flag mentioned in Little Town on the Prairie (Chapter 8, "Fourth of July"): The whole crowd was moving across the railroad tracks and out on the prairie. On a pole set up there, the American flag fluttered against the sky. The sun was shining warm and a cool breeze was blowing.

The De Smet crowd, of course, was gathered at the racetrack. A great ring of sod had been broken, and the sod carried off. The breaking plow with its coulter had left the black earth smooth and level. In the middle of the ring and all around it the prairie grasses were waving, except where men and buggies had made trampled tracks.

The racetrack was east of Eliza Jane Wilder's homestead claim, and it was used as a racetrack for decades and decades. You can tell where the track was, even today.
- posted by pioneergirl at 2:15 PM

 
roman candles
In West From Home, there's a letter dated August 29, 1915, in which Laura describes the fireworks and light display she and Rose had just seen in San Francisco. "I have used the word 'beautiful' until it has no meaning, but what other word can I use?" Rose instructs Laura to tell Almanzo that "there was never anything like them in the world except those Roman candles you got for her the last Fourth of July we were in De Smet. They surpassed them, she says."

I don't have much memory of Fourth of July fireworks during my childhood. I remember running around the back yard with a sparkler or two, and my mother running around after us to collect the hot wires. I once embarrassed my siblings by ordering a dessert called a "Satellite Sparkler" at Howard Johnson's. It was a scoop of chocolate chip ice cream with three or four candy canes stuck in it, brought to the table with a lighted sparkler on top. Chocolate chip has been my favorite ice cream ever since, sparkler or no.

I know that Roman candles are the cardboard tubes you hold and a series of explosions shoot balls of fire which explode into stars in the sky. I had to look up how they were made --- a long paper tube is sealed with bentonite (clay), then a lifting charge is added (gunpowder). A pyrotechnic star goes next, then a dusting of black powder and a load of delay powder (I haven't a clue as to what those two are, but since I'll never make my own fireworks, I won't worry about it). The recipe says to "repeat until loaded," but again, I haven't a clue where you start repeating from.

The color of the exploding stars is created by using different chemicals for different colors:
Red - Strontium Nitrate or Strontium Carbonate
Orange - Calcium Chloride or Hydrated Calcium Sulphate
Yellow - Charcoal, Iron and Carbon, Sodium Nitrate, or Cryolite
White - Aluminum, Magnesium, or Titanium
Green - Barium Chloride
Blue - Copper Chloride
Purple - mixing compounds that create red and blue

I may just shoot off a few Roman candles in honor of Rose's last Fourth of July in De Smet. And concoct a Satellite Sparkler for me.
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:49 PM

 
hemp
I spent most of the afternoon knitting with hemp. Not soft hemp yarn or uniform hemp string used for necklaces, but scratchy, rough, hemp fiber which varied in diameter from that of a strand of human hair to a regular spaghetti noodle - full of knots, slubs, and frayed bits. Hard on the hands at first, it soon became oddly satisfying to work with and it's beautiful stuff. I love hemp clothing, and now I'm certain that I need to buy some soft hemp yarn and knit a sweater or two.

This hemp was a recent impulse buy; I hadn't a clue what I was going to knit with it. I thought about a table runner or some drawstring storage bags. What I ended up knitting was an 18-inch square. I used about 1/4 of what I bought. If I come up with an exciting project, I'll just unravel the square and reuse it.

The "Little House" connection? CANVAS. Like the canvas used in Charles Ingalls' wagon cover.

Back in Laura's day, canvas was a rugged fabric used to make wagon covers as well as tents. It was originally Cannabis hemp, which became canvas, based on the Dutch pronunciation of the word cannabis. In 1938, it became illegal to grow hemp in the United States for any use, including the manufacture of cloth goods, yet it is currently grown in many other countries, including Canada and England. Hemp has great industrial potential as a replacement for cotton used today in canvas, for tree pulp paper, and for fossil fuel products.

Laura Ingalls Wilder supported and promoted letter-writing campaigns to government officials about things she believed in. I believe in hemp. Industrial hemp is not marijuana, but rather a non-intoxicating plant that has been cultivated and used in a multitude of ways around the world for millennia. Hemp production is a billion dollar industry, illegal to grow in the United States but legal to import. ("Why, Pa, why?") Be more Laura-like, and spread the word:

Dear ___ (insert name of Senator or Congressperson):

I am writing you today to urge your support for the revival of the American Hemp Industry in our state. Hemp, otherwise known as Cannabis Sativa L. has been cultivated by humans for over 10,000 years and continues to be grown in many industrial nations including Canada, England, France, Germany, Thailand, China and Hungary. Hemp was grown by our founding fathers and used for textiles (the first American flag was made from hemp), paper (the first draft of the Constitution was written on hemp paper) and the hemp seed was the mainstay of the colonial diet and provided lamp oil. The original diesel engine as well as today's models can run on pure hemp oil, reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. Hemp oil can be used as a base for paints and inks as well as an industrial lubricant.

Hemp is the strongest natural fiber (three times as strong as cotton) and can be grown without harmful pesticides and herbicides. Breeding techniques have yielded industrial hemp strains, which contain virtually no THC (the psychoactive chemical in marijuana), eliminating any potential drug value. One acre of hemp produces as much paper as four acres of trees and the crop is ready in 120 days, not 120 years. Farmers stand to gain access to a crop with excellent profit potential (current paper pulp prices would net $200 profit per acre) that will not degrade their valuable topsoil. We as a nation stand to gain an abundant fiber and oil source while protecting what is left of our forests. Our forests provide much more of a service than simple beauty and recreation. They are a habitat to millions of creatures and also serve as the lungs for our planet. There is no doubt that deforestation must end very soon and I think hemp is the answer.

Sincerely,
(Sign and Print Your Name. Mail. Need help with the address? Start here: http://www.house.gov/ and http://www.senate.gov )
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:59 AM