Muscovy love

Amorous Cairina moschata domesticus.

Last summer our friend Jen gave us three white Muscovy ducks (one male and two females).



In the world of domestic ducks, there are Mallards, lots of ducks derived from Mallards, and Muscovies.

In researching Muscovies I was surprised to find how long they'd been domesticated - at least 500 years and possibly more. Columbus saw them in the West Indies.

They don't quack like other ducks; the males hiss and the females make a sort of trilling noise. (The trilling is actually a soothing sound. The hissing, not so much.)

They don't walk like other ducks; the head lunges back and forth while the tail wags from side to side. They pretty much do this when they're standing still too.

They don’t like the water as much as other ducks, but can fly better than most.

They are also fairly ugly. They have bright red warty areas around their bills. The wild version (in Latin America) is mostly black, and is infinitely more attractive. Domestic Muscovies are usually black and white. To me the pure white ones are more handsome.

Everything is exaggerated on the males: their size is much larger, they exhibit bigger lunging movements and more tail wagging, and they have an expanded warty area (for extra ugly).

You might wonder why we wanted them.

Because homestead lore claims that they love to eat mosquitoes. Really though I think that ducks love to eat just about any bug that they can catch.

You can make pets out of chickens, especially if you start handling them when they're very young. But you'll never make friends with a duck. They just don’t want to have that much to do with you.

In this the Muscovies are also different, especially the males. Ours likes to follow us around.

If you stand still anywhere in the yard for more than a minute he'll be right beside you, lunging, wagging, and hissing. If you stand still long enough, he'll nibble at your feet.

While you're still thinking “Oh how cute!” he'll start pulling on your pants leg. At first it seems funny, but if you don't move away within a few seconds, he’ll alternate pinching and stabbing you with his bill. Hard!

Once I figured out this behavior, naturally I tried not to stand still for very long if he's around. But sometimes he's insistent and will run after me. Muscovies are the cheetahs of the duck world. You can't outrun them.

I'm divided on whether this is hate or love on the part of the Muscovy... territorial response or misplaced affection?

Snowshoeing Wauswaugoning Bay (again)

I went back to snowshoe Wauswaugoning Bay again, this time by myself. I was planning to push beyond where the 3 of us went on our last journey to the bay. We had hoped to make it to the south side of Pigeon Point, where we could get a view of the Susie Islands. As it turned out the distance was farther than we thought and our light was running out so we had to turn around before we made it all the way.

I headed out a bit earlier, hoping it would be enough time to make it. The sky was also totally clear, rather than wall to wall clouds and it was to be a full moon tonight so if I ran out of time again I would have the full moonlight to guide me back (I also had my headlamp, just in case). This ended up being the most amazing snowshoe hike I have ever been on! I made it to the Lake Superior shoreline, just in time for sunset. There were some fascinating ice formations on the shore. I even saw some wolf tracks following the shoreline. To top it off, the ice on Wauswaugoning Bay was creaking and groaning which I could hear throughout the whole hike.

It was especially eerie walking back through the woods after dark, in the moonlight, and hearing the noises of the ice as it shifted and settled. As I walked through the woods guided by the glow from the moon (it was bright enough that I never once turned my headlamp on), every now and then the ice would speak. "Booooooo.... doomp!" it cried. I would walk for another minute or two then again "Boooooooo.... doomp!" This is the best way I can describe the noise. It must be the force of the water pushing the ice into the bay, then when the force eases up on the ice, the ice settles. The pressure pushing the ice in must create the "Boooooo" sound, then when the pressure eases the ice settles down, making the "doomp" sound. At any rate, it was eerie but wonderful. To top things off, I even heard an owl hooting a couple of times as I walked through the woods, bathed in that glorious moonlight. A night to remember.

(Above: I titled this image "Haunted Forest". The surreal look was achieved by running a 2-second exposure while at the same time panning the camera slightly from left to right.)

Early Christmas Gifts

We have already received two of our Christmas gifts early. One was from my MIL, and we have really enjoyed this one. It is a kitchen island that we bought while in Virginia. We took out our dining room table and chairs and this sits in that space now.



We love this thing! We still have some eating space there so we didn't really give that up. We gained tons of storage space and counter top space with it.



The other things is a microwave and convection oven combo. I have wanted this since we bought the RV and am thrilled with it. I have used it tons since we have put it in, mostly for baking bread, cookies and muffins.







I'm glad that I did get them both early, since they will help me with my Christmas baking! I think we enjoy both things for a long time.

Sunshine and Boating

We have really enjoyed being able to ride on Daryl and Diana's boat. Nathan has spent far more time on there than me. Today, I was able to soak up the sunshine on it.



There is really not much better than hanging out together in this way. I think Joshua agrees with me.

It's just to peaceful out here on the water.

Sometimes the simplest things are the most beautiful to me.

Even stopping at the marina is a treat. We saw some interesting boats. We met some interesting people.

We were able to chat with a couple that are living Nathan's next dream of living full time on a boat. They are getting ready to settle down and travel by land for a bit. They were gracious enough to share some of their experiences with us. It's always so great to meet people who are living their dream.

And it's always nice to be reminded that we are living ours.

Living the life on land and sea in Virginia!

Fork vs Frame

At the D2R2 last weekend I met a cyclist who was riding a hastily assembled spare bike, after breaking the fork on his custom randonneur just before the event. Riding off road, he'd hit a log at full speed and the forkcracked from the impact, right at the Grand Bois crown. However, the frame and front wheel appear undamaged.








His experience reminded me of a conversation about fork vs frame strength the guys at Circle A Cycles were having when I visited them a week earlier. They brought out an older racing frameset that had suffered a similar impact as the D2R2 rider's bike. However, in this case the fork was fine while the front triangle of the frame had buckled from the impact.






Apparently, when a particular stye of Cinelli sloping fork crown came out in the 1980s with its corresponding straight, short fork blades, some framebuilders complained that the resulting forks were too strong - causing frames to suffer damage on impact. A less rigid fork would be able to absorb the impact and save the frame. And it is easier to make a new fork than a new frame.






I just thought all of this was interesting, because the relative strength of the frame vs fork is something that even framebuilders don't always think about. But these dynamics are worth considering. A super-lightweigth steel frame paired with a super-rigid, strong fork may not necessarily be a great idea. The Circle A customer will be getting their frame rebuilt around the intact rear triangle. The D2R2 rider will most likely be getting a new fork made. I am curious and will follow up on both framesets.

Paint It Good: On Bicycles Becoming Art

[image via The Good Bike Project]

Once upon a time I was enrolled in art school and we had this visiting professor - a new media guy - whose sulky catchphrase was "painting always wins." By this he meant that painting, being the traditional form of artistic expression, enjoys an unfair advantage over less conventional art forms in that it is more readily accepted as "art" by the general public - even if it is not. Those students who were not painters nodded sagely every time he said this, whispering "patriarchal" and "privileged" while throwing scornful sideways glances at their painterly peers. Whereas those students who were painters shrugged dismissively: "Well of course he's going to say that; he's a new media guy who hates painters." Naturally, both groups were right, but this is the sort of debate that is taken very seriously in art schools. I hadn't thought about Professor Sulky New Media Guy in some time - until I came across a link to this article on TreeHugger.



My understanding of the story is like this: A woman in Toronto decided to decorate a bicycle that was abandoned, locked up to a bike rack. She painted it neon orange and placed potted flowers in the basket. The city of Toronto then ticketed the bicycle, indicating that it was tagged for removal as a result of being abandoned and now clearly unridable. The woman and her friends decided to protest this and formed a collective, seeking out other abandoned bicycles and painting them neon colours as well. They received publicity. Eventually, the city stopped ticketing the bikes and reluctantly agreed to treat the project as public art. It is called The Good Bike Project and it has been applauded by cycling and environmental blogs for "defying" the city of Toronto.



Call me a disloyal artist if you will. Tell me I lack appreciation for symbolism. Accuse me of being no fun. Fine. But I look at these pictures of spraypainted bikes locked up to bike racks and I think: "Someone could have used that bicycle. Someone could have used that bike rack." I've read the article a couple of times and have browsed the project's website, but I don't get what exactly it is protesting and what exactly it is trying to say. It seems to me that in removing blatantly abandoned bicycles, the city of Toronto was actually doing cyclists a service by freeing up bike racks and other potential lock-up spots. Of course it would be great if those abandoned bikes could be rescued, then refurbished and donated to those who need them. But to turn useful objects into decorations, while also taking away parking spaces from cyclists? I don't know. Spraypainting a bicycle so as to render it unridable is not recycling, and perhaps what irks me is that this word is being used to describe the Good Bike Project. Refurbishing a bicycle is recycling, and I would love to see that become the de facto fate of abandoned bikes in cities throughout the world.



Whether spraypainting abandoned bicycles is art is not my call. And perhaps it's ironic that in the back of my mind echoes the sulky professor's complaint that painting always wins. "Paint it and they will applaud," he'd say - to warn, I now realise, rather than to mock.

Ah, Yes! John Rupert...

After a fruitless search for the estate of John Rupert in the microfilm of “Estates 1834-1837” I returned to viewing land records. There was quite a list and many more that I wanted to look at and it was in my last week at the Family History Library.



As luck would have it, the next deed that I looked at was the cause of this incredible "Happy Dance" moment. The big find wasn't for John Rupert, in some ways it was actually better, as it had to do with the wife of Jacob Switzer, discovering her full name and the name of her father, Andrew Brinker! (More on that in a future post.) Why am I mentioning this now?



Well, basically to let you know that I didn't work in a straight line, I used more of a zigzag methodology, skipping around from one type of record to another and from one ancestor to another and then back again. Perhaps not the best approach but there were so many things that I wanted to find on different people.



I think I “shut down” for a while after the “big find” and didn't get much accomplished the rest of the afternoon. This was on a Saturday and the library was closed the next day. Though it didn't seem like it at the time, that was probably a good thing - it gave me time to absorb what had been found and devise a plan for the three remaining days that I had left for research at the library.



Saturday evening and Sunday was spent searching for family trees online for Andrew Brinker and using the Library Catalog to see if any of the sources mentioned in those trees were available at the library. A new “to do” list was also created with the desired film and call numbers for microfilm and books to be checked.



Monday morning I found the books I wanted, barely looked at them, quickly scanned the desired pages for future reference, and then returned to the estate records. In addition to looking for the estate of John Rupert who presumably died before July 14, 1836 (though I didn't know how much before), I was now also looking for Andrew Brinker who died in 1828. And there was another ancestor, Detrick Hoffman, who died in 1826. So I was looking for his estate record too. If you're looking for one, it doesn't really take any longer to look for three on the same roll of film!



On Saturday I had viewed the film for estates in 1834-1837 so I pulled out the film for 1832-1834 (packets numbering 1514 to 1693). A little over an hour later I had nothing. Except negative results. Sure would have been nice if those packets were indexed! Then it was on to the next roll for 1830-1832, which included estate packets 1355-1513. Time was in slow motion, it was taking forever to go through those films!



After a short break to relieve crossed eyes and blurred vision about midway through the roll, I resumed cranking away. And then, there it was! The Estate Packet for John Rupart! (#1439) Hooray! Hooray!



Included amongst the 24 images in his “packet” were some small miscellaneous financial papers, the estate inventory, the sale bill, and most important to me a document dated October 17, 1828 – his will.



Anything that appears inside square brackets [ ] has been added by me. Emphasis has also been added in several spots using bold face type.



[first page]

“In the name of God Amen the Seventeenth day of October Eighteen hundred and twenty Eight. I John Ruppart of Columbiana county in the State of Ohio, being in perfect mind and good memory although weak in body, therefore calling to mind the mortality of my body and knowing that it is appointed for all men once to die, do make and ordain this my last will and testament, that is to say principally and first of all, I give and recommend my Soul into the hands of Almighty God who gave it, and my body I recommend to the earth, to be buried in a Christian like manner, nothing doubting but at the General resurrection I shall receive the Same again by the mighty power of God, and as touching such worldly estate as it has pleased god to endow me with, I do devise and dispose of in the following form (Item) I do allow all my Lawful debts and funeral charges to be paid out of my Estate after my decease. (Item) I do allow and bequeath unto my wife Barbara all her clothing bed and beding her Spinning wheel and reel all my household furniture which I may have at my decease, during her natural life time and also all the rents interest and income of my place for her Support and maintenance during her natural life, and after her decease I allow my real and personal property to be sold by my executor and the money Collected to be paid equally divided”



[second page]

“Children namely Elizabeth, Barbara, Margaret, Sarah, Catharina, Eva, Lea, Rachel, Ruppart excepting Richard Rupart I allow and bequeath unto him the Sum of one dollar to be paid first by my executors as I have given him his share of my estate in my life time. (Item) I do Likewise nominate constitute and appoint my Son in law, Conrad Yerion and David Ehrhart [the latter name was inserted above Yerion] to be my whole and Sole executors of this my last will and Testament Investing him [two words crossed out] with full power to execute this my last will and testament, I do hereby utterly dis allow revoke all and every former wills or bequeathments by me in any wise before named ratifying and confirming this and no other to be my last will and testament In Witness whereof I John Ruppart have hereunt set my hand and seal the day and year aforesaid in the presence of those Witnesseth present. mb [?] David Ehrart interlined before signing.”



Signature of Johannes Rupart [in German and his seal]

[witnesses] Jacob Watson and Joseph Swinger





The signature of John Rupart from his will dated October 17, 1828.



The signature of John Rupert from Deed Book 9 page 48 dated August 24, 1824. Is this the actual signature of John or was it written by the recording clerk? Quite a difference in four years, but then I don't write my name the same every time either.





First page of the will of John Rupart. Estate Packet 1439. Family History Library microfilm 2032592.



Second page of the will of John Rupart. Estate Packet 1439.



Third page of the will of John Rupart. Estate Packet 1439. Declaration of the witnesses. Signed by Charles D. Coffin, Clk. Com. Pleas



Cover page of the will of John Rupart. Estate Packet 1439.

Is the date in the upper left corner ( August 7, 1831) the date the will was admitted to probate or the date of death of John Rupart? How soon after death is the probate process started? There was nothing in the estate packet to indicate when John had passed on.



The will tells us that his wife Barbara was still living when the will was written on October 17, 1828 and that he had seven daughters and one son living at that time: Elizabeth, Barbara, Margaret, Sarah, Catharina, Eva, Lea, Rachel, and Richard Rupart.



Now why didn't he include the married names of his daughters as many testators do? I should be happy that we got the names of two of his sons-in-law (or is it son-in-laws?): Conrad Yerion and David Ehrhart. After all, the naming of Conrad Yerion provides that definitive link for me to John! Seems like we always want more though.



In the post Father of Eva Rupert :: Is it John or Adam? we found that Hannes and Barbara Ruppert/Rubbert had three children baptized in the Bermudian Church in what would have been York County, Pennsylvania at the time (now Adams County): Eva, Jacob, and Salome. The latter two are not named in John's will so do we assume that they had died without heirs prior to the time John wrote his will? Were there other children that were not named in the will?



If you are a descendant of John Rupert or researching the Rupert Family, PLEASE contact me at kinexxions@gmail.com