The Spokesrider » Barry County MI

Banfield Road

Spokesrider — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 02:26:24 +0000

I had always assumed Banfield Road was an old Indian trail, since it's one that weaves gently back and forth instead of following section lines or a straight diagonal. However, I just now looked at Hinsdale's 1931 atlas. No trail is shown there. I suspect the surveyors who did this part of Barry and Calhoun counties just didn't do a good job of recording where their survey lines crossed the trails, because it looks like a lot of others are missing, too.

North side of Bristol Lake

Spokesrider — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:57:40 +0000

I took a day off from work today to go on a long bike ride, but ended up doing a short bike ride instead, and spending the afternoon working on the yard and house. Moral of the story: Never again should I trust wunderground.com. Use Accuweather instead. I was looking for a couple of settlement-era [...]

Scales Prairie

Spokesrider — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 04:07:50 +0000

On Monday’s ride, I stopped to look at this milkweed plant along the border between Barry and Allegan counties. The field behind it looked prairie-like. Did Scales Prairie extend this far to the west? A modern map I use for riding shows the prairie, but doesn’t delineate its boundary. So tonight I worked at making [...]

Northwest corner of Irving Township

Spokesrider — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 04:49:47 +0000

This is another shot from Monday’s ride. It was starting to sprinkle just a bit — I got out the rain cover for my handlebar bag and stowed my electronics — but managed to ride ahead of what little rain there was. The farmers on the John Deere tractors kept cutting hay. This scene is [...]

Farms on Charleton Park Road

Spokesrider — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 03:45:55 +0000

This is the last photo I took on yesterday's ride. It's about 20 miles from home, just south of Charleton Park in Barry County, on Section 1 of Baltimore Township. Charleston Park Road is mostly an arrow-straight road that follows the section lines, but here it makes a gentle curve around the pond below this barn. The scene is an old favorite of mine.

A corner of Thornapple Township

Spokesrider — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 06:15:11 +0000

The above list of land patent records at the Bureau of Land management’s web site appears to contain some Anishinaabe names. They are all in Section 1 of Thornapple Township, Barry County, Michigan, right on the border with Kent County. There are also a couple of such names in the neighboring section in Irving Township. [...]

Portable tire pump

Spokesrider — Thu, 01 May 2008 03:13:42 +0000

Myra was cleaning out some things tonight and found a box of old photos from 1996. Many of them are hers but some are mine — photos whose whereabouts I had been wondering about for some time. This is one of them. Most of them are from the tour I did that year to all [...]

Musgrove Evans and Johnston Township

Spokesrider — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:26:47 +0000

Up ahead at the stop sign there is a very slight jog in the road. It’s where Osborne Road in Barry county crosses Manning Lake Road. Manning Lake Road forms the boundary between Barry and Johnstown townships. Whenever I’m traveling on an east-west county road in Michigan and I come to a slight jog [...]

Banfield

Spokesrider — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:26:41 +0000

Whoever would have thought Banfield would get yuppified? What you see in this photo is most of the little village. Usually I see it riding from the south on Banfield Road (from the right, in the photo). But early yesterday evening, I came to it from the west. It had never looked this pretty before. [...]

Snake on Osborne Road

Spokesrider — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 05:32:03 +0000

On a late Sunday afternoon bike ride I rode along much of Osborne Road in Barry County. Much of the road is gravel, and I spent a lot of time looking down, watching for patches of loose gravel. I almost ran over this snake coiled up, but with my trifocals wasn’t even sure that’s what [...]