On the way I stopped to listen to chorus frogs in a cow pasture pond across from a Nature Conservancy preserve. I recorded them on my camera, thinking they were some other type of frog that I rarely hear in the ponds close to home. But they’re just chorus frogs.
(July 24, 2008, continued) Two miles west of Girard, I stopped to take a photo of the old home at the intersection with River Road, just in case there was a history connection I’m supposed to know about. Then some coneflowers got more of my attention than the house did. Tonight I finally got around [...]
The 1879 history of Branch County, Michigan tells about the first settlers at Girard. The Americans weren’t the first people living at Girard, though. It’s a common enough story. Many of the first settlers in southern Michigan told how they wouldn’t have made it through the first winter without the assistance of their Potawatomi neighbors [...]
The village of Girard has been in the local news the past few days. There was a homicide a few days ago, and the killer has not yet been identified and arrested. I went through my photos from a ride there last July 24 to see if the house where it occurred was one I [...]
But more important than the Black Hawk connection is the story of the apple trees. Whether this apple tree is a descendant of those that were at this place in the 1830s, I don’t know. Neither does the owner of the property.
The main route between Detroit and Chicago is now I-94, which is not suitable for bicycling. Before I-94 was built, US-12 served that role. It runs further south than I-94, a little closer to Michigan’s border with Indiana. Except that when it was the main east-west road, it was US-112. It was renumbered when I-94 [...]