From the Duchesses of Smith’s Orchards to the Pines of the BlueCircle Farm

Smith's orchard on Heathering Hill, Watervliet Twp. ca. 1880

Smith’s orchard on Hetherington Hill, Watervliet Twp. ca. 1880

In the late 1800s Sebastian Smith and family developed one of the largest and most successful apple orchards on the southeastern shores of Paw Paw Lake. Their apples included the Duchess of Oldenberg variety, originally developed in Russia and recognized at the time as a superior variety in New York and Michigan. In a portion of an 1880 illustration of his Heatherington Heights orchard reproduced above (from “A 20th Century History of Berrien County, Michigan” O.W. Collidge, 1906) a single-story white “cottage” is visible above the road on the right. A winter photograph from about the same location shows the house that remains at that site, possibly on part of the original foundation, albeit nearly hidden by new homes on the east side of North Watervliet road.

Heatherington Hill from the east, 2015

Detail of Smith’s “cottage” from edge of panorama

Mr. Smith sold the 19 acres of this orchard that now hold the BlueCircle Farm to his son John in 1902, then retired to Florida. The land changed hands and became Wilmer M. Pratt’s “Apple Orchard Farms” in 1918. The farm passed from Mr. Pratt’s estate to Chicago Oak Park residents Gerhard and Lulu Schwarting in 1928. They maintained the orchards, harvesting 6000 bushels of Duchess apples in 1930, but continued to be regular summer visitors. They developed their Paw Paw Lake waterfront on Woodland Ave. into summer cottages and the area north of Hetherington Hill and Fairview Beach and east of Chicago Terrace became known as “Schwartings Orchards”. The Schwarting’s left the orchard business in 1944 when they sold to HJ Peters of Benton Harbor. Mr. Peters and later his son Forrest owned and operated the orchard until 1952.

It was then bought by Marion S. Atwill who owned adjacent orchards she had inherited from her father. In the aerial photograph above from the 1960s six acres that will become the Woodland Conservancy appear cleared of trees except for a small area to the north. A peach orchard and tomato rows took the place of Schwarting’s apple orchard during these years. The land was bought by a developer in 1976 and after almost 100 years the orchards disappeared entirely. In late 1997 Delavan Sipes and the owners of several adjacent lakefront properties that once had been owned by the Schwartings founded the Woodlawn Nature Conservancy on the south side of Woodlawn Ave. He described the Conservancy in a column he wrote for the Tri-City Record in 1999: http://23.25.1.108/Coloma/GSI_Sing_PDF/The%20Tri-City%20Record/2000-2009/2009-08-13_07.pdf#xml=http://23.25.1.108/Coloma.asp?cmd=pdfhits&DocId=33407&Index=C%3a%5cinetpub%5cwwwroot%5cIDX%5cCOLOMAALLS&HitCount=1&hits=bc0+&hc=206&req=schwarting

This split the orchard land into two roughly equal parcels – the Conservancy on the west, and to the east a mostly open field that eventually would become Bluecircle Farm. Plans to develop additional condominiums or a horse farm on this site were eventually scrapped. For the next 13 years weeds and spreads of black locust, maple, mulberry, wild grape and raspberry spread from the former fencerows – were repeatedly mowed, cleared and burnt – and persistently rose again from battered stumps.

The first pines of the BlueCircle Farm were placed in late 2010, beginning a fresh cycle on this hill above Paw Paw Lake.

Sunny snowy again

Feb20

Ohhh – snowww

Another round of lake-enhanced snowfall makes the landscape fresh but travel slow. Intermittent bursts of full sun turn all a blinding white and do nothing to warm the hill when they accompany a driving, albeit intermittent northwesterly blizzard. When the wind dies the snow falls as softly floating islands of icy powder. In contrast to grey days of January the sunny snowing does help mitigate the fact that this season has outlived its welcome. Maple treetops show bud swelling, evidence that its almost time to cut and root poplar twigs again. But not yet – near-record cold is predicted on a new moon night above the frozen lake.

Snowy trails of February

Feb5

Pine Tree Loop trail, Sarrett Nature Center

Fresh snow with a daily topdressing of lake-effect powder has resurrected the full spectrum of winter outdoors. The nordic trails at the Sarrett Nature Center are nicely groomed and include a few bursts of downhill excitement. Followed, of course, by the inevitable climb out of the dune ravine.
Paw Paw Lake has been largely ignored by snowmobile riders – only a few tracks stretch across the snowy ice.

Sunset approaches on Paw Paw Lake ice

Days of indecisive grey

Jan22

Hand-biting cold and starlit skies that came with the new year have yielded to a time of overhead grey, a foggy lake, and bland half-frozen snow. The howling northerlies that bent every limb have passed leaving a windless sky. Likewise, the days drift by with one much like the next. Grey light creeps up in the morning, brightens a little, and fades into evening without warming the day. These are not weeks to lay out plans, choose among options or eliminate alternatives because they share a timeless quality that invites leisure, even drowsiness. While it’s impossible to lay adrift on frozen waters, walking on the snowy landscape can be as aimless.

A year of “blue” corn & amaz’in little punkins

Jan1

The last winter wind of 2014 howls across the whitecaps and up the bluff blowing the year to a close. The patch of blue corn, or more correctly of blue, and red, and white and green corn mixed wildly on almost every ear is only a memory. And a lesson that such colorful varieties of vintage corn hybridize freely and cannot be planted in adjacent hills. Even the purple stalks and husks of a few “blue corn” plants didn’t match the ears they yielded.

“Bluecorn” stalks

A midsummer blog post about the unusual hybrid squash turned out to be premature, since ultimately the extensive vine would bear 30 miniature pumpkins. While not expected in the “summer squash” area of the garden, they provided Halloween table decorations for our local craft brewery, a tiny Jack O’lantern for a granddaughter, and even a little pumpkin pie filling. Next year we will grow these on a trellis.

Swans of the Winter Solstice

Dec22

Whether these are the longest nights or shortest days is a matter of perspective. Waking with the sun reveals thin, rubbery ice near shore that just supports a few hungry gulls. In a few hours shifting winds will clear it away – for now. Within a week or two the bay will be white with ice and snow and the lakes’ quietest season will be underway.

Gulls at the icy edge

It’s a time of greys and whites punctuated by the blackness of clear starry nights and brightened by glimpses of sunny skies and sunsets. As we transitioned today from an old season to a new beginning we were visited by a trio of swans. Beyond their grace and strength these visitors are a powerful symbol in many traditions and a fitting gift to renew our spirits. http://www.druidry.org/library/animals/swan

Three swans a-sailing

Peeping at the crimson eclipse

Oct24

I got to the dunes a little before sunset with clouds on the horizon. Despite recent frosty mornings on the Bluecircle the Lake Michigan mosquitos were still around, although too sluggish to pose a real nuisance. The colors shifted to an Autumn blend as the blue water turned to copper. A distant band of clouds threatened to obscure the partial solar eclipse entirely, but just at sundown patience was rewarded with a glimpse of the lunar shadow.

Raising a ClearSpan in mushroom season

Oct15

Recently a variety of mushrooms have taken advantage of the cool, damp mornings and plentiful rain to burst into the autumn sun. We decided to add outdoor storage to the Bluecircle and ordered a 20’x28′ fabric-covered ClearSpan “garage” early last month. From the catalogue its white fabric made it look a little like a giant mushroom, so the timing looked good. We began with a bed of crushed concrete, added a base of treated lumber, watered the whole thing down and waited for the delivery truck.

Construction lesson #1: The 3′ x 8′ coffin-shaped box of steel tubes that make the building frame weighed just a little less than the capacity of the Bluecircle tractor’s pallet forks – so far so good. However, the box and its pallet were loaded lengthwise on the truck – only its 3′ dimension could be manipulated from the rear of the truck and there was no room to turn it sideways to pick it up. With the driver anxious to keep his lunch date we gingerly pulled and slid the box onto a short stack of empty pallets behind the truck and he drove away. A practical, but noisy solution.

Construction lesson #2: No matter how many times you look through the 20-page assembly “guide” you are still going to mistake some hardware for something that looks like it, but just doesn’t fit. My reliable friend and neighbor George was my partner on this assembly job and between us and our wrenches we fit and re-fit until the right parts were in the appropriate places.

Rear wall of the garage with anchor legs in place

Construction lesson #3: Significant storm winds sweep over Paw Paw Lake so we decided to attach hinged steel feet to the base of the building rafters. This results in a very solid build, but the design of the mounting feet raises the entire building more than an inch off the ground. The end rafters of the garage are joined by a steel pipe that spans the entrance, and this “lift” meant a cement threshold had to be added to the design to allow equipment to drive into the building.

Construction lesson #4: Alignment of the large roll-up door was critical to the installation of the front wall covering and challenging to accomplish. Better instructions might have helped, and a temporary brace at the peak should be used even though not mentioned in the instructions. Adjustable mounting hardware for the vertical steel tubes that align with the door edges could have saved a lot of time.

So watering the crushed concrete and cool Fall mornings didn’t let this building “mushroom up”. It has already weathered its first thunderstorms and a lunar eclipse. Next up, lake effect snow!

Five-Star afternoon on Paw Paw Lake

Sep15

Michigan inland lakes are glowingly described by Realtors as “all-sports lakes”. But on July and August afternoons the choppy waves criss-crossed by racing ski boats makes them fit for little else until sundown – or even later if a Sheriff’s patrol is absent. The intrepid kayaker risks being swamped, fishing is folly, and swimmers are banished to shallow coves. Only the broad platforms of pontoon boaters can cruise with some comfort unless they too are equipped to pull guests on wake boards or tubes. Perhaps our lakes should be called “motorsports unlimited lakes”.

Jet skies at sunset on Paw Paw Lake

Sailing Stars

To be fair, the year is more than two months long. A more balanced use of Paw Paw Lake begins in September, and the Paw Paw Lake Yacht Club recently sailed its fleet of five Star class sailboats. There is more fishing from small boats. Even the remaining ski boats have slowed – perhaps to enjoy the changing season.

Flies you see and stings you flee

Sep6

Late summer – the nightly serenade of the cicadas and the daytime buzzing of cicada-killer wasps. A vocal cricket has taken up residence in the studio, and a new colony of yellow jacket warriors has an underground bunker beneath a struggling grape vine. I found these nasty defenders – or rather they found me – armed only with a string trimmer with shorts and a T for “body armor”. As I scurried away from multiple stingers I left a hat, sunglasses, then the trimmer in my wake. Must have looked like (a large clumsy) Peter Rabbit leaving the McGregar garden. The tall weeds in this row will have to stand undisturbed till cold weather comes.

A relatively unusual fly found its way to our deck yesterday. According to Buggide.net (http://bugguide.net/bgimage/recent/28001) this is a Peacock fly, Callopistromyia annulipes, about 10 mm in length. It comes from a family of flies known as the “Picture-winged flies” . Besides displaying its wings in the peacock mode it can rotate and fold them on its back, looking more like a regular fly but far less interesting.

Peacock fly on the deck rail

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Views from a reborn farm

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