Tradition means everything in my family. And we carry on traditions, some beginning with Patty and I, while other traditions go all the way back to my parents and even my grandparents.
Family + traditions = family history
Summer temps stayed with us in Michigan clear until nearly mid-October.
But it still felt like fall. Kinda how Christmas still feels like Christmas even without snow.
But family traditions are family traditions, and I am so very happy at our traditions and that my family continues on with our fall harvest celebrations.
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| August 31st is like Christmas Eve: tomorrow is September!!! |
My wife and I are the most rural, agricultural city folk I know!
We live less than a mile outside of Detroit City, yet we "live" as rural as many who actually live in the country!
Beginning with our celebration of Lammas Day on August 1st (click HERE) you can see how we take our historical agricultural living history seriously.
It's all a part of harvest time - - celebrating autumn is what we're all about here in Michigan. Unfortunately, nearly all of September and the first part of October felt more like summer than fall, with the temps consistently in the lower to mid-80s, little to no rain, and leaves not turning as early as they usually do. I mean, I suppose I could get angry, but who's to blame? But...we did get some rain in mid-October and the leaves responded, so by the end of the month, we had our Michigan fall!
One of the things we normally do but have not done yet this year is candle dipping and cider making. Oh, there's a chance we still may, but there is a lot going on in our lives that ya'll aren't privvy to...private matters, you see. And if it does happen, I'll find a way to fit it into a future blog post.
Still, we sure did do quite a lot, as you shall see:
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| Labor Day Weekend is the official end of summer and the official beginning of fall. It also means our annual family corn roast! |
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| This tradition has been going on in my family, beginning with my father, back in 1973. |
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| We used to have a family cottage up in Lexington, Michigan. We don't anymore. But that's where the Labor Day corn roast was always held, passed down generation to generation, and now my neice has taken it over, and she recently moved closer to Croswell, Michigan, right in the middle of farm country. I find it ironic that her property butts up against a corn crop. So my wife and I had our picture taken with that as our backdrop! |
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| She also has an apple tree on her property, but no one knows the variety. |
On our way back home we stopped by my son's house. He, too, has been having a corn roast:
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| Corn and chicken a-roasting at my son's house. |
Not quite as large as the other, but just as nice. Plus it's my son, his wife, and grandkids - that makes it perfect. Especially when I get my whole clan together:
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| He built a bonfire after we ate - here are all four of my kids - love them all so much!! This is wonderful~~~ |
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| Much of what you see here were grown in our backyard garden, but some were grown at the cabin we reenact in. |
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| Michigan is the third largest apple producing state in the union. Washington state is number one and New York state is number two. By the way, China is the number one apple producing country, and why wouldn't they be? Apples have their "roots" in China. Though China may be number one for apples, the U.S. is number three! |
"While China's cider market is growing, it does not have a tradition of public cider mills in the same way that Western countries do. Instead of visiting a traditional cider mill, tourists interested in the beverage would likely need to find specific producers or breweries that focus on cider making, though this is a relatively new industry in China."
So herein once again my family - my wife, three of our four kids, and our grandkids - plus our daughter-in-law - went to our favorite no frills apple and cider mill, Ross's Stony Creek Orchard.
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| From what I understand, since 1939. |
(From the Stony Creek Orchard web site):
"A fall outing wouldn't be complete without a trip to Stony Creek Orchard and Cider Mill. As you drive up the...drive...the first thing you notice is that it doesn't look like an apple orchard; it looks like a quaint old farm. We like to keep our apple orchard the way it was when it all began back in the day. The property is covered with white barns and buildings of all different shapes and sizes, added by the various Ross Family members over the years, all with their intended purpose of keeping the farm going. On display, both on the property and inside the Store room, are antique farm tools and equipment from a hundred years ago."
"A fall outing wouldn't be complete without a trip to Stony Creek Orchard and Cider Mill. As you drive up the...drive...the first thing you notice is that it doesn't look like an apple orchard; it looks like a quaint old farm. We like to keep our apple orchard the way it was when it all began back in the day. The property is covered with white barns and buildings of all different shapes and sizes, added by the various Ross Family members over the years, all with their intended purpose of keeping the farm going. On display, both on the property and inside the Store room, are antique farm tools and equipment from a hundred years ago."
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| Everyone has their favorite apple variety. Ours' is McIntosh. |
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| Our eldest granddaughter is using an apple picker tool. It works very well, especially for the younger, smaller set. |
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| Our oldest grandson is getting tall enough to reach for the apples on higher branches. |
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| My oldest son and youngest son help each other out. |
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| Grandchild number three gathers the good apples at the bottom of the tree. |
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| Reach, Robbie, Reach! Robbie is our 2nd son. |
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| Our daughter-in-law carries our youngest grandchild, one-month-old Jamie. |
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| Members of my family roaming the apple orchard... |
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| My youngest granddaughter enjoys an apple right off the tree! |
Here in Michigan, visiting the cider mill in September and October is a strong tradition and ritual not seen in most other states. We enjoy going to a cider mill that doesn't have the thrills, frills, and chills that most others have. You know the kind I mean: over-commercialized with singing skeletons, mechanical hillbilly bear band, $10 per kid play area, $5 hot dogs...yeah, you know what I'm talking about. That's not the type I enjoy going to. We've been to that kind years ago and it was like seeing a McDonalds on a rural road - just took away from the country experience - so we don't plan on going back. They are way too crowded, way over-priced, and wa-a-ay over-commercialized for our taste.
But I am glad they are there for those who like 'em.
We would rather go to pick apples, drink cider, and eat doughnuts.
The basics.
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| Our grandkids playing on the hay bales. That's it for the play area---just the basics where kids use there own skills to entertain themselves. And they love it. |
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| My 2nd-to-youngest grandson stuck a haystalk in his mouth...makes me smile. |
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| My youngest granddaughter played in the dirt. Think she had fun? |
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| Almost my whole family. Only my daughter is not here. She could not make it this time. This is right up there as my favorite family event. I look forward to this all year. |
This whole apple-picking thing began with me through my own parents. I remember going apple picking with them when I was young. Then I brought my wife while we were still dating.
First comes love, then comes marriage, and then four babies in baby carriages!
But not all at once!
Then...grandkids. And now it's a family tradition, you know, that carries on.
Just a few weeks later...
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| Not long after apple picking day, we all went to Greenfield Village for their Hallowe'en extravaganza. The weather was warm and sunny - not typical for early October. Here are my three oldest grandkids waiting to enter the Village. |
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| And that includes the Headless Horseman from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. |
The next day, on Sunday October 5, Patty and I visited another cider mill/apple orchard. It was one we had never heard of, much less had been to before.
You see, Sunday October 12 was Pioneer Day at Waterloo Farm Museum (click HERE), which was only one week away and I needed to get heirloom apples for my heirloom apple display that I normally have there as part of my presentation.
Heirloom (aka "antique") apples are not easy to come by, but I found such an orchard in Manchester, Michigan called Alber Orchard. So Patty & I took the 90 minute drive out there and found it was a great place to visit, especially if one wants heirloom apples.
It was another fine autumn morning - a little too warm, however...but still very fall~
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| As we pulled in to park, I could tell this was going to be my kind of place. |
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| Manchester, Michigan is over an hour drive, so we hoped it was worth it. It turned out to be a fine autumn Sunday road trip. |
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| Though it is a U-pick/Pick your own apples kind of place, they also had quite a selection of already picked apples. Since we had already went apple picking a few weeks earlier with the family, we decided to grab a selection of a variety of the heriloom apples available to us. |
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| The hertloom varieties were in numerous crates, so we could walk up and bag our own selection. |
Patty loved it right away, for, aside from apples, they also had cider, jams, and syrups among other things she loved. She was as excited to be there every bit as much as me!
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| Rows of homemade jams. |
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| Rows of a variety of pure syrup. |
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| They had this pumpkin and squash vignette. |
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| Gotta have the pumpkins! |
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| Similar to our favorite orchard closer to our home (Ross's Stony Creek Orchard), Alber Orchard was also a no frills and chills. Oh, maybe slightly - very slightly - more commercial, but a wonderful place, of which we plan to return to (next year!). |
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| Overlooking the apple orchard. |
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| The family house was an old Victorian farm house. |
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| I thought this was very interesting, like right out of a book or an old country song: a little graveyard upon a hill. |
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| A meme I posted~~ |
And then the very next evening, October 6:
As I wrote on my Facebook page:
🎼Shine on, shine on harvest moon...up in the sky...
"yep--tonight is the Harvest Moon, so I naturally had to get a few pictures.
This is the moon that the farmers used to their benefit to work late into the nighttime harvesting crops. Before modern farming techniques, the harvest moon was an incredibly significant event. It allowed farmers to utilize the extra light that the full moon provided after sunset to extend their harvest for a few days. This made it possible to gather as many crops as they could before the cool (sometimes plant-killing) winds of autumn, and eventually, winter, would set in.
Note that the Harvest Moon is not always in the same month. It’s the full Moon that occurs nearest to the autumnal equinox. This means that the Harvest Moon can occur in September or October, depending on how the lunar cycle aligns with the Gregorian calendar.
My camera and phone only does so-so on these nighttime pictures."
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| This is how the Harvest Moon looked from my corn stalk covered porch. |
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| We had a clear night so my camera didn't do too bad. I tried to get the stalks in my shots. |
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| Except for this one, in which I used the trees. |
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| My front porch~ |
Let's now visit Terror on Tilllson Street in the Historic Village of Romeo, Michigan. What impresses me most about Romeo is that the Village itself has its own historical marker, for over 20% of the structures there were built before 1939 - that's quite a lot, especially for here in Michigan! I don't know...I've driven up and down many of Romeo's streets and I believe the percentage of old homes is much higher than 20%.
There's one street in particular that just may be the most well-known - Tillson Street.
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| Looks like arms and maybe legs coming up out of the ground...but it is tree roots that you see. |
According to Matt Ponke, "We are a dedicated group of homeowners that take Halloween to the next level, while providing a safe environment for children as well as an opportunity to give back to the community. During the month of October, its very common to find neighbors helping other neighbors with some paint touch ups on their tombstones, or hanging a ghost from a tree, or just spending time with each other on the front porch and enjoying the season. What's truly amazing about this street is that everything that we do for the community is 100% home-owner funded. Homeowners do not receive any funds from local government, grants, private businesses, or local organizations. We do not receive any tax credits, power bill forgiveness, or storage facilities."
The big question is...where do you store all the stuff?
~ "In every nook and cranny we can find in our homes, garages, basements, and barns! (even under the beds!)"
So here are a few pictures I took while strolling Tillson Street one afternoon about two weeks before Hallowe'en:
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| The grave of William ("Billy") Butcherson from one of my favorite Hallowe'en movies, Hocus Pocus. |
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| I see the graves of Thackery Binx and his younger sister, Emily, also from Hocus Pocus. My daughter named her black cat "Binx." |
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| As my wife and I roamed up and down Tillson Street, gawking at the Hallowe'en set ups, I also awe'd at the beautiful trees. |
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| Adam and Barbara Maitland, the recently deceased couple from Beetlejuice. |
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| This one gets an award for my personal favorite~ |
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| In the same yard as the Headless Horseman. |
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| Do you see "Ozzy"? |
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| The autumn leaves can make any neighborhood block look historic, though Romeo doesn't need much help in that category.. |
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| Creepy award! |
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All the leaves on the trees are falling To the sound of the breezes that blow |
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| Another creepy set up. I bet this looks great at night! |
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| Looking down Tillson Street 'neath the cover of October skies... |
We did not give out candy this year.
In 2024 we had zero trick or treaters. The year before that was a couple dozen, then the year before that we got one. No matter, for I like the month of October for what it is, which includes all of the autumnal activities, including Hallowe'en at Greenfield Village.
I very much enjoy immersing myself in history at Greenfield Village. I mean, there's little that can compete with autumn leaves surrounding historic homes. But the beauty of this season can make any town or city beautiful, aged, and maybe even somewhat rural...
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| A street a few blocks over from my own. |
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| I like the yellow against the blue sky. |
My street used to have twice as many trees as it does now - that was when we first moved into our current house over 30 years ago. And before that, I was told by an old-timer who has lived on our street since the 1950s, it used to be an umbrella street - you know, where there were trees on both sides which had branches large enough to cover the street pavement where little sunlight could break through, creating a sort of tunnel. But slowly trees were cut down for whatever reason.
However, my wife and I actually planted two trees, including the red maple in our back yard.
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| Sadly, I'm sure we won't live long enough to see it full grown, but it does give us much needed shade from the evening summer sun. |
One day my 81 year old home will be old...perhaps even considered a bit historic. Not because of anything I've done but on its age alone.
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| Since 2021 I've been decorating my porch in a fall fashion. |
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| Whereas most people decorate for Hallowe'en with spooky decorations, I prefer the fall flavor look. In this way I can put it up in mid-September and leave it up usually through Thanksgiving, which is a fall harvest festival in itself. |
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| In fact, with the yellow leaves of the birch tree we planted - yes, we planted two trees in our yard while many people are cutting their trees down - it goes well. Plus we have crunchy leaves 'neath our shoes as we walk to our driveway. |
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| All of our decorations are real: corn stalks (some with corn!), pumpkins (most we grew at the cabin kitchen garden), and a few gourds, some of which we also grew. Whatever we did not grow I purchased at a local farmer's market. |
Throughout all of this time, especially in October, I spent many hours visiting Greenfield Village. In fact, last week I wrote a blog post about harvest time and Hallwe'en there, and the week before that I posted another one about Autumn in Greenfield Village. But I've taken so many pictures that I actually have a few more here. I suppose it could fall in the "family" category, since it features my grandkids.
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| I now have been blessed with six grandchildren. Here are the four oldest: Addy, Liam, Eli, and Ben. We were on the horse-drawn fall tour. Of course I waited until the Daggett House was in the background before taking this shot. |
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| Looking at the horses out in the pasture. |
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| If you look close, here you see the horses looking at us as we move past. |
My grandkids very much enjoyed the ride. The two oldest boys seem to have an interest in history, to a varied extent. They're getting old enough now to understand better. And you know I'll teach them historical truth with facts and not an agenda.
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| Every year in October and November, Greenfield Village shuts its train ride down, aside for their Hallowe'en event. So, for those who spent the extra money for ride passes as part of their membership, well, they lose out, for that's one less ride to be enjoyed. Until this year. The Fall Colors Tour was a wonderful addition as a sort of replacement. I had taken a ride on it at minimum of a half-dozen times. It was simply peacefull and relaxing. |
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| This is one of my favorite pictures that I've taken of Henry Ford's replication of Independence Hall. Michigan and fall go mitten in hand! |
Then there's Cannoli Shell Day - an unofficial family holiday!
Now what the heck do cannoli shells have to do with autumn??
Well, family food history is a rich part of family heritage that can be preserved by sharing recipes, photos, and stories.
Yes, I am descended from English & Germans - a long and full bloodline there on my mother's side that I've traced back to the 1500s England. Sadly, that line did not play as much of an active role in our current 21st century family as I would have liked. But, I am also descended from Sicilians, and that bloodline has always been our strongest with the closest ties, personally and through food heritage. One of the foods...er...desserts that has always played a major part in my family history is the cannoli. Now, let's make sure it's said properly:
in English, the singular form is "a cannoli" and the plural form is "cannolis." However, some people with a good knowledge of Italian may use cannolo as the singular form. This is the way my Sicilian grandfather always said it, with the "c" sounding more like a "g" - - the way my grandpa would say it would be "gannola." Sometime after he died back in 1972, we all began to say "cannoli." Not sure why, but we sort of Anglo-sized it.
Eh - - whaddaya gonna do, eh?"
lol
Anyhow, our cannoli shell making day is a bonafide fall holiday in my family. It was in the fall when grandpa made 'em, and he brought it over from Sicily when he immigrated to America in 1912. It was in the fall when my dad and mom made 'em. Now the next generation is following suit. Ha! Even my grandkids are carrying it on, learning from their family elders! From great great grandparents, who were born in the 1890s, to great great grandkids, born in the 21st century! And great aunts and uncles join in~~
This early November day is the day when our family & extended family gathers together to make dozens upon dozens of cannoli shells - enough to last the Holiday Season.
It is now our very long-time family tradition, and in looking at the pictures herein you will see the 5th generation…all the way down to my grandfather’s great great grandchildren, all carrying on this family food history tradition!
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| My sister and my eldest son - passing the torch and working together to make cannoli shells. |
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| Cooking the shells. |
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| Got to boil them. |
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| The perfect shell! Not too thin and not too thick! That's my wife there. |
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| The youngest rolling out the dough. |
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| My granddaughter cutting out the size prefered. |
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| Brothers: My two oldest sons working together. |
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| My grandson doing his part. |
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| Over sixteen dozen shells! For family, for work, for a few friends, for the holidays from Thanksgiving through New Year's . |
When Patty and I first met and began dating all those years ago, there were very few, if any, family traditions she took part in with her family. She'd never been apple picking, for instance. Like most families, they did only the holidays that were "necessary" such as Hallowe'en, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter...you know...the big ones.
Then she met me.
I was really the odd one out as a teenager; most of my friends and co-workers really thought I was out of my mind, for I took each holiday and changing of the seasons to heart, just as I do today. But try doing that as a teen back in the 1970s and 1980s! And being a boy! Oh, I was laughed at, and spoken of behind my back.
Little did it matter to me. I've always been the kind of guy to do as I pleased and had lots of fun in doing so, while others were, ahem, embarrassed for me...thought I was off-kilter...immature...
Again - - no matter. That was just the way I was...still am.
And the kind of family I was brought up in.
Since we've been together - boyfriend and girlfriend...husband and wife - Patty enjoys all of this as much as I do.
And now it's all being passed through our own family: our children, and even our grandkids. All seem to enjoy these little traditions we carry on, from the corn roast to apple picking to celebrating autumn to cannoli shell making. The only tradition of ours missing this year is candle dipping...or is it...?
I suppose we kinda are pretty rural in practice and in spirit.
I have only God to thank for this. And I do.
Until next time, see you in time.
Other seasonal visits to Greenfield Village in 2025:
Spring:
Spring:
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