Tinker Swiss Cottage

We visited the Tinker Swiss Cottage in Rockford this summer. Robert Hall Tinker (1836-1924), a Rockford businessman and mayor (1875), built this Swiss-style "cottage" on a limestone bluff overlooking Kent Creek in Rockford in 1865 after an 1862 tour of Europe. Tinker's family were the only occupants of the house (75 years), and they left it to the Rockford Park District, of which Tinker was a founding member. It was opened to the public as a museum in 1943.

We went on a Saturday afternoon in June and got a guided tour of the house. Admission was $6/person. We took lots of photos, but here are some highlights. 


View of the house from the front



In the sunroom



A bench made of tree roots



Several pieces of furniture in the house were made from tree roots.





Dining Room

Most of the walls and ceilings are covered in wood panels (real wood, not veneer), with hand-painted or burned designs and mini-murals (you can see an example on the wall in the photo above and the hand-painted border near the ceiling in the photo below). There are also several pieces of art. Tinker was also an artist, so he did a lot of the artwork in the house.





Spiral staircase in the library

We really liked the library. It was kind of small and octagonal-shaped, with two stories of books and other artifacts. Jennifer's favorite part (besides the books, of course) was the spiral staircase.



Master Bedroom entry

There are also several other rooms and a basement, which includes a study, pantry, and laundry facility.



Wrap-around Porch



The porch goes almost all the way around the house. Our moms would love it.



Ed & Jennifer standing on the suspension bridge over Kent Creek

We crossed the suspension bridge over Kent Creek to take some photos from the back side of the house. There were also some flower gardens on the other side.



View from the back (limestone bluff and creek below house)





(Ed takes the best photos!)

Well, that was just a brief description of our visit. There's much more to see. So, whenever you're in town, if they're open and the weather's nice, maybe we can take you there.

Anderson Japanese Gardens

One afternoon while Alexis was in town, we went to Anderson Japanese Gardens in Rockford. The weather was really nice and our camera battery was fully charged, so we got some good photos.

We saw a cute little gosling. Its parents started hissing when we got close, but they were blocking the walkway, so we had to wait for them to get out of the way.

There were several koi (carp) in the ponds. We fed them, and the ducks saw what was going on and came over. It turned into a feeding frenzy!

  

Ed saw a chipmunk and we managed to corner it to get a picture:

There were several waterfalls and lots of flowers were in bloom:

Ed took all of the photos. He has some talent with our point-and-shoot camera! It was a nice way to spend an afternoon. We definitely plan to go again some time.

Midway Village Museum

Alexis (Jennifer's best friend since high school) came to visit about a month ago. The next few posts will be about some of the places we went while she was in town. First is Midway Village in Rockford. We went on the first day that it was open for the season. It was a little chilly outside, so we were inside various buildings most of the time (we didn't take many photos, because the camera battery was low).

We started in the museum center, where several exhibits include photos and artifacts about the culture and history of Rockford and northern Illinois.



Part of the sock monkey exhibit; Rockford is "Home of the Sock Monkey"

Just outside of the museum center, before entering the historical village, is a small museum of doll houses created by a Rockford woman who was inspired by her world travels. There are several doll houses with different themes (like 1950s, Victorian, Japanese, Scandinavian, etc.). It was actually pretty fun to see the level of detail and materials used to make them.


The Old Dolls' House Museum

Our tour guide (who was dressed in period garb) took us into nine of the historical buildings (several are reproductions) in the village area: the bank, the schoolhouse, the church, the general store, the hardware store, the blacksmith shop, the hospital, the police station, and the Ralston house.

It was pretty fun. We hope to see more of the village buildings next time we go.

Cheap produce!

One thing we love about where we live is that Valli Produce is just down the road. The produce section is about 1/3 the size of the store (the store is the size of a regular supermarket), and the prices are crazy cheap, compared to what we would've had to pay in the Carolinas. We know some people who actually drive from about an hour away to go there, it's so cheap. We're still trying to get used to being able to just eat fresh produce without waiting for a super sale and planning a special way to use it or preserve it.

They have a great variety (lots of international options, like guava, papaya, and cactus). They also have other grocery items (including imported items--German, Polish, Mexican, etc.), but the sweetest deals are the produce items. And you can get chocolate cheese (yes, chocolate cheese--we sampled it) from their deli, among tons of other items.

Just a small sample of the sale items we've picked up since we moved here:
8 kiwi for $1
20 limes for $1 (we just got 10 limes, so 50 cents)
avocados for 69 cents each
Campari tomatoes for $1
3 heads of Romaine lettuce for $1
cantaloupe for 99 cents each
8 zucchini for $1

And we haven't even been here for peak produce season yet.

Is it weird that whenever someone is visiting, we think Valli is a must-see?

Bits About Rockford

Yep, it's been almost all month since our last post. Oops! Anyway, I thought it would be a good idea to share some trivia about our new town/area.
 


Rockford skyline, bridge over Rock River

  Quick Facts

• Rockford was first settled around 1835 and was named after the ford across the Rock River (who'd of thunk?).
• The Rock River is a tributary of the Mississippi River, winds up into Wisconsin, and is about 285 miles long.
• Rockford is the third most populated city in Illinois, behind Chicago (of course) and Aurora (which is part of the Chicago-Metro area anyway). Population is a little over 150,000.
• Typical annual precipitation is 36.3 inches. The Rockford area is prone to violent thunderstorms from April to June (Yessssssss...I like thunderstorms. We did just move from an area that's perpetually in a drought!).
• The oldest surviving Harley-Davidson dealership is in Rockford (built in 1910 and still run by the same family that started it).
• There was a Navy frigate named USS Rockford.
• The Rockford Peaches were based here.

 


Rockford Peaches

 

• Rockford is nicknamed The Forest City because it used to be known for its elm trees. In the mid-1950s, Dutch elm disease pretty much wiped out the elm trees (plant disease shout-out!).
• Rockford has the top Japanese garden in North America, Anderson Japanese Gardens.
• Home of the Phantom Regiment Drum & Bugle Corps.
• There are also lots of parks and forest preserves in the area.
• Celebs: Hometown of Cheap Trick, Aidan Quinn, Michelle Williams (of Destiny's Child), and others of lesser fame.
• The sock monkey originated here and there is an annual sock monkey festival in Rockford.

 



Sock Monkey

So, that's some of the interesting information about Rockford. Maybe we'll be able to check out the gardens, parks, preserves, and historical sites when the weather warms up.

Snowmageddon?

You probably heard of and/or experienced the blizzard that just came through here. We've been amused by the hype; some have referred to it as "Snowmageddon", a "blizzaster", and the the local news channel called it the "Blizzard of '11" before it ever even hit. How do they know another blizzard won't hit in the year 2011? What if one does? Then what are they going to call it? "Snowpocalypse"? "The snow to end all snows"? "The Abominable Snowstorm"?

Anyway, we took some shots of our share of snow. The winds were pretty rough and moved it around a lot, so no one seems sure how many inches we actually got (and whatever we got in the blizzard is sitting on top of the few inches that have pretty much been on the ground since December). Here's the trench Ed shoveled out in our front walkway:

And a shot of our front yard area after the driveway area between the white car and the Jeep was plowed (taken from an upstairs window):

The wind blew snow into the back screen door, too:

And guess where it ended up? In between the back door and the screen door.

Here's a shot of our backyard. As you can't see, our two compost bins were completely covered.

Ed got the day off from work (yay!), so he went out and put a yard stick in the snow in the middle and got a reading of about 16 inches.

And to the right, where a lot of the windblown snow ended up, a reading of about 21 inches.

Finally, here's a shot of our backyard and beyond from an upstairs bedroom. You can see the parking lot past the cute little trees.

So, that was the result of the formidable "Blizzard of '11" in our neck of the woods. The one disadvantage to my working remotely is that I still have to work on a snow day. Oh well. Ed got to game, so he still got to have fun even though I had to work.