Walls Going Up in Oaks

Walls are going up in Oaks, PA at the intersection of Egypt and Black Rock Roads.

Block laying started here between Black Rock Road and US 422. 




This retaining wall was first to be built. It runs parallel with both US 422 and Egypt Road.

This bricklaying scaffold is in place, inside the walls of the future restaurant. The building is taking shape.

Rebar is set with safety caps atop to keep the workers from loosing an eye or being impaled in a fall.

Some blocks begin to frame a door way, others stacked waiting for the call.

Others lay broken, half used, cast off. Sacrificed to the greater whole.

Whole pizzas can't be far behind.

©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved

Valley Forge Survey - Kennedy Supplee Mansion

I actually started my survey of Valley Forge National Historical Park with the Kennedy-Supplee Mansion. I see this building every time I travel west on US-422 after passing through King of Prussia. I admire the architecture of this mansion that was built in 1855 by Alexander Kennedy, owner of a limestone mine in Port Kennedy, that existed in what is the park today.

Port Kennedy was a thriving industrial village in 1954, built around the limestone mine and the production of lime.

The mansion and First Presbyterian Church of Port Kennedy, are all that remain of the village of Port Kennedy, that today is cut in half by US-422.

In 1978, the National Park Service acquired the mansion through eminent domain. In 1986, the mansion was leased by the National Park Service to Kennedy Supplee Associates LP for fifty-five years. The KSA, LP restored the building and operated it as the Kennedy-Supplee Mansion Restaurant. The private company entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2005. The mansion is now vacant. The grounds are becoming overgrown and the building is showing signs of disrepair.

 Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, HABS [or HAER or HALS], HABS PA,46-POKEN,1--2

In 1959, the National Park Service sponsored a survey of the building by the Washington Office of the Historic American Building Survey. Above is one of the photographs from that survey.

Philadelphia Business Journal by Natalie Kostelni, Staff Writer

Date: Monday, May 29, 2006, 12:00am EDT

In 2005, the Philadelphia Business Journal did a story about the closing of the Kennedy-Supplee Mansion Restaurant in which was included the above photograph. Quite a bit of change can be seen from 1959 to 2005. 

In just seven years, since the closing of the restaurant, nature is taking over.

The details of the ironwork are still in good condition on the exterior of the building.

As appears the interior plaster work. This image was captured by placing the lens directly on the pane of window glass from outdoors because the building is justifiably closed to the public.

The trees are beginning to grow and cover the sign painted on the side of the building visible from US-422. I fear the mansion will be forgotten except by vandals and the occasional photographer. I hope that with the addition of the Valley Forge Casino and Resort within walking distance of the mansion, it will soon be put back to use.

©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved

Changing Billboards Was My Life

From Jan '72 thru Jun '06 I worked in the construction department of an outdoor advertising company. When I started the name of the company was Rollins Outdoor Advertising. The company was purchased several times while I was there and the name changed to Reagan Outdoor, Revere, Universal, Eller and when I left, Clear Channel. My main function was to change billboards while earning a living.

In the days prior to my employment, all the billboards were stationary. The faces were either painted or posted on location. On average, painters would take a week or more if weather didn't cooperate, to change a face. Posters could be changed faster than paint but still a day or so. 

By the time I arrived on the scene the industry created a billboard face that could be rotated throughout a media market. This allowed one sign face to travel throughout a market faster than repainting or reposting. The use of rotary faces also allowed them to be painted or posted indoors, eliminating the weather situation.

The majority of signs I changed were 14'(4.25m) x 48'(14.5m). Each sign face consisted of 12 - 4'(1.25m) x 14'(4.25m) sections. Each section was constructed of a 2"(50mm) x 2"(50mm) frame with a 5/16"(9.5mm) plywood surface. Each new panel weighed approximately 70lbs(31.75kg). As each panel accumulated coats of paint or paper, it grew in weight. On a rainy day when we were indoors repairing sections, we weighed one apparently heavy section. It weighed in at 120lbs(55.5kg).

To change a rotary, three men removed and replaced 12 panels per billboard structure. We usually changed ten faces per day. That meant we lifted 240 panels per day, for a total lifted weight of between16,800lbs(7.620kg) to 28,800lbs(13,063kg) per day. Not to mention the added difficulty wind presents to the strength thing.

View from the top of  the board looking down at the two platform men and the crane operator lifting a small crate. This board was posted not painted.  You can see peeling paper in the foreground. On the platform is "Bergy" his son, Scotty and running the crane is Sickie. Photograph from the mid-late 1970s.

The sections were raised to the platform by an extension crane in crates.  There was a small crate that had places for 6 sections and a large crate with places for 8 sections. Twelve sections made up one face. In order to change the face, first the crate with two empty slots would be placed on the platform opposite the first section to be removed. Two sections of the old face would be removed and slid into the two empty slots in the crate. Then the end section of the new face would be taken out of the crate and lifted onto the angle iron rails and slid to the end of the rails. Continuing with the third old face section the process would continue old/new, old/new until all the new sections were hung. In the middle of the process the crates would be changed, taking down the the part of the old face and bringing up the remainder of the new face. Once the new face was hung a batten board was nailed across the back of the sections to keep the face from blowing off the rails in high winds.

Stash on the platform at Kissling's Sauerkraut along I-95 with N. Phila. in the background. Photographed between 1972 and 1976. Stash died from injuries related a three story fall in 1977. He was 25 yrs old.

There wasn't much safety when I started.  As you can see there was only one horizontal rail. At least one worker fell between the platform and that rail.

The guard rails, in the photographs above, were installed after I began my employment in the early '70s. The guardrails were constructed of 2"(50mm) x 2"(50mm) x 1/4"(6mm) angle iron. Each platform was 48'(14.5m) long and the guardrail was the same. Add in the weight of 6 - 36"(.9m) uprights, two 1' splices and 14 - 1/2"(50mm) x 1-1/4"(32mm) bolts with nuts. It was heavy. It folded down so, at night, it wouldn't cast a shadow from the lights onto the face of the sign. Lifting the guard rail was a chore in itself.

It wasn't only the company name that changed, over the years. The industry went from heavy panels to relatively light one piece sheets of computer printed vinyl.  The heavy lifting was more or less eliminated but the pace increased.

After over 34 years I walked away from the industry. I had enough. Today and everyday my body feels the consequences of changing signs to earn a living. At least I walked away.

©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved

Square Foot Garden Plot Prep

I planned to plant my first seeds into my square foot garden on St. Patrick's Day.  That day came and went and no seeds were planted.  There was still plenty of work to do on the plot.


At the end of last growing season I covered the plot with shredded tree leaves that fell on the lawn in the front of my house. Most of the leaves were from Ash, Norway Maple and Copper Beech trees.  I reversed my leaf blower to suck the leaves through the blower where they were shredded and deposited into a 40 gallon/151 liter trash can.  I then carried the leaves to my backyard and dumped them onto my square foot plot.

This is the square foot plot covered with shredded tree leaves on 14 March 2012

I placed an old tarp on the concrete patio surface to keep from staining the concrete.  I then shoveled the shredded leaves onto the tarp.  You can see the depressed soil in the plot.

There were approximately 1.75 cu yds/254.85 liters of leaves piled upon the plot in late Oct 2011

I used two different shovels for this project.  A pointed spade and a square mouthed shovel.  Both have long handles.  I don't like the shorter D handled shovels.  My back pleads with me not to use them.

The pointed spade is used when digging into a pile or into the soil.  The pointed end cuts better than the square end.  The square mouthed shovel is used on smooth hard surfaces, like the concrete of the patio or for straightening/smoothing the walls of a hole.

As you can see the shredder didn't do the best job of turning the leaves into small pieces.  My leaf blower/leaf shredder is over 10 years old and the plastic blade is most likely dull.  These clumps of leaves must be broken up.  The leaves will not break down if they are left in clumps.

I loosened the soil in the plot.  Using the pointed spade, the soil remained in clumps held together with roots from last years plants.  Break up these soil clumps, too.  It is not necessary to remove the roots.

I placed a few shovels full of leaves on an empty part of the tarp.

I then placed a layer of plot soil atop the pile of leaves.  I continued to layer the two components until I had a lasagna-like pile on the tarp.  I mixed the pile until it was as homogeneous as possible.  Making sure the leaves are coated with the clay or sand and no clumps of any kind remain.  I then shoveled that pile into the square foot plot.

  I keep making lasagna piles until I had enough soil to raise the bed about 1'/30 cm above the lawn part of my yard.  If you can call that green surface a lawn.  I then soaked the soil until it was really, really damp.  The fact that the bed is raised, compared to the bed last year, means I won't have the drainage problem I had last May when the rains came for days on end and I lost quite a few of my plants.

To compare the soil structure with my last soil test, I filled the same container 1/3 full of the new soil mix.

  I then filled the container with water, leaving about 1"/ 2.5 cm air at the top in order to help mixing the soil and water into a suspension.

As you can see from these two side by side containers, there is much more organic matter in the container on the right.

I found this little guy in my first shovelful of soil from the square foot plot.  Earth worms will eat the organic matter added to the soil leaving behind nutrients more readily available to the plants.  They also aerate as they borrow thorough the soil leaving channels for water flow.

An interesting fact about earthworms is that there were no earthworms in the Americas until the voyages to the new world with and after Columbus.  The earthworms hitchhiked from Europe in the earth loaded into the ships as ballast which was later unloaded onto the soil in the Americas.

You can hear about that in the book 1493, Columbus Shaped The World To Be, Charles C. Mann

©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved

Easy Soil Structure Test

Last year I hurriedly constructed a square foot garden.  I dug down 2' / 31cm into my "lawn".  The details can be found here on my original post.  This year I am testing the structure of the soil.  I know it wasn't as good as need be.

I found an empty jar with a lid in the recycling bin.

Out to the garden

Loosen the soil and break up the big clods

Fill about 1/3 of the jar with soil

Add water, leaving about 1" / 25mm of air at the top.

Tightly screw on the top.

Shake the jar until all the soil is in suspension.

Then shake it a little more, just to be sure.

What you will have should look like this.

You can see the heavy grains of sand immediately separated out of the suspension after the shaking stopped.

Now let the suspension settle overnight.

Close to 16 hours later, this is what I have.

What are do you see?

The sand that settled to the bottom is there on the right.

Clay, that is the major component of my soil has settled on the left.

What little organic matter in my soil is floating on the top.

The results of this test tell me that my soil is nearly 50/50 sand/clay particles.  I lack organic material.

Get out and test your soil.  Let me know what you find.

Links

Organic Gardening - 10 Soil Tests

University of MN - Soil Scientist

University of MO - Improving Soils

©Damyon T. Verbo - all rights reserved