Adventures With Nancy: Dow Country (9/25/12)

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Dow Country (9/25/12)

We did so much today!

The is Dow (Of Dow Chemicals) country. On our morning walk around Vickie's Dad's property we also hiked over some of Dow land. We learned that brine was the start of it all. They mined brine from the underlying sea bed that makes up this land area and that started the manufacture of their chemicals.

It is obvious that Dow was and is a big part of Midland as the world headquarters is here. There is Dow Diamond, the baseball field, and the statue of Mr. Dow; there are places with "chemical" names like CaFe Zinc and H hotel; there is Chemical Bank; and there is this line up of monuments in the park.

Vickie's Dad worked at Dow for 35 years, and during that time he built the family house -- I mean he built the house -- in his "spare time", and was a hobbiest farmer/rancher with 12 head of cattle, a few farm animals like chickens and a horse, and wheat fields and apple orchards taking up only a part of his 60 acres. He didn't start out with 60 acres but with hard work and dedication, and encouraging support from his wife, he acquired his dream.

As mentioned, our morning began with a walk around the property. We followed the wooded path through the pines and other growth as we traced Vickie's childhood steps to some of her long remembered happy past. The Chippewa River runs right behind Dad's house, and this trail took us to another part of the river where there is a unique canoe/kayak dock, built to assist people with a disability to launch their boat. Hard to describe, and a photo does not do it but you can see the structure next to where Vickie is sitting. We stopped there for a breather and Vickie pointed put the beginning of her Dad's property down the river --- see where the trees sort of end and a field begins -- kind of hard to see in this photo, but that is his property (we are on Dow property which abutts his).