Category Archives: Ionia County

Monday Excitement

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I first heard of an “incident” on M-66 coming into Ionia.  There was a flurry of public safety messages flying through the air waves.  Those who were closer to the site, would have seen a column of thick black smoke and heard the sirens.

A large tractor was pulling a load of lime.  The operator noticed that there was a “mechanical malfunction” of some sort.  He pulled of the highway into a [mostly] empty parking lot.  As he got out of the cab, he saw the fire and got to safety.  Unfortunately he was a bit too close to the diner.  Here are images gleaned from the Web.

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Let’s hope that someone had good insurance.

My World ~ Garden Time in West Michigan

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The latter part of May is when we plant our garden here in Ionia County. We plant our vegetable garden on low ground. It is an area that stays damp through the heat of summer, but makes it vulnerable to frost at the beginning and end of the growing season.

So we gather our tools from the garage.

And from the barn.

Weeds don’t wait, so we remove them.

Then we till.

Put up fence and plant. (Landscaper’s cloth is an excellent mulch.)


Meanwhile across our lawn, the road and the nearest field, we see cows grazing contentedly. Next years steaks and burgers on the hoof.


Looking south, we see a corner of the barn, the garage and our house. Nice view from up there.

My World ~ Lake Odessa, Michigan

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The mailing address here is Lake Odessa, Michigan. Sylvia and I live 5 miles north of the village and a couple of miles west. The village is located on the north shore of Jordan Lake. The name of the village comes from Odessa Township, where it is located. “Lake” is added to recognize Tupper Lake and Jordan Lake. There is no body of water here called Lake Odessa.


The main street is called Fourth Avenue, and it is the heart of the business district. A decade ago, there were two rival pizza restaurants on Fourth Ave. And then the rivals fell in love and got married. He closed his shop and together they run Penny’s Pizza.


The busiest restaurant in town is located next to Penny’s. It is C&R’s Home Style Cafe. A great place to eat. Ask anyone from the Lake Odessa area. We’re sure to see someone we know when we stop here. It may be difficult to find a convenient place to park on Sunday, but you can probably find room at a table. Good food nice folks.


Just off of Fourth Ave on M-50 (state highway) is the oriental restaurant, Chee Peng. It is one of our favorite places to eat. That’s our car parked there last Sunday. We had spicy pork and chicken. Yummy! We go for that — big time!


Chee Peng serves Chinese and Thai cuisine. It can be difficult to choose an item from the menu. It is all good! I always go for something spicy. To make it more interesting, I sometimes have Chinese and sometimes I go for a hot Thai dish. Never a disappointment here.


Looking north up Fourth Ave. I took this shot through the windshield while we sat in front of Central United Methodist Church, which is located across from the Post Office. Notice the grain elevator on the left.


Atop the elevator you can see an array of antennas.


These antennas are of interest to me, because they belong to my ISP, Reliable Internet, LLC. By radio waves this is about 6 miles from our house. We connect into this site on a microwave link and from there we are connected at high speed to the Internet.

Next time I’ll show you some more of the Village of Lake Odessa. I hope to see you again.

My World ~ Ionia, County From the Air

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This week, I take you with me on a tour of southern Ionia County, Michigan.


It started on my birthday. Sylvia said, “Come with me. You are going for a ride. She drove me to the Ionia Airport and showed me the high-performance glider. In which I would be riding.


I was pumped! Up there with no engines — it would be a quiet ride, and one I wouldn’t forget. Soon I was sitting in the front and the pilot was belting in behind me.


The tow plane attached a cable to the front, and soon we were circling as we gained altitude. Before long we were crossing over I-96 and I took the shot above toward the west. The extra lanes in the foreground are for truck scales operated by the State of Michigan. The road intersection near the center is M-66, which bisects our county north to south.


We turned west and I took this shot of the Herbruck “Hennery,” an operation that produces more than a few dozen eggs each day. The gap in the buildings is where one of the units had burned just a couple of weeks earlier. This is located just south of I-96. M-66 can be seen near the bottom of the photo.


A few minutes later, the altimeter read 10,000 feet. I pulled the yellow knob as the pilot instructed. The tow cable broke free, and the tow plane dived for earth. We had the sky to ourselves. It was beautiful!

The shot above is of the City of Portland. We used to live there, just below the larger white building in the upper left.

After this, I became so thrilled with the sights that I forgot to take pictures for quite a while.


Finally, I realized that we were nearing our house. I took the above photo of our neighborhood. Our house and white barn are in the black circle in the lower left. Our church, which is a mile north of us in in the middle on the right side. Meghan and Curt of Beacon Bay Farm are around the corner from us. Their house and building are to the right of our house.


We flew just south of Ionia. The race track is on the grounds of the Ionia Free Fair. M-66 enters the picture in the lower right, goes north through town, takes a dog-leg to the west (left) and exits at the top. (The yellow circle near the top on the right side is a reflection of the cable-release knob that I had pulled earlier to free us from the tow plane.)


We are headed east as we come in for a landing on the grassy strip beside the runway. Don’t worry, it is nice and smooth. Hey! Lift your feet. That’s a truck in front of us on M-66.

I hope you enjoyed this brief tour of our beautiful rural neighborhood.