The Local Loop
In each episode, Trevor and Dion bring their real-world experience, community connections, and humor to conversations about what matters most to residents. This isn’t your average community bulletin. It’s real talk about what’s going on around town, how to get involved, and why the little things happening locally matter more than you think. Whether you’re looking to plug in, give back, or just stay in the loop, this is the podcast for you.
The Local Loop
Founders Fest, Box Moths, and Houses You Cannot Afford
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Affordability isn't coming to the Farmington housing market anytime soon, according to real estate expert Trevor, who reveals why "the days of the $150,000 house are over." Our conversation explores the complex factors driving up housing costs in our community – from high interest rates and limited inventory to the psychological price barriers that influence buyers' decisions. Even with recent market shifts, houses priced competitively continue to move quickly while others sit, reflecting a nuanced reality for both buyers and sellers in our area.
Meanwhile, an unexpected threat has emerged in local gardens: invasive box tree moths are decimating ornamental boxwoods throughout Farmington and Farmington Hills. We break down exactly what these pests are, why they're so devastating (native predators don't recognize them as food!), and practical solutions homeowners can implement to save their landscaping. The City of Farmington recently issued disposal guidelines, highlighting the community-wide concern about this spreading infestation.
Taking a journey back through time, we uncover Farmington's fascinating origins as "Quaker Town" in 1824 and trace its development along what was originally Native American trails that became Grand River Avenue. Perhaps most surprising was Michigan's 30-year experiment with wooden plank roads in the mid-1800s, complete with toll booths right in downtown Farmington. These historical insights provide context for the Founders Festival celebrations happening throughout the city.
Whether you're a potential homebuyer, a gardener battling boxwood pests, or simply curious about the rich history beneath our feet, this episode connects the threads of Farmington's past and present. Looking to engage with the community? Don't miss the upcoming cornhole tournament on July 25th hosted by the Greater Farmington Area Chamber's Young Professionals group!
Episode Introduction and Sponsor
Speaker 1Boy, do we have an episode for you guys today and, as always, we want to thank our sponsor, mitchell Logic Media. They're the ones that actually put the show on for us. So if you guys are interested in any social media posting video production, photography, social media marketing those are absolutely the guys you want to reach out to.
Speaker 2They're so good at telling stories.
Speaker 1Best, oh, they do so well for us. So if you guys think that ours looks stories best, oh, they do so well for us. Uh, so if you guys think that ours looks as good as we do, um, reach out. You can get to them at mitchell logic mediacom. They are local here to the area. Um, as we've always state, they're actually out of cares of farmington, which, if you listen to the last episode, you would know that. Um, but enjoy the episode. It's a great one and we'll talk to you guys soon. It's been a minute since our last episode, excited to get back yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1Yeah, me too our last episode was awesome it was a great episode.
Speaker 2It was so good we had to take a month hiatus to recover yeah, summertime man, summer's busy, it is a lot going on. A lot going on personally, a lot going on in the city, a lot going on in, uh, the state too. I mean you're, you're traveling all over all over.
Speaker 1Yeah, going up north quite a bit. Yeah, I go where the houses sell, that's that's kind of that's.
Speaker 2That's business. You gotta go where the business is that's true? So, uh, yeah, so our last episode, we, uh, we interviewed Todd Lippa from cares of Farmington Hills, where we're currently at Thank you again for hosting us, cares and we're in the Colette's place building and, uh, at the Mitchell logic studios.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's. Uh, that was a crazy episode, just because it's like I knew how it would go, because I know Todd so well. But just to like talk about it and then like talk about our journey because I've known him for so long, it was just it's crazy. It realizes a how fast time goes. But just all that, all that's been accomplished definitely not all by me, but just by Todd and CARES and talking about my mom and being in middle school, and it's just like, oh, it's like breaking open the yearbook, oh man.
Speaker 2And actually for me it was cool because I did not know Todd. I mean, we've spoken and met quite a few times now, but I learned quite a bit as well from that. You know quite a few times now but, um, I learned quite a bit as well from that.
Speaker 2Um and uh definitely was really impactful for me and helped inspire me to kind of want to do more yeah around here too, and I hope I hope it did for others too, because they have a really incredible thing going on here and they're gonna, uh, continue to need more help, um help, over the next couple months, especially so I'm pumped for the duck race. I saw that they're taking volunteer applications. I'm considering signing up for something to help out with that too, just because I want it to go very successfully.
Speaker 1I always end up in the river. No matter what, you're always collecting ducks at the end of the race.
Speaker 2I should help collect ducks and bring the dog and like, let her try to collect some ducks too, or something that'd be funny. I'm trying to fall in the river how deep is it?
Speaker 1I've been in it a couple times me like not knee high, even I would say like almost a knee okay but it's slippery but slippery. It's rocky, so I'll expose my mom real quick. She fell last year oh, and she's like the marshall for it too, she is yeah and uh, I don't know if marshall's the right term, um, but she tends to have that presence.
Speaker 2For, however, she goes mc kind of thing um master of ceremonies, something like that yeah and uh.
Speaker 1So she fell in the water, but she did it so graciously. Of course she did because, like you, don't want to go on your knees because you fall on a rock. Yeah busted yeah, you make the situation way worse. She fell, just like put her hands up and just like smacked the water and uh, I was like I don't know how, I don't know how, because I would just like put my hands up, put my knees down yeah, yeah, yeah, she did it so well.
Catching Up After Summer Hiatus
Speaker 1But yeah, it's the, the algae or whatever grows that makes it slippery. Yeah, scum algae. I was looking at you, that's kind of your category. Yeah, a little bit um, let's get into it, let's get into it, we got some exciting stuff to talk about.
Speaker 2Um, we, we did kind of talk about this before, but um, let's talk about the housing market again yeah in the city? Um, because, like not to get too personal about myself, but I'm living in the city and I'm always looking to move from our starter home into something else. And, uh, been looking at some houses in the area and trevor, you've actually helped, helped me look at some of these places um, so why don't we just jump into it and talk about the market here?
Speaker 1so I think it's it's hard to really talk about all of it, but I think we'll talk about the most important part, and which everyone wants to know about, uh, which is the prices yeah, the price bottom line. Yeah, it's expensive, like buying a house in 2025. Honestly, no matter where you're at, it seems like it doesn't make sense. Yeah, like, why is it so much money? Nothing's affordable. It's because it's not yep um and like.
Speaker 2Interest rates are high and typically when that happens, housing prices go down because there's less people looking for houses, because it's more expensive to start a mortgage.
Speaker 1Right, I think right now interest rates we say are high, high in comparison to like the low twos the last 10 years that we've had yeah, I mean high historically is like 18%, which they've seen back in the 80s, which they've seen back in the 80s.
Speaker 1but uh, right now I think what we're feeling is actually a shift in the market, um, as of the last month or two, I think, with what's happening throughout the us things with tariffs, just a lot of uncertainty right now, um, politically. Um, in the us people are a little cost conscious, um, because with mortgage rates where they're at and the price is like it's hard to get into a house under two thousand dollars a month right now for sure that's like a starter farmington and farmington hills.
Speaker 2You can't. I mean, if you can find a starter home for two thousand a month, that's like you should jump on it right and um.
Speaker 1There's a lot of factors into that right. It's not just price and interest rate, it's taxes and insurance. Like where you live can play a different factor with your insurance, like it's more expensive if you live in detroit. It's cheaper for a house, more expensive for insurance, higher taxes yeah, higher taxes in the farmington and uh, farm to house. Which is really funny I don't think people realize is that farmington's tax rate. It's actually pretty high. I think the millage uh is higher than birmingham's millage is it?
Speaker 2really, it's just their value yeah, our taxable values are lower so much lower yeah, um, I actually didn't know. Our millage was higher than birmingham. That's pretty crazy.
Speaker 1It is crazy and but we have really great services. For sure, they come and pick up our leaves. They do a leaf collection. Well, that's Farmington, I know.
Speaker 2I'm sorry.
Speaker 1I'm rubbing it in. I don't pick up my leaves, though.
Speaker 2My yard's natural, we leave the leaves, so it's fine. And I wish everyone would.
Speaker 1It's not a surprise. But in a tighter city where you don't have bigger lots like it makes sense to have a leaf collection and uh, but overall, uh, I think the prices are never gonna really come down. We're not gonna see something. I think a lot of people are like, oh, we're gonna, uh, I'm waiting for the bust waiting for the bottom to fall out.
Speaker 2The days of like 150 000 house are over, is what you're saying yeah, and I think there's there's situations where um you turn key, turn key you can find 150 000 house anywhere.
Speaker 1It's just the the condition. 150 000 house in detroit could be nice. It's a nice house, right, a nice little ranch.
Speaker 2150 000 house in farmington uh, not really gonna happen a bungalow that needs a ton of work yes and they're so far and few between yeah and they go quick because people know that they can right buy them and flip them, or buy them and update them or do whatever, and we just sold um a ranch in the bel-air neighborhood, which for people that don't know their neighborhood names.
Speaker 1That's 13 mile in between um power and orchard lake and that sold for 352. So how yeah?
Speaker 2in bel air 352.
Speaker 1That's crazy, that's crazy, that's crazy but that's just where we're going and I mean it. Just that's how real estate works and that's why the conversation is so easy. For people that are hesitant about and they want to wait to purchase a home is that it's never going to be easier. It's always the. The way, um, your like value on real estate works is that over time, it's always appreciating. Yeah, it's one of like. To me it's like one of the eighth wonders of the world, but not really. But just because it's like it's, so it's, it's typically fail-proof to invest in real estate.
Speaker 2Yeah, and especially if you're doing it Well, and the main reason and I think the main reason why that is is because you're investing in it over a long period of time. Yeah, so if you take it and look at a short period of time, like, yes, your home values go up and down over the course of a year, five years, 10 years, but when you get a typical mortgage, you're like doing it for 30 years, right, and over the course of 30 years, trends are that prices go up, no matter what yeah, and like area improvements, like farmington's seeing so many improvements and I think just people wanting to move here, uh that why is exponentially growing?
Speaker 1um, and I think we're seeing a lot of new people in the city too, definitely. Just yeah, I mean my mom was at founders fest last night, uh for the beer tent, and she was like it's crazy, like she usually can't get away from people she knows right yeah yeah, um, but she was like I only knew four people. She's like I know there's so many new faces which is cool.
Speaker 1I love that but what I don't love is the ability for people to not afford to live in Farmington. I think there should be a place for everybody, and I think there still is, because there's a condos that you can get into for between $100,000 and $120,000. But it's limited. It is it's limited, it is.
Speaker 2It's very limited and the city I know I know Farmington Hills and Farmington they're both doing things to try to encourage development of not just single family homes but multi-unit and not just, you know, saying, hey, we need to do this, but they're actually changing like zoning laws, and when they reworked the city's master plan in Farmington Hills, they created a new category of zoning for like a special district essentially, for I want to say, like the 12 mile corridor, um, where all those office buildings are. They, they are going to approve like multi-unit mixed use development in that area so it can be, uh, refreshed and updated and and add more housing to the, the stock of housing in the area, um, and that's really, I think, like so people can get access to the city. That's, yeah, that's going to be how you make it more affordable and and not necessarily reduce prices, but keep it stable and and keep it from getting out of control where, okay, well, now no one new can come in right the.
Speaker 2The way that you you decrease prices or make it more affordable is you increase the supply. Um, and that's like the pretty much the only way that that you can really decrease the price is by increasing supply. That's like the pretty much the only way that it that you can really decrease the prices by increasing supply.
Speaker 1That's it, and a lot of times it's even hard to do it that way because a demand it's very easy to for demand to outweigh supply. Yes, and that's what they would call a seller's market. Yep, because there's more buyers than there are sellers. People want to come here, right and right now. Just to circle back around to the shift that we've felt is that you're starting to see houses that if they're not priced right, like they're not being priced competitively, they sit. And that just I think this is because of, uh, people's mindsets in the times. Yep, I don't think people are like running out of money.
Farmington Housing Market Realities
Speaker 1Um, it's uncertainty there is like I think there's a little the speculative part of my brain that thinks about like the black rocks of the world and like high interest credit, and because I mean it's easy even for people with really bad credit to go out and get a line of credit right now, yeah, um, with probably a 20 interest rate, like a credit card. That's why, um, I mean there's, there's you, you can get a loan for a house right now and on a bank statement. A bank statement loans that's wild. Now that's gonna be like 11 interest rate on your house, right which is a?
Speaker 2it's a lot. That's high, that's high. That's gonna be like 11 interest rate on your house, right, which is a it's a lot. That's high, that's high.
Speaker 1That's way higher like average, and so that brings up the argument of could we see something like 08, but in a different way? I don't think so, because that was so.
Speaker 2That was like the whole system was broken yeah, I mean you had lack of oversight, tons of subprime lending and I know that, like. So there's that. And I also know that in the last couple years we allowed for like uh like one percent down mortgages as well yeah, which kind of seems almost subprimey, and like uh like conventional one percent downs. I think like the big mortgage companies were offering stuff like that there's zero down loans see, that's wild to me. Yeah, because that monthly payment has to be so high it does yeah, and it is like, how do people afford that?
Speaker 2they make it work. Yeah, I know, like and that's the other. So because, and and so to give listeners an idea of, like, where houses are sitting, like let's say some of our listeners are wanting to sell their house and they live in Farmington Hills. What is a competitive price and what is something that you see is not moving? Is there a threshold where it's like?
Speaker 1if it's over this price it doesn't move. Yeah, I would say there's a couple different price brackets. We'll call it. You're going to have obviously your $100,000 and under You're going to have your 150 000, like 100 to 150 000 is a weird area because it's like its own thing. Then you have your 100 and I would say 50, 175 to like three, 300. Yeah, 300 is a huge price barrier.
Speaker 2I would say is it really like mentally for people Right?
Speaker 1And people if they're like 300, and they might go just above 300, but they want to stay under 300. Yeah, and then you're going to have your 300 to 450, 500. Yeah, and then everything over 500, like I would say 500 to 700.
Speaker 2And then those, I imagine, aren't moving that quick.
Speaker 1I would say they're moving faster out the million dollar plus houses okay, interesting are, are the ones, the ones that you really have to price right, because they will absolutely sit yeah, just and that has a limited pool of buyers right anyway, yes,
Speaker 1and so that makes sense it's harder to run comps on those because it's limited sales yeah so you really have to be an expert and have a motivated seller. Yeah, because everybody thinks their stuff is worth a lot, of course, like they have just got, you want to get the most for what you have. Yeah, and it's natural. I think it's just human nature, um, but we also have to live in reality, of course.
Speaker 2Um, and it's it can be hard as a agent what piece of advice would you give to to someone looking to move into farmington hills right now, or farmington farmington hills right now?
Speaker 1call me no. I think the biggest piece of advice is um, you know, know, know what you, what you want to buy. Yeah, obviously I mean be an educated buyer.
Speaker 1Be an educated buyer. Rule number one but know that there's options and look into all of them. If Farmington's what you want, it's okay to start in a condo and go into a house. I think that don't come from scarcity, come from abundance. Always in anything in life, not just with your housing goals. But if you really want to get to Farmington, there's a way to get to Farmington. There's rentals, yeah, I mean there's rentals and condo rentals, like apartments, and that's one thing that they're pushing. And there's a couple developments that are in the works in Farmington Farmington Hills that are going to be affordable rentals for people.
Speaker 1But just know that don't take it by too big of a chunk. Just because you can get it doesn't mean you should, um, I think that people forget that. When they're looking for a house uh, because the romance period with a relationship is very similar to a house, you're gonna love it the most, right, when you buy it, yeah, it's only to go down, yeah, and so just keep that in mind. When you're looking at houses or condos uh, that, um, and it's weird hearing from the agent to be conservative, but you should, yeah, uh, just because I never. I never like to see people get into situations, uh, where they get something they don't want in the long run, or they felt pressure to get it right. Yeah, yeah and then.
Speaker 2So in my experience too, and just looking at houses and not a professional in the industry, I would say be ready to move quickly. Yeah, move quick, like don't, don't like if you're planning on moving to the area. Like be ready to move quickly because like stuff if it's priced at the right bracket, if you're in that like 300 to 600 range, like it moves quick.
Speaker 1Like depending on the house. It goes quick. There's little things like. The biggest thing that I noticed that people don't think about is the smell of a home. The smell of a home yes, like really, yeah, I was not expecting, like and I think the easy thing to point out is like people with pets, like if you're selling your house and you have pets, like do everything you can to make the house smell good, and that might be painting some walls right, the senses are strong.
Speaker 2The senses are strong. I'm telling you.
Speaker 1That's a that's a great piece of advice it is because it's no one thinks about it, but I think single-handedly has the biggest factor besides appearance Is that because you've walked into some smelly houses Happened yesterday and you're like I can't buy this house, I can't offer this house to my client. The house that we put an offering on smells good. That's good, it does.
Speaker 2I'm telling you it smells good. Good that's good it does. I'm telling you that's good, so good smelling houses. Move quick, be an educated buyer yes thank you for wrapping that up now. It feels weird.
Speaker 1No, I mean that's good advice, but uh, but yeah, it can be stressful to to buy and sell, especially when you're contingent on selling to buy, um. But that's why, honestly, that's why we do so well in our business is because we have a really good strategy and procedure in place to get that done for people where they don't have to write contingent. So that's huge. That's a whole separate conversation.
Speaker 2That's huge because I want to get in to the next topic well, yeah, so if you are a resident of farmington, farmington hills, and you have a house here that you need to maintain, um, I thought it was really funny. And have we talked about this on the podcast? Like I don't think, have we?
Speaker 2talked about tree moths, okay so like obviously I do pest control and like box tree moths have been a big portion of my life this year because it is a new problem to this area wait box tree moths I never heard that.
Speaker 1Were they called something else? Uh?
Speaker 2no, I don't think so. Oh, okay, b, okay BTMs box tree moths. Btms. Some people call them boxwoods or boxwood moths but a box tree.
Speaker 2There's like 81 different species of box trees and they're ornamental trees. You guys have seen them. You might even have them in your yards. It's kind of like the hot piece of landscaping over the last 10 years. Kind of like the hot piece of landscaping over the last 10 years. Everyone's been ripping out their like pine and like yew bushes and switching to to box trees, box woods, those kind of things. And they're not a native species, they're, they're from asia and they're pretty hardy, they're easy to trim. You can, like you know, trim them into funny shapes or swirlies or orbs or whatever. So people really like them for ornamental landscaping. But the problem with that is, uh, there there's a pest, an invasive species called box tree moths that um were introduced into the country, I want to say about 15 years ago, uh, but they first appeared in michigan and I want to say it was like eight to ten years ago and it was like weirdly, like in up here, like it wasn't at the border.
Speaker 2It was really random, but it was from importing these box trees from Asia. They were importing them with eggs, cocoons, caterpillars, moths in the plants themselves, and then of course moths fly around. They can fly, I want to say like two to three miles a day, uh, and so that's how quickly that they can spread. They can spread in a day, you know, three miles, so in in a week you could infest all of Farmington Hills and Farmington. And so, um, last year, last fall, was the first sight sighting of box tree moth caterpillars in Oakland County and it was some random city like a little township in the north Oakland County and it was one, and it was like a resident reported it and they're like, oh, I wonder what that means. And so this spring we started to notice. And so this spring we started to notice, and this was like late March, early April that so like West Bloomfield, maple Road, 15 mile, pretty much the whole corridor, all my clients, we were seeing that every single one of their boxwoods or box trees were infested. And what makes this bad is they do something called like defoliating, so they eat all of the leaves off of all of the boxwood shrubs. And leaves are really important. They. That's how plants produce their food. They don't have leaves, they can't photosynthesize, they can't get sunlight and they can't make nutrients for themselves, so they die and so it kills people's boxwoods when they have these infestations.
Speaker 2Um, the good news is is there are ways to treat for them. It's, it's fairly easy, uh, but it will require ongoing maintenance because these box tree moths are not going to go away. Uh, there's, they're invasive, so they're not from here. No native species really knows what to do with these box tree moths. Like, typically, birds, other insects, some, like mammals, will eat insects, but when it comes to invasive species, the fauna here, like the living things here, don't like, they're not familiar with it, so they don't interact with it. So that means that, like, birds aren't going to eat the caterpillars of box tree moths because they don't like, they're not familiar with it, so they don't interact with it. So that means that, like, birds aren't gonna eat the caterpillars of box tree moss because they don't know they're poisonous. They don't know, like, what these things are, so they're just like.
Speaker 2I'm not gonna mess with that, seriously, yeah so like same thing with like um, like an invasive plant, like buckthorn, which, like, if you look around farmington, farmington hills, like any tree line, it's filled with this plant called the buckthorn. They have berries, they're like round leaves and they pretty much like cover, like any any property line where people want privacy. It's all invasive boxwood or I'm sorry buckthorn, buckthorn.
Speaker 2And so if you look at like the berries, nothing. Eats the berries like birds? No, they're poisonous. Like they're, it's. It's another invasive plant. They're poisonous nothing. And so if you look at like the berries, nothing eats the berries.
Speaker 1Can we eat the berries? No, they're poisonous.
Speaker 2Like it's another invasive plant. They're poisonous, nothing eats them, and so, because nothing eats them, berries are seeds, and so anytime these plants fruit and create berries, they just fall down and then the seeds take over and they get rid of all the native plants. And so same thing with the box tree moths Nothing interacts with them, and it allows their populations to get really big and they take over.
Speaker 2So the reason why I'm bringing all of this up is the city of Farmington, I think, in the last week, put out a press release. They posted it on their website, they posted it on social media, warning residents about box tree moths, and I think that's great, like I think it's really important that municipalities get ahead of it to help educate the residents, because the only way that you're going to get this under any semblance of control is by the community all taking, like a collective action towards addressing this collective action towards addressing this. And so I thought it was a little late, like because we've been been dealing with it for three, four months now, but the city did provide good instruction for, like, let's say, you do have these Bakshi moss infesting, they gave instructions on how to properly dispose of it in order to avoid the spread of more of these, and that's that's really important. So, actually, what they put out, and I thought it was great. So, if you have boxwood plants or box trees on your property that you're like, oh, these all died. They died because of the box tree moths.
Speaker 2But if you're going to get rid of them which, if they're dead, you probably are the city of farmington said they want you to place all infected plant materials so like, once you're pulling it out of the ground, put all of that into garbage bags, not the typical like compost, like the paper bags that we put out. They want you to put it in garbage bags. They want you to, like, tie them up, make sure that anything that could be in those dead plants all the eggs, the cocoons, the caterpillars don't have a way to escape. And they want you to throw it out in the regular trash as opposed to being sent to a compost place, because if you send it to compost and they put it in a big compost pile, that's going to give a chance for these guys to get out and then spread from wherever they're composting this stuff at um. They also like want you to write uh, boxwood trash, like on the garbage bag. Really, yeah, like they're, they're very like. I think they're serious about this.
Speaker 2Like they, that's cool they want to do good stuff so like, hey, it would be cool, farmington hills also put some stuff out too, because, um, from what I have seen it's actually worse in farmington hills than it is in farmington.
Speaker 1But you actually sense yeah, it does.
Speaker 2There's a bigger, lots more more um landscaping and stuff in people's yards of farmington hills when did we start putting those trees in yards?
Speaker 1do you know?
Speaker 2probably about like they started to get popular like 10 years ago.
Speaker 1Which would make sense with a lot of the newer construction. Yeah that we see like the nine mile and hallsteads. Yeah, totally, yeah, totally.
Speaker 2Any like pretty much any new construction they put in box. Yeah, because it's easy, it's the hot thing, it was easy. And then, like you texted me a couple months ago, yeah, Something that you saw.
Speaker 1What was that again? So I was just on a stroll, uh, with my fiance and we were walking past farmton high school and we had we just had our networking group the day before or something and dion was talking about the boxwood moths because it was relevant and I was like, oh hey, look at, that's a dead bush right there. Yeah, and it was the boxwood and it's like the logos, they, they, they put like fhs, yes, fhs, and in the box with like the boxwood and it's like the logos they they put like fhs.
Speaker 2Yes fhs and in the box with, like the boxwoods, they carved it out and they made it say fhs and they were half of the age and the ass were not looking too good.
Speaker 1They gotta call someone what? Should they call.
Speaker 2They should call me yeah ghostbusters, but no, so, like if you are, I do wear a backpack that looks like the proton pack from ghostbusters. But um, all jokes aside, all jokes aside, if, if you do have boxwoods and you want to try to save them, like you don't just have to let them get annihilated, like there's some things you can do, doesn't?
Speaker 2have to be this way doesn't have to be this way, guys. Um. So, honestly, there's stuff that you can do yourself as a homeowner. If you're going to be diligent, you can actually go to like any garden supply store. Home Depot has this, ace Farmer John's has it. I checked there because I go there fairly regularly.
Speaker 2But there is something you can buy called BTK, and it's a spray that you spray on your boxwoods, and I'm not going to remember what the BTK stands for. It's not the killer, the serial killer. It's like a fungus and a bacteria that you spray on your plants, and so when the caterpillars are in there and they're eating the leaves, they're going to be ingesting that fungus and the bacteria and after a couple days it kills them, ingesting that fungus and the bacteria, and after a couple days that it kills them. Um, and so the good thing about something like btk is it targets specifically like caterpillars. Um, it's not a what's called like a broad spectrum pesticide, where it kills everything, even the good stuff that you don't want to kill. Um, but the problem with btk and like doing it yourself is you do have to apply it regularly. Like you have to do a, probably minimum every two weeks. And so if, like you're an avid gardener and that's not a problem to you.
Speaker 2Great, go for it, do it. Cost effective, protects native pollinators. It's a great way to do it. Um, but it is labor intensive. Um, you can also hire a pest control company or even like gardeners that will do it themselves.
Speaker 2A pest control company is going to put a product on the plants that last two to three months, which obviously is way less frequently than every two weeks. So, and it's something that you don't have to worry about and it is important to do it throughout the whole season, because there's multiple hatching cycles of these things. So, like we had one cycle in april and those caterpillars eat, they do the cocoon and then they turn into moths, those moths lay eggs and the cycle continues. So now we're in mid-july I, just in the last week, I'm now starting to see this second cycle happen, so I was kind of curious about how long it was going to be, and it was about six weeks or so. So it will require maintenance over the entire growing season, which, if you don't want to deal with that, you might just need to rip out your boxwoods and replace it with something I recommend native plants but if uh native plants, shout out to native plants, but um my whole yard my whole yard is native plants, so I'm a huge proponent of it.
Speaker 2But um, if that's something where you're not really interested in doing maintenance like that on your landscaping, it will be time to check for something new, because this is ongoing.
Speaker 1I don't think I mentioned this or not to you, um even off podcast, but live, and I decided to do. We're doing all native plants for our wedding. That's awesome, yeah. And we're picking them ourselves that's even cooler, yeah okay, yeah, yeah. So we uh, we just harvested like so much yarrow no way, and it's like we have it hanging upside down, drying right now nice, and like the week of the wedding. We're going, we're going to do a lot of Queen Anne's lace, but it's already blooming, it is.
Speaker 2It's going to be done. It's going to be done, so we're going to the UP. Are you going to go up and collect it and dry it and stuff.
Speaker 1That's great, and we're going to look at some other flowering plants as well, get some more coreopsis flowers, stuff like that. But what this gift that it's giving me is now I, everywhere I go, I'm identifying native flowers. It's a sickness which never, I never thought I would do. It's a sickness.
Speaker 2It's like when you get into birding and stuff too. Or you're like, oh, that's a woodpecker. That's like, nope, you're ruined. It's like, oh, there's coreopsis, oh buckthorn. We don't like that.
Box Tree Moths: New Invasive Threat
Speaker 1We don't like that, and it's crazy how many invasive plants and species we have in Michigan that people don't realize it's so bad. What is the one that's called Kudzu Katsu, kudzu, kudzu, yeah.
Speaker 2It's crazy. Vine takes over trees kills trees, like takes over, takes over. It's crazy. Uh, garlic mustard's really bad um.
Speaker 1Those are like white shoots we don't have to get into plants. No, it's. It's like we have.
Speaker 2We have a lot I could talk an hour about it um, so yeah, box to box tree moths. If you guys have questions, I mean you can, you can. You can call sergio. I'm happy to give you any any type of insight. I, I, uh, education is the most important thing about, about getting on top of best issues if you're a cool person, you're gonna call sergio's.
Speaker 1Thank you, trevor you're welcome.
Speaker 2So now let's talk about some some extremely timely issues. Uh, like, today is the founders fest. Yes, like it started I think it soft launch last night yeah, the first night of the beer.
Speaker 1Tent the beer that's really like. So there's really cool parts of founders fest. I would say one of the anchors is the beer tent, obviously alcohol.
Speaker 2Alcohol is the anchor.
Speaker 1It was the fido fest, which for dog lovers everyone knows that it's. They have like the pool where they have like the jumping competition.
Speaker 2There's tons of other they do a jumping competition. Yeah, I never knew that like the platform. Where's that at?
Speaker 1it's. So I haven't been down there because I was out of town last night, but they usually put it in front of um.
Speaker 2Where that that, philly bulldogs, philly cheese yeah, okay, so right in, like the parking lot like in between that and uh riley park, the pavilion.
Speaker 1Okay, yeah, cool uh, there's the parade that's gonna be tomorrow that?
Speaker 2what time is that tomorrow? I am, is it? So it's gotta wake up early get your spot along grand river. Yep and uh, I'll be there. You'll be there. What are you? Are you attending the parade or are you participating? You're in it.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's kind of funny. So we, like I mentioned I think it was a either the last podcast or a couple podcasts ago so we, uh, we put on holidays, which is the christmas festival in farmington, and we're doing like a christmas in july. Oh nice, hello, let's not even float, it's a car, okay. And so we we got santa to bring his convertible during his vacation?
Speaker 1yeah, summer vacation, yep, he's taking a break from vacation to come work with us, and so, uh, look out for me driving this convertible porsche. I'm hoping it's not manual, oh god, if it's manual.
Speaker 2They have like the, the paddle shifters. Now I I'd be surprised. So santa seems like he likes luxury and comfort, so he's probably got the. He's doing well for himself I mean christmas, christmas got him a convertible porsche, like yeah, he's doing good so, uh, we're, uh, we're doing christmas in july.
Speaker 1I'm gonna be, you're gonna see santa waving to everyone in his his fit Nice.
Speaker 2He came all the way from Hawaii for this he did Wow.
Speaker 1He's a good guy. He's a good guy. He loves farming too.
Speaker 2Loves us. So, yeah, there's a bunch of other stuff going on too. What else we got going on? There's a foam party.
Speaker 1I'm assuming that's for children.
Speaker 2Foam party. I'm assuming that's for like children I'm assuming that's for children.
Speaker 1I'm sad that everyone, by the time they hear this, it's gonna be over. It's gonna be over, so hopefully you're good there yeah, it's, it's good they're, they're at it.
Speaker 2They added a gaming trailer too, so like oh cool like. Yeah, so like kids can go.
Speaker 1Yeah, um, farmer's market is moved so it's not gonna be at the high school park gonna be at the high school parking lot, which is nice for me because it's right across, that's right across, so you can walk.
Speaker 2I mean you could walk to the regular one too. I do. I also didn't know they did like a 5K for this. Yeah, Color run yeah.
Speaker 1Oh, it's a color run.
Speaker 2It is so you get to throw like cornstarch at people.
Speaker 1I think there have designated color throwers. That's less cool. I mean, you could probably show up with some color, no one's um.
Speaker 2There's a corn, there's cornhole red dye we have a competing cornhole tournament here and there's a talent show, which you know what? Let's? Let's plug it real quick. Dion, there's cornhole Show up with red dye.
Speaker 1We have a competing cornhole tournament here and there's a talent show. You know what? Let's plug it real quick, Dion.
Speaker 2Yeah, go ahead you know what listeners?
Speaker 1We have a cornhole tournament next week. It's going to be the 25th, which is a Friday from 3 to 7. It's going to be in conjunction Well, really, it's the chamber, but more specifically, specifically, it's going to be the the young professionals for the farmington greater area chamber. Um, super cheap, yeah, ten dollars. Ten dollars a person, twenty dollars a team. Uh, what that gets you is beer. It gets you a couple beers, some food, your entry into Cornhole Cornhole Tournament and the beer is actually exclusively provided by Farmington Brewing Company, boom Boom. So, if you're more interested and networking too, yeah, if you're interested, look on the Farmington Greater Farmington Area Chamber website. You'll see the posting. Very cool.
Speaker 2Yeah, so they've got a lot going on. Very cool, yeah, so they've got a lot going on. Do you have any standout memories of growing up in Farmington and going to Farmington Founders Fest?
Speaker 1You know I don't know about Founders Fest, but I would say that my memories come from, honestly, the holidays. Really, we didn't always do it I mean this last year, last year was the first year we did it because we didn't want to see it go away but, um, I always remember the greens market and it being cold and going to a farmer's market. Yeah, um stand out memory no produce a bunch of bunch of greens though greens, greens and gifts, greens and gifts yeah, greens and gifts, um, but uh, you know, I didn't.
Speaker 1I'm actually originally from the west side of michigan. Okay, so I moved. I moved over to farmington when I was seven years old, okay, um. No, actually it was later. That was actually. I was eight, eight, I was eight, um, and then I went to, uh, gill elementary and power, but then I actually graduated from country day, um, so my early childhood is actually from muskegon, that's right yeah, okay was born as a muskegon um got it.
Speaker 2How about yourself, though? I'm a lifelong farmington hills resident? Yeah, you are, and so I definitely have memories of founders fest in particular, um, especially like the art shows. I'm definitely more of an artistic person, so I always appreciated the art shows, but actually the main memory that stands out to me is as a kid there was a vendor there that sold like rubber band, wooden rubber band guns Of course. And I don't know if that vendor is still going to be there. Those are everywhere so they are.
Speaker 2Are they still ever like I? I don't know about them that I. So if you had a childhood, you do, true? Uh, and so I I like always love going to the founders fest each year because I could get a new rubber band gun, because that was like, where else are you gonna get those? And they're like handmade, and that was always a standout memory, as I liked having that. And then, um, there, there was a year where the rubber band gun person had marshmallow shooters too, out of like pvc pipes, marshmallow shooters yeah, so like you could put like mini marshmallows in there and that was uh.
Speaker 2That was the last year I was allowed to get anything from that vendor because my friends and I and I want to say we were like in middle school learned that you could put uh, like nerf darts in the marshmallow shooters. It was like the perfect size, yes, or nerf darts, as opposed to those mini marshmallows. And then, and if you put a nerf dart in there, it was lethal because it's under your own pressure.
Speaker 2It was under your own pressure so like we used to have like nerf wars in like middle school and we like the the marshmallow shooters were banned because, uh, one of my friends like got like head shotted by a nerf dart. It hit him in the eye and it caused like his eye got like internally bruised and stuff, because of how strong these things were, so like that was. That's like a core memory for me from like the farmer's market was lethal marshmallow shooters. Oh my gosh. Uh. So kids, take, have your parents take you to go pick up some, some marshmallow shooters if they're there, because they're, I think, really fun everyone has a nerf story a nerf fatal injury for me.
Speaker 1It was we used to and we were we. You know what?
Speaker 2we were some bad kids I was a bad kid too.
Speaker 1I got into trouble we would put uh tacks on the end of the nerf dart that's essentially modifying. That's a weapon and we would shoot tarts with tacks on the end of them at each other. Oh, my god oh yeah, I've been stuck by a tacked nerf dart before and it just stayed right there. Yeah, we did not care um childhood, childhood.
Speaker 2So it's funny, I'm going to tie your middle school to the history of Farmington Hills. So you went to Power Middle School, I did so do you know who the founder of Farmington was? Who's that? Arthur Power.
Speaker 1Oh, makes sense.
Speaker 2So we're going to do some quick historical breakdowns of Farmington, since it is the Founders Fest, and we're going to give our listeners some greater context as to some quick historical breakdowns of Farmington. Since it is the Founders Fest, let's hear it. And we're going to give our listeners some greater context as to why we have this celebration. They're on why we sell lethal marshmallow shooters on the streets to children. Thanks Arthur, thanks Arthur. None of this would have been possible without Arthur. So Arthur Power was the founder of farmington. Uh, he actually moved here from farmington new york, which I had heard about farmington new york and I didn't know it was the original one yeah, and so he actually came here in like 1824, uh, but it wasn't originally called farmington.
Speaker 2it was originally called Quaker Town, I don't know if.
Speaker 1did you know that?
Speaker 2I did not know that, yeah, so it was originally called Quaker Town because Arthur Power was a Quaker A.
Speaker 1Quaker.
Speaker 2And if listeners don't know what Quakers are, it's like a subsect of Christianity. The thing that you might know is like quaker oats and and that's like they were also quakers so they loved some oatmeal they loved, uh, bland food and like because it was it was like uh, it made you more closer to god if you had bland food, really.
Speaker 2Yeah, there's something in there like that. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not an expert on quakers, so it was like it made you more closer to God if you had bland food. Really, there's something in there like that yes. I'm not. I'm not an expert on Quakers, so like I don't want to pretend like yeah.
Speaker 2I know that much about Quakers, but like that's kind of like the Kellogg thing too, like why, like, cornflakes were such a big deal? Because it's like, oh, you got, it Can't have sugars. Like it's, they just sold, they just sold their company, they did just sell, yeah, but they're staying in. They're staying in um battle creek though that's good yeah, um and so, uh, it was really quaker town. Two years later, after they founded it, they renamed it farmington.
Speaker 1Okay um, which I think it's important to note, that people look at a map and look at new york and the town names. Yeah, you'd be surprised on how many town names that came over.
Speaker 2I think a lot of people from there kind of migrated after the initial wave of people. This was like kind of the frontier, so like when they realized, oh, there's not much like opportunity here. We're going to go West into, like the uncharted territory. Rochester yeah.
Speaker 1Rochester Another one yeah totally uncharted territory rochester rochester, yeah, rochester, another one, yeah, totally ithaca dang, I think that is crazy.
Speaker 2So I I haven't looked, but I bet there is some correlation. Oh, there is, yeah, yeah, there absolutely is. That's crazy. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. Um, so, like, why did they pick this area right? Like why, why farmington? Um so, actually, what people might not realize about specifically grand river avenue and, like you know, the road that runs through downtown Farmington is Grand River Avenue has huge historical significance in Michigan, dating back hundreds of years. They were actually Native American trails. The natives used to travel to hunt, to trade, to see other tribes, and along this trail were were either culturally significant areas or, uh, economically significant areas where, like, trade happened um specifically like fur trade, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2Um so Grand River Avenue was one of the main corridors of travel from St Clair and the Detroit River all the way through the middle of the state. And then I want to say, does it go to Muskegon?
Speaker 1It definitely does.
Speaker 2Yeah, I thought it did.
Speaker 1It's really interesting. So I actually know. So. Ken massey, past mayor, farmington hills, um, in his backyard he has this really old tree and they would. They would warp the limbs of the tree to point in the direction of the trail. Yeah, and so you can. He has one of these trees in his yard there's a word for that.
Speaker 2I forgot what I think I have no clue. Oh, hold out, dion, find I could look it up. But there is a word for that. I forgot what I think I have no clue. Oh, hold out, dion, find I could look it up. But there is a word for for, like like marker trees essentially really interesting.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's cool and that dates back hundreds of years to the anishinaabe people, um, using these trails, uh, as like hunting grounds, like I said, for trade, cultural significance and um, so when you look at, like the history of towns across Michigan, the reason why you found, like in the 17 and 1800s along along Grand River, all of these towns were formed is because that's where important trade happened between settlers and indigenous populations. And so Farmington was one of those areas where they were like, oh, this makes a lot of sense, we're going to put it along this major trail, and it wasn't. And then, you know, once there were settlers, it became a lot more trafficked. So you got then in, like the mid 1800s, downtown Farmington really starts to pop off. They're putting in mills, they're putting in churches, they're putting in taverns the big three, a job, your religion and and your taverns, your community meeting spaces, the three priorities right there.
Speaker 2And so, um, what was, uh, really interesting is is so like it grew so much, but, like 1867, it's no longer just an outpost, they're like fully incorporating into a village. So that was a big move. And then, like five years later I don't know, I didn't actually realize this either Five years later, 1872, there was a huge fire in in farmington and it burned down everything, everything, everything. It burned down and so it was, it was the it was the commercial district.
Speaker 1Wait what? What? So was it because a cow kicked a lantern over?
Speaker 2I, I could be like I honestly don't know.
Speaker 2Uh, I didn't do too much digging into the great 1872 fire of downtown farmington, but uh it like, I guess, took down the entire commercial district of the city, and so the rebuilding efforts from that is actually what shaped what is now our current downtown, and so that really that fire, uh, it's actually very similar to detroit, like detroit burned down too right, and like the detroit's motto in latin means um, like better times will come, it will rise from the ashes. Because there was a huge fire that kind of burned down a good chunk of the city of detroit, and then the rebuilding of that is what turned into modern day detroit. Like downtown farmington has a very similar story, which is interesting and I feel like that's like a common trope. Yeah, in in like history, in in cities it's like, oh, we had this fire, it burned everything down and yeah we persevered and we rebuilt yeah
Speaker 2uh, and, and I was like I was thinking about it, like, oh, because they built everything out of wood, like because that's all there was, so that's why everywhere had these huge fires. Um, so in that time, um, after the fire, um, actually, when they incorporated it, they built the governor warner house, so that, uh was kind of like one of the first significant landmarks that we're familiar with today. That was built and they incorporate that they built right when they incorporated it as a village. Um, the mic Lodge was built 1876. So as part of that rebuilding the downtown, they built the Masonic Lodge.
Speaker 1I know too a little bit of history about the Masonic Lodge. Yeah, that was built in conjunction because that was the town hall.
Speaker 2Was it really?
Speaker 1Yeah, okay, cool so the Masonic Lodge and the town hall kind of came together to build this joint building. Because they're like, like, we're a village now.
Founders Fest and Local Events
Speaker 2So we gotta gotta get serious about this. We should have some offices, some, some like public desks, probably for like to come pay your taxes, kind of thing, so that makes a lot of sense. And then actually, um, the botsford inn, where botsford hospital is at along Grand River, that was actually built in 1836. So I didn't know it was that old.
Speaker 1Oh, wow.
Speaker 2So that predates the city incorporating it as a village. Yeah, it was one of the main things that, when people were traveling along Grand River, farmington was like a stop off point, because if you were going to go to Lansing, which at the time was like an outpost, like it was a swamp, like there was nothing in Lansing other than like farmland and indigenous people, like there was nothing there but people were moving out that way and Farmington, this journey took days, like it took it took it took weeks to get across the state and farmington was was a very popular stopping point, just in in terms of the amount of time.
Speaker 2So bosford inn was built in 18 1836 to help people who were settling, stay and um what? What was really interesting in I and researching the history of farmington is I I learned of like this 30 year period in history where michigan made huge, huge, huge investments into wooden plank roads, have you heard about this.
Speaker 1Well, no, tell me, do you know it's?
Speaker 2like so, from like the 1830s, which is when the botford Inn was built, to about the 1880s, which is when this period of huge growth happened in Farmington, the state of Michigan actually passed a law in 1850 called the Michigan 1850 Plank Road Act, and what that did was like standardized standards for building roads out of wood boards.
Speaker 1Boards.
Speaker 2Boards, like literally like planks of wood, Like a boardwalk road, like a boardwalk, but across all of Grand River, like from Detroit, and I think it went all the way to, like the west side of the state at some points and they would have sections. And so the reason why they did this is because the traffic along this trail, grand River Trail, was so heavy that it like made it muddy, and so the ground was deteriorating and and eroding, and so it was taking longer and longer and longer to make this journey to, to lansing and to the west side of the state. And um, in 1837 is when michigan became a state, and when michigan became a state they built the capital in lansing, in the middle of nowhere, which is, and it used to be, in detroit, and so, like everything, detroit was bumping like it was.
Speaker 2it was a lot going on and they, the legislators, actually decided that in order to properly represent everyone in the state, it, the capital, should be centrally located and not just along the river in the southwest corner.
Speaker 2So they all of a sudden built the capital in Lansing. I think MSU opened up shortly after that, but there was no way to like easily get there. There wasn't a railway at that point and it was Grand River Trail was like the only way to get out there, and it took days to get from Detroit to Lansing. So built all these wood planks and the legislators were like man, we got to do something. So they they created this law that allowed private companies to build and maintain plank roads across the entire state. Oh wow, so not that much different from how we are doing it today, where we have a governing body and MDOT who sets the standards, sets the administration of these roads, but they pay private companies to build and maintain them. There wasn't asphalt in the 1800s and there wasn't an easy no concrete. There was no Well concrete. The Romans did it, but there wasn't a way for settlers in America to mix and pour concrete.
Speaker 1They were still figuring it out.
Speaker 2They were still figuring it out and they didn't think like, oh, we could put gravel down, but what Michigan had in abundance was trees. This is pre-automobile right. This is carriages, Okay.
Speaker 1This is carriages 1830.
Speaker 2Yeah, Automobile was 1905, something like that. So about the 1830s to 1880s they were building wood roads out of planks. So why did it only last like 30 years? Well it turns out that building roads out of wood sucks and it is incredibly difficult to maintain Wood warps. Doesn't like?
Speaker 2getting wet wood rots yeah, especially if you're, you know, planking it from the raw tree and you're not staining it, you're not sealing it, you're not painting it, you're just, you know, getting some, some handmade nails and you know they're not like countersunk, like there's. There's no building technology, this is bare bones. And so as traffic along these roads increased and Lansing grew, the upkeep on the roads became, like, too expensive to maintain, and what ended up happening was these private companies that maintained them ended up making them toll roads, which along Grand River. So if you were commuting along Grand River anytime you came to like a major village, town, settlement, anything like that, there would actually be toll booths that you would have to pay to continue to travel down the road. And the city of Farmington actually had a toll booth by the I think it was by the botsford inn, if I'm remembering correctly.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's cool, and so it'd be cool to know exactly where it was yeah, I, I, I don't.
Speaker 2I couldn't find exactly where but there there was um. I did find, like a, a sketch of of this specific toll booth that was in were they like little booths, like like, almost like a phone booth? It's like a shack, like you know, like you would see it like a metro park. It's exactly what I was just gonna say, like when you're going to kensington and they like make you, like, pay your your 10 bucks to get in.
Speaker 2It's exactly like that okay, um, and so it was, it was. It was right in downtown, I think it was by botsford in um, and yeah, oh, no, it, totally it was.
Speaker 1It was connected to the bosford and I did put that note on here makes sense because it's like almost like a hub yeah.
Speaker 2So like that was the hotel and then you're like oh, I gotta pay the the toll and I'm gonna pay to get a room overnight. Um, so actually what ended up happening? Um, in about like the depending on the sections of the roads, because all of these roads were maintained by different companies, they would get into disrepair at different times. So, like some sections lasted until the 1880s, some lasted to like the 1840s, um, but actually what ended up happening is like all of these private companies eventually went bankrupt due to the cost of maintaining these roads. Um, my favorite thing about anything I learned from this was, um, they used to call the warped boards road snakes, and I don't know why. Like I, I guess like they're dangerous.
Speaker 1There's, I mean the math, maths, because the terms for things now are like yeah, you mentioned, uh, road gators. Road gators, yeah, or semi tires, yeah, like when they blow out and they're in the road and if you run over, it's going to mess your stuff up.
Speaker 2They're called road gators, something about reptiles and roads.
Speaker 1That's weird.
Speaker 2Another thing I found something funny is Michigan's been trying to fix the damn roads for like 200 years.
Speaker 1Look at that. That does not offer anything good for us it's a never-ending battle of oh my gosh well do they? Just patched the hill like the uh shiawassee going up like where the hill is. Yeah, I think it's worse now is it really gets bumpy and like it's really. It's like speed bumps now instead of potholes well, that's all right, it's hard, it's hard.
Speaker 2We got bad weather. We got contracts with companies that don't look to build a road that last 50 years Because of the cost of building these roads. They're only building roads that last 10 years, right, keeping themselves in business, keeping themselves in business, tenures, right, and so keeping themselves in business, keeping themselves in business and, honestly, like the state, doesn't want to pay the amount of money it costs to build a 50-year road. Yeah, so it can be someone else's problem and that's that's how it works. Um, so, yeah, I mean, that's I. I thought it was important to share some of the history of of farmington and thank god for arthur power, because, uh, none of us would be here today or we're band guns, band guns, uh, your elementary school would have been named something different.
Speaker 1and since we're taught. I think it's relevant because we're talking about grand river, but extremely far ahead from where the time period we were talking about. Yeah, um, I found out that because I was, I was, I've always been really interested in transportation, um, but I have gotten interested in public transportation, yeah, a, because I think we need it. Yeah, a lot more of it being detroit public transportation. Public transportation has never been a forefront up until, I think, recently. Uh, just because of the big three. Yep, I mean, they want, they believe everyone should have cars.
Speaker 1Yeah, oh yeah, which is not encouraged public transportation no, it's. It's not in the best interests of and the industries also, I think a lot of it has to do with going to europe and, yeah, like experiencing the train travel in europe which is it's incredible. It is so cool. It's cool like I think it's one of the cooler things about europe is just how easy it is to get well, it shrinks the size of it.
Speaker 2It does it shrinks the size of it.
Speaker 1It makes the whole place way more accessible, and so I'm like how cool would it be if we had like a tram, like a queue line?
Speaker 2on grand river, coming like, oh, down down grand river. Yes, well, turns out we had one no, I didn't know.
Speaker 1There was a tram that ran up and down Grand River.
Farmington's Rich Historical Origins
Speaker 2No way yes, do you know where? Farmington?
Speaker 1um, I want. So no, I don't know, I'm not going to say the years, because I don't want to misquote the years okay but I do know that it was after the wood plank roads probably I would say there were automobiles. I know that okay so probably like mid 1900s so, and the thing, the building that we call the winery okay, was the power generating, oh, was it like steam, steam generation, it was okay, cool.
Speaker 2Yes, yeah, and oh, that's why they had probably had those tall towers, okay and so that, so that power, that whole used to come through Farmington.
Speaker 1Super cool, was it cable powered it was, oh.
Speaker 2So not only was it the generators, but was it the wheelhouse?
Speaker 1I think is what it was called no, so it was. I believe it was powered by electricity with the cables.
Speaker 2Ah, oh, so they had overhead, yes, or underground, either one of the two. It was overhead, everything's overhead. I did not know they had overhead cables, remember ever seen the pictures, the old times when, like detroit yeah, it was crazy, it was like you'd look up, it was just lines, yeah. Yeah, they have that in. Uh, I want to say seattle?
Speaker 1yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2Seattle, san francisco, I can't remember I think seattle has overhead lines on their um railway but it was.
Speaker 1It was super cool to figure that out and I'm like man, how cool would it be?
Speaker 2so they so it got converted into a winery after it was the powerhouse yeah, I don't I, I should know the history of the winery. Yeah, um well, maybe we can talk about that in another episode, because I think mark that I think that I think the winery was sold to a private developer and they were looking at either rehabbing it or redeveloping it in some way, so that could definitely be a topic for another episode, I know the sale.
Speaker 1That took forever to go through and this is now current day. It has gone through. It has a new owner. It was in a really messy, I believe it was like a probate situation. Oh, wow, okay. But that owner, it was in a really messy, I believe it was like a probate situation. Oh, wow, okay, um, and but that's all since been worked out. I know, as of like a month ago, a couple months ago, the city didn't even know what was actually what was being developed or what was being proposed.
Speaker 2Got it so like the sale was going through but there was no plans in place, like they hadn't said.
Speaker 1Well, they've heard a bunch of plans, but whoever has bought it now, I think is it's still like the planning stages okay. So the city isn't. There's no like cohesive plan for something for it, but it's been bought, which?
Speaker 2is good. It is good it's blight. It currently is blight and it could be something great cool. It is cool. I've been in it too. They used to have like haunted houses and stuff they did.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's my I would say my earliest memory is going to that haunted house. That's so funny yeah okay, now you can't even go on a little respirator dude, it's so bad the mold. Oh yeah, it's bad, it got let go so um probate, probate situations.
Speaker 2That tends to be tough man, so I'll tell you what we're coming in right at an hour right now, which is wow, time flies when you're having fun. I think it's good it does and I think that's good timing um to kind of leave it there, because we did go over everything we wanted to cover this episode yeah, so thanks everyone for tuning in.
Speaker 1Um, we're gonna have a guest next, next podcast. We've got some cool stuff. We have some really cool stuff coming up, so definitely stay tuned in and, uh, we'll see you next time thanks for staying in the loop.
