As you can see

Site Updates - jkh

6/17/2003 - Updated September 2003 calendar for Earl.

6/11/2003 - There are some new photos that Tom Hart sent me today showing some tree damage from recent storms down at Mossy. I'm not sure if he found out when it happened. Perhaps when the Tornados hit western Missouri.

3/4/2003 - I have added Earl's reservation for some June dates to the June calendar.

1/2/2003 - I have added photo's from my family trip to Mossy over the Christmas holidays. I didn't get many good people pictures but maybe some one else did that I can post later. jkh

12/09/2002 - I have just added back a couple of items on the main menu, added an entry into the last trips, I will be adding some photos from this trip this evening when I have the opportunity to transfers them from the laptop I had with me

11/14/2002 - I just added 9 more pictures I scanned from Bill's old pictures he has provided us in the 3 ring binder at the cabin. There is some pretty interesting pictures here. I have quite a few more to add as I find time. Bill if you want the old photos to appear nicer on the website, they probably would if they were scanned and the digitals sent to me. If you don't have access to scanning them, I would be more than happy too. Actually they don't look bad considering I scanned a photocopy of the originals. I'm sure they could be improved though if they were converted to digital via scanning. Also if you want any picture labels or index labels changed, just give me the number and the new label and I will be glad to modify them. This goes for anybody who sees a photo in which the label is wrong or should be improved. I have noticed that Bill has some old photos with somebody named Donnie Long as living next door in the old Collier farm house. I may have mislabeled one of the old Hotze photos because I thought the boy sitting with me on one of the old cottage steps was a Bale's. If Bill's labels on some of his old photos our correct, I guess Donnie Long lived with Alvie Bales & he is the boy sitting next to me on the steps. I might be able to run that one down. I spoke with a lady at the Waynesville library this fall whose mother lived on the Long farm. She gave me the name and number of her Uncle who is a Long that would be willing to help me out with some of the history around Mossy.

11/14/2002 - Look at the great pictures that Tom & Peggy (O'Brien) Hart sent me of their fall trip to Mossy. I hope this will encourage more of you to send me pictures to add to the website. It doesn't matter whether they are old or new. I only ask that they be related to Mossy in one way or another. Pictures from floats you've taken on the Gasconade would be great too. If you don't have a scanner or a digital camera, I promise to take good care of them. You could just put a note it on each of them for a caption. It would be great, especially for older ones if you could put an approximate year (date) on the note it also. I would scan them and return them to you immediately. I will create an index listing for as many categories as needed such as family & subfamily members, trips, etc. I'm thinking I should give credit to the photographer or at least the person or family submitting the photos where possible. I may add this somewhere in the caption area of photos.

I haven't received any comments from anyone about my brother Earl's son Jack who made the suggestion that Pulaski Rod & Gun Club submit a proposal to Jim Laughlin to purchase a couple more acres of land adjoining the two the club already owns. This would be in celebration of the Centennial of the club coming up next year. It would be great to somehow honor all of our ancestors who started and kept Mossy going all these years. If Bill has any records of all the past members I think it might be nice to create and frame a document showing these names along with any important dates associated with the cabin's history. I wouldn't want to go overboard with the idea, but it would also be nice to have a few old to very old photo's like the one above the fireplace framed and hung about the cabin. I think it would be great to have one each of Bill, Frank, & Harry taken somewhere down at Mossy hung up somewhere. They wouldn't necessarily have to be any bigger than 5 X7's either.

11/07/2002 - I am terribly sorry if you have had difficulties with this website lately, such as illegal pages. I have been doing a lot of changes in the infrastructure which created many errors that needed to be corrected. As I stated from the beginning back in July, this site is definitely going to be dynamic. I don't like to visit websites and see they haven't been updated for 6 months or so. Anyway, I hope the dust is settling now. I suggest that you delete your Internet browser cache and start over again. If not, at least try and refresh any pages that give you a problem. I just walked through the what I believe to be most of the sites nooks and crannies looking for errors and didn't fine any. I didn't check every back link to menus so I may have missed something. I did select every picture on every menu and than went back and selected them all using the "Next" & "Back" buttons. Please email me any problems you have and I will look into them. jkh

11/03/2002 - I have added a few new videos and some pictures to the John Hotze's Photos.

10/29/2002 - I have added another new Photo item to the Photo Index - Winter Snow at Mossy along with 30 new snow scenes around Mossy.

10/28/2002 - I've added a couple new items on the Photo Index - Fall Colors & Cabin interiors. These were all taken this past Friday night & Saturday morning. My camera isn't capable of taking a very wide angle so I took quite a few pictures. Some may stay on the web and some can be replaced by other pictures when better ones are available. I just thought it might be nice to have several interior shots to use as a reference when discussing things around the cabin. I also added a few comments in the Last Trip Reports section. There is also one new item I put in the Mossy News area. Finally, I've added some comments on the Historical Index page. Please read and help if you can.
I have one other thing to make note of here and I hope that there will be others who will follow suit. Tom Hart is going to assist me with the site in at least providing some pictures and information. I'm not sure but maybe he will be help with pictures and information from the whole O'Brien tree. I guess will see. I am more than happy to have other people work with me on this website to what ever extent they feel they can. It can be simply emailing me pictures and information that I can upload and post on the site to someone actually working directly with the website by FTP-ing file updates directly to the website. I will gladly train anyone who has a familiarity with computers how to do this. Hopefully down the road I can learn how to program the site to be interactive and let visitors post information.

10/25/2002 - I just got a new two frame layout setup for the Mossy website. Hopefully this will enhance it with the ability to lay out larger photos, text can be set a little larger for readability an more text can be used to describe pictures etc. I'm going to give it a trial run anyway. Let me know what you think. I just quickly resized one photo to use as an example of the new size capacity for photos.

10/22/2002 - I'm finally getting a chance to edit and convert some old video tapes to short wmf clips for the web. Check out a new one I added of Keith when he was about 6 years old jumping from the old rope swing that use to be on the North bank just below Crane Island. Another one which I titled "I'm From Dixon". I wonder if Brett Hotze remembers this one.

10/21/2002 - I have completed a couple of years worth of Mossy Calendars. Please look them over and let me know if they are correct. I just got through adding items 28-61 to the "John Hotze's Mossy Photos". I have plenty more to add. Look for a few added to the "Hotze Family Old Mossy Photos" soon.

10/15/2002 - I decided that "Mossy News" should be an important and useful place that a visitor to this website goes first and as such, it needed to be needed have a more prominent place on the main site menu. There is a great new suggestion that I want to get passed along to all the members so I will take you directly there now.

10/14/2002 - I have just adjusted the fonts and colors on the October calendar. I plan on adding calendar months for the rest of the year and next year as well. They all might not be there for a bit, but I'll get them loaded ASAP. If anyone has any personal additions or changes to add just email them to me and I will update the calendar.

10/13/2002 - I have spent a great deal of time today just cleaning up the look of the website and trying to keep text and headlines looking the same as you move about the site. I decided since the site is taking on quite a bit of pictures and information that can be inter linked, I have added hot links to things such as people & places in that area of the website.

10/12/2002 - Hopefully I made some changes that will make text such as this easier to read with a lighter background and some font changes. I have added a couple new categories on the Main index - Mossy, People, & Places & Last Trip Report. I also have added some important documents pertaining to the Mossy farm purchases through the years, including the deed to the land purchased by the Pulaski Rod & Gun Club in October 1903. I found these documents as a result of research I did while on my last vacation. In the future, I will sketch out a map showing the approximate lay of Mossy's two acres. If any of you are artistic, I would really like to put a map or several maps showing the Mossy Farm and the Gasconade. A hand drawn one showing details and points of interest for Mossy visitors would be great. As I write this update, I couldn't help but notice 99 years ago on this day, the deed for the land that the cabin sits on was registered at the Pulaski County recorder of deeds.

10/9/2002 - I have added quite a few more pictures - adding a couple new categories of pictures. One group that I would like to do is a group of pictures that people take on their vacations or weekends at Mossy. I would post pictures from each trip and replace the pictures as new trips come about. I wouldn't have the room to keep all the pictures that get posted in this category if I didn't remove them from time to time. Some of the better & more interesting picture could get moved to a more permanent grouping as they get developed.

9/23/2002 - I was able to find a page from the logbooks that I scanned that showed Mossy trees for the Haug's & the O'Brien's. I added them to the Mossy family tree pages that I am trying to build. I'm sorry if I misspelled some names. I need to get corrected spellings and updates to these trees from all parties that can help. I imagine the trees in the logbook that I scanned are outdated. I updated the Hotze Mossy Tree on this website with information that Bob & Vi Hotze provided me via email over the weekend. jkh

9/20/2002 - Ok, I finally got around to detailing the site. It should be much more enjoyable to view the pictures since I sized them to all be vertically the same height. I also adjusted the header and footer associated with each picture so they are consistent. I've numbered every picture for easy referencing when making comments or discussing them with someone. I should have some more pictures to add this weekend. It is my goal to put as many pictures as I can on the site. With that in mind I hope to start getting in some picture donations from other Mossy families associated with Mossy. If it turns out that I have too many for the amount of space I am allotted, I will have to trim back at some point but I'm not near there yet. I will also add more logbook pages. It is my plan to have them all completely available for web viewing. I just completed the start of Mossy's Family Trees. jkh

9/19/2002 - I have been performing quite a bit of routine maintenance & organizing files. One evident result you will notice is that I have decided to number items on index listings. I thought it might be easier if someone wants to ask a question or discuss a menu item or picture to have them numbered. jkh

9/17/2002 - I added some great new pictures to John Hotze Photos that I found in my personal old slides. I have just modified the "News & Updates" menu. jkh

9/16/2002 - I added several new scanned slides to the "Old Hotze Photos". jkh

9/15/2002 - I've activated and added some text to the "Fishing "Report" on the main site menu. I'd like this to be a little comment area for everyone to put their two cents in. I just need emails from people. I will add the data along with a date and who it's from. I just use jkh for myself. jkh

9/14/2002 - I added more to my story and edited position and size of some of the pictures. I'm trying to get at least 90 percent of the pictures to be the same height so that you don't have to scroll or resize the frame all the time to view them. It may be a good idea to press F5 or whatever it takes to do a refresh of the site. Otherwise you might not view the latest changes. The site may just come up from your cache. jkh

9/13/2002 - I've added an old country standard (Worried Man Blues) MP3 file that plays for a couple minutes and stops. It will take awhile to load up the first time you enter this site but afterwards when you return to the site it should play from your cache. If you don't hear it, perhaps you don't have an MP3 player installed on your system. I have also changed the photo on the 'Home" page. I will probably experiment with various photos in and backgrounds in this area in the future. Don't forget to email me if you have any problems or suggestions for improving the website overall for everyone. Me email address is johnhotze@mossyspring.com. jkh

9/11/2002 - I added 4 more photos from 35 mm slides taken in the late 40's & early 50's to the "Old Hotze Photos" group. jkh

9/10/2002 - I added 4 more old Mossy photo's from my brother Bob's collection. They were added to the "Old Hotze Photos". Some were from negatives that had no prints. jkh

9/5/2002 - My brother Bob did some digging and came up with some more great photos showing some Mossy history. I quickly sized and added these to the "Old Hotze Photos". I also came up with some more decent photos to add to my "John Hotze's Photos". jkh

9/4/2002 - I've just added more photos to the "Old Hotze Photos". Maybe the next time we're down at Mossy we could try and find some signs of the footing for the hotel. It appears to be standing about 30 to 100 feet East Southeast of where we keep the boats and canoes now. Maybe we can identify a location by some of the trees or tree branches. I just added a fantastic photo my brother Bob emailed to me. I never have seen this photo before tonight. It is one of the best quality historical Mossyspring photos I have seen. He said it was dated 1924. That's all the information I have about it at the present. I hope everyone digs though old family photos and can come up with more to document Mossy's history as we prepare to celebrate Mossy's Centennial year. jkh

8/28/2002 - I've added a new picture category - "John Hotze Pictures" and added some nice old B & W photos of the cabin. They show the "Old Hotel" and small cabins where the boats are now. I would place these pictures from around 1948. These pictures show the cabin prior to the tin roof being installed and also with two backdoor to the main room. If anyone can find some old pictures taken down at Mossy, I would love to scan them in and share them with everyone. jkh

8/27/2002 - I performed a few minor changes to the "Site Index" and also reversed the order of these update paragraphs so the latest shows at the top. Notice the hand (indicating a link) as you move it over the "Picture Above the Fireplace". Just left click on it and see what happens. I am experimenting with putting a little story behind some of the pictures. In the future you will also get some audio with some of the pictures. Like I said somewhere else, I've got some great audio tapes of my dad talking coming down to Mossy when it was a dirt/gravel road all the way from St.Louis. My brother Earl, interviewed dad and taped him a few years before he passed away. I am grateful to Earl for having done so. Incidentally it's time to do some more taping of the rest of us before we lose important history about Mossy. jkh

8/26/2002 - I added a few more pictures to the "Old Hotze Photos", 1998 logbook pages, and adjusted some of the menus. jkh

8/25/2002 - I have added more logbook pages to the 1983 logbook and the beginning of our latest logbook. I expect I should be able to add about 10 or 20 pages a week until I need to scan some more. You will also find another grouping of "Old Hotze Photos". I will add another group called "Old O'Brien Photos" and move some of his family photos to that group. I will be changing the color that indicates when you have previously used a link to a light "swimming pool" blue. The velvet looking color doesn't show up very well. I may experiment with changing the "Links" color from its default blue to another color. I having a hard time deciding on font sizes since you do have the ability to change the font size in your browser. Let me know what's working and what's not. I'm beginning to back off some of the bolding of text. I think in some cases it makes it more difficult to read. jkh

I'll look forward to the time when I start getting some pictures, trip & fishing reports, etc, so that I can keep this site more up to date. At some point down the line, it might be nice to add a chat room so that we can even discuss our trips, make suggestions, discuss what needs fixing, our just talk about Mossy in real-time. jkh

8/22/2002 - As you can see, I have changed the site again. I am going to grow the site a little tonight with some more photos and log pages. I am experimenting a bit with the color scheme. I favor a dark background, especially in back of pictures. I believe it enhances the pictures and makes them stand out more. I'm not yet comfortable with the whole site having a dark gray and white motif, so I am going to experiment with a shade of blue with black text. Bill, please let me know if it is OK to put up the pictures that you donated to the cabin members. I am excited about them and look forward to seeing more Mossy history as time goes on. I have some audio tapes of my father talking about Mossy trips in the early days. Hopefully I will have some audio clips on here also someday. If anyone has some suggestions, please drop me a line at johnhotze@mossyspring.com. jkh