FOXGLOVE AND IDAHO

The flower for today is the Foxglove. Past summers I’ve only had pink ones, but somehow this year I also have a white one. My friend on Cape Cod says she cannot grow these. I sent her a bunch of seeds years ago, but I don’t remember if she was able to get them to grow or not. I try to be very careful when I cut them down because I swear, every single seed sprouts into a new plant. When that happens, I have to pull them as though they are weeds.  

I opened the first box of photos from the 1940s and began to look at them. I thought I had put the names of the people on the back, but there are a lot of them that don’t have any writing. I guess while I’m doing this, I should write down who’s who or when the kids begin looking at these, they won’t have a clue, not that they will anyway because with the exception of me and my sister, everyone else has entered the great beyond.

This first picture is the back of the house I think we lived in when we first moved to Idaho, although it seems much nicer from this view than I remember it actually being. Just remember though that I wasn’t even three years old yet, so memories from that time might be fuzzy. If you look closely at the back of the house, you can see that it protrudes over the river. The reason for that is because that protrusion was the bathroom.

Okay, it wasn’t a bathroom as we know bathrooms today. The walls were board and there was a bench that contained two holes. Why two, I cannot imagine because who would want to go to the bathroom with someone else. I do remember that bathroom because the holes were HUGE and I wasn’t all that big. How my mom and grandma managed to potty train me, I have no idea. I do remember my grandma being in there with me and rubbing my belly, probably because I was constipated. I also remember the remedy for that and it wasn’t pleasant.

Burke Idaho

Once mom married dad, we moved from Burke Idaho down the valley to Gem, and a nicer house. I don’t believe it came with a bathroom because I remember my dad and uncles installing a toilet, bathtub and sink. It was pretty exciting because they took the back wall of the house off in order to do that. Our plumbing fed into a cesspool located beside the house beneath the kitchen window. It in turn drained into a septic tank in a field adjacent the house. Every once in a while, something would happen and my dad would have to open the cover to the cesspool. It was horrible and he would gag and gag and cough from the smell released when the cover came off…quite disgusting.

L-R, Me, Deena & Kate

There was a little house out in that field in which an old man, Mr. Pendergast, I think his name was. Beyond him was the Walker family. Mrs. Walker had given birth to 18 children, four of whom died. So, this was a family of 16 people. Mrs. Walker rarely left the house because she was a horribly fat woman and it was difficult for her to walk. I was best friends with two of the daughters close to my age (Deena & Kate). They loved using my bathroom because it wasn’t an outhouse until one of them stopped the toilet up one too many times and they were forbidden. I loved using their outhouse until the day I ran and opened the door only to find Mr. Walker sitting there. He was scary anyway and when he yelled at me, I think I probably had to go home and change my panties.

Gayle w/bow & Moi

I know growing up changes how you view things, but when I lived in Gem, there was room to park a car in front of the house before the road went by. Across the road was a big rocky field with the river on the other side of that. There were houses on the other side of the river and you could get to them one of two ways; use the footbridge that an old man on the other side kept in repair using whatever pieces of wood he could find or walk further down and use the bigger and more sturdy bridge the cars  used. I hated the footbridge because there were always areas where the boards didn’t meet or were missing and the whitewater river gushed beneath. I held tight to the rope whenever I had to cross. For a time, my uncle and his family lived on the other side, so I crossed often to play with my cousin, Gayle. She and her mother left my uncle some time in the early 1950s and I have never known what happened to them.

The river was horribly dirty due to the tailings from the silver mine in Burke. That’s also where my daddy worked and whenever the big whistle blew, it signaled there had been a cave-in in the mine. My daddy always came home and the only person I remember being affected by a cave-in was the man next door…he lost his foot. To make the river even dirtier, once a year, the oldest sons of the Walker family had to clean out the outhouse. What that entailed was shoveling out wheelbarrows full of excrement, trundling it across to the river and dumping it over the side. That’s also where the Walkers (and maybe everyone else in the neighborhood) dumped their garbage. Really disgusting.

Some time around 1972, John and I drove back to Idaho and went up the canyon to Burke and Gem. I think the silver mine was still producing then. We stopped at what had been my house 20-some years before. It was amazing how small it was and the garage was gone. The owner had let the snow build up on the roof and it had collapsed. If you jumped out the front door, you would be in the road and I swear John could have spit in the river from the road. It or my perception of it had shrunk a lot in the years I’d been gone.

I went and knocked on the door of the neighbors we’d had before moving. Mr. & Mrs. Rose still lived there and invited us in for a visit. John and Mr. Rose talked about the river and how the EPA had made the mine clean it up. The river was once again crystal clear, but Mr. Rose said the holding ponds that became loaded with sediment filled the air with dust when it got windy…solve one problem, create another.

One thing I was really looking forward to was a glass of ice-cold water. When I lived there, the water came to our house from a spring up the road. Every spring, the men in the neighborhood would go and clean out the little springhouse. For a couple of days, you might get some moss or a worm when you turned on the faucet, but the water was delicious. Just the year before my visit, they had eliminated the old system and installed one that was more modern and cleaner and the water was tepid. I was so disappointed.

When Haley and I went to Glacier National Park three years ago, we took a trip back up that canyon. Burke doesn’t exist any more, the mines are closed and it appeared most folks living up the canyon from Wallace Idaho were most likely fairly poor. Wallace, on the other hand, has become a tourist destination with a museum, restaurants, and other amenities. 

That's today's trip down memory lane. I'm ending by including a photo I found of my grandmother and grandfather, my mom and uncles. I'm not sure which one is my mom and three of the girls I've never heard of or met...they must have been my grandfather's daughters from his second wife. Also a photo of mom with me and my brother and sister, Donnie Ray and Mary Lee. Look at those hop vines growing on the front of that house.

Moi, Don, Mom & Mary

Grandpa Jack Lay, Grandma Ada

My Uncle Beeler must be the baby.

The littlest girl must be my mom.

CALLA LILY AND GENEAOLOGY

Today’s flower is a Calla Lily. If memory serves, this plant was here when I moved in eons ago. Since then, I have divided and moved it to a few different places in the yard, but, it has also crept into other places without my assistance. I assume that it sends out roots (really long ones)   beneath the ground and then pops up. I have attempted to removed it from at least one location and no matter what I’ve done, it still comes back.

I heard somewhere that this lily is considered the death lily or the lily people would send when someone died. I don’t know if this is true and don’t care enough to do any research to find out. I do know that when you try to dig it up, it has all these little knobs that fall off and back into the soil. If it is truly the death lily, then whoever gave it that name got it wrong because in my garden it doesn’t die no matter what.

          Genealogy is going to sort of be my topic for today’s post, mainly because I heard from my third/fourth cousin about another individual who’s trying to trace family through 23 and Me. Now I joined 23 and Me I don’t know how many years ago because I wanted to find my biological father. I did everything I needed to do, only to find out I wouldn’t be able to trace him unless a male on my biological father’s family were to join 23 and Me. At that point, there were no relations listed that would meet that criteria. So, I gave up.

          Some time later, I received emails from two women who were related to me as third/fourth cousins. I responded that I had stopped my genealogy research and why. I included the name of the man purported to be my father. One of the women pointed out to the other that there were Churchwells in the research she had done. Thanks to the two of them, I did find my biological father. I’d been unable to find him before because he went by his middle name and I didn’t know his first name.

In fact, the one cousin Sharon, is a genealogy wizard. She has traced her family back to the signing of the Magna Carta. That was over five years ago, so she’s probably gone even further back. In any case, the three of us met up in Oregon and Sharon had made copies of information for me and the other cousin. She had also pulled out the entire section on the Churchwell family.

Back home, I sat down and composed a letter to the person who just might be my half-brother. I explained who I was, how I thought we were related and told him a bit about myself so he wouldn’t think I was a nutjob. I mailed the letter on Wednesday and the following Wednesday, my half-brother Ricky called me and we had a very nice chat. He was more than willing to submit his personal spit to 23 and Me to see if we were, indeed, related. And yes, we were.

This was in May five years ago and I decided I would go to Tennessee in September to meet Ricky and whatever family wanted to meet me, the long-lost, but totally unknown daughter/sister/niece. I know how things work in the south and had to politely and firmly insist that I would drive myself to the little town where Ricky lived and stay in the local motel. I wanted to be sure to give each of us breathing room just in case we weren’t compatible.

Brother Ricky & Moi

It was an amazing visit. Ricky held a fish fry for me on the Sunday after my arrival. All my father’s brothers and sisters in the area attended. My older half-brother wanted no part of me, however, so I never met him. His ex-wife and two daughters came though and I’m still in touch with one of the daughters. My father’s best friend even came, so I got to meet him too. My one aunt who lives in Memphis made a copy of the genealogical work she’d done for me to take home…what an incredible gift.

Ricky’s wife Tomia put together a photograph album with pictures of family that she had copied and identified who everyone was…another incredible gift. Ricky and Tomia drove me all over the place while Ricky identified the various locations and who had lived there, i.e., grandparents, great grandparents, and told me stories about the various individuals as well as our father. They also took me to the Churchwell cemetery which was just across the road from the business my father and then Ricky owned.

I was also introduced to another cousin Billy who is related to my cousin Sharon. It was because of her research into that family that she found the information about mine. Billy and his wife joined the three of us and we visited Billy’s family’s cemetery and had lunch after. I took a bunch of photographs which I intended to send to Sharon but never did. As a result of the email earlier this week, I asked Sharon if she’d like to have them as well as a copy of the Churchwell genealogy my father’s sister had compiled. Of course, she said yes which is why when I went to get the photographs out of the closet, I gathered those up first and why this post is more toward the end of my life than the beginning. I did get those photos out too, however, so there’s more to come.

On Monday, I’ll go to the UPS store and have the Churchwell genealogy copied…too much for my little printer. Then, I’ll package it all up and send it on with a little note. I’ll end that note by asking Sharon just how far back she’s traced relatives now. I know there’s all kinds of information out there and genealogy is fascinating. I also find it quite confusing and wish Sharon lived nearby so she could mentor me. Without that, I think the genealogical information I now have will be as far as I take it. Maybe one day one of my kids or grandkids will find it and decide they want to know more.

HAPPY JULY 4TH

Happy Fourth of July!!! And, of course, this post will have to do with past celebrations. I don’t remember much about July 4^th when I was a kid growing up. I remember having sparklers, but I don’t remember any huge fireworks shows or the neighbors having fireworks to blast off on that night.

I think my first July 4^th memory was when AJ was still small enough for John to piggyback him around. In those days, the public fireworks were held at Green Lake in Seattle. John’s dad lived close by the lake and we parked in his driveway because parking was at a premium. I remember AJ walked down to the lake where we found a place to sit and watch. Afterwards, he was way too tired to walk clear back to the car, so John gave him a ride. I wonder if AJ remembers that?

John loved fireworks and I don’t remember just when he began to order them from some place back east. This huge box of (illegal I’m sure) fireworks would arrive the end of June and we’d have a huge party with family and friends every year. Most of the neighbors back then usually left to go to their summer places or on vacation or, espeically if they had kids, came to our party. Only Mrs. Johnson who lived on the corner would be home and she was a crabbypants.

At some point during this time, a friend of John’s knew someone who put on those huge fireworks shows held on Elliott Bay and Lake Union. I remember John and several of his friends going to see this guy. They couldn’t believe how casual this guy was about the fireworks he had in his home. They were stacked all over the place and he SMOKED cigarettes without a thought. Anyway, John bought some of those big ones that blow up and look like a chrysanthemum in the sky. They scared the absolute heck out of me, but we never had an accident. John would put the launcher for those in the back yard away from everyone so he was the only person in peril if something went wrong.

We still laugh about the year Mrs. Johnson called the fire department. There we are, all out in front of the house. I believe Thor was about two or so and we had him and his cousin corralled in a playpen. The fire truck comes driving up the street and has a few words with John and some of the other guys. It then proceeds up the street to turn around. That’s when John lit a cherry bomb. Everyone is laughing, especially AJ who was maybe 11 or 12. The fire truck returns and the driver says, “Who set that off?”

Without missing a beat, AJ turns and goes, “Dad, they want to talk to you.”

Yep, he turned his own dad in. John got a stern talking to, the fire truck left and we proceeded with our celebration.

We eventually stopped having parties and went to our friend’s farm instead. I remember one-year John took one of his huge flower fireworks. He and our friend set it up and lit it off after dark. The entire valley echoed that blast for what seemed like forever. If we hadn’t been in the country, the police would most likely have shown up.

Not once did we ever go to Lake Union or Elliott Bay. The closest we came was to go to a friend’s house that was on the hill above the freeway just south of Northgate. From there we could see the show on Lake Union. I cannot now remember if we were able to see the one on Elliott Bay as well. I do know there are places in Seattle where you can see both shows simultaneously.

For the last however long, our friend Ken would have a July 4^th potluck and picnic. We always went, but there were never any fireworks and we returned home long before dark. John usually went to bed before it got dark enough for the firework shows on television. I’d sit up and watch them, changing between channels to see what was going on first at Lake Union and then Elliott Bay. This year, I haven’t heard anything about any sort of fireworks show, but if there is, I’ll watch it on television as I’ve done for many years now.

And, may I say how grateful I am to have the memories I’ve recounted here. There are many more of the people who came to our parties, the food we made and ate, the people at Ken’s celebration and the yummy food there.  So, fireworks or no, I’ll make sure I eat very well today and enjoy the memories stored in my file cabinet. I’ll also, most likely, curse all the fools out there who are lighting firecrackers and fireworks until early morning…I absolutely do hate that.

DAHLIAS AND TOMATOES

Imagine my surprise when I went to the south side of my house and found these dahlias blooming. They are the first ones for this year, and judging by the appearance of the others, this dahlia will remain in first place for some time to come. I don’t dig my dahlias up every year, but wait until the plant is sending up far too many stalks. Then I dig up the huge clump, replant a portion and give the rest away to whomever would like them. Also, the south side of my house is sort of out of sight, out of mind, so it never gets the attention it requires. It does get attention from my cat and the neighbor’s cat since they use it as their personal toilet space…maybe another reason I don’t garden there often.

Thursday seems to be another gray day and while my preference is to tuck myself back beneath the covers to get warm and sleep it away, I’m up, have done my PT, and it’s just about time to go walk. I think my mood is just about as gray as the day, but perhaps walking will energize me and change my attitude. If that’s the case, I’ll get some stuff done and; when I return to finish this post, maybe I’ll have something to actually write about.

Well, I actually did get some stuff done after my walk. I discovered that my zucchini plants (black zucchini??) are making little zucchini. I may just pick some in a couple of days to eat in some kind of stir fry. I like them when they’re small. I thought the plants would vine, but so far that’s not happening. I also asked Haley to move my tomato baskets to the front of the house when she was here. So, this morning I found a couple of long S hooks so they can hang lower. They haven’t been getting the attention they deserve out back and really need to be watered every single day which I wasn’t doing. Still, look at the few tomatoes I’ve harvested already…and at least one of them was ready before June 30^th…the earliest I’ve ever gotten a tomato.

I also spent some time judiciously spraying Roundup on weeds as well as pulling the bigger ones out. Also cut off the tops of the spent lilies and it seems like they bloomed way early this year. The front yard got done, but it was beginning to rain…really???, yes REALLY…so I put my tools away and came in to finish this for you to read today.

This gray stuff is really annoying the heck out of me. I suppose part of the annoyance is due to the fact July 4^th is Saturday and I’ll be here all by myself, as will millions of other people…well, not with me here, but alone. I always loved the 4^th picnic and seeing people for the first time since the year before. And, of course, the food we all brought was soooooooooooooooooo GOOD. This year there won’t be any of Supa’s spring rolls, yummy crispy ribs, Ken’s special sauce he either learned to make or orders from the east coast, plus the various great dishes that other guests would bring. I always ate a lot and left feeling as though I wouldn’t need to eat again for a week. I almost always made a fruit salad and packed it into the watermelon rind. Then, a couple of years ago Ken’s brother brought a fruit salad in a watermelon that looked like a shark. That’s when I handed off the fruit salad to him. Last year I think I took veggies and they were definitely not the hit fruit salad always was. Ah well, maybe in 2021.

Maryanne and Claudia are supposed to join me on my deck for lunch today…we practice social distancing. Of course, if the weather person is wrong about the weather, we may have to cancel. I don’t yet know what we’re going to have to eat because no decision has been made. Whatever we have it should be delicious just because I won’t have to cook it myself. Maybe I’ll even order in for Thursday...I've really been wanting cheese tortillas with rice and beans.

There is an idea in the back of my head. I’m considering digging out the photobooks and pictures from my growing up years. Perhaps they will bring some happy memories to mind about which I can blog. If I do that, y’all can take a stroll down memory…long term memory…lane with me. I’ll see if I can’t bring it from the back to the front of my mind and actually do something about it.

FLOWERS, JAM AND PICKLES

This morning (Wednesday), when I went to post on Facebook, I wanted to include a photo and no longer use the widow crying one because while I may be a widow, I’m choosing to no longer cry. So, I posted a photo you’ve probably already seen of my purple poppy. Looking out the window, I decided I’d go outside and take a photo of each and every bloom currently available…just so sorry some of the great ones are already gone.

Beginning today, I’ll include a photo of a flower and explain what it is, that is if I do know. If I’m unable to identify, I’ll say so and perhaps someone else can tell me what it is that’s living in my garden. For today, I’m including a photo of a pea vine blossom. The vines have been growing like crazy and I was beginning to think I wasn’t going to get any peas, but the few blossoms I found today gives me hope. Now, if the squash and tomatoes would just get busy too, I’d be very very happy with my sort of green thumb.

Haley came today, but was only here for about an hour. So many of the boxes out of the further reaches of the garage attic had rat poop in them, that for the most part, we deemed the contents to be garbage. Next week, we’ll make a trip to the King County Recycling and Transfer Station. Besides what we’ve piled up, there are other items about the place that could take that trip too, so I’d best be busy gathering them up and adding to the pile.

Last week I was amazed to see the raspberries were getting ripe…in fact some of them were already too ripe. I picked then and then again today and now have a gallon freezer bag full that I’ll use to make jam some time this fall. That’s probably the only jam I’ll make. I still have one jar from last year’s raspberries and should probably send it home with one of the sons because I would take me a year or more to get through a pint jar.

In another six weeks or so, it will be time to make dill pickles. Last year, I had three of my friends over and did a tutorial on how to make dill pickles. I doubt we’ll be able to do that this year, so I hope they can pickle on their own…no pun intended. I’m also going to find a new place to purchase the pickling cucumbers. Last year, we all pretty much bought from the same place, but there were a lot of the cucumbers that were bad after soaking overnight in cold water. That place may be less expensive than, say Yakima Valley Fruit Market, but I think I’d rather pay a bit more and have the majority of my cucumbers go into jars rather than yard waste.

          Well, I don’t know about you, dear readers, but I feel as though perhaps I’ve lost may way with my blog. I sit down and don’t seem to have a theme to follow. I no longer want to write about John or about being a widow, but it seems as though I’m just sort of typing out whatever’s at the top of my mind. I feel rather that I’m not really providing anything anyone wants to read or that has any kind of message. Maybe future blogs are going to be about the photo of the flower I include and not much else. I guess we’ll have to see

JUNE ENDS, SUMMER BEGINS???

It appears June is going out on a gray note. The radar on my phone indicated there were no rain clouds this morning when it was time to walk, but there were definitely tiny droplets in the air. I guess misty rain like that doesn’t show up on radar, but it does make you damp. I don’t know about anyone else whose lived the majority of their lives in this area, but this June definitely reminded me of June months in my youth. It was always rainy and damp, but with the advent of July, the sun came out and summer arrived. Since the weekend, for the first time in four or six weeks, is supposed to be sunny, maybe that’s the way it will be in July and August…maybe even September.

When it comes to watering, I won’t be happy about having to do that. Every single year, I say I’m going to lay down soaker hoses in ALL my flowerbeds. I have them in the flowerbeds along the fence and house in the back yard, but nothing in the huge area around the deck. I have to water that by hand. That’s where the majority of my dahlias are and you know how they love water. In front, I have a soaker hose in the flowerbed that goes around the house, but the street and driveway flowerbeds have to be hand watered. Then, of course, there’s the water bill that rises dramatically for two to three months.

I hope you don’t think I’m whining because I’m not really. But I’d also like to ask about your grocery store bills. I only go once a week unless I run out of salad makings or milk, but I do try to plan ahead. The last couple of times, I’ve been surprised at the final total of my bill. I don’t feel like I’m buying any extra stuff or more expensive stuff than in the past, and yet, the total seems almost double from what it was before…or was I just not paying attention then?

We are all saving money on gas though, right? I go to Costco maybe once a month and fill my gas tank then. Usually, it is barely half down because I’m not going anywhere. It certainly doesn’t take much fuel to go to the store and back and maybe every couple of weeks I drive in to Greenwood, but that’s really it. So, I guess the extra at the store is being made up at the gas station.

Something else came up when I was watching “Heartland” over the weekend. One of the women in the show has a blog called, Mom’s Time Out (at least I think that was the name). Out of the blue, and the skies in Alberta are really blue, she gets a phone call from a publisher in Toronto. They want to make her blog postings into a book and think it will be a best seller because she has so many people reading her blog. Wow, isn’t she lucky, and okay, it’s all fiction, but where’s my phone call and how come I don’t have tens of thousands of followers? I haven’t had a text, email, phone call, telegram (do they still do those?) informing me that my blog is wonderful and should be published. Seriously, though, I don’t and haven’t really expected that to happen…just another little whine that maybe brought a smile to your faces.

HALF WAY/GARAGE ATTIC EMPTIED

          Well, I’ve made it…365 divided by two equals 182.5. Yesterday’s post was #182 and the first part of this post is the point 5. How about that? Who knew I could manage to write something to post every single day? I certainly didn’t think I could get this far without giving up and I must admit there were days when I didn’t want to continue. But I have and did and will until I have nothing else to say that anybody might want to read. So, congratulations to moi for reaching the half-way point.

          Now, to continue with Post #183. Both sons and granddaughter were here on Monday to finish cleaning out the garage attic. I have to tell you it was a trip down memory lane, a lane that had it’s beginnings when we moved into this house 51 years ago. I saw things I thought were long gone, some of which pissed me off a lot because I had asked about them and John said he had no idea. I’m sure there will be more surprises when Haley comes back on Wednesday and we begin to sort through the boxes.

          The items that annoyed me the very most were the zinc wash tubs. My mother used them to do laundry when I was a kid and growing up. When she got her first washer-dryer combo, we took those tubs off her hands. For a time, they were used to hold ice and drinks when we had parties. Then, they disappeared, never to be seen (or heard of) again. All those years, they were at the back of the garage attic. In addition to the two from my mom, there was one larger one with handles. I have no idea where that one came from. Thor took the tubs home with him. Once they’re cleaned up, he envisions them as good homes for the turtles his family rescued.

          The first inclination I had about the rocking chair I purchased when pregnant with AJ was AJ holding two rocker feet. Then, sure enough, down came the body of the chair, the cushion and the base for the cushion. It was a used rocker when I bought it as the result of some ad in the paper. John and I went to a home just north of Northgate and right on the freeway. I had no idea until we visited that house that the freeway was so very LOUD. I used it for AJ, and then I thought it went to Goodwill. Apparently not. The cushion went into the garbage and Monday was garbage day.

          There were two old wood sleds with metal runners. Each of the boys took one home with them. AJ plans to wax the heck out of his runners and go for a joyride in the next snow. Thor didn’t indicate what he wanted to do with his, but it went into his van. There were also two cases of old soda bottles. Supposedly people collect those, so they’ll go into the garage sale. And, speaking of the garage sale, I’m cautiously planning to have it the weekend following Labor Day weekend. It won’t include the whole house because I don’t want people tramping throughout, so it will just eliminate, I hope, the stuff in the garage, or lead to another dump or Goodwill trip.

          The pile of stuff destined for the dump has grown larger, and depending on how much time it takes to sort on Wednesday, perhaps we can load it all into Haley’s truck and get it out of here. Thor took a van load of stuff home with him and AJ took a truckload of wood and metal he’ll recycle. None of us, including both his sons, can believe some of the stuff that was saved back in the darkest corners. The way it worked is Haley went up onto the plywood planks and pulled and pushed boxes of stuff to Thor who stood on the ladder and handed the boxes and stuff down to AJ. Me, myself and I just stood around or did other stuff because we were just in the way.

          Toward the end, AJ and Thor got to reminiscing about their days at Lake Forest Park Elementary, Kellogg and Shorecrest. Ten years in between and yet some of their stories sounded very similar. They also shared stories about some of the crap in the garage and their father. Some of them I hadn’t heard before and perhaps didn’t need to hear now. Still, it’s nice to see my boys laughing, joking, remembering and working together. It brings back some wonderful memories of their growing up years. I’m very grateful for every single one of those and today as well.