Saturday, July 25, 2009


Grapes vines and fruit trees, our garden.

water

We live in the desert.

If it were not for irrigation of one form or another, we would not have enough water to wash a car. So far this year our rain has been about 5 inches, and will go up another few by end of the year -- we hope.

So if you have a big garden or yard it can be a problem and challenge.


The county is laced with canals and ditches to deliver water from the dams on the Boise River. We all get charged for that water, even if you live in a sub division where the water is not available.

My charge is about $90 a year, and if I “forget” to pay, they can and do take houses!

My garden is irrigated by the most advanced system I know of and that is drip irrigation. It uses less water, puts it where you want it and keeps weeds down by keeping water from them.

But my drip system runs on city water, you know the stuff you drink when the refrigerator is empty. That is more money, several hundred dollars a year.

So my neighbor and I have come up with a system that uses my pump on my land but powered by electricity from his place. The pump takes water we run down a ditch from the canal (all legal) and pressurizes it.

Neighbor uses it to water his lawn. He has a huge, beautiful lawn. I have been using it for overhead watering for my back yard and garden. In the process I give up using my wonderful drip system and instead go for the cheaper, but less efficient over head sprinklers.

Those are the kind of dilemmas that drive our world, I guess.

This week I even figured a way to water the back yard of our house which is the far side of the “creek” that runs through the center of our place. I had to run 250 feet of garden hose to pull it off, but I did it!

So, now I will drink drinking water, and irrigate with irrigation water, and I hope to save a few bucks along the line.

My veggies liked the drip system, but my lawn really likes water any way it can arrive.

Friday, July 24, 2009

mud and mother may


There are not a lot of pictures of Mud around. He did not like to be photographed. For some reason he was pleasant here!
Even at 80 he died too young.

mud

Mother May and Mud were married when I was 7.

I do not remember the wedding, and, of course, the courtship story was told to me. But after they married they moved to Washington State, to the TriCity area, home of the first full scale nuclear reactor in the world, and lived there a good while.

When I was a kid I remember going to visit them, and mom and dad going on and leaving us, sister and I, for a while. It was good. Their house was not finished and we would sit on the decking and hang our feet into the crawl space and spit watermelon seeds!

In the 60’s Mud decided that there was too many people too close so he moved about as straight east as you could go into Idaho, on the Clearwater river. There he built a couple of houses.

The first house finished was for the son and x wife, while Mother May spent a couple years living in a military tent. I think she fumed a bit. The pictures I remember were of a tent 16 or 20 feet square with a conical roof. We did not visit them while they lived in the tent.

But when the house was built we would gather up the kids and travel the 150 miles to their house. They were my closest relatives.

When Mud was 80 he decided once again, that the neighbors were too close, so he bought some land another 20 miles deeper into Idaho and was planning on building a house there.

But on a side trip one Saturday afternoon, with my cousin, her husband, their oldest boy and their new baby (Mother May stayed home), the brakes on his Nash went out coming down a steep hill.

He thought he could ride it out, but the car went airborne, threw my cousin and her children from the car and slammed the car into a tree. Cousin would have died instantly if she had still been there.

Mud and husband rolled down the bank toward the railroad tracks and the river. Husband came out with fairly minor injuries, but the coroner said that every bone was broken in Mud’s body.

The extra sad part was that the baby, just a few months old, died too.

That was a huge tragedy for our family.

Mud was a good guy. Cousin had a new baby the next year, but nothing would take that one’s place.

At the funeral, I was Mother May’s escort. I was glad to be with her, but it was sad for all of us.

Thursday, July 23, 2009


Not quite yet, but something really good about fall.

the county fair

Today is the first day of the country fair.

The fair in this county is pretty close to an old fashioned one, mostly.


There is a Rodeo. I read that it is considered a good one by the cowboys, who travel the “circuit.” There is a smallish “carnival” a good sized building full of Ag related exhibits, and barns and barns of animals.

These animals are mostly 4H kids projects. Good kids working with good critters. We have gone to that one, but I do not know enough about any of them to be able to really tell the good ones from the not so good ones. That part used to be free, but now there is an entry charge for the whole thing.

Understand that I won’t go to any of the events. It is not that I am against them, but it is a bit off budget and not much there for small-holders like me, and it is way more commercial than I would prefer.

But I pay attention.

This week is the hottest week of the year -- so far -- with several days over 100 degrees. It seems like it will go forever, but as sure as there is a County Fair fall is on it’s way.

In a few weeks you will feel it when you get up in the early morning. It will be a bit nippy. It could still be hot during the day though.

But fall is on it’s inevitable way. Just as the corn comes on and the tomatoes begin to ripen and the garden’s bounty starts to over flow, we have fall, which is an instant reminder that winter is coming.

I don’t mind winter, but right now it does not seem like a good idea. And fall is one of the most beautiful times of the year. Once we have a good hard frost the stinging and biting insects go into another cycle. But, right now i am content with summer.

For dinner today we will have the first corn on the cob of the season. Mashed potatoes, some green beans and a good salad with nuts and white raisins. Nearly all of that will come out of our garden (or the neighbor’s!).

It is the good time of year, but it is fleeting.

That is alright, but I do not have to like it. Maybe it remind me too much of my life.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009


Man the lifeboats -- maybe.

compunctious guilt

How much should an old man try to get done? Or: At what point does abject laziness set in?

It is hot summer and not the most conducive to long hard hours outside, besides I am not really wanting to! I was in the garden this morning at 6:30 and worked until breakfast. I did.

Hey, we had a late breakfast too. I saw that look.

There are housekeeping tasks that have to be done, and I do not mean those. Miriam does most of those. But at my age, should I feel bad if I do not get too much more done?

My dad used to say grace over our meals and he would add an interesting line: “and Lord help us to improve our time.” I am not exactly sure what he meant, and he did not live as old as I am now, so maybe he would have said it differently, I will never know.

On a place like this there are a dozen fairly major projects that I should/could/might take on. My life will tick on if I do or don’t -- that won’t change, but my guilt might.

Am I saving my strength, or squandering it? Hmm. Would those projects keep me young, or is the risk of injury too high? A good accident at this point might be “the beginning of the end.” I am not sure. One must always calculate the downside.

I have friends who in retirement are fashioning a whole new life for themselves, involving a lot of big projects. One couple are working on a house and out building project that will take 10 to 12 years start to finish. They are about ¾ finished. That may be a tad excessive, though they seem to be enjoying themselves.

Maybe just knowing them is working on my guilt, or is it that they should be inspiring me, and I a feeling guilty because it is not working? Hmm again.

At some point I am going to wish I had done a bunch of these big messy projects because at whatever age I would be then, I am sure I could not do any of them then. And how is that for a guilt maker?

I can always use the excuse that we are short of money. Who would dare argue with me. My guess is that the real Bill Gates postpones some of his projects for that reason, or maybe not.

One of my daughters said I should pretty do what I wanted. So far this summer, I have done that one pretty well.

So, I will relax in the comfort of my recliner here in my part underground house where it is cool, and I will cogitate over this matter.

And, by the way, when you bring me that cold drink, could you put it on my right side with the straw pointing my direction. I hate to waste energy moving that silly straw around.

Thanks.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

mind games


Today it was 97 and a good time to look at snow, thinks I.
When I went out to work in the garden at 7, I wore long pants and a long sleeved shirt - it was 55 degrees.
Later those gave way to shorts and a tee shirt.
Enjoy summer, Davy, winter is coming sooner than you might like.

Mud

Sally May was at home in northeast Oregon.

Some one knocked at the door to her cottage and she opened it.

There stood a tall skinny guy with his hat literally in his hand. She knew him a bit, but not too much.

“Sally May, I am here to court ya.”

“If you were the only man in the world and if I wanted a man I would not marry you.” She closed the door.

But he came back with the same really bad line: “Sally May I am here to court ya.”

She rebuffed him again, but this time not with quite so much gusto.

But he persevered, and he did court her and he did win her heart and they married and were married until he died 30 or so years later.

He had been a plastering contractor, during a time when that was a very lucrative business.. I have no idea why he was where Sally May could know him, but he was. His name was Chet, but every one called him “Mud.” Plaster and mortar "mud" was his business.

When the plastering business went south, Mud and his partner (his son) did stone masonry. They did very nice work.

But he had some baggage too.

His son was his partner, and lived next door. The son provided a home for his mother, so for all of these years Sally May, my Mother May, lived next door to her husband’s x wife.

Mud took good care of all of his family. At one point he told Mother May that if he had married her early on, he would be wealthy. Mother May was pretty good at handling a depression era budget. I only know by inference that his past experiences were not all good.

He was part Native American, probably a good size part. If there was a meeting or some kind of gathering, he was likely to be found in the back, with his back to the wall, watching and gazing out over the group.

Our whole family loved him. He was a pretty decent yarn spinner, a believer in all sorts of conspiracies that were entertaining at the minimum.

More about Mud later.

blue berries

Family came to visit Sunday night.

Arline and Sid and their three “home kids.”

They arrived fairly late and were to leave early, but in taking a short cut they tore up a tire on the mini van and Sid had to wait for the tire store to open, so they did not leave as early as they had hoped.

Our house is a small 3 bedroom model. We sleep in one, one is open and the third has a hide a bed and I use the space for my inside the house studio. Sid, who has a rather fragile back, says he sleeps well on the hide a bed, and I am glad, but I had to move a bunch of stuff to make room for it to open!

When they walked in the front door (Jessica text me when she was about 30 minutes away, so I knew pretty close to when they would arrive), there was lots of hugs and then a couple boxes of --- BLUEBERRIES.

Big beautiful blueberries. Some from Arline and family, some from Lora and family. A couple days earlier both families had picked from the same berry farm. Between the two famiies, in a morning, they picked about a hundred and fifty pounds!

Sometimes we have driven up and picked with them, but we did not this time.

So last night while we visited, I rearranged our smallish freezer, washed and bagged several gallons of blueberries.

Those little wonders do not grow easily around these parts. Our soil is miles too alkaline, but they do better up near where both of their families live. I understand that the owner does some magic to make the soil a bit more acid, and whatever he does it is work.

The “patch” is multiple acres big, in a little ravine out of a little town in northwest Oregon, and it is pick your own patch. Start as soon as it is light and be gone by the time the sun is high. Fun few hours.

So, Thanks Lora and Arline and Cliff and Matthew and Brianna and Jessica and Andrew and Amy.

We are going to eat well this winter! Again.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Matt


Matt came to visit us overnight. His family are on their way to Yellowstone and Glacier parks.
Matt once was little. I could pick him up. While he is not as tall as I, he looks me i the eye now days.
I always wonder how tall my grandkids will be!
Matt is one that is still growing.

Sally May

The year I was born my fathers parents divorced.

That was not unheard of in those days, but not common either. By the time I was born I am pretty sure both of them had left l Idaho, though I do not remember exactly (imagine that).

About half a year after I was born my cousin Judy came along. Sally May seems to have been there or arrived soon after her birth.

Any way, when Judy was getting old enough to say her first words, Sally May wanted to be called “Gram.”

Judy had trouble with that and the best she could do was “Dam.”

Grandma did not think that was appropriate, so after a bit of consideration, she asked to be called: Mother May. So, for the rest of her long life, that is what everyone called her.

Friends, family, pastors -- we all knew her as Mother May.

She worked as a nurse for many years. At that time, nursing was not the noble profession it is today, but was not thought well of at all. At one point many states offered to take nurses with a certain amount of experience and give them an RN degree.

Mother May desperately wanted to do that, but the last state that would do it was a state or two away, and (this was before the divorce) Grandpa would not help her solve the problem, so she was always an aid, and never a nurse. I know there is a story there too, but I do not know it.

I remember her as being jolly and happy, though she had her share of griefs, I know. More on that later.

Sunday, July 19, 2009


When my brother was little, he was going little boy machine.
Mom would say: Find out what Benny is doing and make him stop it.
This one is in French too!

sunday thoughts

For dinner today I made burritos. I have eaten them in Taco Bell a lot of times, but I don’t remember Miriam or mom ever making any at home.

So, I talked with Dea (d3) and jumped in.

Not bad for a first shot. I’ll try it again, maybe I can pick up some sour cream for filling, but cottage cheese worked pretty well too. It does not seem that there is a set list of ingredients. I like that part.

---------

Blood pressure is a wild thing.

If it is too high the medics are afraid I will have a stroke, but if it is too low my zest zooms away.

Last week mine has been too low. Too much medication. Yesterday I talked with a friend who went to see his doc and his blood pressure was high, and friend said: “Wait a minute, I just climbed the stairs to your office a few minutes ago.”

Hmm.

My doctor’s office is on the 2nd floor and the first is a tall one, so I go up 1 ½ to 2 flights of stairs just to talk to my doc. There is rarely a wait of more than a minute or two and then my blood pressure is high.

So now I wonder if that might have pushed me up the 5 or 10 points that was the reason for the last change in BP meds?

Miriam has been taking my pressure all weekend, several times a day and it has been low all weekend, usually around 70/110. Not a lot, but that is just enough to take the wind out of my sail.

Hmm again. I’ll talk to the doctor’s nurse tomorrow (we have already agreed to this conversation) and see if we can figure out what gives. I would really like to be healthy enough to not take blood pressure med. There are side affects that I do not like!

update

I heal fast and I am doing alright.
We went out to friends yesterday and I ate with the rest, so I am healing well.
Thanks for caring.