Dog Tales

Harvey's toy box.

Harvey's landscaping.

Harvey's nap time.

My Webelos: Harvey's fans.

I say: Isn't Harvey getting pretty?

Wilbur says: Pretty is as pretty does.

I say: He has such a cute fuzzy face.

Wilbur says: Let's make a calendar and count down the days until we can give him back.

I say: Will Harvey and Max be warm enough in the back yard? Should we move them to the garage?

Wilbur says: What a hassle!

Popcorn

Now that the weather is cooling off and the nights are longer, it’s time for popcorn. I love popcorn. As a child growing up, I can only remember a few times growing up that we had popcorn, unless we were making popcorn balls around Christmas. I thought popcorn balls were magnificent except for the time I tried to make purple ones. They ended up being gray. My Dad couldn’t eat them. He thought gray popcorn balls were sickening. He also objected to the blue ones I made. As a 12 year old I really didn’t care if Dad liked my popcorn balls or not, but Mom wanted me to make them pink or green.

When I married Wilbur, he educated me on the excellence of popcorn as a treat. As a young married couple living in a trailer, we started our popcorn experience off with Grandma Latour’s caramel corn recipe. I knew the seed removal technique. It is imperative to shake your popcorn for a minute or two so that the seeds settle to the bottom of the bowl. Then you place the seedless popcorn to another bowl. By doing this, the unwary caramel corn eater doesn’t break a tooth on a popcorn seed. I learned this from making popcorn balls.

After shaking our bowl of popcorn in our trailer kitchen, we would grease our kitchen table and pour the caramel sauce over the popcorn on the table and stir it around. Our caramel corn is still the best you can find anywhere in my never-to-be-humble opinion.

Next Wilbur showed me that it is entirely appropriate to celebrate any NFL or NBA game by making a bowl of popcorn to eat during the game. The children completely agreed with this philosophy. So as not to have oil on the living room rug, we would spread a blanket on the floor. Then everyone would sit down and enjoy popcorn. While the popcorn was there, five children would be watching the Lakers play the Celtics. But when the popcorn was gone, there would be only Wilbur watching the game.

Sometimes we would make a bowl of popcorn to eat on the Jefferson Hills patio on a fine summer evening. The birds and I liked the easy clean up on the patio. When we put down a blanket in the living room, I would shake it outdoors as part of the clean up. The birds liked that too.

I'm glad I learned about the superiority of popcorn. It's low calorie, cheap, and yummy. I love popcorn and all the good memories surrounding it.

Welcome November

Good Ideas for the Primary Program

1) They had a group of Senior Primary boys sing one of the songs and a group of Senior girls sing another. The Junior Primary had a hard time learning all the songs and this really helped.

2) They had all the Senior Primary girls sing the first verse of Praise to the Man, all the Junior Primary sing the chorus, the Congregation sing the 2nd verse, Junior Primary sing the chorus, the Senior Primary sing the 3rd verse, Junior Primary - chorus, and everybody on the last verse and chorus. The Junior Primary sang the chorus with such enthusiasm! They were so cute.

3) The older children helped the younger ones up to the podium and helped them with their parts when they needed it.

4) The older children sat with the younger children who needed someone and the teachers didn't have to be on the stand at all.

Good Primary Idea Generally

All the teachers of older classes get to go to Relief Society every week. The Presidency says there are enough adults in sharing and singing time, and they know the children will behave.

Interview - Sparkle

Question: What do you want to be when you grow up?
Answer: Hmmmmm. A nurse.
Question: Why do you want to be a nurse?
Answer: Because teachers at school wear dresses a lot, and nurses don't have to. And nurses know lots of things.

Interview - Twinkle

Question: What do you want to be when you grow up?
Answer: I want to be a nurse.
Question: Why do you want to be a nurse?
Answer: Because they get to rock babies!

Then she told me all about when Glimmer was born.

More Harvest

Saturday we harvested about 500 lbs of potatoes. Last spring we charged Orville with the assignment to bring back seed potatoes from the nursery. He brought back strange potatoes that are pink on the inside. With 500 lbs, we hope we like them and that they are good keepers.

More Mining

This is more from the tape my Dad made in the 1980's . In this segment, he is talking about his Dad, O.D. Robertson, and his brother John's mining expertise.

"Dad: Then they’d work on their own claims when they weren’t working elsewhere, and they always managed to take some gold out of their claims. The first few years they took quite a little bit out. After that, why they worked out around most of the time on ranches and for the Forest Service and this sort of stuff. When they opened up the Golden Messenger Mine they run into trouble. They couldn’t...there was a lot of cave-ins and these other miners that were around couldn’t take and drift through one of these cave-ins because the rubble would keep comin’ down from above faster than they could muck in out. And they didn’t know how to go through a cave-in and stop it. Dad was able to do that. He knew that kind of mining, and he and John and then a couple of other people around York there went to work for ‘em. And they drifted through all these and opened up the whole Messenger Mine. Got back in to where the ore was and got it open again. And it was running at the time of World War II then. They also worked in the Copper Queen for, oh, about a year and a half. They were trying to find some copper ore in there. They had show of the lead on top, but they were never able to find it below – these mining engineers that decided where to run the tunnel; why…Dad and John worked with (something Millard? Bill? ) and the other fellow. Can’t even think of his name now. In the Copper Queen and run the dirt out. But they never did find the lead there, and finally they quit. They ran out of money, so they had to lay everybody off.

And then, they sank some test holes and drilled all those for the possibility of putting a dredge down Trout Creek below York – towards the River. And they had trouble. There was so much water they had to pump out of that shaft there at York that they got Dad and John to come and sink that shaft because same problems with all the water would bring the loose dirt in, you know, and they could lose the whole shaft if they didn’t know how to operate. So they sank the shaft to bedrock for ‘em. And they run a little drift down there, but they didn’t find much there. And then they worked for the outfit that drilled all that drilling it.

Me: Sounds like they were worth a lot more than they got paid.

Dad: Well, that’s right. Dad was an expert miner. And these other guys couldn’t do that work. They didn’t have the know-how. They’d never done any of that type of drift work. They were hard rock miners, and a lot of them didn’t even put any timbers in the hard rock mines, you know. But they (O.D. and John) were able to timber and drift in any kind of soil and make it safe. "

I think the proof of my Dad's statement that his brother and father were good at what they did lies in the fact that they were not killed mining.
Just hearing Dad talk about cave-ins and shafts filling with water gives me the creeps.

The Harvest

From my garden and trees so far:

100 pints of corn
62 pints of applesauce. I've given away three boxes of apples. Eglantine canned 20 pints of applesauce. And about five or more buckets of apples that fell off the tree have been thrown over the fence for the deer to eat.
6 pints of apple butter.
12 pints chokecherry syrup
23 pints of tomatoes. I haven't picked the restof the tomatoes yet.

I still await the harvest of beets, carrots, potatoes, turnips, and rutabagas.

I need recipes for turnips and rutabagas.

Training the New People

Dear Orville and Carmen,

It has been an interesting couple of weeks taking care of the new people, but I am enjoying it. Training them is quite a chore, though. I am showing them how to play some great games, such as: pull the clothes off the clothesline, chase the neighbors and their dog down the lane, chase the deer, and Frisbee. I've decided to drop the balls and Frisbees for Wilbur. But if the Prairie Smoke wants them, she can come and get them. Heh heh heh. I love tug of war. Although, I trained Prairie smoke to have two things to throw. When I won't give her back the frisbee, she throws the tennis ball. Then I drop the frisbee and chase the ball. I like being busy.
Before I came, these weird people were throwing perfectly good gigantic, old summer squash away. I had to show them some new uses for it.

Some of my past-times are going for walks and chewing up clothespins. I've been walking through the field, on the road, the Open Space trails, and by the creek. When a guy is hot, that creek is terrific. You can drink out of it or lay in it. The clothespins have a great crunch for chewing. My use of clothespins helps Prairie Smoke learn to keep them picked them up. It's about time she learned to do that anyway.

While I'm here, I'm doing a few favors for the grandkids. You know that bike pouch for the new Cars bike that Flash Junior didn't like? I've taken care of it. No one will ever bug any of the grandsons to use that on a bike.

Wilbur and Prairie Smoke added new fencing to the backyard. I don't know why they did that. I liked jumping and climbing over the lowest wall. It was a fun challenge. Some people don't know how to have a good time.

I like being outside most of the time. Funny how even on an 80 degree day a little sunbathing feels so good.

Max thinks it is beneath his dignity to notice me. I guess you can't please everybody.

Love,

Harvey

Corn Harvest

The last week of August we harvested for three nights. This year we got 100 pints of corn. It's amazing how much better the garden does when you take care of it.

Two Trips

Over the past month, we had two outings. First, we camped near Tenderfoot Creek not too far from the Smith River. My great grandfather and grandfather had a place on the Smith River. While looking on the map, we saw a spring named Robertson Springs and wondered....
View of Eagle Park

Next we went into the Wise River Country in the West Pioneers. There were so many hiking trails and so much to do. We dug for crystals at crystal mountain. There was a ghost town to visit and two different hot springs. It was impossible to do everything. Because there is so much to do, there were a lot of people in the area. However, the only people Sheryl and I saw on the hike we took were firefighters. Someone had left a campfire burning at Bobcat Lake and a crew went into fight the fire. I'm pretty sure the reason we saw so few people is that the hike was a grunt. We gained almost 2000 feet in elevation and then went down. Then the trail took a sharp uphill. We didn't go in all the way because I was worried we would be too spent to make it back out.

The destination

The hiking partners

The trail was rocky.

The firefighters. The guy with the mustache is the boss. They run the crew with military discipline. And I noticed that the girls can't keep up with the guys for all of the women's lib proposition that women and men can always have the same jobs.

My Entertainment Committee

Fun At Glacier

Glacier was awfully fun. A three mile hike can seem long when you are three years old.

Unusual happenings on the home front:

1) I left my good camera out on the lawn in two down-pours. My blog will probably have a lot fewer pictures. Sniff.

2) For a couple of weeks Wilbur has been having weird email problems. All signs pointed to someone hacking into his email account.

Last night he received four emails from a business. A phone number was included. Wilbur phoned the number, asked them why they were messing up his email and left his cell number while I came unglued. I was certain it was a scam.The phone number was on the level. The business called back.

Turns out someone of the same name reactivated their google account from a few years ago. The same number of years ago that Wilbur had similar problems with his email account. Not only, did the person have the same name, but they could answer the security question because their dog has the same name. The owner of the business is going to have a talk with Google about how Google could have let this happen. I'm interested to hear their explanation.If you have emailed Wilbur and got no response, his email partner probably deleted you email as spam.

3) For a few weeks a good sized buck with a nice set of antlers has been hanging around. The buck has been heartily enjoying the abundant yellow clover and alfalfa from the June rains. Unfortunately, he is not very afraid of people anymore. A big buck with big antlers is something to be afraid of, if you have any sense. Brody, the neighbor's dog, found this out first hand when he decided to chase the buck last week. Brody ended up ducking under a fence as he ran for his life with the buck in hot pursuit.

Today, while I was biking down the road an older man in shorts and with a tourist print shirt came down the road. He informed me that there was a 16 point buck in the field. Obviously, the guy is not from around here. I managed to preserve my gravity as I heard about the "16 pointer," looked to the west and, sure enough, there was the neighborhood buck enjoying the yellow clover and alfalfa behind Delight's old house. The guy told me how the buck let him get really close so he could take a good picture of the buck. As if the buck not running away was a good thing. Then I REALLY knew the guy isn't from around here. I am glad that he didn't get tromped and gored by our neighborhood "16 pointer." And I hope he's satisfied with his pictures because I haven't recertified in first aid for a very long time.

Contrariness

A few weeks ago, someone told me of a church leader who had laid down the law to women in the area where he presides. He told the women that they were always to wear nylons to church and could not wear flip flops or sandals. Now, I am not a fan of bare legs at church, but if the temperature is over 95 degrees, I’ve been known to abandon nylons. I think flip flops at church are tacky, but not any tackier than the deacons wearing tennis shoes and white socks with their dress pants. What amuses me more than church apparel is the idea that someone would lay down a dress code based on his personal opinion. I thought everyone knew that a decree of this nature is all that is needed to inspire every teenage girl in earshot to purchase new flip flops and send her nylons through the shredder.

In addition to teenagers, there are always a few oldsters like me that are in search of extra entertainment. What could be more entertaining than a leader that would send you, at age 56, home to change your clothes? And what could be more convenient than a nice afternoon nap and an excuse to take one? Changing clothes is so exhausting.

As far as nylons go, anyone demanding nylons be required apparel should be required to wear them for eight hours a day for five days in a row. The nylon promoter should also be required to wash them, not mention running out to purchase a new pair when runs appear. Any men taking this challenge will have a measure of credibility with me concerning nylons.

Even in a fit of contrariness, I probably wouldn’t wear flip flops because they hurt my toes and couldn’t accommodate my orthotics. Still, I think a big orange flower pinned to the top of each of my rubber Keen sandals might be cute. I wouldn’t be averse to abandoning nylons and wearing this unique foot wear with my blue suit if I got to watch someone throw a tantrum over it. Decrees are tricky things. I’ve noticed those at the top are mighty careful about issuing them. They are an example to us all.

Ruminations

Ruminations from Sparkle:
"Why doesn't Max give us hugs like he does you?"
"The thing I like best about my Dad is that he is good with kids."
"Let's go for a walk and look at all the beautiful things."



Observation from Twinkle as she saw the dog's wet foot print imprinted on the paving brick:
"Look! Pawnography!" And I have no idea where she got that from. I can only tell you it was NOT me or Wilbur.

Cousins

June Camping

We went fishing, four wheeling and played in the fire. We learned that chocolate marshmallows and HORRIBLE, but they provide great entertainment when they burn. We saw a moose, sunk knee deep in the mud, and wrote on stumps with charcoal pencils. They didn't want to come home, so I guess they had fun.

Rain, rain, go away!

JFK Park

Sandbags on creek just before park

bridge
near campground

culverts

culverts

creek below school before railroad tracks

The Move

We moved Hermione from the west to the east this weekend. With the invaluable help of some men at church, we loaded Hermione and trekked east. Fortunately some helpful guys were waiting on the other end, as we hauled stuff up three flights of stairs to the new place.

The drive from the western place to the eastern place was eight hours, so we broke our journey with a stop at home for the night. Home was halfway.

From west to east, we drove along bank full creeks and rivers. A few were out of their banks, but we were lucky to avoid flooded highways. Last week one of the interstates was flooded.

Flooding is a rotten deal, but every thing is REALLY green around here. Hopefully as June ends, the over abundance of moisture will too.

The World of Fashion

I need more laughter in my life, so I’ve decided to take up fashion design. I see in my mind’s eye a group of designers laughing themselves silly around a conference table saying, “I CAN’T believe it. We actually got them to wear it!” A thirst for giggles is the only reason I can come up with for the styles in women’s clothing the so-called sophisticated people create.

For a while, the world of design tried to camouflage all women as safari animals. Attendance at any formal event resembled a day at the zoo with woman attired in zebra stripes, leopard spots, and orange giraffe blotches.

The dress up theme has now changed from women on safari to women at the beach. At the most formal party, funeral, or wedding, flip flops prevail. I have been sternly lectured by my daughters that I may no longer refer to this foot wear as “thongs” because, ahem, that is reserved for a type of underwear.

Ah yes, thong underwear. The fashion gurus must be in stitches about this. At first, I thought thong underwear was a movie creation. You know what I mean: the producer for some inexplicable reason craves a PG-13 rating instead of a PG rating. What better way to do that than to get film footage of some woman’s rear end hanging out? Thus appeared thong underwear. I never thought real-life women would be demented enough to actually wear it. In which circles does it make perfect sense that the entire back of a garment worn on one of the largest parts of the body is composed of a one to two inch wide strap? These circles are undoubtedly made up of people who watch the skies for the arrival of aliens and periodically go on radish and lemonade diets. If the discomfort of thong underwear didn’t discourage women, surely, I thought, the groadiness would. I misjudged a few members of my sex. Burned in my brain is the work training meeting I attended. Call me nit picky, but I think a sixty year old woman wearing white pants that expose her tan thong underwear is not a good look.

After the introduction of bizarre underwear, tight fitting jeans and short shirts became the order of the day. Suspenders anyone? The prevailing school of thought for these creations must be that women look terrific with their stomach flab hanging out. Do you suppose those in the field of medicine who provide liposuction financed this foray into belly flab?

Eventually, the fashion for shirts became longer, but we are still supposed to pour ourselves into tight fitting, slim leg jeans. These dismally unflattering pants have the ability to any woman, no matter how underweight, look fat.

I have a question. Is Paris still the fashion capital of the world, or are they borrowing fashion ideas from houses of ill repute located in the remote corners of the world? One Christmas, I stumbled into the department store to find the fashion world latest offering for the plus size women during the winter time party season: halter tops with inch in diameter spangles beneath the bust. Halter tops in January may be perfect for a New Year’s Eve party in the Congo, but spangled halter tops on obese women in Montana in January? Better get those designers a brown paper bag. The laughter must be causing hyperventilation by now.

Next time I’m feeling blue, I’m crashing a fashion design buzz session. I have no doubt that a million hysterically funny ideas and rattling around in the designer’s fertile brains. Heaven knows I could use some belly laughs now and again.