Empty Room, Full Heart

I ordered the kids analog alarm clocks for Christmas .

I know Sarah and Parker can tell time, Tom and I taught them. Creole can learn if he doesn’t.

Maybe then Brett won’t have to get them up for school so often

This Idea brings me back to Aunr Sadie’s kitchen. As a first grader, standing in front of her clock.

That Christmas, she gave me a Cinderella watch. Christmas 1955. Those are the things that make memories.

Now what to get Kira? She is the same age I was when I got the watch. Think on it, as greatgrandma, do I have the energy to teach her?

As the world moves these days, is reading a dial really that important?

Today’s silly conversation: 200 years ago, “Don’t drink the water, drink beer or wine “. “But there is no beer or spirits. I must drink water.” The water is filled with green strings of algae and tiny larva “The water moves in my cup”. Gulping water, this peasant had a hard day. Soon illness arrives and in 3 days you are dead of dysentery on the Oregon Trail.

Im guessing 200 year ago it would have been  more likely,  a couple trappers meeting up.

Anyway, sojourner, may you have some dry pemican in your pack and whiskey at the Rendezvous

That’s when they used to go to Toponas Colorado in the summer to work in the timber. And probably when he cut his toe open

And they would load up every year for ‘vacation ‘ and go to work where ever it was.
Old truck, Army tent and a lite wood stove…
Like the Grapes of Wrath.
Alberta said they got the stove because Granny got to a point she said she would never cook on a campfire again

Youth Season Parker went out about 7:30. 8 ish, I heard a shot. 8:30 Parker is in to get Brett with the truck for his deer… 10 points. All the work Tom did to get the deer in here, and now they are, good deer too. It used ro be a rite of passage, not just for boys, but many girls as well. Deer hunting, maybe just a walk from home or somewhere camped with a campfire on a chilly night. If i look hard I have pics of his grandmother and .myself. I know many people are against hunting. This deer, or any other harvested on this property will be treated and honored as it should. It will also taste very good with gravy.

I woke up thinking about my brother Bernie, how he would tickle me until I would cry.

Later my husband would do the same, they would think it tremendously funny.

‘No’ did not mean NO as far as this was concerned. It wasn’t considered abuse or torture, not 50 plus years ago.

It is possible that when I discovered Hubby had ticklish soles… I found some power!

He tried to explain, oh, so carefully why I should not tickle him. Most of the same reasons I had supplied.

That may have fallen on deaf ears, or on ears that felt the pain.

Getting ready to step into July and see half the year has sped on by.

Much has, without notice, in a haze of medication and brain fog.

Completely different from confusion,  brain fog affects your body as well as mind. You may know exactly where a thing is, but your brain can’t make your hand move to reach it, and silences your tongue to ask for help.

It’s hard!

Sixty years, sixty years! That’s how long i’ve been doing this.

I’ve been part of this household for 60 years. Sixty one , as matter fact , no only sixty we were married in March of sixty six

I helped him tear down buildings on Logan in Sweetwater and bring things back and pound them into a house or the barn or shelter for the pigs we raised. and the many years of gardening in the big garden where it was plowed by a horse and an old man with a push plow now, if we wanted it plowed, I suppose. They’d use Tom’s old tiller,if it still runs.  Who knows?

I know , or i’m pretty sure the gardening and raising food is not in their list of things to do. But people learn things as life goes on , and there’s a canning book and jars , and information on how to make things and put them in the freezer in multitudinous cookbooks.

I do worry, I know how we managed way back and I know how to manage now.I just hope they do.

I will someday leave all this, it’s paid for. It will be here for Brett. That is the only point. That’s  why.

To a certain small boy, the answer was, ” yes, Gramm, of course there is.” And with the logic of this same small boy, sitting beside me, steering wheel and shifter in hand..

The boy moved the shifter and spun the wheel several times.

“HERE WE ARE”, he proudly announced.

And there we were, he told me I might have trouble breathing and the gravity was not the same as I was used to back on earth.

These statements may have caused some jumping on the floor and faked gasps.

I was shown ‘walking rocks”wooden block that moved as his toes slid across the floor,  a huge stuffed green Martian, cleverly disguised  as a stuffed animal.

Soon, I was assured things were safe and I too could help explore Mars

Brett arrived from his walk, with these lovely sweet peas. These are from Virgie Eells old place. I’m so glad I ‘stole’ them after she passed

That of course led down a road of remembering Virgie, her box car house without electricity, she hand quilted the first quilts I made, from blocks Grandmother Livermore had made.  One a Sunbonnet Girl applique and one Granny Shipman identified as Grandmother’s fan.

She bought two things from us, once electricity made its way to Sunrise Ridge, the propane refrigerator and the old gas powered Maytag square tub washer. ( how many times have I wished for those things since?).

Then, those little flowers take me even further back, to Lincoln, Nebraska.

Mr. Carney had sweet peas growing on the fence that separated our backyards. In my mind, I remember his as having other colors in them, but almost 70 years later, I can’t be sure.

All that matters is I have them, and they are beautiful to me.