Friday ... Mom... just a photo from the archives of my heart....

Mother 💗 at 20, just before the war

Today is my mother's birthday...

Mother, with my baby sister

Happy Birthday Mom, where ever you are....

Friday5 for April 1st: Into the Lens

Would you like to play along?  There is a clickable link in the meme section of the side bar.  Come on in, the water's fine...

1. What was your first camera like?  

It was my mother's cast off Kodak Brownie.  She upgraded to a Polaroid.  Most of the pictures of my early life were taken with that camera.  So fun to use. It was a little like point and shoot.  My dad had a portrait camera with a wooden tri-pod, and a Kodak  that had a slide out bellows that he took to the beach and other places.  My brother got all the old cameras, even my beloved Brownie!  

Dad was a very good amateur photographer, and even had built a dark room until we moved away from it.

2. What kinds of accessories have you purchased for a camera?
I've bought a 250 and 400 mm lenses, a close up lens, various filters, two different flashmounts, and two tripods for my cameras.

3. When did you last shoot photos on film, and how many rolls of unshot film do you have in your house?
When we ran out of film after getting the first digital camera, so we also have no unexposed film laying about.  I mourn the passing of the 35 mm platform for amateurs, i.e. photographers without a dark room.. my dream camera,now,  is a Canon  EOS Rebel.  I know, dream on!

4. Digital photography has all kinds of advantages over film photography, but what’s better about shooting on film and having to get it developed and printed? This is my opinion over a long "exposure" to both film and to digital cameras.  Nothing is better than a digital, unless you can develop, and print your own film and make prints, or you know someone who can do this- or have all your film processed into slides. 

This is because the high speeds that film is now processed at, for like forever, can ruin  a great photo which has been shot in less than ideal lighting. If you can do the developing and the printing yourself, then, wow, practically everything is better about film.  

5. How do you manage your digital photos?
I upload them to several  picture libraries.  All the prints have been digitized, too, thanks to Picasa3. Google, please, don't stop supporting Picasa3!  

Thanks for participating, and have a photogenic weekend!

A Monday for Mother, and updates of the Wolf

My mother was a quiet person who had a droll Midwesterner's sense of humor; she was very loving to the babies in her life, and that meant nearly all of God's creatures if they didn't have to be eating her garden for their livelihood!  She did draw one line through that conviction, outside of the insects she killed with wild abandon, and that was that she kept farm animals for eating and didn't want us making pets of them.  We, of course, did anyway.

I learned to stick with the non-edible pets after a favorite runt rabbit that I loved so much was dispatched without regard for his special status as MY black bunny, and I came home to find that they had saved his skin for me.  I still have it, though it is so agéd now as to be turning to dust.

Mother had an eye for beauty and the heart of an artist, but like most people impacted by the trail of Greed that Europe was enduring and which eventually became WWII, she didn't get a chance to express it.  She did however, take a pen she used for school penmanship and refashion it into a pen for pen and ink.  I used it for Pen and Ink and, with a wider nib, for very delicate Scraffito on porcelain beads.  I found the pen in her things after she died in 1984.

Wolfie Report:  He is recovering, and his belly has stopped being swollen up.  Who would think a dog could expand that much?  I guess he will continue to recover and to be fine again until a weekend when his vet isn't available.

I'm sort of joking but it does raise a little PANIC in my brain when that thought runs through it!    The scary part of all of this is that we finally found the lost thermometer, but it was broken in two, and under the bed where Wolfie dives for safety in times of "fight or flight".   We thought he'd maybe gotten a hold of it, and bitten it in two,  but we did not know.   Actually, the thing showed no evidence that he'd even messed with it, and all the mercury was still inside it.

Then we thought, or at least I did, "does he have the dread Torsion?" since I'm typically calm outside while inside am lurching madly toward thinking of every horror and disaster, one after the other and in technicolor, that has befallen man or beast in the whole of history.  That is truth and not hyperbole.

Anyway, he is getting much better now that what ever it was seems to be going away.  This whole strange, periodic illness of his is akin to the canker sore that drives a person mad with pain for 10 days and then goes back underground until next time.

KAL, wayback snap, cheering up the cheerleader.

Feeling slightly like someone has put a curse on me, I joined a Ravelry group KAL to try to lift it. 

This KAL started on May 1st.  It is for anything we wanted to knit, sort of like a virtual knitting circle, and we have to post pics.  I am so happy with this, because I think it's going to work.  I'm also thankful for my knitting friend at Golden Apples who just kept knitting and talking to me when my mojo swooned into it's deathbed.  I must be sure to thank my trainer, too, because he told me I need to think of SOME creative outlet or I'll drop off the twig, go mad, fall down a rabbit hole, or perhaps crumple into a heap of protoplasm.


The KAL..........


1. Doing the second sock of Jane's Hedgerows, I finished the other one some time ago and stalled out - first time it's happened, ever, for a pair of socks.

2.Making a very cute Mitt pattern called BonBons designed by Susanna IC, for DD Bee.   The link goes to the PDF.   The yarn is the greens and such yarn from a shop in Santa Cruz bought a year ago.

3.  A new sweater for Elle, with the luscious silk/bamboo yarn (Pink) bought for it. HERE's the pattern, called Stardust.  Today I went to see my sister, and we watched more of Downton Abbey, second season.  We are watching the British version, and I like it lots better.  Suddenly, things make more sense! 

4.The  Noro Sweater, and the Manly/Beastly, are getting their ten minutes - or more if the mood swings allow. hehe

For a CheerMeUp for the Cheerleader- ME- (and general all around fun) here's a WayBack Machine snap, taken at Bee's and Elle's second and third birthday party. 

Look at that hairdo!  But, really, look at that lamp! The lamp is one I wish we still had! That sofa, with it's matching chair, are things I wish we still had.  They were junk yard finds, and lovely.  Junk yards used to have what  second hand shops had.   In the photo, I think I'm saying either, "She can grow into it.", or, "Well, her sister can wear it first."

Sweet little Bee!  First Birthday picture of Elle on the table.  Big Fish is DH's

I kissed my little bald Buddha statue's head several time for good luck and flat out cheering up needed after I watched a Baltimore cop getting himself fired for abuse that was recorded on a cell phone.  Gah!  *spits*  Where do they GET these guys???!  I need to knit more and watch less YouTube!  Why San Diego is so eager to privatize law enforcement, jails and Fire departments I will never know.  Do they just want more trouble or what? LIke a Fireman friend of mine has said, that's already been tried and it didn't work!  For the first time in all the time that we've lived here, there are political signs on people's lawns and they are for someone who is promising to do that.  Just what part of, "we tried it and it doesn't work",don't they understand?

Can I go back to when my babies were small and move us out of here?

This was in the post when I got back from my sister's house.

My used/new copy, to replace the one I read to rags over the last 45 years.

 

Where is a rustic cabin in the pines when you need one? 

Something good to eat, A compost bin moves house, and a picture of a tiny gardener.

Some sort of delicious, lumpy Citrus. Clementine, I think. It made for a very yummy Lunch!

Sis and I went grocery shopping today, but there were no more African Violets to rescue. So we hit the Salvation Army and Good Will Stores. We had a Thrifting Crawl!

I found a lovely rose colored mohair blend sweater - picture tomorrow when the sun is up - that I was going to rip down for hat yarn. DH and Sis told me to just wear it. Maybe I will.

Delicious, but admittedly dry, compost. The bins are being moved. I hope to plant three new roses where these bins were, and move back SunFlare. I haven't moved a rose since I was a kid. We'll see! Apricot Nectar is not doing will this year but there hasn't been a lot of 6 hour sunny days, either.

Sarah, gardening at an early age. She still grows many gardens. I see her and think of Kate Sessions, and my own dear mother, both of whom loved gardening their whole lives.

All our daughters make beautiful gardens.  It's such a joy to see their gardens.

My Mother's Recipe Book

Sometimes I thumb through this book to find favorites from my childhood. Mother notes that she made "See's Candy Fudge" first in 1952 at the approximate cost of $1.64, and the recipe made around 5 pounds. By 1972, when she made another note, the cost had risen to $2.78, and by December of 1980, when she made a new note, the cost was $4.58.

Mother loved to make cakes, but time and energy ran out on her. I remember that she made "box cakes" after my little sister was born, except for one Red Velvet Cake for my birthday when I was, maybe, 15.

When the DDs were here in January, we went to a neighbor's garage sale. I bought a couple of book cases so that there would be more room for cook books. My collection is so SMALL! It hardly fills two shelves of that tall bookcase. Is it time to by more books? I get them used so as to have less "marital discord" over all my books.

Happy First Day of Spring....edited

This season, if it stays cool enough, is one of the sweetest ones in the year this far south in California. I know everyone on the east coast and in the northern tier of states is looking forward to it as well.

Now the knife...hehe sorry!

Easter is always my favorite holiday, and I'm looking forward to it. My mother always made me a new dress for Easter when I was very small. It's one of the happiest memories of mine from childhood, which ended about when I was 7 or 8. My childhood was over by then.

I never thought about it until recently, but childhood is quite often a victim of brutality. In my case, I realized that something was terribly wrong with one of my parental units by that age, and it wasn't anything I did or didn't do; it was my Psycho Dad.

You also know that there's not a whole heck of a lot you can do about it but just stay out of the way, be happy in school if it's possible, and try to become more invisible if it's not. In some convergence of terror, by the time I was 9 years old I had a fifth grade teacher who made me the class goat, and with all that was happening in this freak show stuff going on at school and at home, I grew up overnight.

There is sometimes help, Thanks to God, in the form of kind people, that is if they get the time to act. There were a few kind people who took me into their hearts. So, I guess I think of them at Easter. Having had the blessing of Kind people, like Jesus, who cared enough to help a little kid, my life was spared even more trauma. Color me Grateful, for Easter, for many reasons.

Devil and Angel baby picture

We call this one "Devil and Angel"

I wanted to end this year on a happy note, and I can't think of anything happier than babies. The twins were just about 10 months old and had started walking, so that makes this picture from September of '73.

I'm so tired of this year, 2009, and will be happy to see it creep off the stage and go into infamy, with all it's ribbons dragging, and the whole of it's baggage. Today was a baking and candy making day, and it became a "wash the dog" day, too! My back is aching and here is when I'm really happy that DH does the kitchen and the cooking, Bless him!

The Manly/Beastly is going along so well that I've already picked out a new sweater to make for DH, and it goes with my Resolution to learn continental knitting. Fair Isle sweaters really benefit from a full knowledge of continental style, though the first time I knit this sweater in '76, it was with the plain old lever throw that is what I use all the time. What a drag that was to do!   I found this Philosopher's Wool technique ages ago when doing something else, and fully intend to learn it in 2010, but starting with mittens for a DD!

The new one, but I wanted to do it in the round.  With it being a raglan sleeve this will be very very interesting.   You've seen this on here before. 

Hats, sweaters and sock knitting can keep women off the streets.  But who else will march?  We can't leave all this stuff up to the kids, can we?  Just kick me.  I must let go!  I must LET GO!!!

Water, Salt and Fresh.

I wasn't born with a fascination with the Ocean, but by the year I was 7, and had read a few Robert Loius Stevenson books, and been taken several times to the beach in summer for the day, Huntington Beach mostly, I was hooked.

We spent the whole day and part of the night on the shore. It was the cheapest way for a family with very little money to have fun, and you could build a fire at dusk and roast the hotdogs and marshmallow feast brought from home. And to go shell collecting along the surf was a kid's paradise.

The beaches were not that far away but of course there were no freeways then in Los Angeles County, so we started very early, to "get a good spot" and did the boring route over the surface roads. We spent as much of the day down there that we could, and luckily our Dad loved the beach more than most.

Along the coast in little beach towns, at night, you could hear the surf and watch it in moonlight. You could hear the gulls calling and the fog horns and bouys warning ships away from the rocks. Since my brother and I spent a lot of time running around in the light of the moon at home- we had a very big playground on Mom's little farm, and were quite safe back then- we loved the special effects that moonlight lent to the surf. And the sound of it crashing, making the foam that gleemed silvery white, was an unforgettable childhood memory.

The biggest body of water I'd ever seen to that point in my life was Lake Erie. Our grandparents shared a family owned cabin near the shore of Lake Erie, and they would take my cousins and I there when we were quite little. Grandpa would go fishing and that's about all I can remember about it. I do remember being shocked, later on, to taste the ocean water and finding out it was salty! No one told me there were two sorts of water on Earth - Salt and Fresh.

Cleaning out the Attic At Grandma's...

 

 

I've been de-stashing some sewing things, the patterns especially. My sewing patterns stretch back into the 40's -ones that Mother had - and a lot of mine from the 50's on up. Some, like these shown, are very interesting. Either it's historical or hysterical. You decide. If there are others that may bring a smile or two, I'll post them as we go along. Still looking for beauty that does not involve more boring clouds over the back forty.

Today I'm putting fingers on a glove and reading more in my economic tome. This is very painful but necessary to understand what went so terribly wrong. Since it's been years since I read it, I need to go back and read Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations". It's my oldest hobby, Economics.

The sun is shining, the containers in the garden need to be watered. Since that can wait another day, I'll just declare this a "Knitting Day"!

Oral Histories of Pioneer Women, on the web...

It's been very, very hot in the house for at least a week. I've been able to do little else than to stay cool during the day, keep my little furry baby J alive with cooling fans and an ice pack made from ice and alchohol, and two zip lock bags. He's going to get a full fledged bathing tomorrow because he is showing the effects of this heat. So, I've not been doing any knitting. Sorry, nothing at all.

What I did do, when the computer room cooled down a bit late at night was search for any thing that might be on the web about my friend Esther, who was a pioneer in San Bernardino. I thought of her long interesting talks late into the night with DH and I when we were young. She was such an interesting Gal! So, I thought I'd found her here but, alas, it wasn't the same Esther.

Since it wasn't My Esther, I searched the web for more oral histories and found these two:

Bertha Wells Duguid, "How She Grew"


"I Remember it Well", Alfrida E. Willke


Since women's histories are so rare anywhere in print, the web is a great place to search for them. I thought you might enjoy reading these three. Go have a search for things like the Oral History Project, and even church instituted Oral Histories of their pioneer members. It's great to find out what women thought about their lives. This might even inspire you to record the lives and thoughts of women in your family, before it's too late. I wish I had been able to talk to my mother more, but we'd just started talking about her childhood when she passed away suddenly. And about the men. Well, they get way too much press. Heehee.

Tomorrow, the last three cards from the postcard group. Maybe it's four? I tell you my brain is melted into a puddle.

 

Picassa finally Duked it out with the AV and put this up. For all the Flower lovers a bit of Beauty!

And this, a bit of nostalgia about sweaty hard working summers in prep for winter.


Is Home canning a lost art in SoCal?

There's been some talk about growing gardens and preserving the produce by canning. I can see by going around the blogisphere that home food preservation is live and well in the Heartland. But what about California?

Until about 15 years ago, when we quit growing any kind of vegetable garden, I also canned and made jelly and jam. My DH's mother was still making preserves of fig jam until a few years ago, but I know of no other person who still does any canning. Maybe it's so cost heavy,due to the cost of natural gas and electricity, that people have mostly given it up in California. It could also be that we don't have as many garden fruit trees because of pesky insects and wandering critters. These two factors finally lead DH and I to remove all but the citrus trees. We also had a source for fruits at places you could pick from orchards or fields. We would pack up the family and go to Julian to pick apples and pears to make fruit butters, and I used to pick strawberries, for jam, in a place that is now a housing development. Nowadays, I wouldn't even know where to go to pick them without spending $12 on gasoline to get there and back. It is now much cheaper to just BUY the ready mades off the supermarket shelf.

My mother grew big vegetable gardens, and we had a fruit orchard of peach trees- babcock and cling- bing and sour cherries, red plums, a walnut and and almond tree, and apricots. All the produce from her kitchen gardens was eaten fresh, or preserved by canning whole, or made into jams and jellies or pickled. We also raised chickens, ducks, geese and rabbits to eat. Mother's industry fed us well.

My brother and I helped pick everything, and I helped with the preserving. There were so many summers where I stood, sweltering on the porch, cutting up fruit, or adding peaches or tomatoes to hot baths to pick off their skins. That is how I got permanently sick of heat. Standing over tall pans stirring the fruit jams or jellies, tomato sauces, green tomato relishes, zucchini pickle, or spaghetti sauce was what I actually remember the most about summers. I still made Mother's Green Tomato relish, bread and butter pickles and cherry preserve until we quit growing our own gardens.

I was the oldest child by five years, followed by a brother who never seemed to do anything but play, and a baby sister, almost ten years younger. Being Mother's "right hand man" was a harder than normal childhood but also fun and instructional. In fact it might have been ideal if we could have factored out the paternal unit, or replaced it. It had too many broken gears and malfunctioned rather badly!

Sorry, that bloglines feed isn't set up correctly

Update, I ripped it out. If I could figure it out, so that it would make it all easier for those that use bloglines, I would have done it. Sorry, no can do at present time. Lot on this old mind.

Original Post:

I tried to get a little fancy here and of course there's more to it. I'm working on getting a feed set up to Blog Lines.

Me only Bro is here for a week, so we are a little busy. Also, I have a bike now, a Trek. It's a hybrid and it's small, and it fits me! Yay! I even like the color. I shall call it Raven, for the huge raven in my dream the other night. Ravens are very auspicious birds. I always love to see them and they are a very rare sight.

Several years ago I gave away the beloved Motobecane I'd ridden for 30 years or so. Believe me, it was an emotional moment.

I'm sorry about no knitting content but the trekkerXXL boot sock is getting done after a rip down. I had a loop of yarn half way to the toe. I know exactly how it happened, too. Not enough light while trying to knit in bed with a head lamp. Duh!

PT is going well, and solving the problems. It won't do everything but what it does do, it does really well. My therapist thinks I should ride a stationary bike, but that I should at least stay off the roads that have cars on them. I'll try not to worry everyone by riding on roads with cars. There are a lot of Rails to Trails places to ride around here.

The bike shop owner's mother is 72, still riding, and has the same bike I will ride. So, I think I can do this, too. I've ridden big bicycles since I was five years old, rode to school and just everywhere since I was 7 years old. I never wanted to give it up! It's in my blood I think. My mother's sister taught my cousin D and me how to ride a regular bike.

My Aunt Jane is 7 years older than we are. She was a lot of fun for a couple of 5 year old nieces to pal around with all summer on my Grandparents' farm. She's one of our fun Aunties, we have two, who made us a covered wagon out of her big delivery wagon one year. She also dressed four of us up as pioneers.

She was in a Girl Scout troop that year. too, and one night they were going to let us stay, in the barn, for a sleep over with them. I was able to stay only til the story telling time, which was after Grandpa played his guitar and we all sang songs. The first story was so scary that I started screaming, and that was it for my sleep over! My cousin got to stay and boy did I pout!