NOT YOUR EVERYDAY OCCURRENCE (THANK GOODNESS!)

[This post was updated to include a picture of the Subaru.]

We have been in town since Elderberry Fest closed on September 30. We had appointments, meetings, hunting trips – so we just stayed in town. And besides, that smoke just hangs in the air and Clearwater County seems to get the worst of it.

Mike is preparing for yet another out-of-the-area hunting trip, but I said we just had to make a trip to the farm to check the pears I left on the porch. I could go alone, we agreed, but we decided to make it a combined bird hunt, check-on-the-pears, get-what-we-need togetherness trip. We left the town house early – about 7:30.

As we traveled Highway 12, we had passed the spot known as Cherry Lane and in one of the big bends, we had just passed an empty flat-bed truck. We were at the point where the westbound traffic (coming toward us) has a passing lane. Suddenly a white Subaru station wagon traveling west at highway speed veered off the road and disappeared over the embankment toward the river. Mike immediately pulled off the road and stopped, the truck right behind us. The truck driver was already on the phone with emergency services.

Long story short, the driver of the Subaru, a young woman, failed to negotiate the curve of the road – perhaps fell asleep. The vehicle carried her across rocky terrain to the river, which happened to be shallow at that point. The vehicle didn’t roll and took a path where there were no trees. When I reached the site, the driver had already left the car, waded through shallow water, and Mike and another passerby were helping her to the bank. What was her reaction? She placed a call on her cell phone – probably to her dad -- and mostly ignored those of us who were on site and trying to help her. I really do cut her a lot of slack for what was surely a traumatic experience. I feel blessed today for having found her alive.
 

By the way, the fisherman across the river appeared not to miss a cast and did not get involved. He was on the other side of the river, but I  did wonder -- if it had been a fatality would he have kept on fishing? 

We did not tarry. Emergency services were on the way, and the truck driver, having placed the call, was charged with the responsibility of staying on site until they arrived, which he seemed only too happy to do. We continued on our way.

The pictures here are not about the accident but about the hike I took at the farm. Mike and Nellie were hunting, and I just didn’t feel up to tramping the steep hillside. Instead I took a different route, hiking over June’s place and taking pictures of the smoke-filled canyons.

The hunt was unsuccessful and Mike arrived at the house before I did, so he came looking for me on the 4-wheeler. He found me by the time he was at the top of June's hill. I was sorry he worried. I hardly ever get lost on the farm.

And the pears? Not as bad as I had feared. I had two two-gallon buckets full. I sorted through and tossed eight of them. I brought the rest to town and have yet to decide what to do with them.

I had carried a lunch for us, but having accomplished our chores, we decided to go back to town in the forenoon. That's how it is when life is filled with such exciting things to do. 

[Photo 1: Mike and Nellie crossing June's field beyond the pond.

Photo 2: Looking down Stove Creek and across Little Canyon to Central Ridge.

Photo 3: The farmyard.

Photo 4: A picture of the Subaru in the Clearwater River which appeared on the front page of The Lewiston Tribune on Wednesday, October 10, 2012.
Photo 5: Another view to Central Ridge.

Photo 6: Looking southward into Little Canyon, which is filled with smoke.

Photo 7: And this looks northwesterly into the smoke-filled canyon above Peck.] KW

A VISIT WITH MY MOTHER

My mother passed on in 1997, but she still shows up from time to time, not as an apparition but as the form of my thought processes. Her appearance is most apt to occur when I’m sewing.

Saturday (Oct. 6), Mike and Ken took the dogs and went out for a morning hunt. Having the house to myself, I decided to cut out some doll clothes for the silent auction. You know, we’re a week into October now, and Christmas is coming. I have things to do!

Anyway, I want to make some pretty doll dresses for the P.E.O. silent auction. I hope these dresses will interest a P.E.O. sister whose two granddaughters have American Girl dolls. The girls are getting older, and you never know what that will mean. Maybe they will lose interest in the dolls altogether, or maybe the dolls will get dressed up and sit on a bed or shelf. Last year I made casual outfits for them. This year I’m making pretty dresses.

So I was working with this taffeta remnant – a plaid with a gold thread running through it. The pattern was laid on the fabric and I was just ready to cut when Mother showed up. “You aren’t cutting to advantage,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Okay, Mother,” I began, “I could re-pin this and save an inch or two of fabric, but I don’t think it’s worth my time.”

“Time is what I had,” she says. “And you never know how that extra inch or two might come in handy.”

And that set me to thinking how in my growing up years I carefully followed the cutting diagrams, pulling the pieces as close together as I could, folding and refolding the fabric so as to conserve a couple of inches along the edge. And in retrospect, I don’t recall a time when that two inches along the selvage or six inches left over at the end was all that useful. Eventually such scraps made their way to Mother’s stash barrel in the basement to be rejected time and time again as too small for any purpose whatsoever.

“I know this was important to you,” I argue, “but this is just a little scrap of fabric and I don’t care about its future beyond what I’m doing here.”

Then she faded away and I went on to do it my way, only feeling a little guilty for breaking Mother’s rule.

Having cut out several dresses, today I returned to my holiday quilt. It takes up a lot of space now, and I dream of having it finished. KW

SWEATSHIRT WEATHER

A cold front came through this week, cooling our temperatures. Suddenly – and I mean suddenly -- we needed warmer bedclothes and sweatshirts. We literally went from using a sheet and summer pajamas on Monday night to needing a blanket and leggings on Tuesday night. We’re now warming the bed with the electric blanket and last night we even pulled up the quilt. This morning it was 32 degrees. I know that this report is rather mundane, but it seems so strange that we had such warm temps all through September and the change happened so suddenly.

Here are pictures taken during last week’s Elderberry Fest. That afternoon was warm and we were in shirt sleeves as we sought elderberries on Russell Ridge. Smoke still filled the Clearwater River Valley. In fact, the smoke has been coming and going this week, but fire experts have assured us that with the coming of winter – and winter is coming, they say – the fires will be extinguished. As Chris put it – no one remembers a forest fire season like this one.

With fall temperatures now showing on the thermometer, we’re into autumn prep for sure. Mike set out our harvest / Halloween yard ornaments while I decorated inside the house.

This finishes the garden, I told Mike this morning. Turn off the water and I’ll pick the tomatoes, I said. But while I was out, he not only picked the tomatoes and summer squash but pulled out the plants as well. This evening I’ll cook a vegetable mélange for supper and freeze what we don’t eat. I’ll also make healthified apple crisp for dessert.

We turned on the furnace this morning and then decided to go ahead and light a fire in our little wood stove. Mike cleaned the chimney this afternoon. And then we headed out for some shopping. It’s never a good idea to shop on Friday afternoon, but sometimes it just happens. Among our purchases was a small oil-filled electric heater for the sewing room. The idea is that I will heat that room and confine myself to those quarters on cold days so that we can conserve on heat to the whole house. When may I start this routine and must I come out? KW

LOST AND FOUND -- AND OTHER MUSINGS

We had a beautiful fall day yesterday (Tuesday, Oct. 2) with an official high of 78. The overnight low was the coolest yet – 40. With a clear but cooler day ahead of me, I pulled my autumn sweatshirts from storage and put one on. And with cooler temps in the forecast, I’m changing the bed today so that there will be no argument against switching to warmer pajamas. (One of us can’t rationalize clean pajamas unless the sheets are also clean.)

Mike and I arrived at the farm on Wednesday (Sept. 26) to quickly prepare for Nick and Hallie’s arrival that night. I had housework to do, but Mike decided to ride his road bike to Nezperce and beyond.  In that case, he carries his bike to where the gravel road becomes pavement, parks the pick-up, and begins his bike ride from that point.

I have sympathy for Nellie when Mike drives/rides off. If you think only dog thoughts, you really don’t know what’s going on. Will he come back soon? Will he ever come back? They say dogs don’t see well, but Nellie will watch Mike until he disappears behind the slope of June’s field at the Plank place, fully a quarter mile distant, whether he’s driving the pick-up or riding his bike, the 4-wheeler, or the dirt bike.

A walk seems to reassure Nellie that her needs will be met even if Mike is gone – and she’s come to expect it. So I grabbed my visor, and leaving the dusty house behind, we headed down the lane. (Dust means nothing to Nellie, of course.) I was short on time, though, so at the top of Plank’s Pitch we cut back across June’s field, fairly easy now that I can walk in the tracks made by the harvest machines and trucks. I had walked a ways in this dusty track when I spied it – something on the ground. It was about the color of the dust/dirt and would have been easy to overlook. It proved to be one of those Leatherman multi-tools – quite a nice one. Of course, I put it in my pocket.

Passing the pond on the way to the house, I paused to take a picture of these “Delicious” apples. Don’t they look lovely? Well, it’s a lie. They were invaded by worms at the place where they touch each other. The apples on this little tree spoiled before they were ripe, a condition that affects most of our apple trees. I’d like to see if we can take better care of them – hard to do when we’re coming and going and when we can’t get to them in the spring for the wet ground. Once again, I resolved to do better if I can (and if I can motivate others to help me), and perhaps we should plant a few more fruit trees.

When I showed Mike the Leatherman tool, he agreed with me that we should find out if it belonged to Farmer Kyle or his crew. So, after supper, he called the good farmer’s wife, and she said that yes indeed, Farmer Kyle had lost his Leatherman tool and would be relieved to know it had been found. He loses one a year, she said, adding that Leatherman tools are expensive and she was tired of replacing them.

It’s tough to find something that you drop in the grass or the dirt. Things can just be swallowed up in the seeming vastness of the territory. I’m so pleased that I saw it – or that I heard it calling to me.

And coincidentally, Mike was looking through his hunting bag today and discovered something he thought he had lost – his own Leatherman tool. Another happy find! KW

OCTOBER 1 -- A VISIT TO GOODWILL

I didn’t tell you this, but two weeks ago today I bit down on a corn chip and found “tooth stuff” in my mouth. The back of a front bottom tooth had chipped off.  Unfortunately my dentist had just commenced a two-week vacation and the appointment was scheduled for Monday, October 1. I was sorry I couldn’t have the tooth fixed prior to Elderberry Fest, but it worked out because Nick and Hallie needed to be back in Seattle Sunday evening anyway.

So, we left the farm in our separate vehicles Sunday forenoon. I don’t know what Nick and Hallie experienced on Gilbert Grade, but we must have met 25 vehicles, and that constitutes “heavy traffic.” I thought of the Lewis County Fair at Nezperce and Mike seemed to agree but opined that there must be a lot of people with nothing much to do. Our newspaper then reported that 3500 people attended the “combine demolition derby,” which was indeed an event of the fair. For the village of Nezperce, population 600, that’s a lot of visitors. I’m sorta glad we went on a quieter day, but I also rejoice that the little town has found a draw. At least some of those folks purchased the fair food and enjoyed the exhibits.

Anyway, my tooth problem proved to be an easy fix. Half an hour and I was on my way. But where should I go? The dentist’s office is located very near Goodwill, and Monday is senior discount day (20%). I was there!

What fun! Goodwill is ready for Halloween decorating and costuming. I care not for the costumes, but I love the odds and ends of this and that. I have a little collection of Halloween ceramics and such, and this was my kind of shopping.

They had lots of brand new “Mainstays” (brand) items, so a Walmart store someplace must have donated last year’s leftover Halloween stock. Banners and wall hangings of felt originally marked $5.99 at Walmart last year were priced at $1.99 at Goodwill this year, and I wonder if it will move even at that. And there was more, too – lots of plastic stuff – but it wasn’t what I was looking for. I moved to the used cutesy ceramics. (My true “colors” are showing.)

My favorite purchase is this pumpkin teapot. I had hoped to find this prior to Elderberry Fest, but I didn’t see one at a price I liked – until today at Goodwill. The first one I picked up was marked $4.99, and I thought that was too much given that it had a little chip. Looking further I found this one – a little larger, a little more detailed, clearly not new, and no price on it. I put it in my cart. “$1.99,” said the cashier. “I’ll take it,” I said.

And there were other things, too. The little houses will fit right in with my collection. And when I see odd pieces that match my dishes at the farm (purchased at a grocery store), I pick them up. So I bought the platter for $.99. You never know -- it might come in handy.

$6.87 was the grand total for all this fun. And I was ready to take my treasures and go home – once again inspired. KW