February 8, 2015: 44 Years and 20 Bucks Later

Driving rain, blowing wind, Dad and good friend Brian Ambrose attempt to take shelter under an umbrella.  We had splashed our way from Auburn up into the foothills of the Cascades to catch an empty grain train at Palmer Junction. We had spent part of the morning in town watching trains, but when a grain empty left the yard for Stampede Pass, we decided a chase to Kanaskat was in order.

Lucky for us, the train showed up before the rain penetrated through our coats and shirts.

As the train roared past and around the corner, Dad and I remember back to a time almost 44 years to the day when we had come to the same spot.  Our goal was to photograph the Burlington Northern's version of the famed North Coast Limited.  We parked the family wagon on the road, within yards where we parked this day.  We hiked around the corner, just beyond where this shot was taken and climbed up on the hillside above the curve.

Like this day, it was only a short wait before the train came around the bend and headed up the Green River Gorge.  Our goal attained, we called it good and went back to the car.  During our short absence, the soft shoulder of the ground had given way, and the rider's side of the car had settled to the frame. We were stuck.

Lucky for us, just across the tracks and down in a little hollow was a single wide trailer house whose owner had a Jeep.  Not only did he have a Jeep, he loved roaring around the countryside in his Jeep.  Dad told him of our predicament, and in an instant he fired up the straight piped Willis and dispensing of such formalities as a driveway or road, came flying straight up the embankment surrounding his yard, spun a couple of "brodies" on the dirt Tacoma Watershed road, then backed up to our listing station wagon.  A few quick tugs and we were on our way, the owner of the Jeep obviously disappointed it took such a minor pull.

As Dad and I were recounting the tale to Brian, Dad laughed, "that guy got my last 20 bucks."

February 2, 2015; That Damned Norwegian Work Ethic

This is a photo taken of my Mom back in 1970.  If my math is correct and memory clear, I believe she would have been 84 today.  She passed away about 4 years ago.

The Old Man was a hard worker, but Mom was the one with the driven work ethic.  I think I get my work-a-holic ways from her.  This shot of her on her knees, weeding the big garden at the farm was taken on the 4th of July.  I remember Dad was up on the front porch taking a break before we went to the annual Grange picnic.  Not so Mom.  She had finished frying 6 chickens for the feast, and while they browned in the oven, with still an hour or so before we left, she took her weed box and trowel, and went to the garden, with me in tow.  I snuck away long enough to take this shot, before she was able to look up and realize I had skipped out.

Mom was well read, an accomplished musician, a very intelligent woman, and a career housewife.  When I say career, I mean that in a very industrial/corporate sense of the word.  She worked at that job with the same vigor, seriousness and intensity modern women put into their careers outside of the home.  By any standards, our house in Tacoma was a "shack," but under Mom's care the interior was immaculate, not a blade of grass out of place in the large yard.  Later, when she and the Old Man moved back out to the farm, her childhood home, we used to tease her.  The lawn in front of the big old farmhouse under her care was referred to as "the putting green."

So if I work long hours at the mill.  If I spend 7 months out of the year farming nights after work and week-ends.  If during the winter months I spend my week-ends out in the fields weeding, it's not my fault.

It's that damned Norwegian work ethic.

It's one of the many gifts Mom gave me.

February 1, 2015; Curb Appeal

These days I find I watch almost as much "House and Garden TV" as I do ESPN, Root Sports, or even History Channel.  In particular I tend towards the make over shows. In some couples are either shopping specially for a fixer-upper that is magically transformed into their dream home, or the evil real estate agent tries to lure them away from their beloved, but run-down home all the while the hapless but never the less good looking renovation expert is frantically remodeling in a effort to make them want to stay.  In all cases, curb appeal and making a house "warm and inviting" are high on everyone's list.

Curb appeal.....  Does it look "warm and inviting?"  Whenever I hear those phrases my mind goes back to my grandparent's barn in Ohop Valley.  On a cold, cloudy winter evening, as darkness begins to fall, what could be more warm and inviting than a dairy barn?  The barn lights are on, Grandpa, the Old Man, my little sister, all are inside busy with evening chores. Years earlier it was just me and Grandpa in there working.  Even from a distance you can hear the steady drone of the vacuum pump, the rattling of buckets, the static filled music coming from the barn radio.

Warm and inviting?  Even on the coldest nights or frigid mornings, the heat from the cows greeted your face when you walked through the door.  The hay mow above not only served as an all winter playground for us kids, but was a thick layer of insulation trapping the warmth coming from the cows.  Of course it helped that you were working.  Cleaning the gutter before and after milking, and of course milking the cows kept all of us busy enough the outside cold was seldom noticed.

There were the other chores as well.  Feeding hay, bedding down the cows if they were to stay in all night, and feeding the calves.  It could be well below freezing outside, but Grandpa would have his coat off, and the sleeves of his sweater rolled up while he mixed a bucket of powered calf milk.  (A quick aside, any farm kid will tell you, one of the best games was to dip your fingers into a bag of powered calf milk, and let the calf suck it off your fingers.  Then it was your turn.  You dipped your slobbery fingers back into the bag and licked the tasty paste off your own fingers.  You repeated that until Grandpa gave you that sideway glance telling you, "You've wasted enough powdered milk for one day.")

You want to talk curb appeal?  You want to talk about warm and inviting?  I would argue any real estate agent or renovation expert would be hard pressed to match, let alone top a barn full of dairy cows.

Just as I would argue their is nothing colder than the same barn standing forever more empty.