U is for an Untold Story--ABC Wednesday

This morning I was reading what Liz had to say over at Finding Life Hard and I wanted to link to my similar story. But when I went to find it in my blog, I discovered that it was something that had happened several months before I started blogging, and so the story went UNTOLD. Does that make it adequate fodder for an ABC post for the letter U? I hope so.

You see, it was during spring break several years ago when two boys rang my doorbell and told me that their ball went into my yard and could they go get it.

And I said Yes, go around through the gate over here.

And they said but he went in over there.

Now, bilingual kids (and adults) often have a problem getting their pronouns straight, so I didn't think too seriously about their calling their ball a "he."

So, pretty soon this is what I saw:

 Okay, not a problem with pronouns, just a little accent on the vowel sounds there.

The boys tried to get the bull to go home with them, but he though our grass was greener, I guess. So they said they would be right back, and pretty soon they came back with their dad.

...who was leading a cow.

 Who led the bull out of the yard...

and down the road toward home.

So that's my untold story--that's all it is--and I'm sticking with it.

But now it isn't untold any more.

If you liked this you will find Liz's bull story interesting.

And you will find more fof U at ABC Wednesday.

Conversations

When I visit a fabric store the conversation at the cutting table often revolves around what am I going to do with whatever it is that is being cut. Depending on the store and how well they know me, what I am making sometimes brings about quite a bit of conversation.

Cutters find the fact that I am making blocks to swap with a couple dozen other quilters quite fascinating. They are amazed that I might make a quilt for a baby on the way half around the world. Some chuckle if I am buying something with no thought to what I might make of it.

They seem to think it exciting that I am making a quilt to fundraise for cancer. They are not sure what to think of making quilts for wounded soldiers. Sometimes customers in quilt shops are really caught up in their projects and can't imagine doing any charity quilts, much less as many of them as many of my friends do.

It is something to talk about.

But today was a conversation stopper.

While cutting my piece of gold satin, the cutter asked what I was making.

I answered--a funeral pall.

Pretty much stopped the conversation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When we drove up to the audiologist's office and parked next to another silver Subaru Forester, I told hubby someone would come out soon and wonder what I was doing in his car. Hubby went in to get his aid serviced and I sat reading. Pretty soon I looked up and a strange man was opening the passenger side door.  Quite startled when a strange woman said--"nope! Next one over." I looked across and his wife was laughing hilariously. Soon all three of us were.

My middle name...

My mother's name was Jane.

My great grandmother's middle name was Jane.

There are other great greats on back through history whose names or middle names were Jane. Keziah Jane. Sarah Jane.

My daughter's middle name is Jane. Her daughter's middle name is Jane.

But apparently I have been Jan for forty of my years.

Social Security asked for documentation of name change so I dug up marriage certificate.

"I don't know why they asked for this, we already have you in here with your married name."

Further investigation.

Forty years ago when I changed my social security number from my maiden name to my married name, someone dropped the "e" in my middle name. Since the card just had my middle initial on it, I never knew.

Till today.

I did not abandon you Jane Christina, Lodusca Jane, Keziah Jane and all you other Janes.

I am Jane again.

Maintaining the Geometry. It's Geometry Monday!

The geometry is important in the hopyard. Lines lines and more lines. The parallel lines of the poles, the parallel and perpedicular lines of the trellis. The block of forty rows of forty poles. And in an area where hops are a major crop, another block of forty forty next to it and then another. Then there are the angles and triangles at the edges and corners formed by the poles and the support wires.

All they were doing at those corners the other day when I shot this was posting up labels for the sections for the coming season, but a lot of work in the hops takes place with these tractors with the elevated platform. They are designed to fit beneath the trellis wires, and the poles and wires are placed so that they will fit.

I learned about the dimensions of the hopyard from my friend who grew up on a hop ranch not far from us. Each section is forty by forty. 

She told me a story that emphasizes the importance of the geometry, too. She had been playing on the tractor as a kid and accidentally nipped the corner support wire of a 40 by 40 section. The whole yard fell down. Oops!

It was a long time before she got to drive the tractor again.

Triangles! Can't live without them!

Do they fly balloons over big auto sales where you live?

So he wasn't smoking when he sauntered over to my old Honda to schmooze with me about whether I wanted to shop the big sale.

But his long black overcoat on a warm almost spring day was a bit ...well, ostentatious. Where'd he come from anyway?

No, I told him, I'm just picking up my husband who dropped off the PT Cruiser here to see if they could figure out the electrical problem and make it stick this time.

How about a new ride for you? he said.

No, I said. Not till it hits half a million miles.

What's it got now? he asked.

When we get home it will be 337,000 even, I told him. Still runs great, but the mileage has dropped a bit below 30 mpg since I don't do the commute on the freeway every day.

Oh.

Now someone else might say half a million miles but since it's two thirds of the way there, it has some cred.

It's a really big sale, he told me, great deals. Gary (I think he said Gary) the owner--he just bought the dealership says sell all the cars in stock at his cost--some of them below his cost.

Oh, I told him. Yeah, sure, I didn't tell him.

How do you like the PT Cruiser? he asked me.

We love it, I told him.

We have a yellow convertible one, (I think he said yellow) preowned, low mileage, implying that I should be interested.

Hmm, I said.

It would be perfect for you, he suggested.

No, the bears could get into it, I told him.

Hesitation.

I mean, really, how do you counter that?

Oh, well, yeah, that's true. (What in the world is she talking about? What bears?)

We've thought about it, I told him. When we trade it we are thinking of something with all wheel drive (He doesn't have anything with all wheel drive. His brand doesn't make any.) Or maybe 4 wheel drive. (Give him another opening--see how he takes it.)

He told me he could show me something.

And we figure about another year, I tell him. We're saving for our trip to Scotland.

Oh? Are you going to Scotland? When?

This summer--hiking in the Highlands.

It could have gone on. Actually it did go on.

And when my husband was finished in the service department, I pulled my Honda out of the lot and we headed home.

And so the story goes.

With Honda hitting half a million, after his hesitation about hiking in the Highlands, my husband and I headed home.

I think it's ABC H.

And a story to boot.

For more ABCs approach to H, see the site.

Shoe Tree against an Oregon Sky

I may be stretching the SkyWatch theme here, but I have been meaning to come back to the shoe tree since our trip to Northeast Oregon last month and there was a lovely gray clouded sky that day as a backdrop for this social phenomenon.

Without the sky

 behind it  you would

 be hard pressed

to see these:

Or these:

or these:

We found this Shoe Tree on our drive between Joseph and Imnaha last month. I was in the driver's seat on the way back from Imnaha when I spotted this as we went past and "Whoa!!!" we had to go back for a better look.

Other "shoe trees" are more "famed", more visited, but fewer can possibly be in such an isolated area. Just look up shoe trees or shoes in trees on any search engine to find a number of collections of pictures and just about as many explanations.

Thank you sky for helping to highlight the shoe tree for me.

For more conventional SkyWatches today, visit the SkyWatch home blog and follow the links to skies around the world.

Theres gotta be a--another--story

...but this time I leave you to speculate.

So, what is this boot doing on this fencepost in Imnaha, Oregon?

Just a little more about Imnaha:

*the population is 12. (About 180 if you count surrounding ranches.) (statistic is from 2003)

*Heather posted an alternative version of the bank robber story from my previous post as a comment there. Heather is an innkeeper in Joseph, and next time we visit the area, if we aren't pulling our tiny trailer, I think we will be visiting her. I am quite sure she will be able to fill in any other details, and invite her to add to anything further that I post about the area. Wallowa Valley residents are proud of the Valley and its history. (They even stop you on the street to tell you about it.)

*Imnaha has a community celebration the third Saturday of September and one of the big features is a bear and rattlesnake feast.

*The name Imnaha comes from combining the name of a chief from the area -- Imna -- and the added form -- ha -- which means rules here. So the meaning of the town's name is "place where Chief Imnah rules(ruled)".

Isn't that enough to answer the "You went where? Why?" question for any adventurer?

Just in case you thought this was an isolated boot--maybe lost and posted (yeah, dumb pun!) on the fence so its owner could reclaim it, all the fenceposts along this small property have boots.

You can see a couple of them here, though I could probably have gotten a better picture if I had tried harder. If you do a search for boots on fenceposts you will find lots of other instances of the practice--some extending for miles and miles--and some explanations I won't publish here.

There's gotta be a story

We were merely intrigued by the old building that houses the Wallowa County Historical Society Museum in Joseph, Oregon, because it looked interesting. The museum wasn't open. (One problem with traveling in the off season.)

Undoubtedly, the museum would hold many stories in its collections, but little did we know the building's own story until a gentleman who had noticed our interest asked if we would like to hear its history.

Sure.

We hadn't noticed that it had been a bank.

The story goes like this.

One day in 1887 or 1888, three armed men strode into the First Bank in Joseph, Oregon, and robbed it of $8,000. One of the robbers was shot and killed before they were able to make their escape.

The other two headed east toward the Snake River and Idaho.

A posse was formed and caught up with them about thirty miles out  near the town of Imnaha. A gun battle ensued, and another of the robbers was killed. The other was brought back to Joseph.

(Here's what Imnaha looks like today. You would miss it if you blinked. Well, maybe you wouldn't, because it is basically the end of the road. Other than the highway by which we arrived, the only roads out are gravel or dirt, and pretty iffy this time of year. I've actually traveled on one of them in the fall a number of years ago, but that's another story.

A quick shot back over my shoulder to get the post office, too--didn't want you to think that Imnaha was really small, did I?)

Okay, back to the bank robbery. the surviving robber, badly wounded, was taken back to Joseph, where he recovered from his wounds, was tried, and sentenced to eight years in state prison.

Upon being released, he returned to Joseph to establish himself, and became the manager of the bank he had robbed.

The hills near Imnaha.

We expect to return to visit Enterprise and Joseph in a different season, finish the hike we left half done, and get out to the edge of Hells Canyon, accessible by those dirt and gravel roads out of Imnaha. Hopefully the museum will be open in Joseph, as we want to see one exhibit our impromptu guide told us about. He said he was upstairs in the museum when he noticed some cards--not very large--maybe about the size of half a sheet of paper. On closer inspection he found that they were formal invitations: "You are cordially invited to the execution of..."

See, I told you, there's gotta be a story...

 An entry to This Way Thursday. See others here.