Flowers for Grandpa

While looking at caskets and floral arrangements (this was before we got there), the family members on site decided that, in addition to being froofy and overpriced, the flowers just didn't seem quite right for Dad. So someone hit on the idea of taking the grandkids out in the woods to gather things that reminded them of Grandpa, and putting together an arrangement from that.

The excursion happened the day before the funeral. Doug was fighting a cold (which Kate and I caught after we got home--oh joy) and Kate wanted to stay with him, so I went along and took pictures of Melody's kids and Erika's kids.

We went to an old-growth area just a few blocks away from the house. The kids had bags of various sorts to put things in. It was kind of cold and damp, but not actually raining right then, which was good.





Uncle Brian carries on the "pitch wood" tradition.



Maddy helps her little brother Grayson.



Sabin likes stomping on rotting logs.



Cousins Chloe and Maddy.



Melody's oldest, Taylor, who once took a nap on my stomach when he was about nine months old. It's rather unnerving to realize how much time has passed.



Maddy again.



Grandma!

Back at the house, we had to wait till after dinner to clean off the kitchen table and spread everything out and get to work. Doug's mom ended up doing most of it herself, with a lot of kibitzing from some of the female contingent.




Margit (Al's wife) and Shellee (Craig's wife).



Craig oversees.



Nadine and her mom.




I had to take Kate to bed and wasn't around for much of the process, and didn't get to see the final result till the next day at the funeral. It did turn out really nice, and I thought it was a great way to have the kids contribute.

Gathering

(I was planning on having this all done some time ago--Kate and I have both been sick and cranky. Not fun. Anyway, here's more from Oregon.)

Doug's mom lives in the Round Lake area outside of Klamath Falls. Family converged from Portland, Utah, Idaho, Nevada, and Southern California. Everyone was there. Doug's sister Melody mentioned that it was the first time all six kids had been together since her wedding, which I think was about fourteen years ago. It was wonderful that everyone was able to come, though unfortunate that it had to be for such an event. (And, ironically, we'd been talking about having a reunion next summer.)

There was a constant stream of food through the door, brought over by neighbors and friends from church, and they even contributed trailers for people to sleep in. I think there were three trailers in the driveway, and Doug, Kate, and I ended up sleeping in a little trailer in a neighbor's back yard across the street. It was really a great thing to see so much sympathy and support.



Kate enjoyed playing with Grandma's toys (especially Hungry Hungry Hippo) but she was rather overwhelmed by having so many cousins around, so it was nice to have a quiet place to go.

Cousin Lonnie and his wife Martha drove down from Puyallup with 7-8 pounds of Alaskan halibut, which they fried up for dinner. It was so good. (Kate just gobbled it up and kept asking for more.) Lonnie is about the best cook ever. When I heard he was coming down, I said, "Can we get him to cook for us?" Mmmmmm.




The group shot (taken on Brian's camera. I really need a wide-angle lens). Six kids and their families--fifteen grandkids and three great-grandkids. The youngest great-grandchild isn't in the picture. I think she was at her grandma's house that evening. Unfortunately we didn't get a shot in which Kate wasn't either looking away from the camera or looking possessed.



Family picture! Awwww!



Melody and her youngest, Jarom (another December baby). Melody is my age and served a mission in Japan while I was in Korea.

Nadine's little boy Tyson (one of the great-grands) crawled up behind Kate a couple of times and tugged on her hair, at which she turned and hollered, "Hey! Don't do that!" and I said, "Better get used to it, kiddo!"

All Aboard!

We caught the Coast Starlight (Amtrak) at 10:30 Saturday morning, headed down to Klamath Falls, Oregon.



Doug and Kate on the platform, watching the train approach.



We boarded at station 11, so we got Kate to find the 11 for us. On the way out she "found" all the other numbers, too, and read them to us as we pulled out.



I took Kate up to the lounge car so I could point out Titlow Park as we passed. When we go to the park it's always a big deal when the trains go by. Now we've seen it from both sides!



Going under the Narrows Bridge. We'd been under once in a boat a few years ago, when there was only one bridge.



Mist near Olympia.



I did a lot of crocheting on the train. Yes, I caved and started one of those Japanese patterns, even though I haven't finished my painting. (The painting would have been much harder to take along.)



Lunch in the dining car, near Portland.



Kate was kind of bouncing off the walls, and finished eating before we did, so our waiter brought her some crayons so she could draw on the paper table cloth. This was my contribution, from a Korean train song. I know I spelled it completely wrong.



After Portland Kate finally conked out and slept for a while. She gave up naps a long time ago, but will still occasionally succumb to the lullaby of the moving vehicle.

This was my first time on Amtrak. It was nice to be able to get up and move around, and check out the different parts of the train. The seats were pretty comfortable, too (we liked the leg rests). And it probably would have taken us about the same amount of time to drive it. Once it got dark, though, going through the mountains, it was completely pitch black outside and looking out the window became considerably less interesting.

We got into Klamath Falls a little before 10:00. Doug's mom and his brother Al picked us up at the station.

Halloween Night

Things were pretty topsy-turvy around here, as you can probably imagine, but we decided to go ahead and take Kate to the Halloween party at the church the night before we left. She wore the dragon costume that Aunt Karen made her for Christmas.



They had trick-or-treating set up in the classrooms around the building (some were quite elaborately decorated), so we went around and collected candy.

On previous years there were carnival-style game booths in the gym. There wasn't anything like that this year, just chairs set up, and a few decorations, but Kate was still excited. When we walked into the gym she said, "Oh! It's Halloween in here too!"



No time to come up with a cute trick-or-treating bag. This one got a few comments.



"There's candy in here!"



"Oooh, an eyeball!"



Here's Kate with her teacher, Catharine Tracy. (Apparently a lot of people have trouble recognizing an Alice in Wonderland costume. What's up with that?)



When we left the party we took Kate by a friend's house, to see their decorations. They said she was their first trick-or-treater. I guess it's not a big candy destination area. After that she wanted to go somewhere else, so we stopped by the Tracys' for a short visit. And then we really had to go home and start packing.

We never did do the pumpkin thing. I enjoyed seeing everyone's pumpkin patch pictures and was looking forward to taking Kate, but it just didn't work out. (Maybe we could have if Doug hadn't been in Portland the weekend before....) Ah well. There's always next year.

We're back!

We are home from Klamath Falls and I have lots to post about. Thank you all for your kind words.

Mender of Soles

Alfred M. Jole (known as A.J. to his coworkers) worked for the U.S. Forest Service for most of his life, and in his retirement years repaired boots at Drew's in Klamath Falls, Oregon. He's kept Doug well supplied with boots, the most recent being a tri-tone pair that he'd rebuilt.

Doug (who is occasionally given to fits of verse) wrote this last night:

Boots: 10 inch packers



The last thing we talked about
Father to son, before he died
Was boots.
If a man works with his hands
And his feet
Balanced on fir roots, sweating on the fire line,
Raising sons out of the forests
he needs tough skin
good boots
to protect the tenderness
of the sole of the foot
of the soul.

The vamp–a dull color of blood and dust together,
the blood of his veins
the dust of the wild places he loved
Buffed and waterproofed
to keep my feet warm and dry,
I am wrapped tightly
by the work of his hands
embraced by his arms.

The 10 inch upper–black as Cascade duff in the snow-melt,
high to support the ankle
and keep me upright as I walked,
Upright as he walked and I followed,
10 inches high
he walked firm and strong,
and I followed him through the trees.

The laces–black leather,
earth tones and primitive
–he knew that woven laces wear out too quickly
in the wilderness
when you need them the most
so he wove thick, square laces
as long as my life
of my boots.

The heel counter–rawhide,
to protect against spurs
I will never wear,
rawhide white and strong as tough sagebrush country
sprinkled carelessly over basalt rimrock
the color of semi-arid soils.
The color of his face, worn as the seasons changed around him
faster than he could walk.
I was his spring, and his summer,
and I knew he would be my winter,
death under snow, waiting silently for rebirth.

The soul is eternal–
the sole is mini-Vibram,
not caulks for traction on the logs
not cowboy for ease in the stirrup
not deep cleats for muddy trails;
chosen by him
not for the dirt
the soils
the rock where he worked
but for my easier, paved trails.
He could re-sole them for me, he said.
And he has re-souled
I am his soul living in me.
These boots,
his loving hands reach out
practical, strong and rugged
built to take me into wild places
and even the wild places
he never knew
the untracked wildernesses
of college corridors
library carpets
worlds beyond his hillsides.

These are not new boots–
New, they would have been too dear.
Discarded, they became dear to him.
He re-crafted them, re-built them
turning waste into care
building leather into love,
using tools and hands and materials
a love for craftsmanship and raw, animal material
life and death crafted into usefulness
One thing, at least, that we shared
Deftly stitching a welt where none existed before
Because in his art, his craft,
he knew quality boots can be re-built.


He knew–
His own boots had passed through the years,
forward through my childhood, tattered and worn,
patched and replaced–all but the uppers were new,
but they were the same boots.
The supple texture of boot leather,
the smell of hides,
thread and glue
stitched us together in his heart.

My soles can be rebuilt
My soul stitched together with his,
father and son
His soul goes onward,
tattered and patched
to be rebuilt, vamp, upper, sole and counter
Into beauty and usefulness
by the Maker.

bad news

We are sad to report that Doug's dad passed away early this morning. His mom called during the day yesterday and said that he'd taken a turn for the worse, and then called back around 1:30 AM to let us know he was gone. We're discussing going down to Klamath Falls.

Cute as a Pumpkin

Karen recently posted directions for a crocheted pumpkin hat, so I thought I'd make one for Kate. I kind of guessed on making it bigger--I made eight sections of 11 stitches wide. (My ridges don't seem to be lying quite right. Not sure what's up with that.) I also made a matching vest to go with it. I think Kate got tired of me trying it on her. I only got two skeins of yarn to start with and ran out, so I got Doug to pick up another one for me while he was out grocery shopping. (Thanks!)

Yesterday we went out and got some pictures. We went over to our favorite picture-taking corner and found the ground just covered with leaves. Hooray!












(Blurry, but cute!)

I drew some googly eyes on paper and stuck them to the front of my camera, to get Kate to look at me. I think it helped! She thought the eyes were hilarious and kept sticking them on other things afterwards.

Cousin Hazel

Here's Kate's newest cousin, Hazel Christine, born Sunday morning. (More on my mom's blog.) Congratulations to Barb and Kyle! She's a beautiful baby.

Barb was there when Kate was born. I'm not sure what she thought of the whole experience, but I remember how I felt afterwards--completely wrung out, and a bit shocky (darn episiotomy....) and then the first couple of weeks home with the baby and trying to figure everything out. I know Barb will be a great mom!

Our Little Sunbeam

Kate has really been enjoying her Sunbeam class at church. Here she is with her teacher, Catharine Tracy. She's excited to go every week (I don't think she really "gets" Sharing Time, much, but she loves class time) and she brings home fun handouts and games. Catharine won't be with us much longer, since she'll be heading off to college soon. We will miss her!

This last Sunday was the Primary presentation in Sacrament Meeting. Kate had one line--"I am a child of God, and he has a plan for me," which we practiced at home a bit. She went up to the microphone and said her part just fine, and stayed up on the stand through one song, and then she decided she was done and came back down and sat with us. We figure there's plenty of time for that sort of thing!

Photo tag

This is a tag from my sister-in-law, Karen. You're supposed to go to your "My Pictures" folder, pick the fourth folder, and post the fourth photo in that folder. Well, I do have a "My Pictures" folder but it doesn't have anything in it. So I had the computer do a search for all image file (48,948 files found--yikes!) and then picked the fourth one that was actually one of my pictures and not something from the 2007 Camp Leader Guidebook, not a scan of Doug's driver's license, and not a graphic created in Corel Draw. Here's what I got:



This is Kate at six weeks, doing her "sardonic baby" impression. I've always loved this photo, though the focus is a bit off. I haven't seen her doing the one-eyebrow thing lately. Maybe she can't do it anymore.

Impulse Buy

I'm supposedly saving my design money for something. Either a new couch or something camera-related, I'm not sure which. Or I'm trying to, anyway. Things keep coming up. Like this recent purchase--three crochet pattern books, in a language which I don't actually read.

A common lament of the crocheter is that all the good patterns are for knitting. Crocheting is, by nature, more bulky, and there just isn't as much good stuff out there that's really wearable. (I've made my share of bulky sweaters, which aren't getting much use here. It just doesn't get that cold.)

Recently I ran across some gorgeous crocheted sweaters on Catheryn's Crochet blog (specifically this one and this one), made from Japanese pattern books. I found the books she used on yesasia.com (and another one, too) and ordered them. They took almost a month to come, and finally got here last week. Yay! I've been having so much fun looking at them and figuring things out.

The books are in Japanese but the patterns are charted, which means they look like this:



I'd only recently become aware that there was such a thing as charted patterns, and I'd never tried to work from one. I found some good information here, and after spending some time looking at the charts I was pretty sure I could figure them out without too much trouble. Some of the assembly instructions are more complicated (and some border on bewildering), depending on the pattern.

Here are a few more of the pieces in the books:




I really like that last one. I started trying to figure out the gauge, to see what kind of thread would work with it. I managed to decipher where in the pattern it gives the hook size, and I found a conversion chart for Japanese hook sizes (why they can't just use metric I sure don't know). This pattern uses a size 4 hook, which I think should be 3.3mm (I think I'm dealing with the bamboo hook sizes here). The green sweater that Catheryn made also uses a size 4, and she said she used a 3.5mm hook, which would be US size E. (complicated, yes?) The hard part is finding a thread to get the right gauge.



I made a test motif from this pattern, which is supposed to be 16cm across. First I tried with size 10 thread (the most common size, available in lots of colors) and a B hook. That one was only 10cm. So then I tried it with a D hook and got 14cm. Closer, but not quite right. I had some size 3 thread, too, which is thicker, so today I tried that with an E hook, but it was too big. 20cm. Sigh. So I need something thicker than 10 and thinner than 3. I'll have to see if I can get ahold of some size 5 thread. (This stuff might work, though I am somewhat dubious, given the range of recommended hook sizes.)

Add to that the fact that these patterns are sized to fit petite Japanese women, which I am not, and you can see where some additional tweaking might be required. But I'm eager to jump in and get started on something--as soon as I finish this painting that's sitting on my kitchen table. I should probably get that done first.

These are the books that I got:

Spring and Summer Crochet 9
Beautiful Crochet Spring Summer 16
Simple Crochet Lace

(Yes the series is called "Let's Knit." These books are all crochet.)

Chalk Autumn

This is what I was working on earlier--pumpkin and leaves in Corel Painter (with the "chalk" brush). It was part of the October mega kit, and is now available separately. (Cheap!)

Heather T. asked what the advantages were in using Painter for something like this rather than Photoshop. I find Photoshop can be kind of choppy--if I'm doing some hand journaling, or drawing, I get better results in Painter. And as for actually "painting," it's just more specifically designed for that sort of thing. Though some of the mediums are not particularly useful when you want to make a transparent png file, because they leave white around the edges. Chalk works okay. There are a lot of things that I'm comfortable doing in Photoshop that I don't really know how to do in Painter, so I always finish up in Photoshop.



Here's what they look like on white. The pumpkin is pretty solid but the leaves were made on the brown background, and will look quite different on something else.

I know the pumpkin vine isn't really botanically correct. Hopefully that won't bother anyone too much!