Tractors and Horses and History

 

Tractors and Horses and History

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What I really want is to talk about tractors and horses. But, I’ll start with history.

I almost got in a fight over history the other day. I came so close. I managed to stop my mouth just in time.

I’ve always liked history. Back a thousand years ago when I went to Northern, one could immerse oneself in one’s field of study, no minor, just lots and lots of history. So, I did just that.

In terms of the job market back then, it was pretty much a worthless field I plowed. In terms of learning to see the world around me, it was invaluable.

 One learns to take nothing at face value.  What you see is the surface. Black/White?  Either/Or? They don’t exist. Every person, place, thing, event can be, should be, looked at from several points of view.

What happened the other day that got me in hot water was just this. My friend, who is an astute thinker in most cases, made one of those dangerous black or white statements, concerning historical events, one sided. Immediately my mind flooded with a hundred points of both history and science with which to refute her words. I, foolishly, started with my first example. She cut me off, “I know I’m right. I read it.”

Well, shut my mouth. I know not to argue with that. Mostly, I was surprised. Astonished. I also am aware that we all have one or two narrow-minded tunnels and that I have my own.

Being able to see 82 different points of view around XYZ surely makes it hard to see my world in definitive, cut and dried statements. I wouldn’t trade my awkward multi-viewpoint ability for the apparent assurance that others seem to get with more simple points of view.

In a different field, out here on the outer edge of town, most plots of land have a tiny section for growing corn or cane or agave. Compared to a Montana wheat field, you might say, “Oh, you mean a garden plot.”

I do not spend my day hanging out the window to see what’s happening along the street. A diesel engine idling outside the window will draw me over to see what’s going on.

The latest tractor to catch my eye was not nearly as old as the one pulling the two-prong harrow in the lot across the street a few weeks ago. This one was old, minus most of the original color, had obviously never been sheltered in a shed, but still had discernable print.

I took the make and model number to my computer and found the tractor to be a 1975 Ford. Only fifty years old. This tractor had hydraulics to lift the harrow at the end of the row rather than a rope to pull it out of the ground. As soon as the field to the north of our wall was suitably tilled, the tractor took off, returned with a corn planter. At the speed things grow here, I figure next month I’ll see corn tassels pop over the wall.

I don’t know if anyone here in Oconahua still plows with horses. Probably so. I have only the limited view of part of my street. But many men ride horses to work. And, to the bar. And, for romancing.

The dappled gray, the brown mare and the burro across and down one lot have cleared that plot of every blade of green. I noticed a young man, about ten years old, at a guess, who moves the horses to a different place when there is nothing left to eat. With the rains, grass grows quickly. Three or four days later, the horses are back, mowing every leaf and blade.

Up the street two plots, there is a beauty of a bay mare, I’m fairly sure it is a mare. She’s awfully round so I expect to see a babe by her side soon.

I love that I get to see glimpses of the past. I cannot romanticize the past. When that Ford tractor was new, most of the men here worked up at the mines. When that young boy who moves the horses from plot to plot comes of age, he will probably go to University in Guadalajara. Everything changes. With change comes what we label good or label bad as well as 82 points between.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

July 10, 2025

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Pye, Pye, Miss American Pye

Pye, Pye, Miss American Pye

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“Our church has lost so many of our bakers this year that we may have to forgo serving pies at the Seed Show luncheon,” Bev told me recently. “We might have to substitute cheesecake or something.”

“No! No! You can’t give up pies.” I lined up my arguments. “It wouldn’t be the same. Pie at the Montana Seed Show is a tradition. Pie is expected. Pie is an institution. Besides, what about Arnold? He hangs out at the Seed Show just for pie. That’s what I’ve heard. Sometimes he has six pieces a day. That’s what I’ve heard.” I went into a state of minor panic. I really didn’t care about Arnold. I cared about me!

The Lutheran Ladies have served homemade pie at the Seed Show forever. Whatever else they serve is incidental; people show up for the pie. Why else would hundreds of people stand in a line which winds twice around the hall and through the cafeteria, if not for homemade pie. Once the Civic Association finishes serving breakfast, the Lutheran Ladies set out mid-morning pie and coffee. And they serve mid-afternoon pie and coffee until the pie is gone.

As you stand in the lunch line, listen to the conversations around you. The merits of pies are debated, discussed, decided, studied and re-decided. “I want blackberry this time.” “Not me. My favorite is chocolate meringue. I hope they’re not out.” “Mmmm. I like apple.” Finally the line moves forward into the serving area and there you are, standing in front of at least fifty delectable slices of pie. The choice is overwhelming. Just as you decide on peach, the man in front of you snatches up the last slice of peach pie. “Dang napple-snapples.” Now what. Oooh, the coconut cream looks rich and, well, creamy. You point, “That one.”

I can’t imagine being at the Seed Show without a slice of pie. In my consideration, cheesecake is not a viable alternative. Now I make a mean homemade cheesecake, fresh and high and light and rich. It is expensive to make, takes forever and dirties every dish in the cupboard. And I’ve had cheesecake at a few doings, fundraisers for one event and another. What Bev was talking about as an alternative to homemade pie was the insipid cheesecake made from the easy-squeezy store-bought mix. I won’t say they are inedible but they don’t make me want to go back for more, especially when they are topped with plops of glommy pie filling straight from the can.

Pie is considered as American as the Fourth of July. But, actually pie is universal. Historical evidence points to numerous versions of “pye”, mostly filled with meat, as in four and twenty blackbirds. But during the early lean and hungry years in the colonies our pioneer mothers turned to baking pyes with the simple foods at hand. They lopped the tops off pumpkins, scooped out the seeds and stringy stuff, filled the pumpkin bowls with milk and set them on the open hearth to bake. In later years they added spices and put them in a grain-based “coffin”. The first pye pans these pioneer women devised were round “to cut corners”. Flour was expensive and less flour was needed to make a round crust. These pans were flat and shallow so the “pyes would go a long way”.

“There’s got to be a solution,” I told Bev. “I’ll become a volunteer Lutheran for a day and help bake pies. I bet you can find several others in the community willing to pitch in and help you through this desperate situation. How many pies do you want me to make, two or twenty?”

Yesterday I donned my Lutheran apron, the one I wear when I roll out lefse, and made two apple pies. I like a fat, fruity pie with a thin flaky crust, even though they always bubble over in the oven. After I baked the pies and let them cool, I wrapped them tightly so they wouldn’t lose moisture and popped them into the freezer where they will be safe until the Seed Show. Then I had to clean the oven.

Later this week I’ll bake a couple rhubarb pies and next week I’ll make Juneberry. As a lapsed Catholic helping out the Lutherans, does this doubly fulfill my obligation for Lent? After all, I’m baking them, not eating them. At least, I’ll abstain from pie until the Seed Show when I plan to stand in the slow-moving line along with everyone else, thinking about which pie most makes my mouth water. I sure hope somebody bakes peach.

Easy as pie. Crisis averted. Well, yes, but I will have to clean the oven again.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking at my back door

February 21, 2013
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Winter Bounty—Baskets of Goodness and the Football Pool

Winter Bounty—Baskets of Goodness and the Football Pool


Winter sports do not excite me. In my daydreams I do not yearn to plunge down ski slopes, roar astride a bucking machine through snow-clad hills, or etch figure eights over the frozen river. As the daylight hours diminish, I harbor no nostalgia for mounting winter tires, finding the window scrapers or digging out the snow shovels. A roaring fire in the fire place, a pile of books in front of me, a steaming mug of hot chocolate at my side—that’s a picture to paint a smile on my face.

That doesn’t mean I consider winter to be eight months of confined inactivity. Impossible; there’s too much going on. As I see it, Halloween ushers in winter with witches and goblins—too much fun and too much candy. Hard on the footsteps of Spook Night, though a few leaves still cling to trees, though the last pieces of candy lodge hidden behind sofa cushions, Thanksgiving takes over. Families and friends gather ‘round dinner tables over-laden with platters of munificence. Every community, our larger family, opens hearts and doors to a neighborly feast. Nobody should feel left out. Then we munch turkey sandwiches while setting up the Christmas tree. As Christmas approaches, we can fill every weekend with bazaars, parades, festivals and celebratory events, all free for the showing up.

I haven’t bothered with a tree for several years. Last week, I set aside my “bah-humbug” and dragged my hat tree, the trunk of a juniper mounted on a horseshoe stand, adorned with vintage hats, from my bedroom to my living room. I wound the stubby branches with colored lights and shrouds of tinsel. Who knows—Santa might bring me a granddaughter or two for a visit. If so, they will collapse in giggles at my “Charlie Brown” Christmas tree.

While my garden snoozes beneath a blanket of snow, I decided to venture into the unknown and signed up for a cooperative program which periodically delivers fruits and vegetables to its subscribers. When, every other week the basket arrives, you never know what it might contain. It’s like Christmas. Since I live alone I had to justify this step to myself. If I buy it, I have to use it. I reasoned that I would feed myself a more nourishing diet. I figured I might juice, can, or freeze the overflow.

A tisket, a tasket, my first basket more than met my expectations. This week the basket exceeded all reason, heaped with Romaine lettuce, salad onions, radishes, green peppers, mushrooms, yellow onions, a wad of cilantro, acorn and butternut squash, broccoli, summer squash, a bowl of limes, a half- dozen avocados, a dozen bananas, heaps of tomatillos, cucumbers, dried red ancho chiles, jalapenos, limes, a lovely papaya, two chayote and a peck of persimmons. All that goodness.

Last winter I never ate this well. I’m not sure what to do with the chayote but I’ll figure it out. I’ll bake a couple of the persimmons and make jam with the rest. Meanwhile, I arranged the orange persimmons in a brown and yellow pottery bowl, art on my table. Papaya has never been my favorite tropical fruit, but I’m going to experiment with papaya pie. I’ll make salsa and freeze some of the squash. I wish I could roll back the clock and be cooking for my family. Instead I’ll invite friends to share a meal or two.

While I’m wallowing in all this seasonal bounty, I figure it is not unreasonable for me to wish for one more win of the football pool. Never mind that two of the men at the city shop, where we gather for coffee and fill out our predictions, have yet to win this year and give me the stink eye. I’ve won twice. They can’t stand it. They’ve threatened to ban me. Although I never watch football, I have a system, brilliant in its simplicity. Of each two teams playing, I choose the city I would rather visit. Plus I have four picks cast in concrete based on past connections. I always choose Seattle, Green Bay, South Dakota (SD) and Nebraska (NE). I have generously shared my system with the guys, but they ignore me. Three wins in one year would be mighty impressive. I figure if I win one more pool, I will have earned a place in the Hall of Fame with a plaque on the wall of the city shop above the coffee pot. I have three more chances.

Bountiful good will should carry me through Christmas and into the New Year and the depths of winter. Eventually the days will lengthen, gardening catalogs will fill my mail box, I’ll muddle through snow and cabin fever, and if the world doesn’t end, my early tulips will herald spring.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

December 13, 2012

Stealing from the Birds

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I planted chokecherry bushes in my yard. I don’t know what I was thinking. Certainly I had not intended to create a chokecherry plantation. They were given to me, those desiccated branches. I stuck the dozen bare-naked sticks into the gumbo. I wasn’t sure any would survive. I hoped one chokecherry might live which I would keep pruned into a bush. Each August I would be able to go out into my back yard, fight off the birds with flailing arms and pick enough of the puny little fruits to make a single batch of jelly, nostalgia jelly, essence-of-memory chokecherry jelly.

When I was a child my grandmother always snorted at the idea of harvesting chokecherries. The miserable little fruits consist of nothing but skin, a drop of juice and a large pit. Back on our farm in Indiana, before we moved to Montana, we had pears, apricots, peaches, persimmons, plums, cherries and several old-fashioned apples. Real fruit. Nevertheless, desperate for sweets, every August Grandma and I crossed the river, tromped down into the barrow pit and emerged into a thicket of scrubby chokecherry trees. We worked hours to fill our pails. Sweat poured down our backs. Mosquitoes feasted unmolested on our flesh as we held the bucket with one hand and stripped the fruit with the other.

In our steam-filled kitchen we simmered the fruit, strained the juice, cooked it to the jell stage, washed, scalded and filled jars and carefully ladled melted paraffin over the hot jell. In September we tackled the native crab apples in much the same fashion. Come winter we treasured those jars of shimmering jelly.

Today at the market one may buy bushels of peaches or pears or apples. It’s all trucked in from Yakima or California or South America. One knows neither where the fruit originated nor when it was picked. Eating store-bought fruit is like playing the lottery. At times the pulp is woody and tasteless. When you pick a winner, it is sweet and juicy. Yet it is undeniably easy to buy fresh fruit in the produce department and jelly in brightly labeled jars on aisle three.

Ah, my chokecherries! Six lovely, low spreading bushes survived both late frosts and hailstorms. Every branch is loaded and bent to the ground. Some branches are so heavy they broke off at the trunk. All summer I guarded the bushes like a hawk. So did my cats. They lounged in the shade of the little trees, twitching their tails, ready to pounce on any unwary bird dumb enough to come near. The cherries prospered, grew plumper, fleshier and juicier than any chokecherry in my previous experience.

Finally picking day arrived. With my blue colander in hand, I stripped the heavy fruit from one branch. I grabbed a stool, sat down and reached into the drooping branches. In minutes I had heaped my bowl. I emptied it into a bucket and continued picking. When I had picked the ripest cherries from two of my bushes, I went inside to the kitchen. I processed a batch of jelly for myself, a batch for my children and a couple batches to give to visitors.

Now I was in a quandary. Sure, I could let the birds take the rest of the cherries. But surely there must be other women in town like me, hungry for chokecherry jelly but unwilling to head out into the country and battle through the brush. I made some phone calls. Marsha came over. I handed her a stool. She chose her bush, sat down and in minutes filled her bucket. I called Evelyn. She said she would love some but didn’t think she could pick them. So I picked her a bucketful and delivered it in exchange for a cup of tea, a cookie and conversation. Mary said, “Sondra, you know I don’t can!” Sandy said her fruit shelves were overloaded. Jane said, “The thought of canning anything makes my stomach hurt.” Lois said that she didn’t think she’d have time, but thanked me for calling. I’ll keep asking. Somebody will want to share my bird cherries.

Everything has been ripening late this year. One of my bushes is still covered with little green fruit. Give it another week or so of sunshine. Maybe I will generously leave the last cherries for the birds. Maybe.

Sondra Ashton
HDN: Looking out my back door
August 25, 2011
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Things I Think About

This is the other contender for this week. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Things I think about
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I was taking a break from work. I had just brewed a cup of Lapsang Souchong, my favorite tea, when the phone rang. “What are you working on?” my friend asked.



“A pair of Victorian chairs,” I answered. “A Lady’s Chair and a Gentleman’s Chair. His chair is larger and has arms.”



“You mean the kind that sat in the parlor and were seldom used except when one had visitors. They were most uncomfortable.”



“Yes, can you see it? A young lady perches on the rim of the chair, her back ramrod stiff, voluminous skirts artfully arranged in a fan around her legs, the toes of her boots peeking demurely from beneath the hem. In one hand she holds a bone-china cup of tea, honey and lemon, near her barely parted lips. With the other hand she balances the saucer beneath the cup. A velvet cloche, trimmed with ostrich feathers and a skiff of veil adorns her carefully coiled curls. Her hands are chastely covered with proper lace gloves, lace that she tatted herself. The gentleman caller balances his cup of tea on his knee while trying to get comfortable on the other chair. Her eyes are modestly downcast, her voice low as she inquires about the health of his mother and his sisters. The fire in the fireplace crackles but does not dare spit out an errant cinder. The young woman hears a rustle and hides a smile, knowing that her little sister is spying behind the parlor curtains, barely able to hold back a tide of giggles.”



“You really get into this, don’t you?”



“When I’m working I like to think about the life the furniture has seen, the home it is returning to and the people who will be using it. This job goes to a young couple who are restoring one of the historic homes in Havre. My woodworker had to do extensive repairs on these. I removed two layers of musty fabric, cotton stuffing filled with a century’s worth of soil and broken springs. I am covering the set in the traditional wine-colored velvet.”



“Working on anything else?” my friend asked.



“Yes. The next one is large, overstuffed, and cushy, sort of a Joe Beer-Can chair. A man could almost hide in it. It belongs to an old cowboy, lives on a ranch east of here. Picture this: it’s nearly time for supper. He sluffs his coat at the door, hangs it on a peg, crosses the scuffed hardwood floor, sighs heavily and plunks down into his chair. He tugs off his boots, one at a time, feeling the pull in his aching back with each motion. He can smell steak sizzling in the kitchen. He’ll just sink back a minute and rest his eyes while he waits for his wife to call him to the table.



“She told me the chair was in the house when they got married. It had belonged to his parents. They had no idea how old it was. But I can tell a lot from the construction. This one is early Twentieth Century, probably the 1920’s, built for comfort and durability. If I were to compare the two jobs, this one would be a Clydesdale plow-horse. The Victorian set is like a matched pair of Arabian carriage horses, elegant and high stepping. I won’t need to do any frame repair on this one but I’ll replace all the insides and cover it with a handsome wool plaid.”



“Do all your chairs have stories?”



“No, well, maybe. I’m looking forward to working on the wagon wheel chair—that’s what I call it. To me it is pure western nostalgia. We had one exactly like it with a matching couch in our living room out on the farm. Dad bought it at Valley Furniture in the 1950’s. I used to lounge in it, blue jean-clad legs slung over the wide wooden arm, Leave it to Beaver on the black and white TV screen, my algebra book in my lap masking the copy of Forever Amber I had sneaked out of the library. That’s a true story.”



Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door
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Old Buildings

This is my heart.
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Old Buildings


I am a sucker for old buildings. I have love affairs, infatuations, with handsome old empty buildings. They have potential. Homestead shacks, abandoned houses with the wind whistling through the cracks, dusty warehouses or lovely brick commercial buildings, long ago boarded up. I am an incurable romantic. The phrase “fixer-upper” makes my breath go shallow, my knees weak, and my heart pound. Lovelorn lass that I am, I ache to restore their old bones to their former glory.

But the word “potential” sets off alarm bells and whistles. I have trained my mind to alert me to this danger. I hang onto my heart, compute the hundreds of thousands of dollars that each project would undoubtedly cost, then force myself to drive on down the road.

When I decided to return to Montana , after my long exile in the Seattle area, I remembered the first time I visited an artist friend’s loft in the city. What a romantic place to live, I thought. I searched high and low, east and west, for something similar here, a non-conventional living space. I checked out two store-fronts in Big Sandy. I spent hours mentally reconstructing a convenience store in Chinook. I drooled over a two-story brick in Chester .

Finally I bought my Dad’s old house in Harlem , a simple rambler, and renovated it to suit my needs. It was not the project I dreamed over. It lacked romance. But it is well-built and I did not have to fool with expensive re-wiring, heating, or plumbing.

But a building in Chinook still tugs at my heartstrings. Like a love-sick puppy, I often drive into town, park in front of it and mourn. I envision my expansive apartment up on the top floor, an open space large enough for a ball room, which I would turn into an art studio, a gallery. The floor to ceiling windows would trap all the light of the big sky. I would line the room with book shelves, throw old Kilim rugs onto the scuffed hardwood floors which I would sand only enough to take down the rough spots but would leave their aged character. I would hold a salon with my favorite recovered couches and chairs grouped to create conversation islands. To support the building, the main floor could be renovated into apartments or business spaces. I could see it clearly. I walked through that building four times, trying to make it work for me. I could have bought the building but I did not have the thousands of dollars to bring it up to code plus the thousands of dollars to bring out its true potential. So I had to let it go.

Recently I had an affair with another historical brick building, this one in Harlem , the old New England Hotel. It is truly a grand structure, complete with a curved staircase up to the second floor. The staircase is not quite up to Scarlett O’Hara standards, but I could see a bride slowly descending to the music of the grand piano and the hushed admiration of the wedding guests. One trip through the hotel and I had mentally knocked out walls and created a rustic bed and breakfast. Each spacious room would paint a homespun picture, complete with iron bedsteads, maple dressers, rag rugs, patch quilts, muslin curtains at the long tall windows and claw-foot tubs behind tri-fold screens. This time I would place my personal apartment on the ground floor, right in the middle of all the action. But it was the same story, same unhappy ending. No way did I have enough money for code and cosmetics to make over the grand old dame.

Last week a local businessman told me that the old derelict should be torn down. “You could put up a nice new steel building in that spot for a hundred-fifty thou,” he said. I cringed at the thought. My heart dropped into my stomach. He’s right, of course. But our town would lose half a block of architecture and a major portion of its history.

I think too much with my heart and not enough with my wallet. I can see the shadows of the craftsmen who built with pride and then added the touches that made the New England Hotel unique. I can see the ghosts of former occupants roaming the halls. A man shuffles into one room and sits down at an oak desk piled high with business papers. He removes a flask from his vest pocket and swigs a hearty slug of rye whiskey to ease the pain of a deal gone bad. In another room, I watch a worried mother rock a fretful baby, feverish with colic. This venerable building has weathered storms, meteorological and monetary, political and personal. I soak up its stories as though I lived them. I sigh, turn my head, and then see the finished project as I would re-design it, a place to welcome new people with new stories of their own.

I have other loves; one in Big Sandy, a handsome beauty in Ritzville , Washington , and a sweetie in Bonners Ferry, Idaho . They all have real potential, honest they do, and I know if I could just love them enough, they would be wonderful.

Sondra Ashton
HDN: Looking out my back door.
May 6, 2010
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The Flocked Dress

Being a Princess is over-rated.
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The Flocked Dress


My Grandma, who raised my baby sister and me, had made matching dresses for us from sheer white organza flocked with sprinkles of yellow flowers flanked by green leaves. Grandma, an accomplished seamstress, made all our clothing. She also stitched beautiful white under-slips, the tops smocked in a cable stitch with white embroidery thread, the skirts gathered, the perfect background to float the flowered dresses.

It was early spring, the air redolent with lilacs. My sister was nearly two years old and I had either just turned five, or would soon have a birthday. The memory of the dress, the dress that would make me a princess, carries me back to that day. I could hardly wait for Grandma to finish combing my unruly hair and jab in yellow ribbon barrettes. I tugged on new white anklets with a lace edge at the top and shiny white patent-leather Mary Jane shoes. I tried not to fidget, but she grabbed my shoulders and planted me to the floor. She lifted the dress over my upraised arms, settled the bodice into place, buttoned up the back and tied the wide sash into a beautiful bow. She spun me around to make sure everything was straight and told me to go get in the car. I’m certain Grandma had sewed these wonderful new dresses for Easter Sunday Mass. But on this day we wore them to Other Grandma’s funeral.

Other Grandma used to be plain Grandma, the only Grandma I had known. But when my baby sister and I became motherless, this new Grandma, one I did not remember, arrived on the train, and moved in to help my Dad raise us girls. She now became Grandma and the one we drove to visit every week or two became Other Grandma.

I don’t remember feeling any particular sadness over Other Grandma’s death. We lived on a farm. Birth and death were part of everyday life. I remember watching the birth of baby calves, slick and wet, pink new piglets rootling at their mother’s teats, fuzzy chicks tap-taping through the shells. Nearly every Sunday Grandma grabbed the hatchet, snared a fat hen and marched her to the chopping block out back. Then she dipped the hen in boiling water and I helped pluck the feathers. And nobody held me back from watching hog butchering. It was life on the farm.

On the short drive to the cemetery, I began feeling sick. I rolled down the window and leaned my head out. I could feel my hair coming loose from the barrettes. Scared as I was of a scolding, I was more afraid of throwing up.

Other Grandma’s funeral service was held outdoors at graveside or I might never have made it as long as I did. I remember chairs lined in rows, the casket, open, on a stand. We sat up front, with all my aunts and uncles and cousins. I kept my chin raised into the slight breeze. Just enough wind moved to rustle my dress. I had a strong sense of what was proper, even that young. I did not dare throw up. If I got sick, I knew I would be knocked into next Sunday and that without anybody raising a hand to me. My Grandma had that kind of power. My mouth began to water in that warning way. I swallowed hard, held my breath, lifted my face into the wind, as far from the neck of my dress as possible.

In my young eyes, Other Grandma was horribly old when she died. I recall a solemnity to the day, though not any particular feeling of loss. At the end of all the talking and reading, everybody stood up. We marched past the casket to say our good-bys. One of the men dressed in a black suit closed the lid. They lifted the box and lowered it into the grave.

Dad lit a cigarette, offered one to Uncle George and lit his too. I knew from experience we would not leave until they finished smoking. I stood with my lips clamped shut, tears leaking from my eyes, shifting from foot to foot. My Grandma hissed at me to “be still.” Finally my Dad shook hands with Uncle George and turned to leave. I ran over to our gray Pontiac coupe, held onto the door handle, leaned over and spewed and spewed until my stomach emptied.

My beautiful dress, now soiled, lay folded in the trunk. I rode home, alone in the back seat, wearing only my slip and my shame. Easter Sunday I wore my winter Church dress, utilitarian green plaid cotton with a huge white round collar. I never wore my beautiful princess dress again. I was allergic to the flocking.

Sondra Ashton
HDN: Looking out my back door.
April 1, 2010
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The 61st Montana Seed Show - Building Community

More than potatoes
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The 61st Montana Seed Show—Building Community


Along with hundreds of other folks from the Hi-Line, from cities and towns throughout Eastern Montana and with a few tourists from our sister state, Western Montana , I celebrated a shared heritage at the 61st Annual Montana Seed Show in Harlem last weekend. I like that it is called the “ Montana ” Seed Show, not the “ Harlem ” Seed Show. It demonstrates an inclusiveness that reaches beyond regionalism. And in a historically appropriate way, it took place at the high school, the traditional hub of every small-town community.

The Seed Show that I remember from my youth was held in the old Civics Center , a multi-purpose structure that burned to the ground in 1968. I remember long, narrow tables with trays of potatoes, sugar beets, grains, leafs of baled hay, and huge bags of wool. I remember the blended smells of agricultural produce. I remember the excitement of the pie and bread baking contests. Except for the absence of sugar beets, not a lot has changed.

Ours is still a farm and ranch community. We still grow grains, hay, beeves, and sheep. A few valley farmers still raise potatoes. But now we have less than two people per square mile in Blaine County . Throughout the area farms and ranches are larger; towns are smaller, most of them half the size they were when I grew up in the Milk River Valley . Harlem is fortunate in our diversity; we are lucky to have the Fort Belknap Reservation across the river and the two Hutterite Colonies north of town. The Seed Show has adapted to the changing times and is today a major regional winter fair.

Thursday was entry day with people busy building displays and bringing in entries for the various competitions. A steady stream of men and women popped in the door with a pie or loaf of bread or a baker’s dozen cookies in hand and deposited their goodies with the food superintendents. Many of them hurried off to another setting-up chore while others hung about to chat with neighbors. An enticing smell wafted through the school from pots of spicy chili, simmering in anticipation of the chili cook-off in the school cafeteria that evening. I reluctantly passed on the chili feed since I wanted to take advantage of the Blood Screening early Friday morning. But I’ve been thinking of recruiting a chili-making crew for next year.

Fasting is not my favorite non-activity. My veins burrowed underground when the nurse with the needle approached the tender bend of my arm. I hyperventilated. So I was glad to woozy my way to the cafeteria for breakfast served by the Civic Association. Orange drink never tasted so good. Egg muffins approached perfection.

Friday and Saturday were a circus of activity. In the new gym I enjoyed all the commercial and educational displays, even the vase of noxious weeds. I recognized these invaders of my flower garden, most of which I have struggled to eradicate. Art exhibits filled the old gym. The variety of talents on display drew me back several times. In the adjacent room I marveled at the intricate quilts and related needlework. In another area I admired the skilled women carding and spinning wool. I peeked at the vintage cars and tractors in the ag and industrial arts building. I enjoyed lunches served by church groups from Turner and Harlem , and, oh, the home-made pies! Every kind of pie imaginable!

Speaking of pies, it would not be a Seed Show without the auctions. Bob Sivertsen auctioned breads and pies and cookies, those entered in hopes of a blue ribbon plus those donated to support the Show. The Art Auction Friday night is always a top draw, but this year the Number One Star of the Seed Show was the grand prize pie baked by Havre resident, Char Burckhard. Char is a long-time friend. She graduated from Harlem High so we claim her as our own. Char’s cherry pie sold for a record high bid of one thousand and twenty-five dollars at the Saturday night banquet.

But people were the best part of the Montana Seed Show. I visited with old friends and new friends, with neighbors from near and far. I noted the diversity of peoples who populate our sparse country and saw, not their differences, but a blending, a commonality. I noticed a change in consciousness from the old days. I observed a sense of family. I saw cooperation; people reaching out to support one another. We were simply people from many communities who came together, without rivalry or division, to make this shared experience fun and successful.

In this time of economic uncertainty, I felt an underlying current of hope, of excitement, a sense of “we”. We can build a better life here. We can make it happen. We can work together. From hundreds of miles, we gathered in Harlem at the Montana Seed Show, to share our knowledge, our creativity, our production. We came together to work, to visit, to play and to eat pie. We shared in a true communion.

Sondra Ashton
Looking out my back door.
Havre Daily News, March 18, 2010
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In Search of the Elusive Lefse Stick

In Search of the Elusive Lefse Stick
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It began with an invitation. Katie said, “Come on out Saturday afternoon and help us make lefse.”

“Wonderful,” I answered. “I’ve only done it once before. Years ago, when I was a young woman, my friend Mary took me with her to visit her mother-in-law and we made lefse.”

For a moment I was lost in memory. It was a crisp autumn day in Lambert, a few miles due west of Sidney . Mrs. Lake held court over her immense country kitchen orchestrating a Scandinavian feast. Mary and I were in the center of the fray. Hordes of children and other family members, all of distinctive Viking ancestry, streamed in and out of the kitchen, swiping snacks from the cookie jar or the jumbled shelves of the refrigerator and risking a smack of the stirring spoon from Mrs. Lake, who never ceased laughing while cooking and keeping track of babies.

I remembered huge vats of steaming potatoes. I remembered standing over a giant pottery bowl ricing potatoes as fast as I could. Mary measured the potatoes into another bowl and added the butter, cream, sugar, salt and flour. Mrs. Lake stirred meatballs with one hand, pulled a tray of cookies out of the oven with the other, and still managed to have a pair of hands free to knead the potato dough. I remembered a huge black wood cook-stove, a roaring fire in the firebox, the top surface cleaned and polished to create a lefse grill.

I remembered being handed a warm circle of dough, sprinkled with powdered sugar, my first-ever bite of lefse. I wondered how this experience had escaped me since I was raised in a community largely made up of second and third generation Scandinavians. And I had never tasted lefse. Uff da.

That Saturday afternoon at Katie’s house, the maelstrom was outside with falling snow swirling around the farm buildings unlike the storm of family streaming in and out the doors at Mrs. Lake’s. But the smells in the two kitchens were the same. Katie formed the dough into smooth patties. Her son Trent manned the modern electric lefse grill. And I was given the most honored place, at the rolling pin, sprinkling flour and rolling the patties into approximate rounds. Some looked like amoebas. Trent slid the turning stick beneath the papery thin dough and lifted the dough onto the grill. Katie wrapped the steaming golden circles in towels to cool. I rolled another round. When our labors were over we sat down to enjoy our lefse, lightly buttered and sprinkled with brown sugar and eaten with appropriate sounds of appreciation. Katie sent me home with a bag of my own.

That night I decided I wanted my own lefse-making equipment. I knew I wouldn’t make lefse more than once or twice a year, probably to impress my out-of-state guests. But my kitchen lacked some essential tools. I had the rolling pin, of course, and knew I could make do with my cast iron griddle and there are many methods to smash potatoes, but there is no substitute for an authentic wooden lefse turning stick.

So one Sunday in Havre I began the search. I started at Herberger’s. While their kitchen section was impressive, they lacked a Norwegian Korner. At Northern Home Essentials I bought a cloth rolling pin cover, a helpful item, but no lefse stick. I zoomed through every store that was open. Nada. I went to the K-Mart down the hill, feeling there was only a slight chance of success, but I hoped to find one in the Martha Stewart kitchen section. No luck.

Now the search became a quest. At Ace Hardware in Chinook I found a potato ricer and a round cloth covered pastry board, so I bought them. I went to Chinook Hardware and in an out-of-the-way corner of used and marked-down items, I found a nearly-new lefse grill, still in the box. I dithered over the price, haggled with the proprietor and bought it; a satisfying transaction for both of us. Now I had acquired all the items that I could have done without but I had not located the one essential thing, the lefse turning stick.

Back in Havre another day, I cruised the aisles of the Salvation Army store, often a treasure trove. Walked out empty handed. Then I had an idea—try the pawn shop. So I entered Leon ’s Buy and Sell. Oh, my. Although the store looks small from the front, it is a veritable warehouse inside with shelves and cases crammed with everything. Nearly everything. Everything but my now precious lefse stick.

I know what my lefse stick looks like. It is wooden, probably oak or maple, delicately long and thin. I know the heft of it in my hand. As a last resort I turned to the internet. I found lefse sticks but they are only sold in complete kits. And I already have everything the kits contain—except for the elusive lefse stick.

I’ll continue my quest. I’m hoping to make a trip to see relatives in Indiana next summer. I will detour through North Dakota and Minnesota , exploring every Scandinavian community along the route. I know I am getting closer. I can feel it, ja?
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Mourning the Death of the Cajun Cafe'

Some dreams never disappear completely.
Mourning the Death of the Cajun Café
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I came across the derelict when I was driving my van crammed with furniture and boxes on my move back home to Montana . The building had obviously been long abandoned. A corner of the roof threatened to collapse. Windows were broken and a door hung loose. A warped and peeling sign across the front announced that this heap of debris had once been the Cajun Café. A homemade “For Sale” sign stood in the yard. Long way from Louisiana , I thought.

I was on that scenic section of US Highway 2, half-way between Bonners Ferry and Troy . Neither place was a major population center. The only residents up here in the north woods appeared to be moose and lodge-pole pine. Who would have opened a Cajun café, definitely a niche restaurant, out in the middle of nowhere?

But the Café was once somebody’s dream. With that thought my imagination took over. I hate to see a dream die. I have a friend long retired from the restaurant business. We often talked about what made an eatery work, in that idle way of people who enjoy good food.

So that evening I phoned him. “Got a business opportunity for you, a little fixer-upper.” I described the place, left out several pertinent details, emphasized ‘potential’, talked fast past ‘location’ and tried to sell a bill of goods around ‘tourist’ and ‘seasonal’.

A few months later my friend drove this route with me. When I spotted the old Cajun Cafe I eased off the road into the driveway. “There she is. A business opportunity waiting to happen.” He laughed. “A fixer-upper, huh?” “Build it, they will come,” I replied. “Are you kidding? Who is here to come?”

That tumble-down structure along the highway entertained us for nearly four years. We imagined a Saturday night at the Cajun Café. The Gumbo Special. Live music. Elbow-to-elbow customers who rode snowmobiles from their cabins off the grid across the trackless wilderness. Plenty of good food and with beer to swill it down. Belches and scratches, music blaring, fights on the dance floor. Good honest fun.

After that, whenever I made the trip, I would report on the condition of the Cajun Café and assure my friend that nobody had slipped in and bought it out from under him, that it was still available.

Until last winter. A fire had severely razed the site. I felt too sad to report this tragic turn of events. But recently my friend drove out to see me and took the northern route. My phone rang, “It’s gone,” he said. “A fire. Still I wonder who the guy was who built a Cajun restaurant way out here.”

I’ll be driving that same route soon. I’ll leave flowers at the site, flowers to commemorate a dream gone, someone’s hopes and aspirations up in flames. But dang, I can still picture the fire roaring in the cast iron wood-stove in the corner, shrimp and catfish sizzling on the grill, my friend pulling nozzles and filling beer mugs, his wife carrying heaping plates of jambalaya to the customers sitting at trestle tables in their mukluks and Carhartts, snowmobiles clustered outside the door, zydeco on the jukebox; in short, a community center where neighbors meet, wild game is bartered for firewood, deals are made, disputes are settled and young folks fall in love. Let the good times roll.

Sondra Ashton
sondrajean@mtintouch.net
Havre Daily News: Home Again
November 12, 2009

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A Two Pencil Day

Can't you smell the pine and graphite? Mmmm.
A Two Pencil Day
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This is a two pencil day. It is a good omen, a sign of things to come.

I love finding things. It can be a penny on the sidewalk or a shiny rock. When I spot the treasure, something inside me jumps up and down with joy. “See a penny, pick it up. All the day you’ll have good luck.” I don’t count misplaced items which I later find hiding under my shoes on the shelf or beneath the laundry. I am talking about the unexpected find, even real treasure, the hundred dollar bill fluttering along the street. Okay, so I have never actually found so much as a twenty dollar bill except dripping in the wash and that doesn’t count.

I am walking back from the post office, when right there at my feet, lies a bright pumpkin-yellow, unused, unsharpened #2 pencil, like a flower waiting to be plucked. I pick up the pencil and examine it. Not a nick, a defect, or a bite mark. The eraser is clean and unused. I drop the pencil into my mail bag. A half block further along the street I spot another lovely yellow pencil. A bouquet! I pick it up. Plunk, in the bag. I briefly contemplate finding the owner. I imagine a young student, racing to grade school, back-pack pocket unzipped and flopping, pencils flipping out behind him and landing in the street—uh--the former owner. Finders keepers.

I am not a mean person. I am neither malicious nor penurious. I would be delighted to replace your pencils. I would replace your two pencils with ten pencils. Or even twenty. From where I now sit I see a clay pot jammed full of pencils and a pencil sharpener with a pencil sticking out, which I must have been in the process of sharpening when interrupted. I have pencils in jars, scattered about on three desks, stacked in multiple desk drawers, and squeezed into various notebooks marking place.

I finish sharpening the pencil stub poking out of the sharpener. I grind my two brand new pencils to a sharp point. Ahh. I breathe deeply. I smell the pine wood shavings rimmed with the hint of yellow, the graphite. I scritch scritch the point across a blank paper and listen to the sound. I balance the pencil between my thumb and two fingers. When pencil point meets paper, magic happens.

For pure textural pleasure, I write or draw on the inside of a flattened out brown paper bag. I listen to the pencil abrade the brown paper. It is a different sound than a pencil maneuvering smoothly along a yellow legal pad or a white lined school tablet. When I was in high school I wrote all my rough drafts on paper bags, saving the costly paper for the final versions.

My own favorite tablet, ever since first grade, is a Big Chief, but I cannot find them anymore. I think they might have been deemed politically incorrect. So I look for pads of newsprint, the next best thing, and insert the pages like filler in my last remaining Big Chief cover.

Today I have sixty or seventy tablets of various sizes, colors, textures, weights, and densities. They accumulate. I take a trip and forget to pack a tablet. Or I only pack one and while I am in the store buying oranges or a candy bar, I happen to walk down the paper/pencil/pen aisle. One tablet or another will catch my eye and next thing you know I am at the check-out justifying my purchase. I just might need another one on this momentous trip. All trips are momentous. Most of my tablets are slightly used. I journal, record, list, draw, scribble, write bad poetry but containing the one brilliant line. When the trip is over, the tablet is tossed on one pile or another. Months later I pick it up and smile at memories hidden between the words that never made it to the written page.

Two pumpkin-yellow pencils, sharpened and ready, rest on my desk, next to the stack of paper, golden harbingers of stories to come.

Sondra Ashton
sondrajean@mtintouch.net
Havre Daily News: Home Again
November 5, 2009

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Easy Spice Cake

Easy Spice Cake


One of the unique things about our Hi-line publications is that most of them print recipes submitted by local homemakers. These recipes frequently use such ingredients as Velveeta, crushed corn flakes or cream of mushroom soup. My sophisticated foreign friends, foreign being not from Montana , laugh at the quaint simplicity. But I know what it is like to have to make a good meal using whatever limited ingredients remain in the pantry. Once, back in the olden days on the ranch south of Dodson, where we lived at the end of a three mile dirt road which wound through the hills, we were snowed in for three months. Though that fall I had bought supplies in quantity at Claypool’s Mercantile, toward the end of that particular ninety day siege of snow and wind, I was out of such essential ingredients as sugar, flour and vanilla. Deer trampled our haystacks nightly. We ate a lot of fresh venison. But man cannot live by meat alone, even roasted at low heat in the woodstove and smothered with undiluted cream of mushroom soup. Hungry for sweets, I concocted a delicate lacy cookie using crushed corn flakes and Log Cabin syrup. That was the winter I got pregnant.

So in the spirit of sharing good food made with basic ingredients, I give you my recipe for “Easy Spice Cake”. This old favorite of mine was given to me years back by my friend Terry, a dynamite cook. We both approach a recipe as a guideline, filled with possibilities.

I do love a good cake and spice cake with penuche frosting is one of my favorites. I have had a hankering for spice cake for the past six months. With determination and perseverance I’ve managed to put off baking one. My problem is that I am the only one around to eat it. I eat maybe a fourth of the cake and dump the rest. Seems silly to bake a cake and throw most of it in the garbage. I wasn’t raised that way. But on Sunday my resolve vanished and I pulled Terry’s spice cake recipe from my battered yellow file box, a relic of high school freshman home-ec.

I measured two cups of water into a sauce pan and dumped in a mixture of raisins and craisins, about three cups. I’ve also used shredded carrots, zucchini, chopped apples, dried apricots. They’re all good with the spices. There is no limit to the flavors you can create. I bring the concoction to a boil, let it simmer for a few minutes and set it off the burner. I pour in a cup of oil. (I know this sounds like a lot, you just have to trust me.) I let the mixture cool. This gives me a chance to sit with a cup of coffee and read a couple chapters of a fast-paced James Lee Burke novel. That is not essential to the recipe, but I recommend it. Or you can go ahead and beat two eggs, measure out a cup and a half of sugar, I prefer brown sugar. Blend the eggs and sugar into the cooled fruit mixture. Sift and measure three and a half cups flour. You’ll be glad you sifted the flour. It is worth the extra step. I bury a half teaspoon salt, two teaspoons soda and two teaspoons each cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice plus one teaspoon cloves into the flour, gently. You can play with the spices too. I always use more cinnamon, almost three teaspoons, and a pinch more cloves. I chop between one and two cups pecans and pop half a dozen nuts into my mouth while chopping.

Here is where it gets tricky, though it is supposed to be easy. Terry folds the dry ingredients into the batter in the same pan used to cook the fruits. Doesn’t work for me. I dump the goo into my mixing bowl and then gently blend the flour mixture and spices and nuts with my mixer. Do what works for you. Turn the batter into a greased, floured pan and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until done. Your whole house will smell deliciously spicy. When the cake nears the end of the baking time, do not check your email, go outside to water the potted plants, or begin a new book. Just take my word for it, please. Once the cake is removed from the oven and set on a rack to cool, you can do any of those things.

This cake is delicious plain. But penuche frosting is my favorite companion for any spice cake. Melt one half cup butter in a saucepan and stir in a cup of brown sugar. Stirring constantly, bring it to a boil. Keep stirring and boil for two minutes on low heat. Stir in one fourth cup milk and bring it all back to a boil. I then set the pan of syrup into an ice cube filled sink to cool to lukewarm. Once the syrup has cooled, I pour it into my mixing bowl and carefully stir in two cups powdered sugar. Be sure to use the lowest setting on your mixer unless you want powdered sugar covering every surface in the kitchen. Once it is well blended, turn up the speed and beat until the frosting holds its shape and is of spreading consistency. You can add chopped nuts if you wish. But I put all my chopped nuts into the cake so I left the frosting smooth.

I sliced a generous piece of spice cake and placed it on my prettiest saucer. My mouth watered in anticipation. The phone rang. It was a friend from British Columbia , a gourmet cook. I described my cake and mentioned that I surely hated to throw most it away, but I knew I would. She said, “Dummy. Why don’t you just cut the cake into sections and put them in your freezer?” I knew that.

Sondra Ashton
Havre Daily News: Home Again
September 3, 2009

A Good Time Was Had By All

A few minutes ago I waved good-by to friends from the west coast. I feel happy, because while they were here we had such fun. Sad, because they are headed down the road. Happy, because they love this country and its people like I do.

When friends arrive, I put on my tour guide hat. We discuss possibilities and make lists of things to do and places to go. Creating an agenda takes time. There are always critical components, which include drinking coffee, eating goodies hot from the oven, and catching up on life events.

Eventually we hit the road in search of adventure. One morning we head for Havre. But a Saddle Butte Smoked Meats outfit is parked alongside the highway in Chinook. Hey, shopping for essential elements of life is part of the fun. And this morning I had fried my last pound of bacon to accompany sour dough waffles. So I drive around the block and swing in alongside the trailer, buy bacon, chat about the selection of goodies, then pull back onto the road. My friends and I talk turkey. Smoked turkey. Why not? I turn around and head back into Chinook.

One more scenic detour to the tune of “I wonder what is down that road?” and we arrive in Havre. We buy books by Montana authors. We dent the inventory of threads and yarns at the Ben Franklin. We hang out at the train station to watch folks arrive and depart on the Empire Builder, a regular stop on the tour. But the crowning highlight of our day in Havre, is the auction sale of a fifty year collection of Avon . None of us use Avon . I am allergic to any scent. Turns stinky on my skin. I’ve tried them all. But the hook that pulls us in is the sheer incredulity of garnering these items for over fifty years. What was the attraction for the woman who did this? Who was she? We have to see.

We walk into the VFW hall and our jaws drop. Boxes fill the room. Six hundred boxes generously, fully packed. We browse products, collectables, crafts, and knick-knacks. We each choose a box of interest and memorize the number. We sit through an hour of the auction loving every minute of the action. Is this box really a bargain? Are these valuables? Should I bid on the next one? That man in the blue jacket bought ten boxes. What will he do with it? If I buy my box, how much will I end up donating to the Salvation Army? We leave with no loot to pick through. The experience is the gift.

Another day we visit friends at the North Harlem Colony, compare crochet techniques, eat June-berry pie and sip mint tea. Filled with pie, stories and comfort, we head north up the highway on the lookout for baby antelope. We see herds of antelope but no babies. Is it too early? Or are the young obeying mom’s orders—drop and don’t move? We note few houses but many abandoned homestead sites. We try to imagine the lives of the early settlers, their hardships, their joys, the isolation of these people in this place here at the top of the world.

We swing into Turner, drive around the grayed and ancient tumble-down buildings, admire the school, walk along the raised bed where the railroad spur was years ago, peer through cracks in the old station, the granaries. We land at the Border Bar in time for an early dinner. If you haven’t been there, go soon. Talk with the people who love their town of seventy-five citizens. Celebrate their vitality.

We drive back to the valley in awe of cloud shadows on the coulees, mountains detailed in the distance, the beauty of sunlight and antelope at play on the plains.

When my friends drive a thousand miles to visit me, they always help out with a project. Sunday we clean flower beds, perk up my old cabin in the back yard with bird houses and an original A&W sign purchased for a dollar at a different auction. And we eat smoked turkey.

There are leftovers on our list, things we did not take time to do or see. These are seed for their next trip, our next adventures. We part with reluctance and smiles. A good time was had by all.

Sondra Ashton
Havre Daily News: Home Again
April 9, 09