Think the rain will hurt the rhubarb?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
In an old vaudeville country rube routine the straight man says, “Think the rain will hurt the rhubarb?” The top banana replies, “Not if it’s in cans!” Now, doesn’t that make you want to slap your knees and hoot and howl.
On the east side of my garden cabin, between the raspberries and the neighbor’s caragana shrubs, my Dad planted rhubarb. Those who grow rhubarb know that for the average family, one plant will provide all the rhubarb one healthy family can be forced to consume. My Dad liked to garden. Years ago he planted five varieties of rhubarb, whose succulent crisp stalks run from deep red, through shades of pink to light green.
So I have rhubarb, glorious rhubarb, abundant rhubarb, too much rhubarb. I considered taking out all but two clumps, a green and a red, although one plant is more than sufficient for my needs. However, I know that it is never possible to eradicate every vestige of root. Just a smidgeon of hardy root will cower, hidden in the ground until next year, when it will miraculously shoot forth into an entire new plant. Rhubarb originated in China , caravanned through Europe and sailed to North America by boat. I am firmly convinced, that in seeking to reconnect to its roots, my rhubarb has delved through the center of the earth and emerged somewhere on the other side of the globe, where a Chinese family reaps the bounty from my sister plants.
Every year in early spring I await my first taste of crisp, tart, mouth-watering rhubarb, chop, chop, into the crust and out of the oven, beautiful bubbling pie. When I was a child we called it “pie plant”. My grandparents used it for its restorative medicinal properties. The leaves are poisonous but so sour there is little danger you or I would eat them. We canned finely chopped stalks in quart jars and lined the cellar with ruby-fruit in a row. In my garden, rhubarb is the first fruit of the year, the first harvest. I gently grip the long stalk low to the ground, pull it from its casing, and whack off the giant green leaf. It falls to the ground where I leave it to decompose.
The more I harvest, the more the mother-plant produces. Nothing seems to daunt rhubarb, neither freeze nor snow nor rain nor drought. It dies back with the first hard frost, then springs forth to yield from early May through late September. This happens to be a great year for rhubarb. One day the tender shoots poked through the snow and then, overnight it seemed, stalks shot up past my knees, with leaves the size of elephant ears. Every morning I bring an armload of rhubarb into my kitchen. I make rhubarb pies, pineapple-rhubarb sauce to dribble over ice cream and cinnamon-rhubarb sauce to serve with waffles. I mix it with other fruits, dried, frozen and fresh, cranberries, raisins, strawberries, peaches, apples, oranges and mangoes, for pies and jams. I strain the juice for jelly. Out of my oven rolls a procession of pies, cakes, tarts, cobblers, crumbles, scones and bar cookies.
I have invented recipes for rhubarb salsa, chutney, pickles and relish. I hide it in soups. I chop it fine and roll it into dough for cinnamon rolls. Rhubarb is especially toothsome served with venison or pork. (I’ve been told rhubarb makes a fine wine but I would probably produce a batch of vinegar, though that might not be a bad thing.) This year I have thrust bundles of rhubarb on friends, neighbors and passing strangers. Like the desperate zucchini grower, I have developed a certain gleam in my eye.
Yesterday’s hail storm shredded my tallest rhubarb leaves and dimpled many of the stalks. I’m afraid the damaged spots will turn soft and those stalks will spoil, so I’ll harvest them this morning. I’ll chop it and bag it and stash it in the freezer for winter treats. In another week or two, I’ll stroll out to the rhubarb patch and find another crop of tall, juicy stalks, hankering to be made into pies.
Sondra Ashton
Looking out my back door
June 16, 2011
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Friday, June 24, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Back at the Border Bar
Then and today.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back at the Border Bar
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The other day I was at the Harlem city hall for a swimming pool committee meeting. I don’t know how I got on the pool committee. I don’t know how to swim. I have tried numerous times to learn. The city has a great team of lifeguards this year and they promised me that they can teach me to swim. I wouldn’t put money on it. But this is not about swimming.
Before I left the office, I ran into a friend from Malta . “Have you been out to pick asparagus this year?” he asked. “Well, no,” I admitted. “If you’re going to get some, you’d better get out there,” he countered. I thought about that while I walked home.
Back at my house, I asked my guests, David and Vidya, long time friends from Port Townsend, Washington , if they would like to go to Dodson to pick wild asparagus. Within minutes we were on our way. We quickly picked a nice mess. But this is not about asparagus either.
On the way home the sky presented spectacular roiling clouds. “Let’s go to the Border Bar for a burger,” I suggested. We pulled into Harlem and headed north to Turner, entranced by the sky show all the way.
Kimber, owner of the Border Bar, took our order for burgers with heaps of grilled onions. “We are holding The Cruise on the18th,” she told us. “Are you coming up?” She and her husband Jay and a few other good people from the north-country put on an annual car show, with new, vintage, and muscle cars, one of the highlights of the summer.
“We were here last year,” David told Kimber. “It’s a shame we’ll have to miss this one. I loved the burn-outs and people lining up to smash that old car with sledge hammers. We left before the street dance. Next time we will stay longer.”
“Cars, food, fun and music; that’s what it’s about,” Kimber said as she headed to the grill to sizzle our burgers.
“I went to a street dance in Turner once,” I said. “It was the summer before my senior year in high school, a different era, the early sixties. My Dad let me have the car and that was a rare thing.
“Six of us girls went together. We were all ‘good’ girls. Nobody had to tell us right from wrong. We knew. Today we probably would be called ‘nerds’. None of us were what you’d call ‘hot stuff’.
“In the old days when Turner threw a street dance, it was a hum-dinger. People came from all around the country. With the music, the dancing, the noise, and the free-flowing libations, nobody remained strangers for long. None of us girls were accustomed to drinking, but we each had at least one beer. We were having a great time but I had to have the car back by the witching hour, so we left around eleven. On the drive home, one of the girls in the back seat suddenly felt sick. The other girls cranked down the window, scooted her over, and made her stick her head out. She vomited all over the side of my Dad’s car.
“I dropped the girls off at their homes and rolled into my drive moments before midnight. I knew I had to clean the car before Dad came out for chores. So I set my alarm for four-thirty, sneaked down stairs, filled a bucket with hot soapy water and scrubbed the car. When he came out at five o’clock I was rinsing it down. ‘What are you doing,’ he asked. Why do parents ask the obvious when they are standing right there watching. ‘Washing the car,’ I answered.
“My Dad stood in silence for about three centuries. He looked from me to the car and back to me. He shook his head, turned and walked to the barn. I never went to another street dance.”
We ate our burgers, each of us contemplating misspent days of our youth. It’s a new day. I think I’ll give the Turner street dance another try.
Sondra Ashton
Looking out my back door
June 9, 2011
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back at the Border Bar
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The other day I was at the Harlem city hall for a swimming pool committee meeting. I don’t know how I got on the pool committee. I don’t know how to swim. I have tried numerous times to learn. The city has a great team of lifeguards this year and they promised me that they can teach me to swim. I wouldn’t put money on it. But this is not about swimming.
Before I left the office, I ran into a friend from Malta . “Have you been out to pick asparagus this year?” he asked. “Well, no,” I admitted. “If you’re going to get some, you’d better get out there,” he countered. I thought about that while I walked home.
Back at my house, I asked my guests, David and Vidya, long time friends from Port Townsend, Washington , if they would like to go to Dodson to pick wild asparagus. Within minutes we were on our way. We quickly picked a nice mess. But this is not about asparagus either.
On the way home the sky presented spectacular roiling clouds. “Let’s go to the Border Bar for a burger,” I suggested. We pulled into Harlem and headed north to Turner, entranced by the sky show all the way.
Kimber, owner of the Border Bar, took our order for burgers with heaps of grilled onions. “We are holding The Cruise on the18th,” she told us. “Are you coming up?” She and her husband Jay and a few other good people from the north-country put on an annual car show, with new, vintage, and muscle cars, one of the highlights of the summer.
“We were here last year,” David told Kimber. “It’s a shame we’ll have to miss this one. I loved the burn-outs and people lining up to smash that old car with sledge hammers. We left before the street dance. Next time we will stay longer.”
“Cars, food, fun and music; that’s what it’s about,” Kimber said as she headed to the grill to sizzle our burgers.
“I went to a street dance in Turner once,” I said. “It was the summer before my senior year in high school, a different era, the early sixties. My Dad let me have the car and that was a rare thing.
“Six of us girls went together. We were all ‘good’ girls. Nobody had to tell us right from wrong. We knew. Today we probably would be called ‘nerds’. None of us were what you’d call ‘hot stuff’.
“In the old days when Turner threw a street dance, it was a hum-dinger. People came from all around the country. With the music, the dancing, the noise, and the free-flowing libations, nobody remained strangers for long. None of us girls were accustomed to drinking, but we each had at least one beer. We were having a great time but I had to have the car back by the witching hour, so we left around eleven. On the drive home, one of the girls in the back seat suddenly felt sick. The other girls cranked down the window, scooted her over, and made her stick her head out. She vomited all over the side of my Dad’s car.
“I dropped the girls off at their homes and rolled into my drive moments before midnight. I knew I had to clean the car before Dad came out for chores. So I set my alarm for four-thirty, sneaked down stairs, filled a bucket with hot soapy water and scrubbed the car. When he came out at five o’clock I was rinsing it down. ‘What are you doing,’ he asked. Why do parents ask the obvious when they are standing right there watching. ‘Washing the car,’ I answered.
“My Dad stood in silence for about three centuries. He looked from me to the car and back to me. He shook his head, turned and walked to the barn. I never went to another street dance.”
We ate our burgers, each of us contemplating misspent days of our youth. It’s a new day. I think I’ll give the Turner street dance another try.
Sondra Ashton
Looking out my back door
June 9, 2011
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
What is that woman up to now?
Blooming in the desert.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What is that woman up to now?
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A few weeks ago in Billings , at a municipal officials workshop, while eating lunch and eavesdropping on a conversation between the mayor of Malta and the mayor of Saco , I heard her ask him about his hay mulch garden. I overheard the words “no weeds”. I quit eavesdropping and scooted into the conversation. “Tell me everything you know,” I said. And that is how Howard Pippin, mayor of Saco , became my garden mentor.
When I moved back to Montana after twenty five years in the Pacific Northwest, I bought my Dad’s house on the edge of Harlem . My Dad had moved to town but never had given up farming. He created a perfect lawn and a garden which fed half the neighborhood. But by the time I could settle into my new home, the lawn and the garden had endured some years of neglect. In this country it doesn’t take long for weeds to dominate. The first couple years I hired a man to mow the lawn, by that time more weeds than grass. In all innocence I planted a garden and condemned myself to hours bent over pulling weeds and hauling hoses.
By fall I was ready to give up gardening altogether. My back ached. Every muscle screamed. My scraggly garden yield was not worth it. And I also felt conflicted about both lawn and garden. In this semi-arid country I do not think it is right to use water to grow grass which you must water, then mow, then water, and then mow ad infinitum. I appreciate the beauty of a lawn but I cringe at the use of water. No other semi-desert cultures grow lawns. The People, native to this land, did not peer out of the teepee in the morning, stretch, yawn, and say, “Think I’ll mow the grass today.”
So, I hauled in bark chips and covered the entire lawn. It was magical. No more grass to mow. No more nasty weeds to yank up. My water bill plummeted. In the former lawn I planted shrubs, trees and flowers galore. My yard is on the way to becoming a path-lined paradise. Every third year I have to put down more bark because the wind blows in new soil and then deposits more weed seeds. But meanwhile, there are few weeds to pull and I need only water the shrubs and flowers.
Once I had eliminated my lawn, I turned my attention to the garden area. I covered it with straw in the fall and then tilled it in the spring. I was dismayed. My newly enriched soil now grew an even more bountiful crop of weeds. So I planted a cover crop of barley to crowd them out. My barley crop was beautiful, but how do you harvest barley in a garden bed? So I tilled the barley under leaving a dismally bare garden patch, except for weeds which still needed to be hacked out. But my fruit trees and shrubs were filling out and being fruitful.
That’s why Howard’s words about his weed-free garden fell on my ears like rain following drought. He told me I could cover my entire garden area with old rotten hay. It would create a nutricious mulch. I could then plant directly into the mulch and never again have to plow, hoe, cultivate, weed, water or spray. I could garden with little labor. No weeds.
Howard’s mentor, Ruth Stout, wrote a witty book “for the aging, the busy and the indolent” (the shoe fits my foot) called “Gardening Without Work”. I immediately ordered a copy. Next week I will drive to Saco to visit Howard. I want to see with my own eyes how he uses Ruth Stout’s methods to garden in our dry land.
Meanwhile, yesterday a neighbor farmer, Karl Humphreys, angled his tractor down my alley and lifted a bale of spoiled hay over the fence into my yard. With the help of a couple friends I soon had potatoes and onions planted and covered with a deep mulch of loose moldy hay in a portion of my garden. I don’t expect a large yield this year. I don’t want large. I want a few good things without battling weeds. Today I planted the next section with a variety of seeds and covered them with more mulch.
When I started my experiments with a bark chip lawn, it caused a bit of talk and some outright criticism. Folks wondered, “What is that woman up to?” Now my neighbors stop me in the post office or on the street and say, “I like what you are doing.” “I can finally see what you are trying to create with your yard. I wish I could do that.” And “Your yard is like a house of many rooms, each one different. It’s so beautiful.”
The hay mulch in my garden may not look like much right now, but just wait until fall when I can reach down through it and pull up potatoes and onions and carrots for dinner.
Sondra Ashton
Looking out my back door
June 2, 2011
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What is that woman up to now?
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A few weeks ago in Billings , at a municipal officials workshop, while eating lunch and eavesdropping on a conversation between the mayor of Malta and the mayor of Saco , I heard her ask him about his hay mulch garden. I overheard the words “no weeds”. I quit eavesdropping and scooted into the conversation. “Tell me everything you know,” I said. And that is how Howard Pippin, mayor of Saco , became my garden mentor.
When I moved back to Montana after twenty five years in the Pacific Northwest, I bought my Dad’s house on the edge of Harlem . My Dad had moved to town but never had given up farming. He created a perfect lawn and a garden which fed half the neighborhood. But by the time I could settle into my new home, the lawn and the garden had endured some years of neglect. In this country it doesn’t take long for weeds to dominate. The first couple years I hired a man to mow the lawn, by that time more weeds than grass. In all innocence I planted a garden and condemned myself to hours bent over pulling weeds and hauling hoses.
By fall I was ready to give up gardening altogether. My back ached. Every muscle screamed. My scraggly garden yield was not worth it. And I also felt conflicted about both lawn and garden. In this semi-arid country I do not think it is right to use water to grow grass which you must water, then mow, then water, and then mow ad infinitum. I appreciate the beauty of a lawn but I cringe at the use of water. No other semi-desert cultures grow lawns. The People, native to this land, did not peer out of the teepee in the morning, stretch, yawn, and say, “Think I’ll mow the grass today.”
So, I hauled in bark chips and covered the entire lawn. It was magical. No more grass to mow. No more nasty weeds to yank up. My water bill plummeted. In the former lawn I planted shrubs, trees and flowers galore. My yard is on the way to becoming a path-lined paradise. Every third year I have to put down more bark because the wind blows in new soil and then deposits more weed seeds. But meanwhile, there are few weeds to pull and I need only water the shrubs and flowers.
Once I had eliminated my lawn, I turned my attention to the garden area. I covered it with straw in the fall and then tilled it in the spring. I was dismayed. My newly enriched soil now grew an even more bountiful crop of weeds. So I planted a cover crop of barley to crowd them out. My barley crop was beautiful, but how do you harvest barley in a garden bed? So I tilled the barley under leaving a dismally bare garden patch, except for weeds which still needed to be hacked out. But my fruit trees and shrubs were filling out and being fruitful.
That’s why Howard’s words about his weed-free garden fell on my ears like rain following drought. He told me I could cover my entire garden area with old rotten hay. It would create a nutricious mulch. I could then plant directly into the mulch and never again have to plow, hoe, cultivate, weed, water or spray. I could garden with little labor. No weeds.
Howard’s mentor, Ruth Stout, wrote a witty book “for the aging, the busy and the indolent” (the shoe fits my foot) called “Gardening Without Work”. I immediately ordered a copy. Next week I will drive to Saco to visit Howard. I want to see with my own eyes how he uses Ruth Stout’s methods to garden in our dry land.
Meanwhile, yesterday a neighbor farmer, Karl Humphreys, angled his tractor down my alley and lifted a bale of spoiled hay over the fence into my yard. With the help of a couple friends I soon had potatoes and onions planted and covered with a deep mulch of loose moldy hay in a portion of my garden. I don’t expect a large yield this year. I don’t want large. I want a few good things without battling weeds. Today I planted the next section with a variety of seeds and covered them with more mulch.
When I started my experiments with a bark chip lawn, it caused a bit of talk and some outright criticism. Folks wondered, “What is that woman up to?” Now my neighbors stop me in the post office or on the street and say, “I like what you are doing.” “I can finally see what you are trying to create with your yard. I wish I could do that.” And “Your yard is like a house of many rooms, each one different. It’s so beautiful.”
The hay mulch in my garden may not look like much right now, but just wait until fall when I can reach down through it and pull up potatoes and onions and carrots for dinner.
Sondra Ashton
Looking out my back door
June 2, 2011
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
The End of the World? Take a Rain Check!
A perfect ending to a perfect day!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The End of the World? Take a Rain Check!
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The world was supposed to end today but the event got rained out. I suppose true believers wrapped themselves in disappointment. I mean, one hates to wait in breath-held anticipation for any happening, joyful or fearful, and then have one’s plans go awry.
However, I had made no plans other than my usual business and pleasure. Ah, I hear the clamor of raised voices. I see fingers of accusation pointed in my direction. “It is people like you who bring about the end of the world; business and pleasure, indeed!” I shrug. “Well, what do you believe in?” the voices ask.
I believe in rain. This past winter I believed in snow. But winter is over and done. Fickle believer that I am, today I fervently believe in rain. This evening I hear the music of rain thrumming timpani on my metal roof. My roof is red. Rain on red makes a more melodious sound than rain on any other color. I have neither scientific nor religious proof to back up my belief. But it pleasures me with a Cheshire cat grin to believe in the superior rhythm of rain on my red roof.
It’s been a week of rain and a week of astounding revelations. One actually can watch grass grow. Everything is out of season this year. Each day for a month I have walked out to my raspberry patch to see if the tiny bumps on the stalks were buds. Every time, I walked back to the house swallowing disappointment. I despaired of my raspberry canes ever being more than dead sticks. But today I bring tidings of joy. On days like today growth is visible. I watched leaves emerge from tiny buds to fullness. In one week of rain, while I stood in my window, I watched the metamorphosis. I predict raspberries by the bushel. My currants are in bloom with tiny nodules of berries. The lilacs are sending out clusters. My bleeding hearts are bleeding. My poplars sport unfurled umbrellas. This might not seem like much to you, but with the end of the world in sight, I want all the excitement I can get.
This afternoon I drove to Havre. Through the rain. In my red van. Over the packed-earth detour, a perfect place for the world to end. Slip-sliding along in the mud, that slimy by-product of rain plus road construction. Here’s a scientific formula: rain plus road construction plus earthen detour plus traffic equals potholes. Kidney-jarring pits. Bone-jangling pits. I liken the experience to a strange marriage of a rodeo to a demolition derby. My van sun-fished like a bucking horse. Every driver, in my imagination, wore a crash helmet. We hunched forward in our saddles, eyes slit in concentration, our leather-gloved fingers wrapped around the steering wheels. We hung on grimly while our rigs bounced over the rutted throughway, sending sheets of mud over the windshields of oncoming vehicles. Yee-Haw! Let ‘er rip!
Pulitzer Prize winning poet Robert Frost mused about the end of the world in his poem, “Fire and Ice”:
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if I had to perish twice
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Although the world could have ended today, when I woke up this morning, I was still here. I say the rains came down and doused the fire and melted the ice. I walked out to my garden and harvested a batch of rhubarb in the rain. I cut a fistful of tulips and stuck them in a pitcher of water to grace my kitchen table. I drove to Havre and conducted business. I enjoyed a good dinner with good friends. I drove home. And if, as the rains continue, we wish we had built an ark, I’ll watch my flowers grow.
Sondra Ashton
HDN: Looking out my back door
May 26, 2011
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The End of the World? Take a Rain Check!
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The world was supposed to end today but the event got rained out. I suppose true believers wrapped themselves in disappointment. I mean, one hates to wait in breath-held anticipation for any happening, joyful or fearful, and then have one’s plans go awry.
However, I had made no plans other than my usual business and pleasure. Ah, I hear the clamor of raised voices. I see fingers of accusation pointed in my direction. “It is people like you who bring about the end of the world; business and pleasure, indeed!” I shrug. “Well, what do you believe in?” the voices ask.
I believe in rain. This past winter I believed in snow. But winter is over and done. Fickle believer that I am, today I fervently believe in rain. This evening I hear the music of rain thrumming timpani on my metal roof. My roof is red. Rain on red makes a more melodious sound than rain on any other color. I have neither scientific nor religious proof to back up my belief. But it pleasures me with a Cheshire cat grin to believe in the superior rhythm of rain on my red roof.
It’s been a week of rain and a week of astounding revelations. One actually can watch grass grow. Everything is out of season this year. Each day for a month I have walked out to my raspberry patch to see if the tiny bumps on the stalks were buds. Every time, I walked back to the house swallowing disappointment. I despaired of my raspberry canes ever being more than dead sticks. But today I bring tidings of joy. On days like today growth is visible. I watched leaves emerge from tiny buds to fullness. In one week of rain, while I stood in my window, I watched the metamorphosis. I predict raspberries by the bushel. My currants are in bloom with tiny nodules of berries. The lilacs are sending out clusters. My bleeding hearts are bleeding. My poplars sport unfurled umbrellas. This might not seem like much to you, but with the end of the world in sight, I want all the excitement I can get.
This afternoon I drove to Havre. Through the rain. In my red van. Over the packed-earth detour, a perfect place for the world to end. Slip-sliding along in the mud, that slimy by-product of rain plus road construction. Here’s a scientific formula: rain plus road construction plus earthen detour plus traffic equals potholes. Kidney-jarring pits. Bone-jangling pits. I liken the experience to a strange marriage of a rodeo to a demolition derby. My van sun-fished like a bucking horse. Every driver, in my imagination, wore a crash helmet. We hunched forward in our saddles, eyes slit in concentration, our leather-gloved fingers wrapped around the steering wheels. We hung on grimly while our rigs bounced over the rutted throughway, sending sheets of mud over the windshields of oncoming vehicles. Yee-Haw! Let ‘er rip!
Pulitzer Prize winning poet Robert Frost mused about the end of the world in his poem, “Fire and Ice”:
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if I had to perish twice
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Although the world could have ended today, when I woke up this morning, I was still here. I say the rains came down and doused the fire and melted the ice. I walked out to my garden and harvested a batch of rhubarb in the rain. I cut a fistful of tulips and stuck them in a pitcher of water to grace my kitchen table. I drove to Havre and conducted business. I enjoyed a good dinner with good friends. I drove home. And if, as the rains continue, we wish we had built an ark, I’ll watch my flowers grow.
Sondra Ashton
HDN: Looking out my back door
May 26, 2011
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Monday, May 23, 2011
Small town people running small towns—with help from the LGC
Small town people running small towns—with help from the LGC
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The highway from Harlem to Billings at four o’clock in the morning is an empty stretch of road. Mayor Bill drove the Yukon . Council Member Sondra rode shotgun. The mayor and I were headed to the annual Municipal Elected Officials Workshop. Bill’s handsome young grandson Brandon, resplendent in Navy whites, slept upright in the back seat. Bill and I talked quietly. We noted the greening beauty of the countryside, the play of shadow as the sun rose, the abundance of wildlife.
We arrived at the Billings airport, our first stop, too early for Brandon to check in for his flight to Norfolk , so we went upstairs to the restaurant. After a leisurely though hearty breakfast, we lingered over coffee. Once we had seen the young man safely on his way, Bill and I drove to the Heights for a short visit with my sister, a visit I thoroughly enjoyed, more so since I had not seen her for a couple of years. Judy, who owns her own shop, cut my hair. We caught up on family gossip and hugs.
The workshop we were attending was provided by the Local Government Center , an educational outreach extension of Montana State University . In conjunction with the Montana Municipal Interlocal Authority and the Clerks Institute, it offers trainings, technical assistance and research for elected officials of Montana cities and towns. There were sessions for mayors and council members, city attorneys and clerks from all over the state. Once we checked into our rooms we immersed ourselves in trainings from Wednesday through Friday. City clerks and treasurers had arrived early for a full week of day and night sessions. Sometimes we met jointly; other workshops were specific to each group.
Lectures, simulated incidents, table-top exercises, group discussions, Q&A sessions—all were valuable. Emergency management, jurisdictions, the declaration process, how to request assistance—all good stuff! Issues that require public participation and deliberation, tips on researching an issue, and ways to advocate to decision makers so that public policy may be developed or changed—this was exciting! Wetlands, flood mitigation, maximizing benefits of wetlands, improving water quality—how timely. Managing conflict constructively—gathering tools and skills to effectively manage potentially contentious interpersonal and community conversations—all provocative topics.
The whole workshop experience definitely increased my ability to be effective in my role as a council person. But the best part, to me, was interacting with other elected officials from around Montana . Some were friends from previous workshops; others I met for the first time. We shared our stories. We asked multitudes of questions, to one another and to the workshop leaders. We indulged in stimulating dialogue as each workshop topic brought new challenges.
We found that most of us know the same frustrations and rewards of living in small communities. When we don’t take the opportunity to share our experiences, strengths, hopes, failures and frustrations with one another, we often get to feeling like we are pushing a heavy boulder uphill by ourselves. At least that is how I felt when I arrived at the workshop.
This was beautifully summed up by a workshop leader, “Most small towns are run by STP.” “What does that acronym stand for?” we asked. “Same Ten People”. The room exploded with laughter. And I felt at home. I learned that I am not alone.
Our jobs would be extremely difficult without the help of the Local Government Center and the trainings and workshops they hold throughout the state. Being a municipal official is a lot like getting married or like parenting. We sign up for it without a clue, without a training manual, without a step-by-step book of instructions. LGC fills the gap.
LGC means a lot to me and to my home town. Any one of us in city government can pick up the phone and dial for help. LGC personnel are always ready to answer questions, give us information, help with research, steer us in the right direction, and keep us out of jail. The Legislature, in their dubious wisdom, failed to fund the LGC this session. Instead they gave a no-strings chunk of money to the University system and suggested LGC request funding from them. I hope the University Regents listen.
Sondra Ashton
HDN: Looking out my back door
May 19, 2011
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The highway from Harlem to Billings at four o’clock in the morning is an empty stretch of road. Mayor Bill drove the Yukon . Council Member Sondra rode shotgun. The mayor and I were headed to the annual Municipal Elected Officials Workshop. Bill’s handsome young grandson Brandon, resplendent in Navy whites, slept upright in the back seat. Bill and I talked quietly. We noted the greening beauty of the countryside, the play of shadow as the sun rose, the abundance of wildlife.
We arrived at the Billings airport, our first stop, too early for Brandon to check in for his flight to Norfolk , so we went upstairs to the restaurant. After a leisurely though hearty breakfast, we lingered over coffee. Once we had seen the young man safely on his way, Bill and I drove to the Heights for a short visit with my sister, a visit I thoroughly enjoyed, more so since I had not seen her for a couple of years. Judy, who owns her own shop, cut my hair. We caught up on family gossip and hugs.
The workshop we were attending was provided by the Local Government Center , an educational outreach extension of Montana State University . In conjunction with the Montana Municipal Interlocal Authority and the Clerks Institute, it offers trainings, technical assistance and research for elected officials of Montana cities and towns. There were sessions for mayors and council members, city attorneys and clerks from all over the state. Once we checked into our rooms we immersed ourselves in trainings from Wednesday through Friday. City clerks and treasurers had arrived early for a full week of day and night sessions. Sometimes we met jointly; other workshops were specific to each group.
Lectures, simulated incidents, table-top exercises, group discussions, Q&A sessions—all were valuable. Emergency management, jurisdictions, the declaration process, how to request assistance—all good stuff! Issues that require public participation and deliberation, tips on researching an issue, and ways to advocate to decision makers so that public policy may be developed or changed—this was exciting! Wetlands, flood mitigation, maximizing benefits of wetlands, improving water quality—how timely. Managing conflict constructively—gathering tools and skills to effectively manage potentially contentious interpersonal and community conversations—all provocative topics.
The whole workshop experience definitely increased my ability to be effective in my role as a council person. But the best part, to me, was interacting with other elected officials from around Montana . Some were friends from previous workshops; others I met for the first time. We shared our stories. We asked multitudes of questions, to one another and to the workshop leaders. We indulged in stimulating dialogue as each workshop topic brought new challenges.
We found that most of us know the same frustrations and rewards of living in small communities. When we don’t take the opportunity to share our experiences, strengths, hopes, failures and frustrations with one another, we often get to feeling like we are pushing a heavy boulder uphill by ourselves. At least that is how I felt when I arrived at the workshop.
This was beautifully summed up by a workshop leader, “Most small towns are run by STP.” “What does that acronym stand for?” we asked. “Same Ten People”. The room exploded with laughter. And I felt at home. I learned that I am not alone.
Our jobs would be extremely difficult without the help of the Local Government Center and the trainings and workshops they hold throughout the state. Being a municipal official is a lot like getting married or like parenting. We sign up for it without a clue, without a training manual, without a step-by-step book of instructions. LGC fills the gap.
LGC means a lot to me and to my home town. Any one of us in city government can pick up the phone and dial for help. LGC personnel are always ready to answer questions, give us information, help with research, steer us in the right direction, and keep us out of jail. The Legislature, in their dubious wisdom, failed to fund the LGC this session. Instead they gave a no-strings chunk of money to the University system and suggested LGC request funding from them. I hope the University Regents listen.
Sondra Ashton
HDN: Looking out my back door
May 19, 2011
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hog Fat, Red Devil Lye, and Memories
Hog Fat, Red Devil Lye, and Memories
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Last Tuesday my friend Rebecca Hofer invited me to the North Harlem Colony to watch them make laundry soap. Becky and Judy were teaching their daughters Melanie and Emberly, passing on the tradition. When I arrived, a batch was bubbling in the huge propane-fired, rectangular steel cauldron. The smells of the lye, the fat and the soap flooded my mind with memories.
Every fall when the weather turned cold, back when I was a kid, we butchered a hog. With a neighbor’s help, my Dad hoisted the hog by its hind legs over a wash tub to drain the blood for sausage. Then they lowered the hog into a kettle of scalding water. The men scraped the hair from the hide and peeled the hide from the carcass. They scooped huge curls of fat from the meat, scraped the hide clean, trimmed excess fat from the chops and roasts and threw the scraps into buckets. Dad removed the hams and sides for bacon and set them aside to sugar cure to his own recipe.
I watched the whole process in silence. I knew better than to get underfoot. The men never shooed me away.
In a Dickensian way, it was the best of times; it was the worst of times. I didn’t have a mother. I was raised by a grandma who didn’t believe in coddling children. She cooked meals and cleaned and did laundry, but very early I figured out her main job was to teach me all she thought a woman needed to know.
When the men were finished, it was our turn to take over. Grandma and I cut up the rest of the meat. We canned chops and chunks of pork in large Mason jars with a pressure cooker. Grandma put the fear into me with gruesome stories about pressure cookers blowing up, maiming and killing women, some whom she knew, careless women who didn’t maintain a clean seal on the cooker. We made sausage and head cheese and pickled pigs feet. We filled the big black kettle with the best cuts of the hog fat and, over a low, slow fire out in the back yard, rendered the fat into lard. We munched a handful of the cracklings but tossed the rest of them, along with the remainder of the fat, back into the buckets to save for making soap. We poured the lard into containers and stored them in the cool underground cellar. We worked rapidly. The pork had to be processed quickly, so as not to spoil. The only part of the pig we didn’t eat was the part we made into soap.
Soap making for the North Harlem Colony requires the labor of two families and takes two days. Out of ten gigantic batches, I have no idea how many pounds of soap they made. To make just one batch, the men filled the vat with a mixture of about thirty pounds of lye, water up to here, and forty gallons of lard and cracklings. While the men brought the mixture to a slow boil, Melanie and Emberly stirred it, keeping it moving. Once the mixture had bubbled and boiled and the soap separated from the lye water, the girls scooped it into buckets. Darius and David and Douglas carried the buckets of liquid soap and poured it into huge steel trays. Once the soap cooled, the men cut it into chunks and placed the bars in mesh bags which they then hung in a storage room to cure for two to three years. The whole time I was there, Becky and Judy never sat down, cleaning up after one batch, preparing for the next.
I remember soap making in my childhood. I remember the red and white can of Red Devil lye with the skull and crossbones poison symbol. I remember stirring those same bubbling ingredients of fat, lye and water in the black kettle over the fire, the same kettle Grandma and I had used for rendering the lard. I remember pouring the soap into baking pans and cutting the cooled soap into bars. I remember grating the soap into flakes for laundry. I remember using the bars of our lye soap to scrub floors and to take baths and wash my hair.
I grew up hearing that lye soap would cure itchy skin, poison ivy and oak, chigger bites, athlete’s foot, dandruff, acne, mites, eczema, bed bugs, head lice, and mosquito bites. It also works to clean cement. Some people use it as catfish bait. I know from my Grandma it cures a sassy mouth.
Next year I’ll go back out to the Colony when they make soap. This time I’ll pitch right in to help. I’ll take my rubber boots, a rubber apron and heavy rubber gloves and a scarf to keep my hair out of my face. I have no desire to make my own lye soap. But I might bring home a bar to see if it still works on mosquito bites.
Sondra Ashton
HDN: Looking out my back door
May 12, 2011
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Last Tuesday my friend Rebecca Hofer invited me to the North Harlem Colony to watch them make laundry soap. Becky and Judy were teaching their daughters Melanie and Emberly, passing on the tradition. When I arrived, a batch was bubbling in the huge propane-fired, rectangular steel cauldron. The smells of the lye, the fat and the soap flooded my mind with memories.
Every fall when the weather turned cold, back when I was a kid, we butchered a hog. With a neighbor’s help, my Dad hoisted the hog by its hind legs over a wash tub to drain the blood for sausage. Then they lowered the hog into a kettle of scalding water. The men scraped the hair from the hide and peeled the hide from the carcass. They scooped huge curls of fat from the meat, scraped the hide clean, trimmed excess fat from the chops and roasts and threw the scraps into buckets. Dad removed the hams and sides for bacon and set them aside to sugar cure to his own recipe.
I watched the whole process in silence. I knew better than to get underfoot. The men never shooed me away.
In a Dickensian way, it was the best of times; it was the worst of times. I didn’t have a mother. I was raised by a grandma who didn’t believe in coddling children. She cooked meals and cleaned and did laundry, but very early I figured out her main job was to teach me all she thought a woman needed to know.
When the men were finished, it was our turn to take over. Grandma and I cut up the rest of the meat. We canned chops and chunks of pork in large Mason jars with a pressure cooker. Grandma put the fear into me with gruesome stories about pressure cookers blowing up, maiming and killing women, some whom she knew, careless women who didn’t maintain a clean seal on the cooker. We made sausage and head cheese and pickled pigs feet. We filled the big black kettle with the best cuts of the hog fat and, over a low, slow fire out in the back yard, rendered the fat into lard. We munched a handful of the cracklings but tossed the rest of them, along with the remainder of the fat, back into the buckets to save for making soap. We poured the lard into containers and stored them in the cool underground cellar. We worked rapidly. The pork had to be processed quickly, so as not to spoil. The only part of the pig we didn’t eat was the part we made into soap.
Soap making for the North Harlem Colony requires the labor of two families and takes two days. Out of ten gigantic batches, I have no idea how many pounds of soap they made. To make just one batch, the men filled the vat with a mixture of about thirty pounds of lye, water up to here, and forty gallons of lard and cracklings. While the men brought the mixture to a slow boil, Melanie and Emberly stirred it, keeping it moving. Once the mixture had bubbled and boiled and the soap separated from the lye water, the girls scooped it into buckets. Darius and David and Douglas carried the buckets of liquid soap and poured it into huge steel trays. Once the soap cooled, the men cut it into chunks and placed the bars in mesh bags which they then hung in a storage room to cure for two to three years. The whole time I was there, Becky and Judy never sat down, cleaning up after one batch, preparing for the next.
I remember soap making in my childhood. I remember the red and white can of Red Devil lye with the skull and crossbones poison symbol. I remember stirring those same bubbling ingredients of fat, lye and water in the black kettle over the fire, the same kettle Grandma and I had used for rendering the lard. I remember pouring the soap into baking pans and cutting the cooled soap into bars. I remember grating the soap into flakes for laundry. I remember using the bars of our lye soap to scrub floors and to take baths and wash my hair.
I grew up hearing that lye soap would cure itchy skin, poison ivy and oak, chigger bites, athlete’s foot, dandruff, acne, mites, eczema, bed bugs, head lice, and mosquito bites. It also works to clean cement. Some people use it as catfish bait. I know from my Grandma it cures a sassy mouth.
Next year I’ll go back out to the Colony when they make soap. This time I’ll pitch right in to help. I’ll take my rubber boots, a rubber apron and heavy rubber gloves and a scarf to keep my hair out of my face. I have no desire to make my own lye soap. But I might bring home a bar to see if it still works on mosquito bites.
Sondra Ashton
HDN: Looking out my back door
May 12, 2011
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Friday, May 6, 2011
Fear of Flying
Or: The Winds of Insanity!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fear of Flying
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Saturday morning, with a last minute invitation and a whim, I threw a change of clothing and my toothbrush into a small bag, shoved in a book for just in case, climbed into my trusty van Roshanna, and with a “Giddy-up Go” pointed her east, and keeping a tight rein on the steering wheel, bucked the wind all the way to Glasgow to visit my high school classmate Jim.
The sky above looked like a gigantic upside-down blue mixing bowl. Half way to Dodson I noticed lake-wind effect clouds moving in from the southeast, beautiful and billowy. A hundred puffs of cloud, each shaped like a flying saucer, soared in perfect fleet formation. I could hardly take my eyes from them.
By the time I drove through Malta , I was not so much looking at the sky as trying to keep out of the sky. My van is not aerodynamically engineered. Yet she kept trying to take off, up, up, and away, into the wild blue yonder.
According to the NOAA report from Glasgow , the wind held steady at thirty-six mph, gusting to forty-eight. These certainly were not tornado-force winds. However, out on the open road rolling across the Plains of northeastern Montana , this is considerable force.
I focused on holding the steering wheel in a death grip, glad I had not removed my pile of winter-traction sandbags. Whenever I drove through a cut in the hills, the wind picked us up and moved us four feet to the north. A four foot shift on narrow two-lane US 2 made me feel grateful there were few travelers sharing the road that blustery morning.
Normally I love to fly. I prefer flying as a passenger in a small plane, one in which I know the pilot. The irony struck me that my craft is small and I know the pilot intimately. So there I was, taxiing down the runway of US 2, valiantly trying NOT to lift off. I realized in that moment that I was afraid of flying.
Actually, I was not so much afraid of flying as I was afraid of landing. I especially wanted to land in an upright position, four wheels down, on the same stretch of asphalt from which I had lifted off.
Then another fear struck me. Here I was, preparing to solo, and I did not have a pilot’s license. Think of the consequences. The FAA would investigate. They would discover that my craft had none of the requisite navigational equipment. I had failed to file a flight plan. I would undergo endless hours of interrogation. Undoubtedly a hefty fine. Perhaps time behind bars. Maybe blindfolded facing a firing squad. Certainly a special restriction stamped on my MDL. Oh, the humiliation.
In my favor, air traffic was light. One meadow lark clutching a fence post and two geese wading through the grass. The wind had grounded all sensible birds.
I finally made it to Glasgow . My friend Jim peeled me out of my van and treated me to a drive out to Gun Site, a private hunting preserve he shares with his partners. We saw hundreds of white tail deer. Later Jim prepared a gourmet meal and we enjoyed scintillating conversation.
My trip home the following day was less eventful. Again, my van and I bucked the wind, but it was a mere breeze in comparison to the gales of the previous day. For entertainment I watched the needle on the gas gauge go down as the greening landscape unfurled before us.
I may have to get a new steering wheel. I noticed where my hands grip in the ten o’clock and the two o’clock positions, the wheel is squeezed very thin. While it is in the shop, I wonder if I could have the mechanics weld on retractable wings. I think a roof-mounted propeller would be especially attractive. I wonder where I can take flying lessons.
Sondra Ashton
HDN: Looking out my back door
May 5, 2011
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fear of Flying
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Saturday morning, with a last minute invitation and a whim, I threw a change of clothing and my toothbrush into a small bag, shoved in a book for just in case, climbed into my trusty van Roshanna, and with a “Giddy-up Go” pointed her east, and keeping a tight rein on the steering wheel, bucked the wind all the way to Glasgow to visit my high school classmate Jim.
The sky above looked like a gigantic upside-down blue mixing bowl. Half way to Dodson I noticed lake-wind effect clouds moving in from the southeast, beautiful and billowy. A hundred puffs of cloud, each shaped like a flying saucer, soared in perfect fleet formation. I could hardly take my eyes from them.
By the time I drove through Malta , I was not so much looking at the sky as trying to keep out of the sky. My van is not aerodynamically engineered. Yet she kept trying to take off, up, up, and away, into the wild blue yonder.
According to the NOAA report from Glasgow , the wind held steady at thirty-six mph, gusting to forty-eight. These certainly were not tornado-force winds. However, out on the open road rolling across the Plains of northeastern Montana , this is considerable force.
I focused on holding the steering wheel in a death grip, glad I had not removed my pile of winter-traction sandbags. Whenever I drove through a cut in the hills, the wind picked us up and moved us four feet to the north. A four foot shift on narrow two-lane US 2 made me feel grateful there were few travelers sharing the road that blustery morning.
Normally I love to fly. I prefer flying as a passenger in a small plane, one in which I know the pilot. The irony struck me that my craft is small and I know the pilot intimately. So there I was, taxiing down the runway of US 2, valiantly trying NOT to lift off. I realized in that moment that I was afraid of flying.
Actually, I was not so much afraid of flying as I was afraid of landing. I especially wanted to land in an upright position, four wheels down, on the same stretch of asphalt from which I had lifted off.
Then another fear struck me. Here I was, preparing to solo, and I did not have a pilot’s license. Think of the consequences. The FAA would investigate. They would discover that my craft had none of the requisite navigational equipment. I had failed to file a flight plan. I would undergo endless hours of interrogation. Undoubtedly a hefty fine. Perhaps time behind bars. Maybe blindfolded facing a firing squad. Certainly a special restriction stamped on my MDL. Oh, the humiliation.
In my favor, air traffic was light. One meadow lark clutching a fence post and two geese wading through the grass. The wind had grounded all sensible birds.
I finally made it to Glasgow . My friend Jim peeled me out of my van and treated me to a drive out to Gun Site, a private hunting preserve he shares with his partners. We saw hundreds of white tail deer. Later Jim prepared a gourmet meal and we enjoyed scintillating conversation.
My trip home the following day was less eventful. Again, my van and I bucked the wind, but it was a mere breeze in comparison to the gales of the previous day. For entertainment I watched the needle on the gas gauge go down as the greening landscape unfurled before us.
I may have to get a new steering wheel. I noticed where my hands grip in the ten o’clock and the two o’clock positions, the wheel is squeezed very thin. While it is in the shop, I wonder if I could have the mechanics weld on retractable wings. I think a roof-mounted propeller would be especially attractive. I wonder where I can take flying lessons.
Sondra Ashton
HDN: Looking out my back door
May 5, 2011
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)