Hmmm...What IF?

Some time ago I was on line, 'talking' to a group of people who were all in a tizz about what they would do if 'something really bad' happened and they had to take care of themselves. 

There was a lot of 'what-iffing' going on and somebody asked me what I would do if my power went out. 

I said I'd use my oil lamps for light. 

What about charging your phone and computer? 

I have an adaptor for the cigarette lighter in my vehicle that I can plug both into and charge them pretty quickly. 

What about cooking? 

I have an awesome wood cook stove in my kitchen and plenty of wood stockpiled. 

Heat? 

The cook stove heats the house quite effectively, thank you very much.  Plus my house is set up so I don't have to heat all of it unless I want to.

Hot water? 

Big kettles on the cook stove, hel-lo-oo. 

Well, what about WATER?  What if you lose your city water supply? 

For starters, I have a LOT of jugs filled already.  Also, if it's winter there's usually plenty of fresh snow all over the ground.  AND my cistern collects water from my rain gutters. 

Oh. 

That pretty much shut them up. 

Just sayin'.  It's not really all that complicated and it hasn't really been all THAT long since our progenitors were 'roughing it'.  If need be, we can certainly manage.

Chess Pieces

FOR TESS

 

Can't get this one to rotate *sigh*.  These are the work of Helen Gibson Branson, my grandmother.  I think in a previous post I show them, only not sideways ...

 

 

 

The glass lampshade came to me from my grandmother Johnnie Lee Duran Blanton via my mother Wauna Lee Blanton Branson.  It's mounted on a heavy vintage lamp base that I bought in Victor, Colorado at an antique shop there.  The lamp is standing on top of a 'Domino Table', also from my grandmother via my mother.  Mom says it belonged to HER grandmother Blanton.  The quilt was made by Johnnie Lee.  The dresser came from the Hotel here in Fessenden and is dated circa 1920, maybe a little earlier.

 

Here's one of the metal bedsteads; it's in the morning room of my house right now.  The style is quite similar to a brass one that I'm in the process of restoring (off with the paint!).

 

The story that goes with this dresser is that when my grandmother needed storage space but had little floor-space, she cut the legs off of this dresser as well as another one which she had gotten from her mother (said to have come to Kansas in a covered wagon) and stacked this one on top of the other.  The older part needs restoring.

 

Pins, Needles, Knives, Arrows, Swords, and Spears

Sometimes a person crosses my path whose angst is so powerful that I can't tolerate being in their vicinity. 

It's not their fault really, but neither is is MY fault. 

And so it's better all the way around for me to make my exit.  

Were I to stay, one of two things would probably happen:

1)  I would lose my temper
2)  They would lose theirs

Hence a strategic retreat is a good idea.

IT'S SUPPOSED TO GET ABOVE FREEZING PRETTY SOON!

I check the extended forecast on a fairly regular basis, because hope springs eternal and all that. 

THIS time when I looked I saw that April is supposed to be a bit of an improvement on what March has been like in this neck of the woods. 

Maybe not MUCH of an improvement, but at this point I'll take what I can get! 

Temperatures above freezing is something to look forward to!

No, we don't want things to warm up TOO quickly, no matter that we would dearly LOVE to be back in flip-flops outside. 

That would spell trouble in terms of flooding. 

While my immediate vicinity isn't in much danger of serious flooding, some parts of this state ARE. 

So a slow spring is to be hoped for, even though I personally am in a great hurry for it to warm up and be NICE out there! 

I am very much looking forward to the yearly inspection tours of my yard to see what's coming up, what's getting leaves, and figuring out what flowers I want to put where. 

I WANT to see the day lily shoots poking up!

I WANT to see the lilac leaves budding!

I WANT to watch the hollyhocks coming up!

I WANT TO!!!!!

But I'm willing to wait a little longer if I have to, which I do. 

Murder and Mahem - I Tell Ya!

Kate Emerson has an incredible array of histories and stories about the Tudor Women. 

I just finished reading them, from A to Z, and I have to say that the journey was fascinating.

Frankly, learning as much as I did about the way things were back in those days makes me very grateful for life as we now know it. 

Changes were happening in England between 1485 and 1603 but this isn't a history lesson.

It's simply my reaction to having read a lot of data about a time I hadn't been all that familiar with. 

Someone asked me why I was reading about it. 

I guess because I'm curious about what life was like back then, and there's no other way to find out. 

By the time I got to the Zs I was distinctly relieved that I would soon be saying goodbye to all those poor ladies.  Not that they were technically poor, mind you; some of them were incredibly wealthy.  It's just that reading their stories was quite a bit like watching a generational soap opera filled with drama and pathos and I felt sorry for them. 

You know what got to me, aside from the obvious things about politics and religion?

It was the custom of wardships for the little ones whose fathers died.  So few of the women actually got to raise their own children if the fathers died.  The crown got custody and sold the wardships to whomever it chose.  I know it was just the way it was and no doubt most of the women were fine with it (like they had any choice) but still ... it seems just wrong somehow.  Some of those kids were 'sold' time and again when they were little.

On the other hand, some of the girls I read about had awesome educations.  Not all by a long shot, but some of them did. 

ANYWAY, I'm glad I'm done with that bit of my research.  The stories will stick in my mind, I just know it, and that's okay.  It gave me a good idea of what life was like in another time, in snippets of information about a wide variety of people. 

Again, when it comes to the portraits of the people, I realize that no doubt smiles weren't part of the deal back then.  Even so, I never saw a more miserable-looking bunch in my life. 

One thing I did find out - when I'm reading history sites about that period I almost feel as though I know the people they're talking about, in a more real sense.  It's no longer just a list of names and places and events.  REAL people did those things and were affected by them; it's not just words on paper (or on my screen).

A BIT OF AN UPDATE !!

 

BEEN GETTNG SOME THINGS IN PLACE AROUND HERE

 

My antique kitchen needed rearranging, so I went ahead and got 'er done.  The hutch you see below belonged to my great-grandmother, spent many decades stashed in the barn in CO, with my grandmother regularly relegating it to the town dump and Grandad just as regularly going out and bringing it back to the barn.  In due course I got permission to take it out of there; Steve and I stripped it of the layers of paint and reinforced it here and there (okay, it was mostly Steve but I supervised).  It's been here and there with me over the course of the years and I love it dearly.  Its most recent home is the nook in my antique kitchen, moved away from the windows so the light can come in (and so I can get my freezer from the basement through the door).  When we re-did it, we oiled the wood instead of varnishing it, so I re-oiled it too as it's been a good while since it was last done.

The little wood stove you see in front of it is the one that was back stage at the theatre (must have been used as a prop).  I kept it to use as a planter but then decided to get stove pipe and hook it up to see if it worked.  It worked great!  Not as well as the bigger kitchen stove I have replaced it with, but it heated things up pretty well for something so little!  Now I'm not sure what I'll do with it - probably use it for a planter until I get around to building the little rock house I want in my back yard (or courtyard, don't know which yet) and then maybe it can go in there.

 

Obviously I haven't gotten the kitchen cook stove refurbished yet, but it's worked like a charm all winter anyway!  The green wooden cupboard is (I think) of an age with this house so belongs in the kitchen.  Please know that the 'distressed' look of it has been left that way intentionally.  Not being a drinker, the wine rack on top of it holds my rolling pins.  The newly white wall (used to be bright yellow) is fire-retardant.  I want bricks on that wall but don't know when/if that will happen.

 

 

Here's an empty spot between the attic hall door and the door to the butler's pantry (in the dining room, which has five doors all told, plus two windows).

 

Below, something everyone in my generation of Colorado Bransons will recognize.  Grandma made it and it hung in her house for I don't know how long.  Supporting it are Grandad's work spurs.

 

The peony in this work was traced from the bottom-most (original, I'm thinking) layer of wallpaper ceiling border in this room.  This piece now hangs over the attic hall door.

 

Over the door to the butler's pantry are:  one of my paintings and two of my grandmother's embroidery pieces, companions to the horseback cowboy.  She displayed them together and so shall I.

 

This bookshelf wall is finally beginning to come together.  It ain't fancy, but it's getting done.

 



 The wooden fence enclosing my back and north side yard came from my step-dad Earl Fike (I think he got it from my Aunt Delores but don't quote me on that).  This part is as high as I am tall, five feet plus a little.  If that drift reaches the top of the fence, I'm heading south.  And this hasn't really even been all that bad of a winter for us, relatively speaking.  Still ... it's the principle of the thing.  When the snow gets taller than me it's time I was someplace else.