The weather has come to feel like Autumn, but not yet looking quite like Autumn.
We’ve already had a frost but there is just a bare touch of colour on the Aspens, a few faded blossoms on the butterfly bush which will need pruning soon, five small green beans waiting to grow a bit more before becoming part of a salad, several small to middlin’ tomatoes remaining to finish ripening, four late buds on the Double Delight rose, and no seed pods on the Peace rose which I had hoped would be a source of vitamin C this winter.
Still a lot of weeds to pull as well as a couple of the small sunflowers and an unknown with lots of stickers to to pull and cut-up for the trash.
There is a middlin’ amount of snow on the Mountain but only rain down here.
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The fox has stopped its noisy predawn rounds but it was scolding over in back of the neighbor’s as I put out the trash last wednesday before it began to be light.
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The bad news this week was the hospitalization of another genealogical cousin, who lives in Tampa, who was hospitalized with a combination of Covid and pneumonia.
I spoke with his wife and their younger son on monday. They are awaiting evacuation orders waiting for the hurricane scheduled to hit their area later today or early tomorrow. I’m sure the hospital must have plans in place for evacuation if needed.
The storm surge is predicted to be less than 20’ and I recall Don telling me their house is high enough (35’ above sea level).
I will call to check on them saturday when the pressure of calls is past.
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My cousin Roxie stopped to see me on her way to Washington from San Luis Obispo last friday. She was making stops to see family and friends on her way.
She and I have a genealogical link (her great-grandmother and my grandmother were sisters). That means we share a great-great-greatgrandfather for her and
a great-grandfather for me.
Confusing.
We are friends as well as relatives and spent a lovely afternoon and evening together with dinner at the Meat Market in the old McCloud Railroad Mercantile building (anyone remember Tennessee Ernie Ford’s song about how you owe your soul to the company store?).
Then we came back here and spent another couple of hours talking about our lives and some genealogy before we called it a day around 8 o’clock. She had to make a drive to Portland the next day and it was already a bit after my farm routine bedtime so she returned to the local B&B and I went to bed.
I had a great visit. I think she did too.
Cousins are cousins no matter how many generations or miles apart.
Here are some pictures from that day …
The Mountain has a good covering of snow.
Roxie’s view ..
… John wasn’t able to be here but he shared a dawn picture of the Mountain.
I admire and enjoy the Mountain from any view, any time.
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I joined a friend last sunday to see “The Woman King”
It is a fairly good movie based on some history of the slave trade when area kings sold (or traded) their people (men as workers and women as breeders) to the European and American slavers.
The movie was about an all-female military regiment formed as a result of Dahomey’s male population facing high casualties in the increasingly frequent violent warfare with neighboring West African statesmainly with the Oyo Empire, which used slaves for commodity exchange in West Africa which existed from the 1600s until 1904. This led to Dahomey being one of the leading tribes in the slave trade. The women warriors were called the Dahomey Amazons. They called themselves”Agojie” (Ah go’ gee).
It was a pretty good movie marred only by specious asides about the relationship of one of the recruits to the leader of the Agojie and a never-to-be romantic connection (think Romeo and Juliet) of that younger warrior and one of the traders who was half Dahomey and half European.
I guess the producers thought they needed some intrigue and romance to offset the history of some bad a– women who changed some history.
All-in-all, I’m glad I went.
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Now to end the week …
“You feel it when someone comes to your home for the first time and looks at all your stuff and you find yourself telling them backstories, or when you tell someone a story about your childhood and they look at you like they understand you a little more and give you the warmest smile …
You watch sunsets as often as you are able because you love the way they remind you that there’s a new day ahead …
And sometimes you pause just to notice your breath and the slow rise and fall of your chest and it makes you glad that you are here.
When you look back, you know that there is no need to stay in the past anymore and instead of waiting for the world to save you, you finally learn to save yourself.
You are going to be okay.”
— Rae Pathak
So, ‘til next week …