Popeye Takes A Seat

As parents and now as Grandparents we look forward to the little changes that life grants us on this busy road of life.  The Little Terrorists are growing and maturing at a normal rate and we accept these changes happily most of the time.  Some changes we look very forward to if not rush into them.  One of the changes that couldn't happen soon enough was the car seat, that great cumbersome pain in the a--  car seat.  It is a nightmare to install in whatever car we needed at the moment and with three cars it seems we are constantly switching the damn things back and forth.  Little Terrorist's numbers 1 and 2 have grown to the point that they could have a simple booster seat, so we will be taking that big cumbersome seat out and toss it into storage for #3 when she grows out of the infant seat. I was really looking forward to this big change until last Sunday we had to take Popeye in to be fitted with a new harness.

Guess we will be leaving the big cumbersome car seat for a while

Fall And Soccer

September and October are hellish months in the gardens with so much to harvest and the fall clean-up getting things ready for the winter months.  We have spent the last two weekends up at the family cabin replacing rain gutters, oiling the decks, oh and there was the little mishap of me stepping down on the back steps and having them crumble under foot.  So we will have to return to replace those and when we do we are leaving my utility trailer for the next big job of clearing all the years of detritus from the forest floor, pruning all the dead branches from the many trees that canopy the property.
However one can not work all the time and with the advent of the "Little Terrorists" in our life comes....soccer.  Taeya, "Little Terrorist #1" resplendent in non other than pink shin guards, pink shorts, red "should be pink" team shirt hit the field with the most gorgeous smile that never left her sweet face.

At five years of age they play three on three, changing out the players every few minutes.  I had strict directions to keep the camera ready for all the goals she was going to make.

Taeya getting some line time next to Daddy....er...coach Ian.



Things were looking grim for the Pyramid Dragons.   Concentration on the game was almost non-existent as the collapsible goals became targets of abuse.

Non team members tried to steal the ball

Muscle had to be called in and drag players from the field while coach Ian tried to deal with drama on the side lines

The fans were getting rowdy calling for the coach to send in Taeya
(Little Terrorist #3 Lucy and daughter-in-law Jill)

Finally the crowd erupted in cheers as a flash of pink and red whipped out on the field.

This one tiny pink player turned the tide

After her first goal the head sports writer (great grandpa Tom) was busily broadcasting the news on his I-Phone

The crowds approval was obvious.......

......as Taeya made yet another goal

Coach Ian had nothing but admiration for a game well played



And the happy crowd (Lucy, Little Terrorist #3 and MeMa) rose to cheer the team.

Game over the fans began to leave the field hand in hand.  My lovely parents with over sixty years of marriage still young and in love.





A Pickle For A Nickle

Twenty-two quarts of MeMa's Spicy Dill's

In years past MeMa has "put up" the most delicious dill and sweet pickles, then last year she decided to make spicy dills.  They were such a great hit with the family that we soon ran out.  We have been canning like crazy with the bumper crop of veggies out of the garden. We have eaten the sweetest sweet corn, a crop I have left out of the garden here at Menagerie Manor because it takes so much space.  Until this year it was never "Knee high by the 4th of July" as the saying goes.  However this year MeMa asked and I delivered.

There were several that wouldn't have won any ribbons but the good ones were delicious, so next year I will plant corn again.
Note to self....just because one has 14 extra tomato seedlings after the big spring giveaway, one should not plant them all in the garden.


With so many plants I pick this many twice a day



  Once you get started canning the bug hits so you start canning everything you can.

18 pints of pickled beets

Patty Pan Squash

No we didn't can cucumber's but this years crop is so abundant that every meal has some sort of the vegetable as a side dish. So even with the late start to the growing season the creation of the new vegetable garden was worth the effort.

Personally I think it was the great scarecrow I had guarding the crops.  I think he needs a name, what do you suggest?

Liberty/Emla Apple
I smell an apple pie in future.

September Barn Photo

Just out side of Moro Oregon.
It was refreshing to see a good new roof as so many barns of this size have been left to crumble away under roofs that hold out no weather.

Discovering One's Past

I have brick in my blood......er...a love of brick......that is I have a history of brick in my blood.  If you read my recent post (Family History....."brick by brick") you would know that my Great Grandfather Benjamin Franklin Hoover was a brick maker in the late 1800's and early 1900's.  MeMa and I traveled to Moro Oregon with my parents to visit the site were that part of our family history started.  We stopped in at the town's museum which unfortunately had no photos in the archives but once the word got out in the rest of the family, my mothers youngest sister Bonnie brought out her collection of family photos and to our surprise several of the Hoover bricks as well.


The gentleman on the upper left with his hat on his toe is my great grandfather B.F. Hoover



Hoover brick yard with the county Court House in the background



Eventually my great grandparents moved to Portland where B.F. Hoover owned and operated the Unique Brick and Tile Company in Gresham Oregon.  The gentleman in white shirt and hat is my great uncle Asa and the gentleman in white shirt with no hat is my Great Grandfather.  The large wheel had wires that cut the bricks

My grandmother, my mothers mother, Ann or Annie Hoover is the little girl in white dress on the left.   As long as I can remember my grandmother talked about her faithful companion "Bounce", the massive dog on the right.  Funny I always imagined him to be a small terrier breed from the stories she told of him.  I am seeing what he actually looked like for the first time.



From left: Great grandfather B.F. Hoover, Grandmother Ann Potter (Hoover) and Great grandmother Martha Hoover



The Potter girls
From Left: Barbara, Marjorie, Bertha (my mother) and seated Bonnie

Grandma Ann and B. F. Hoover's youngest daughter, My mother Bertha or Bertie, my twin brother Don and myself. I'm the good looking one.