Or, perhaps we’ve been gone a long time. We arrived home yesterday with GS3 and GD’s 1 and 2. The washer has been running ever since. Nothing like a little camping with three kids to make a little wash.
I mixed up cookies last night, and vacuumed, and made up beds for the girls, and collapsed. I still have papers from the time we were gone to read. And mail to look at. I’m baking the cookies to day, and then packing up the things we need to go camping this week.
Thank goodness for the camper, it really rained a lot Saturday night, and 5 wet family members in a tent would have been a mess. I’m happy we had it, for sure.
You can read about Belle Lamunion, 1864-1848, and her amazing box of family memories here. Belle married Henry H Fellows, 1858-1905 in 1879 in Ashland Township, Newaygo County, Michigan. This series of posts will center around the items that were in the box. If you are related to this family, please contact me.
This postcard is a view of beautiful downtown Grant, Michigan.
This was sent to Hazel, 1894-1967 and Frank, 1895-1969 Fellows, the youngest of Belle and Henry Fellows nine children. The senders, Claud, 1895-1967, and Ferris Carter, 1897-1975 were siblings, and the children of Emily Lamunion and her husband Andrew J. Carter. M-in-L always referred to them as Aunt Em Carter and Uncle Andrew Carter.
Lilia, 1890-1958 and Huldah, 1893-1977; were the older siblings in the Carter family. I can’t make out the date of the postmark, but it appears that the older girls were still at home, but either working or attending school. Lilia married in 1918, and Huldah in 1917.
Papa and I are taking a little drive down the road tomorrow. The littlest most economical car is all packed and ready to roll. The cooler is in the garage, waiting for me to add the last minute “stuff”. We are taking a tent, a cooler, some clothing, and a few other necessities.
We’ll be at Poston Lake, near Athens, Ohio for the Hart Brothers bluegrass festival. This is our first trip to the venue.
Danny Paisley, J.D. Crowe, IIIrd Tyme Out, Joe Mullins, and Dailey and Vincent are a few of the reasons we’re making the journey. We rarely see Dan Paisley in Michigan, usually just once a year, so it is a treat to have another chance to see him and his great band.
Russell Moore leads a kicking version of IIIrd Tyme Out into the show. When we saw the group in January they brought the house down at Oakland Community College. We are looking forward to seeing Joe Mullins’ fine band again, renewing acquaintance with Melvin Goins, and watching our third performance of Dailey and Vincent.
If you are there, say hi! Papa will be the one with the camera.
D1 called home Friday afternoon, asking GS2 to check the mail. He walked out to the mail box, phone in his ear. It contained what we’d all hoped it would, a thin number 10 envelope.
D1 arrived here some years ago with two small sons and a divorce. She had worked, studied and struggled. Several years ago she earned a degree from Wayne State. After the degree, she landed a job in her field, civil engineering. She took the first part of the licensing exam, and passed. Experience is required for a license, so it was a waiting game from then on.
This spring, after weeks of refresher courses, all weekend study sessions, and other tortuous things that students put themselves through, she took the second part of the exam.
The difference is, as she explained, a thick envelope tells you how to sign up to retake the test including locations and dates. The thin envelope contains a different set of information. So, the thin envelope contained what Papa and I expected; what D1 was afraid to be too confident about. Pass. And a short note on how to apply for her license.
It was a very happy weekend around here. All things worth accomplishing are paid for with a lot of effort and sweat and worry. In the case, a very special person got what she earned.
I’m not. Not keeping up, I guess. The reason, too much real e-mail.
Another researcher of the Fellows family has appeared, as if by magic. I’ve got a ton of things to go through and enter in the computer. I need to clean the house, finish yesterdays wash and do a little sewing. Oh well.
I’m headed out to do a little yard work, before the heat and humidity pumps up beyond my ability to tolerate it.
I’ve had more problems than usual with my vegetable garden this year. We had to replant the lettuce and the carrots. The beets came up pretty spotty. A few of our tomatoes suffered frost damage, and some tomatoes just died, don’t know why. To top it all off, a few days ago, 12+ broke off the the huge wind and rain storm we had here. Papa and I found some more last night, and I’m planting them today.
I also had poor luck with some perennial seeds I tried to start indoors. A few days ago, Papa brought me more seed, and I threw it directly into the ground.
The trees and the lawn are loving the huge rainfalls we’ve had. I haven’t heard anyone complaining about the lake heights, but there’s plenty of time left this summer. Only a select few people are actually running their sprinkler systems around here. We don’t have underground sprinklers and we never water the grass. This year, a lot of areas are filling in and it’s looking pretty good. The trees are happier than they’ve been in years.
I have a ton of photos on the progress of the garden, so I’ll post them later.
The weather was wild for about a half hour last night. The power, blinked several times, then went out for less than a minute. A wall of rain swept through, the wind blew, and then the storm sirens went. We headed for the basement, but the storm was past us by then.
A lot of branches were blown out of our trees, but we had no damage to our home or property. Others were not so lucky.
This morning, I picked up branches, pulled weeds, planted some seeds. Then I looked around and hauled out a ladder and trimmed some trees of low branches that make it hard for me to mow.
GS1 flew back to his base yesterday. I sure was nice to see him, and visit a little. He has grown up quite a bit in a few short months.
A wedding was held last Saturday night. god’s 1&2 wore their dresses. By all accounts, the event was quite successful. I received this, forwarded to my e-mail from D1’s cell phone that afternoon. D2 took the picture with her phone and sent it to her sister for me. I also sent it to a neighbor of M-in-L. The neighbor is a very nice lady who sometimes prints things from her e-mail and takes them to M-in-L. Thanks Judy!
I must not have mentioned the dreaded banjo often enough lately. I notice it’s totally gone from my tag cloud. I guess that’s how I know the darn cloud tag is working.
So this is my banjo post of the day. Here is my favorite very local banjo player. You can hear him play a few tunes, scruggs style, and decide for yourself if he’s worthy of that honor. (he is).
Also, for your enjoyment my favorite not so local banjo player. To be fair, he used to live in Michigan, but he’s in Nashville now. Not so local is probably “Michigan”, but what the heck.
I have two other favorite players, more on the national scene. The first is Kristin Scott Benson. We became aware of Kristin’s playing when she was still a student at Belmont in Nashville, and touring with Larry Stephenson. She since graduated, married, had a baby, and continues to play, and play very well. I wish we saw her playing more often.
The second, and that’s not really right, he’ll always be first, is Earl. No Earl, no roll. It’s as simple as that. Watch a little of him here.
