One Hundred and Twenty Years Ago Today

Mabel Clara Trott was born to Isaac Trott and his wife Sophia Algenia Lamb Trott in San Luis Obispo, California.  She weighed , as she often told me, between a pound and a quarter and a pound and a half, and was so small that they wrapped her in cotton and put her in a cigar box.
It’s amazing to me that such a tiny baby could have survived in 1891, but I’m sure glad she did.  Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.
Her father died the following year and her mother in 1900.  Mabel and her older sister went to live with their Lamb grandparents in San Ardo. a small town in Monterey County.  She told me about being wakened from a sound sleep on April 18, 1906, the day of the great San Francisco earthquake.
This photo of Mabel and my dad was probably taken about 1916.  She could be so dramatic!

Mabel was a bit of a free spirit.  I’m not sure if she was still married to my grandfather when this photo was taken.  Look at the peacock feathers on her hat!  Grandma spent most of her life on ranches in central coastal California:  Peachtree Ranch in Monterey County;  Quien Sabe Ranch in San Benito County;  Rancho Santa Margarita in San Luis Obispo County, where my mother and I joined her when my dad went off to war after Pearl Harbor; and apparently Rancho 101 where this photo was taken.  I don’t know where this ranch was located but I suspect it was either in San Luis Obispo or Santa Barbara County.

Mabel was my only surviving grandparent: my maternal grandmother and both of my grandfathers had died before I was born.  However she had remarried in about 1925 to a wonderful man who had no children of his own.  
When my dad went off to war he asked his step-father to take care of me if he didn’t come back.  Grandpa Griffin took his assignment seriously and was a true grandfather to me for the first ten years of my life.
Grandma Mabel died in 1975 but she is still remembered fondly.

Time Marches On

What happened to January and February?

Well, January started out with a big mess.  Day after day the front yard and most of the block would be littered with fallen leaves from the larger Liquidambar tree. 

On New Years’ Day granddaughters 1 and 2 spent some time raking the front lawn for us.  They filled two trash cans which we then emptied into the compost bins. 

After that I was on my own, so every few days I would rake the leaves from the lawn and the street into the gutter, then bag them up. 

The compost bins couldn’t handle them fast enough and now the bags are piled by the side of the house waiting until they are needed.

January also meant the start of orange season.  We have two trees:  a Washington Navel and a Valencia.  The Washington Navel is ready first and is supposed to be for eating but I use most of the crop for juice because I don’t want to wait for the Valencia which isn’t ripe for another month or so.

We always have way more than we can use but every year I vow to try.  This year has been a real challenge because most of the WN oranges are too high for me to reach without a ladder.  I think I need to get Mr. B out there to pick what he can reach and, when the danger of frost is over, we should prune the tree quite a bit lower.

Later in January Safeway had a good price on Foster Farms whole chickens so I decided to make Chicken and Noodles.  Daughter’s family was coming for dinner so I prepared the noodle dough and the granddaughters helped me roll it out and cut it. 

I learned to love Chicken and Noodles from my Midwestern husband.  Mr. B’s mother, grandmother and aunts all made it for family get-togethers.  Each one had a slightly different take on it.  The only recipe I have is from his Aunt Georgia and I had to stand next to her and try to estimate the amounts of flour etc. she was using for the noodles because nobody used a written recipe.  I was never any good at rolling out such stiff dough so I long ago bought this Italian pasta machine and it rolls out the dough as thin as I want it.  Unfortunately, the noodles just don’t have the same texture as the old family recipe.  But they are still good served over mashed potatoes on a cold winter’s day. 

Mr. B is coming along well with his recovery.  Every day he spends some time walking up and down the block using the rolling walker lent to him by our neighbor.  Then he rides the exercise bicycle we bought over 30 years ago.  Every time we moved there was much discussion about whether to get rid of it since we hardly ever used it.  Sure glad we still have it!

In February the almond tree bloomed, for all the good it will do us.  We planted it almost 20 years ago and we have yet to get any almonds.  They all get harvested by the doggoned squirrels before we realize it.

Every year we try another squirrel deterrent but so far nothing has worked.  One year it was human hair from the beauty shop, another year it was moth balls (which are surprisingly hard to find these days).  I suggested trapping and releasing him out in the country but Mr. B thinks it would be cruel to separate Mr. Squirrel from his family.  What are you gonna do?

1-1-11

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all our family and friends.

All things considered, 2010 was not a bad year.  But I am hopeful that 2011 will be better.  I have some plans (as I always do on January first) but they are still somewhat nebulous, so I won’t list them at this time.  However, one definite plan is to blog more often.

A lot has happened since the last time I posted but most of it is lost because it wasn’t written down.  Like all the big winter storms (how much rain did we get?) and the date of the first frost (early but I’m not sure just when).

The one thing I do remember vividly is the date of Mr. B’s “big break” – December 11 at 4:30 pm.  He fell in the front yard and broke his left hip.  After surgery and a couple of days in the local hospital, he is home and progressing well. He was healthy going into this and his doctor predicts a complete recovery.  But this year our Christmas rush revolved around Mr. B with his walker and Mom with her Hugo (a rolling walker) competing for first rights to the front bathroom.  We also have two wheelchairs at the dining room table.

Mom has been with us since just before Thanksgiving.  She is doing well and, to her credit, she hasn’t started lecturing Mr. B about the importance of exercising.  He was relentless with her when she broke her hip in 2001 and again in 2008 when she broke the other one.  Some good news is that Smokey Joe has finally accepted Mom and spends quite a lot of time in her lap.

Before the BB, I started Bonnie Hunter’s new mystery quilt, Roll Roll Cotton Boll.  I was able to keep up with steps one and two but got behind with step three. 

Then came the BB and no sewing has been done since then.  I haven’t even been able to find the time to make a caddy for Mr. B’s walker.  Mom goes home on Monday, so I should have a little more time after that.  Meanwhile, step seven was posted yesterday, so I’m way behind now.