Pedestrian Access to the Kayak Course off fourth street

I have a friend who is doing the whole cancer and radiation thing and is not a well puppy.  So I do what I can and one of the things is walk his dog.  He lives on the bluff of the stretch of the river that runs through Pueblo between Fourth Street and Union Avenue.  That is also where the Kayak Course is located.  They have done a lot of work down there to include a very nice wide side walk, benches, trash cans, bags to pick up doggie do and also landscaped and planted the steep edges with wild grass and such.  To hold that in place they covered it with net.  Now comes the tricky part. 
That net is doing what it is supposed to do, it is rotting and going back to mother nature.  Well, kind of doing that, but not quite.  The plot thickens.  Click on my little slide show and be sure to read the captions.

The first shot is Pearl and Chapa.  That is right off of Fourth Street.  The fishing sign is 2 blocks away and is right behind my friends house.  So I go out the door, turn left and pass two houses, another left and across a vacant lot and there I am at the big wide side walk.   As you can see it is very nice.  Well, yeah, until it ends!  There I am left with the choice to either slip and slide down down the dirt incline which is rutted and full of rocks and no place a 70 year old woman out to be skittering down!  Or I can angle off across where you see those 3 young'uns walking down.  See that is steep, too.  So if I go at an angle I come to a gentle slope and then I reach the wide, safe sidewalk.  Unless, of course, I catch my shoe in the netting and then I face plant.  Last time I went that way I was so careful and I reached the sidewalk and had one foot in the air on the way down to the sidewalk and the other in the netting and face down on the cool concrete, my fall broken only by my poor old, mistreated knees.  There were two girls there with there dogs who were kind enough to offer to help me up, but the dog I walk is very protective of me, so that did not happen.

So, I have a message for the city of Pueblo.  I notice you have chained the steps that lead up the embankment beside the Chinese Resturant there on Fourth and the bridge heading into the city.  I have no idea what that is about.  How about taking some of those chains down there and draping them across the "Pedestrian Access" behind that big gravel pile in case another little old lady wanders down there and thinks that 3 foot wide sidewalk actually goes some where.  Or here!  Even better would be if you finished that other 30 feet so we could actually get down there safely.  How about that? 
When my son saw my bruises he was in hog heaven imagining the lawsuit we could have against the city.  This is a clear cut case of negligence on your part.  However, I am not a suing person, but you should know there are people out there who are.  I love to walk on that part of the river and that access is wonderful right up to the point that it becomes treacherous.  I am surely not the only one who would like to see that little stretch finished.  It just seems counter productive to do so much work and spend so much money and then not finish the project. 
So, I ask you to either finish it or take down the Pedestrian Access sign and chain that sidewalk, before some one else gets hurt.  I could loan you a padlock if you don't have one.

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The roots of my raisin' run deep!

This is the top shelf of my computer desk.  I managed to click this photo while Icarus, the devil cat, was on break.  Starting with the big picture in back on the left is Mother.  Then Uncle Charlie, Uncle Frank, Uncle Ray, and Aunt Lola on the end.  This is probably the last picture of all of them together.  This is actually the only picture I know of that has all the 5 in a group.  And now that I think about it, I do not know if there is a formal picture like this of my siblings.  There is a picture somewhere of us 5 girls, but Jake was not in it.  So it would not have been complete.  And we were setting in the kitchen of Dorothy's house when she was married to Ernie and they lived out o 4th Street in Hutchinson.  Course Jake and Josephine are no longer with us so a picture is completely out of the question.
I will tell you about the other pictures and then come back and tell you about my Aunt and Uncles.  The small picture on the left is mom and dad, before they were mom and dad.  You know, back when they were Christine and Rueben Bartholomew.  This is their wedding snapshot, I think.  The picture on the right is mother's high school yearbook picture.  And of course the little angel in the back would be me!  That frame is now 69 years old.  I should sell it on eBay, but I want to keep it, so I will.  I always get what I want!
Now to the family picture.  Most of you probably knew mother, but doubted the existence of any other relatives.  The first is Uncle Charlie Haas.  He was married to Aunt Edith and they lived in Missouri.  Independence, I think.  They had one daughter, Donna.  Donna was not well and could never live on her own.  One year when I lived with Grandma Haas and Great Grandma Hatfield, Uncle Charlie and Aunt Edith sent me a birthday card with a Silver Dollar in it with my birth year.  I damn near broke both legs getting to the general store and getting rid of that money.  Most money I ever had at one time in my life!  At one point Uncle Charlie bought land in Woodland Park, Colorado, and built a new house.  Unfortuneatly he could not live in the high altitude due to his high blood pressure and had to sell it.  Mother and I tried to find it once from his description, but had no luck.  Uncle Charlie died first, then Aunt Edith.  Donna spent her remaining days in a nursing home and passed about 5 years ago.
Uncle Frank married Aunt Lila and lived in Lawrence, Kansas for the duration.  He was a farmer and she was a school teacher.  They had no children.  I was always scared to death of Aunt Lila.  I do not know if it was because she was a teacher, or she just looked very intimidating to poor little me.  When they retired they bought a home on 30th street in Hutchinson, Kansas.  He worked on the old tube type radios and had an extensive collection.  When they could no longer function at home they moved to assisted living in McPherson where they lived until he died and then her.  Mom and I used to go visit and it was so sad.  Uncle Frank was very hard of hearing and had dementia towards the end. The last time we were there he was setting at the desk tearing magazine pages into one inch squares and piling them very neatly.  He smiled at mother with the sweetest smile I have ever seen on a living human being.  He asked her what her name was and she replied "Christine."  His eyes lit up and he said, "Oh, I used to have a sister named Christine!"  At this mother lit up also.  "Why Frank!  It is me!"  He looked at her and you could see the wheels turn and he added. "Oh, no, she died a long time ago."  Of course mother was crushed.  Uncle died soon after that visit.  He was 90 something.
Uncle Ray was the most wonderful man in the world and I shall not try to tell you about him in this post, but will save him for a special time.
The lady on the end was Aunt Lola.  Aunt Lola was married to Alvin Farney and they lived near Plevna, Kansas and of course, were farmers.  They had one son, Carl, and 3 daughters, Alvina, Rosetta, and Marilyn. Marilyn had a very high fever when she was about a year old.  It did brain damage and disfigured her face.  But she was a wonderful girl and helped Aunt Lola keep house and cook.  Aunt Lola died younger than most of her brothers.  See, in our family we live to be 100 years old with amazing regularity.  Good genes and all.  Mom was 80 and that was very young.  So, the kids of Aunt Lola are my cousins and the only ones I actually know/knew.  I am afraid I did not keep up with them.  I do know Alvina and Rosetta married and had children.  Josephine used to keep me up on that stuff, but alas, no more.
When mother used to tell me tales and the grandmother and great grandmother would remember the good old days, I did not listen.  In one ear and out the other, so to speak.  So now here I set and have no clue.  We do have a genealogy book that traces our family roots back to Germany to the 1500's.  I love to read the stories and am absolutely fascinated by what those pioneers went through to bring this squalling little brat into the world.  Stop and think.  If one thing had been different, I would not be here.  It is all in the grand scheme of things.  Everything that transpired all those years ago led to this day and this hour.
Think about it.  My roots run very deep, but they are no different than your roots!  Have a good one!

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Why yes, Virginia, there is a crocus in my yard.

And with that title I must now tell you this has nothing to do with a crocus. This has to do with my inhumanity to myself.  As you know, in the past 3 weeks I have thrown myself off the treadmill, face planted on the sidewalk at the kayak course, dropped my camera that I loved face down on the asphalt and now I have a concussion and a broken arm all because I changed the ink in the printer.  Of course you want to know how that one happened, don't you?

Icarus, the calico cat is the one to blame on this one.  Icarus attacks the printer every time I print something.  So I contrived to put the printer inside the cabinet. Of course the shelf had to be lowered to facilitate this.  That being done I could then put two boxes on either side of the tray the printed stuff comes out on.  The boxes are there to hold the baby gate off the tray.  This makes it so Icarus can only swat through  the tiny squares, but she will hit nothing.  This is all well and good until the printer needs a little maintenance like an ink cartridge installed.  Looked easy enough during the planning stage.

Now the printer sets clear to the back and it is dark back there. On first glance it appeared that if I just got on my knees I could be on the printer level and I could see better.  But of course those are the same knees that were present for the landing at the kayak course and they did not want to be knelt upon.  No problem.  Here is this lovely box of printer paper.  Let me just set down on it and Holy Shit!  Printer paper boxes are not very sturdy.  I shot backwards off of that sucker and whacked my head on the bottom of the office desk which is very hard!  And somewhere along that ride I sustained a laceration to my left forearm and my left elbow, but nothing compared to the knot that mysteriously appeared on my right arm.

As I lay there bruised, battered, and bleeding staring up at the bottom of the desk I wondered if there really is a God.  As the stars blinked on and off in my good eye, I also wondered just who that doctor was trying to fool when he told me that I have osteoporosis and what ever I do , don't fall.  Brittle bones my big fat patootie!  I am ten feet tall and bullet proof.  If anything was going to break I am pretty sure there should be a bone protruding through skin after any one of those "mishaps". 

I have,however decided that I must start being a little more careful.  So, I am going to give up exercise althogether!  Now that the treadmill is safely ensconced in the basement I think I will sell it and have some one drag it up the stairs and out the door.  I will need to give up walking cause sidewalks are very hard.  And it looks like even this computer is out the door.  Or maybe I will just put the printer back on top of the cabinet and get a spray bottle and squirt that damn cat.  Oh, crud, I will probably slip in the water on the floor and break my neck for sure.  No winning around here so I guess I will just go to bed. 

Have a good one!

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Sluts, birth control and poor Rush is losing sponsors.

Got to weigh in on this one!  Now, granted I read the headlines and then the first line of the next 3 paragraphs and that is my news for the day. Anything else is overkill.  My take on this is that Rush Limbaugh was doing what he does best and that is being an ass.  Not the first time and not going to be the last time.  I am sure you all know who Rush Limbaugh is and how he leads his moral majority into the fiery halls of congress.  The man is not known for doing anything quietly and there is only one side to any story and that is the Ultra conservative.  As you all know I am a bleeding heart Liberal so no way will Rush and I ever agree on anything and frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. 
From what little I read about this woman, I can not help but applaud her desire to use birth control.  Just seems like the responsible thing to do.  Red blooded women with feelings have been having sex from time immemorial.  I have even done that myself once or twice.  We all know that sex sometimes has repercussions that are mighty weighty if we don't practice safe sex.  There is that AIDS/HIV thing that would stop me in my tracks.
But say you dodge that bullet,  and whoops, I am pregnant.  What shall I do?  Abortion?  That is not an option for a lot of women for a lot of reasons.  Have a baby alone and take care of it while finishing school and building a career?  Is that fair to the kid or you?  Seems like preventing that pregnancy in the first place is the wisest as well as the most economically feasible choice.  Oh, yeah, forgoing sex all together is the perfect answer as I am sure Rush and his cronies always do but not all of us have that will power.  If you are a man having sex you are a very eligible batchelor.  If you are a woman doing the same thing, you are a slut. Hmmmmmmmmmmm!
Now lets weigh the taxpayer cost here.  Birth control.  Abortion.  Medical care for single mother and financial aid to raise a baby for 18 years.  Too much for my little mind to grasp.
Just my humble opinion.

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I just now seen it out there by the carport!

I just ran a package over to the post office on the highway and when I got home I looked over there and there is a pretty little yellow crocus.  Debbie called me this morning to tell me she just picked a Jonquil.  So you know what this means?  Spring is here whether or not it is actually here!  When the flowers bloom that means it is Spring, I do not care what no damn groundhog says!
The farmers are out plowing and I am fixing to pull the Cruiser out and dig out my rototiller.  Then I will go get some fresh gas and I been hearing from the tall guy that he will  "get out there and get that machine ready for tilling very soon."  Yeah, tall guy, by the time you get around to getting out here, I will have a crop in the ground.  Going to amend that old saying "Time and Tide wait for no man." to say "Lou waits for no man!"  Been waiting all winter and now I am waiting no more.
Neighbor man dumped a big load of manure out there and tomorrow the goose house is getting new straw and the old straw is going to line the pathways.  I can almost taste them tomatoes now!  Ah, and the eggplant, cucumbers, squash and Lord only knows what kind of seeds I may find in the drawer.  And I got the organic thing going on, so that is good.  If I hurry, I can get a little lettuce before it gets too hot!
So if you are calling me, just leave a message cause I can not hear the phone over the rototiller motor and the squawking geese and barking dogs!  And if I do hear it I will probably not answer.  Gotta make hay while it is sunny!!

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Roll of scotch tape; roll of linoleum.

I was thinking last night about how when I was small and we would move into a rented house what would transpire.  First the walls had to be repapered.  Before I could remember that part I understand sometimes the papering was with newspapers.  But we must have been rich because we had actual wall paper.  Usually it was some sort of flower stuff.  We did not always paper every room, but we did like the clean feeling new paper gave to the house.  After the rooms were papered came the most fun of all.

Off the parents went to the place, which was usually the furniture store, to buy our new floor.  Back in those days the furniture store was owned by Mr. Warn and his brother, Doc Warn, owned the appliance store and repair.  The furniture store also carried caskets, in case you died waiting for your new linoleum to arrive!  Did you ever hear of linoleum?  You measured your room and if it was 12' x 12' you told Mr. Warn and he would take you to the size you needed and show you a picture of it to make sure you liked it.  Sometimes there were several to choose.  The linoleum was rolled up and inside a big cardboard tube.  We usually carried it home since we did not have a car and the horses were supposed to be for work and this was fun!

When we got it home Dad would very carefully cut the tube.  Sometimes it would slide out the end and then we had the tube to play with which was way better than the linoleum to my way of thinking!  Any way, after it was out of the tube it had to lay there and rest and loosen up and we were not to touch it for any reason because if we did it would crack.  I think it was straight asbestos with a picture painted on one side.  As it relaxed it started to loosen and unfurl a bit.  At that point we were allowed to very gently unroll it.  If we met with any resistance we had to stop and wait some more.  This is the reason you only bought linoleum in the summer.  Cold weather slowed the process considerably.

After a couple days of tending to the roll it finally was completely unfurled.  It was rolled so when it was unrolled the design was on top.  Otherwise we would have had to flip it.  When it was all the way open we were allowed to walk very gently on it and finish flatening it.  Always in our bare feet.  Hell yes!  Well we never had shoes in the summer anyway!  So now the room was perfect.  And now the furniture could be brought back in from where ever it was.  Well, first, the wood stove had to be placed.  Moving into a new home always meant we got a new thing to put under the wood stove.  That was a big piece of asbestos covered with an enamaled piece of tin. 

You should make note here that asbestos is now illegal and is considered Hazardous Waste.  We did not know that when we were walking on it, setting hot pans on it, and generally using it for every thing imaginable.  Probably had a piece in each hand when we ran through the cooling mist of the machine spraying DDT to kill the mosquitoes on a hot summer night!

Ah, Home Sweet Home!!! 

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Wanna buy a perpetual calendar?

After the completion of a Bonnie Inouye Exploring Multi-shaft Design study,
six weavers from within the Handweavers Guild of Pueblo created a
delightful perpetual calendar for keeping a record of special birthdates,
anniversaries, etc., using their designs and woven samples.
Each month's design includes the threading, treadling and tie up along with
the actual woven sample. The front and back of the weave can be viewed in
it's own window.
Calendars measure 5 1/2" X 11" and have a spiral binding.
The price is $28.00 with delivery at Colorado Weavers Day Conference in
Golden on May 19. CWD committee has given their okay for distribution of
pre- ordered calendars at the end of the Conference. If you prefer having
your calendar mailed directly to you there will be a $5. charge for postage.
To preorder your calendar please contact:
*E-mail Orders*: Joanne Caldwell *caldwelltheweaver@gmail.com
*
*Phone orders*: Cathy Coatney 719.251.2959

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