Meet the oldest daughter, Debbie and her hubby, Hammer.

Son in law, Hammer and middle daughter, Dona

This is oldest, Debbie and second, Patty off to the right.

This is the littlest great grandson.

And here he is showing Grandma Lou how he can ride his bike!

This is the great grand daughter.  Girls are few and far between this generation!

This is the trap that hangs on her wall to keep grand kids under control!

This is the radio and it actually works!

Welcome to Longton, Kansas and the Bar HD or HD Bar ranch.  I forgot just what she said her brand was.  I know I have the HD part right.  Since they are retired bikers living the good live in Eastern Kansas, I thought HD was Harley- Davidson.  She was quick to tell me that it was Hammer and Debbie.  Might have been H Bar D.  That sounds good!  Crap!  Don't tell her I forgot.  And don't tell her I forgot how long she has been married either!  But I remember that day very well.

Here she came dragging in this giant of a man, hippie type, 2 tours in Viet Nam and what more could I expect out of life?  I had known him about 6 minutes when he said something and I asked him, "Man, are you frigging nuts!" To which he replied, "I sure am and I have the papers to prove it."  Probably the best son in law I ever had!  Devoted to Debbie.  When they decided to tie the knot they picked me up and the lady who ran the U Pump It and off we went to the court house.  I was Maid of Honor and Shirley Smith was Hammer's Best Man.  That is how we do things here in Colorado!  That had to of been over 20 years ago.

They kicked around as kids will do. They lived in Lakin, Kansas.  They moved to Guffy, Colorado.  Then they bought 40 acres on Eleven Mile Reservoir.  They built a cabin with just their two hands.  They went to Sturgis and I am hoping she kept her shirt on, and if she didn't I do not want to know about it.  They moved to Pueblo, then to Lakin.  They bought matching Harley's.I am not sure of the order of all this.  I am sure that they had several "I have fallen and I can't get up moments."  Then they found this little piece of Heaven called Longton, Kansas.

They got the house and 40 acres with a pond and wild Raspberries and the rest is history.  They have horses and I do not know why.  Sometimes they have a goat or a cow.  Look at her picture up there.  Click on it and make it big.  Who does that look like?  That girl is the spitting image of me in more ways than one.  She looks like me, she walks like me, she talks like me, but I think she can spit further than I can, cause I am out of practice.  She can out hunt, out fish, out track and out shoot most men I know.  She can gut a deer quicker than you can bat an eye!

She gets up at 5 AM and feeds the animals, works the land, cans the bounty and has never tackled a job she did not finish.  Her husband loves her, grand kids worship her, her friends adore her, her siblings look to her for validation.  How did I raise such a strong, independent woman?  How did she go from the first tiny baby I suckled to this survivalist, frontier woman?  Beats hell out of me!  I think she was just born with a mind of her own. Course her father might have had something to do with the hunting and that stuff. 

I know Hammer has another name, but I told you I would keep a few secrets.   So, daughter Debbie, know you have made your mother proud.  You were my first born and I think you were a learning process for me.  Hope the next one I had turns out as well.

Longton, Kansas, center of someone's universe.



 This is a tree growing out of a roof on a building at the end of Main Street!



This is looking down Main Street from some direction.

I be thinking this is the grocery store.

Now we are leaving town.  This barn is on Main Street!

This is the house on 5 lots with a garage my other daughter bought for $12,000.

  I have decided to let you meet my children.  This is about my daughter, Debbie.  She is the oldest.  Today I am going to introduce you to her fair city.  Tomorrow you will meet her and the grand kids.  Her grand kids, my great grand kids.

So this is Longton, Kansas, down in the Southeast corner of the state.  Just got off the phone with them and it rained there, while it was dumping snow all over me!  Today they had a little frost on the window. Now, a brief description of Longton and then a link so you can explore further if you like.

It was established in 1870, elevation 918 feet, and population dropped from 396 in 1980 to 389 in 1990.  Some body must have left town or a lot of them died.  The Cappers Weekly , if you remember that paper, was founded by the Capper Family and the Capper home still stands there to this day.

Longton is in a very lush, beautiful part of the state with gentle hillocks and oak trees in abundance.  Debbie is on 40 acres and has her own pond.  Unfortunately she also has Copperheads and other poison snakes which just scare the bejeepers out of me.  When you are headed for their house you better know where you are going because physical addresses mean nothing back in those hills.  And do not be surprised if you encounter an Armadillo running across the road.

I know people think Kansas is a flat, desert like place, but Longton is the exception to the rule.  It is very humid down there and I think if I were to leave Colorado it would be for somewhere like Longton.  Might buy that building with the tree growing out of the roof!  I would be close to my friend Ely May in Missouri and closer to Vi on over in West Plains.

So, see you tomorrow when you will meet my daughter Debbie and her husband, Hammer!  They are the biker survivalists in my family and if the world is going to end in 2012 I am headed for their house, snakes or no snakes.  So see you tomorrow!

Here is that link I promised you!
http://www.skyways.org/towns/Longton/index.html

Here is Sister Mary in her new jammies all ready for bed!

You should know that one of the favorite past times around here is going to bed.  Just love to do that, you know.  This is my sister Mary who lives in Wichita, Kansas most of the time.  This is January and it is very cold every where, so she has come to stay with me for a while.  The first night she was here it got down to -20 and the second night it was -13.  So I am sure she is not here for the heat!  She is here because she likes me and likes to come stay with me!  I think a lot of it is the cooking!

See, my mother used to come a couple times a year and stay.  She would con someone into hauling her out here and leaving her for a couple weeks.  When she stepped out of her conveyance, she would have a piece of paper clutched in her bony little fingers.  This was handed to me before the second foot hit the ground.  It was the "Things I want to eat" list that she had been working on.  She need not have bothered since it was always the same.

1.  Cream puffs with that filling you cook.

2.  Tomato soup made with home canned tomatoes and milk.

3.  Salmon patties with onions like I like.

4.  Potato Salad and don't put Miracle Whip in it or sweet relish.

But this is not mother, this is Sister Mary and her desires are different.  She will eat what ever I put in front of her.  Well, not the beets.  And she does not eat enough to keep a bird alive.  That may change.  She sets at the kitchen counter while I am in the kitchen and nibbles at Carmel Corn that her daughter, Tina made for her. We got a bag of Clementines she also likes.  And coffee!  Girl is coffee hound.  Someone gave me some coffee beans for Christmas and we had a bit of a problem there.  I use my coffee grinder to pulverize Habanero's for a dip I make (and sell to a choice few).  Now, I do not think she was real fond of that first pot of coffee!  Then there was the problem of getting it just the right degree of strongness.  Finally solved that problem by buying a can of Maxwell House Breakfast Blend!

My mind does tend to wander.  I was going to tell you about the new pajama's Mary has.  She got them for Christmas and they are pink.  I know the picture does not show pink, but they are.  I think Mary's favorite color must be pink!  Yesterday when we went to church she wore a pink sweat shirt with Gingerbread men on it that says, "My grandkids are Sugar and Spice."  Very pretty little lady she was!  She likes my church cause it is very old and the people are very nice.  Course they are very old also, but that is what God put us here for, I'm a thinking.

Well, I better get off of here cause she is going to be getting up in just a little while.  I went yesterday and bought her the bread she likes.  She likes the 7 or 9 grain bread, but we found some yesterday with 12 or 14 grains and it is very good.  So I will make her toast and she puts her own jelly on cause I use to much.  I do not actually eat jelly, but I think that people who eat it should put lots on the toast.

Ok, I am off to go play with Sister Mary.  I have a friend who thinks Sister Mary should be a nun!  I will sing her a song.  That always makes her smile.

Have a good one, because I intend to!

It snowed at my house last night and now it is very cold!

Well, this is what greeted me this morning!  I had gone to Lamar yesterday morning to pick up my little sister, Mary, who you shall meet tomorrow.  We hurried right along cause I knew we had a storm headed our way.  As luck would have it we pulled into the drive way just as the moisture started to fall!  If there are doubting Thomas's out there who think the Good Lord does not look after this woman, think about that one!  It continued to snow all evening and this morning everything was white.  We must have gotten 5-7 inches except for that 3 foot drift in front of the tin shed where the snow shovel was snowed in.

 Down the steps I went to go take care of the water fowl out back!  Very cold !

 This is the end of my sidewalk and here is my Lilac bush.  Way on out there is my garage, the biggest garage in town.  I think it is about 1300 square feet on the bottom floor.  Course I have it full of crap.

 Now here is what I want to show you!  See those footprints?  Those are very big feet there and they are not mine.  No one else has been outside cause the boy does not arise until noonish.  Mary is still in bed.  What do you think they are from?  I do not know.  I do know I shall keep my doors locked and keep my trusty side arm at the ready, if you get my drift.

So, this shall remain a mystery and the sun will come and melt the snow, someday, and the footprints will go away.  In the meantime, tonight is New Years Eve!  Tomorrow will be 2011!!  Good Lord the years are shooting by in a blur!  Seems like only yesterday it was 1965 and I was stoned!  Oh, not like that!  It was the height of my baby making days.  You knew that!  Now here I am no longer counting kids, or even grand kids, but great grand kids.  I look back on the years and I am sure I remember because I surely was there, but all I can think of is that old song....

Old pappy time is a pickin' my pocket, can't make him stop it, pickin' my pocket!

or something like that!

The Chemist is at work in her laboratory!

OK, I am going to let you people see what happens in my kitchen when I am not cooking.  See this stuff here?  This is chap stick, or Lip Balm as I prefer to call it.  Now this particular concoction is made with Hemp Seed Butter, Hemp Oil, Beeswax, almond oil and e acetate.  It is out on it's trial run under the name "Lip Bong".

I had a lot of people offering suggestions for names all the way from Hippie Stick, Seeds and Stems, Calm Balm, to Moss Gloss.  I just thought Lip Bong hit the funny bone.  So far this is a rousing success, but I have not yet listed it on eBay.  May find my little self looking for a new place to sell.

After those tiny tubes are filled I need to let them cool and then put a label on each one.  Next comes the job of slipping a tiny little shrink wrap around each one and get out the hot air gun and shrink to fit.  If I am taking these to a sale I slip a tag with a string on it through the shrink wrap before I shrink it.  That gives me a place to put my price.

Now you can use this lip gloss and still pass your drug test.  I would not recommend eating it, though.  Not because you will get high, but because all that grease will no doubt make you very sick.  This stuff is green and kind of has the taste of swamp water, so I am sure I need to make a few adjustments to my little formula.  As a by product, however, I have some facial scrub that is wonderful.  See this butter had seed shards in it.  I had to strain them out.  So I mixed that stuff with some of my body butter and smeared that on my face!  Girl, I have the softest face in town!

Stay tuned for what happens next if and when anything comes of this.

Christ Congregational Church in Belmont.

I perchance decided to attend Christ Congregational Church in Belmont a couple Sundays back.  I can do this.  Want to know why?  Christ Congregational Church in Belmont and First Congregational Church are both members if The United Church of Christ.  And if that is not enough, we share the same minister.  Reverend Jeannine Lamb is Pastor to both churches.  We are separate but the same.  Kind of unusual and lots of fun!

As luck would have it Christ Congregational Church was taking a "Noisy Offering"  on this Sunday.  Christ starts services at 9:30 so I had plenty of time.  There is little Bernadette dancing around with the stainless steel bowl for us to throw our change into.  First Church does not do this.

 And there is the bowl of money up close and personal.  I do not remember just what this bowl of money was going for, but it is usually something very worthwhile, like things for the migrants, or school supplies, or the dog pound.  You just never know!  See the idea is to bring all your change on the appointed day and throw it it this bowl and make lots of noise, hence the term, Noisy Offering!

 See those feet?  Those belong to Pastor Lamb.  She is standing on the little step stool that Scot so kindly built for her so she could see over the podium.  See, the guy before her was very tall, so he needed a tall podium.  Pastor Lamb may be a little thing but I am here to tell you this,  that woman knows how to fill a pulpit!  Size ain't no issue!

 Here is Pastor Lamb looking for her little footstool so she can show it to me!  What a very nice lady!

Now that the New Year is here, we change times.  First Church will meet at 9:30 and Christ will meet at 11:00.  I personally prefer the early time, but that is just me.  So, if you are in the market for a place to worship, we have the real deal for you!

Christ Congregational Church, UCC is located at 1101 Liberty Lane in Belmont and holds service at 11:00 AM every Sunday.  The building was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright's grand daughter and built in the 1950's. It is an open and affirming church and a great place to go.

First Congregational United Church of Christ is located at 228 East Evans and holds service at 9:30 AM.  This church was built 131 years ago and is on the Historic Registry.  I love both of these churches, but am currently a member of the First Church.  Since I got Pastor Lamb wherever I go, I still have the best of both worlds!

So, you go to your church and I'll go to mine, but we will both walk along together!

Merry Christmas!!

Well, it is here.  The longest awaited day of the year.  I went to church last night and was absolutely amazed at how many people were there that I had never seen before!  My little church was filled with strangers and the best part is many of them were young people!

For many years I have been a cynic as to why people treat Christmas as a pagan holiday and a time to celebrate lord only knows what.  It is feverish shopping, ostentatious over decorating, over indulgence of every sort, and gotta have a drink cause it is Christmas.  Last night gave me insight into what exactly is going on. 

Now this was not my first rodeo as far as Christmas Eve service goes, however, this was much different.  Usually it is the Sunday morning crowd all dressed up and out after dark.  This time there were very few of the Sunday morning crowd, but there were a lot of young people.  Our church has only 3 small children.  They were not there last night, but these were young adults I had never seen before.  It was just great and made me think back to the Nickerson, Kansas, First Christian Church with Reverend Barnett.

I met a lady in South Fork (and that is another story altogether that I shall tell) many years back who told me Reverend Barnett wound up down in Texas and had lost everything in the collapse of the Savings and Loan business, which is but a dark, lurking memory and I am not going there today. 

Mother always took us to church on Sunday and of course Christmas Eve.  My father was an agnostic so he never attended any of that stuff.  Now you need to know that in the period I grew up in, poverty was the norm.  How my mother ever managed to put anything under the tree still amazes me to this day.  On the last day of school before we left for Christmas break, one of the teachers would give one of us 5 kids the tree from their room.  Which ever one of us received the tree would drag it home the mile to the house and mother would put it up. 

Then we strung popcorn or made a rope of papers glued together and draped that around the branches.  Somehow we always had hot chocolate on that special night.  Nothing for Santa though because he was getting plenty of cookies from other people.  I wish I had owned a camera then.  I do not think we have a picture anywhere of Christmas morning at our house.  But those days are as clear in my memory as if they were happening today.  One year it was an orange (always it was an orange), a book of paper dolls to cut out, and a red ball.  Once when times were really good, I got a tin  miniature doll house with miniature furniture and tiny mother, father, boy, girl and dog.  It even had a tiny patio!

Those memories are best left locked in the back of my mind if I want to be in any kind of mood to be festive today.  Why is it that the past, that was so stark and depressing, is the time we yearn for in our heart of hearts?  I think it is like my mother said, "You grew up with that.  That was your normal life.  The tasteless food is what you ate for years and since that is what you know, that is what you want."  My mother was the wisest woman in the whole world and I miss her with my whole heart, especially today. 

Christmas is about the Christ Child and it is about reaching down deep inside yourself and remembering.  I know the greatest honor I can pay my mother is to never forget my roots; to always know that the generations that went before me left a legacy that I must carry on.  I must and have tried to teach my children that we came from good stock and our roots run deep in forgein lands.  Our life is founded on honesty, truth, compassion and a steadfast beleif in God.

And that, my friends is what Christmas is all about!  Welcome Christ Child!