We receive many hundreds of emails each week – a lot of them from peeps who think we will always know why they are forwarding a link and who may also believe we are available to do research for hours – sometimes these are even from peeps we love. 
Please don’t assume that we will know why you send a link; even if you think the reason’s obvious, often it is not. Backside maintenance is such that whoever is trying to clear email may not have had a chance to read recent posts so links emailed in with no explanation may or not make sense.   

We request, gentle emailer, that you….

• Include your user name in the subject line in all emails.

• If you are providing a link, in addition to including your user name, please tell us how the information broadens the discussion of the day or relates to research currently being pursued. In other words, tell us why you are sending the link.

• If you are asking us to begin research on an entirely new project, in addition to including your user name please provide links that will substantiate the need for additional or fresh research by the Treehouse.

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Was it the publication of the book, simply having that task off my desk? Was it the journey upon which DH and I were launched on the same day the final sign off on the manuscript was in the works? I suppose it’s a combination of things that has made fresh writing a struggle for me over the past many months; in any case, I’m going to be taking a hiatus from the weekly MBOBs.
Sometimes we choose a season of life. sometimes it chooses us, and seasons sometimes come and go with little warning of either their arrival or  their departure.

Do you remember when you were headed west on the Oregon Trail and far off in the distance – finally – you spotted Chimney Rock in the middle of what is now Nebraska? That was proof that progress was being made, proof that you and your parents weren’t totally crazy to have entered the journey.
Then, some weeks after leaving Chimney Rock in your dusty past, there it is….the blurred afternoon shadow of the Rocky Mountains, the longed-for and massive obstacle that must be conquered. It was expected and yet a surprise. Day by day the range grew in significance and detail and finally, the wagon train was in the mountains – climbing toward the sunset at the end of every day. (more…)

Kemp Hotel, Terry, Montana

This hotel on main street is a wonderful experience. It’s been restored sufficiently for use but hasn’t had the history restored out of it.
The wallpaper in the rooms still features giant roses and unraveling edges that whisper of 1942 or so. The front desk area has huge worn leather chairs that once sunk into are only escaped from with some determination.  The covered front porch has large wooden rocking chairs where we sat on a Wednesday morning in the summer of 2011 listening to a thundering storm that came over the town and lingered before bellowing on its way east or south. It was wonderful.
The wild roses were in bloom along the street where we had parked the night before walking past the eight foot hollyhocks en route to the front door.
Next morning after the storm had left town we walked a couple of blocks to the store that sells the best cinnamon rolls in Montana or North Dakota right out of the oven.
Our home town had a hotel, too, which was actually newer than Terry’s. (more…)

It ought not to be only for the nostalgia of some momentary comfort that we remember. Our efforts to comprehend the present may receive an assist from deliberate and thoughtful recollection of things that happened less than 100 years ago. Charles Lindbergh made his trans-Atlantic flight in 1927. [See the link for details]
https://www.charleslindbergh.com/history/timeline.asp
There are word pictures about him and The Spirit of St. Louis in The American Scrap Book published in 1928, a copy of which I have due to my MIL’s generosity with her own personal library back in the ’80s.
The Need for a Second Look is the title of their brief forward and these words are included in the comments that introduce this sizable volume:

The American Scrap Book and its companion volume, The European Scrap Book, aim to collect between the covers of two books, the year’s golden harvest of thought and achievement. The newest ideas in Literature, Art, Music, Business, Science, Religion and Invention make up the material that has been gathered together. Here, jostling together in pleasant proximity, are hundreds of writers and painters and world flyers, statesmen and biologists and doctors, poets, playwrights and diplomats.
“If we are to build up a Civilization around ourselves in these United States,” says Vachel Lindsay, “we must learn to keep our beautiful things, and to look at them more than once.”
A second look is what this book…offer(s) the reader. An opportunity to look a second time at beautiful worthwhile things and weave them into the fabric of our consciousness so that they may become a part of us.
It is a serious attempt to harvest the distinguished work of the year and prevent its being blown out of our hands in the swift passage of the seasons. We whiz through life at a pace that leaves very little time for reading, and no time at all to be wasted.

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The morning glories and the school bus arrived within a couple of weeks of one another in August…a color duo of the clearest blue sky and a flaming burnt orange sunset.
All summer my mother protected the few morning glories that had extended their vines up the south-facing kitchen windows, supported by twine tied in place each year by my dad.
Our weather was almost always completely dry in late July and August. Average moisture in those parts averaged fourteen inches annually, and that included snow melt.  Any annuals, including the morning glories, sweet peas, and cosmos had to be watered frequently by hand.
About the third or fourth week in August with the first frost usually less than a month away, the long buds of the glory-of-the-morning would announce the next day’s blooming schedule. (more…)

For this, farm families would take off on a day that was not Sunday!
The county fair was toward the end of August, just before school started.  Every county had their own but we always went to the one one county over instead of our own because that was where so many relatives lived and provided more options for dropping in for coffee either before or after.
As we got a little older our parents would take us to the fairgrounds and leave us there for a couple of hours – alone – with two or three dollars in our pocket. That was heady stuff: with cotton candy for ten cents and each of the rides only ten cents, a kid could go quite a distance with that. (more…)

Thank you to WeeWeed who is providing our MBOB post today – Sharon

If you live long enough, you have the dreaded (but normal) task of cleaning out a beloved family member’s personal items when they die.  Such was mine earlier this year when my beloved Momma left us. 

Lo and behold, when I cleaned out some files – teh Momma wrote poems, songs, and some stories of her life.  This is one of her MBOBs. 

Imagine my surprise when cleaning out her drawers – nearly all of the items in “Granny’s purse” were there, carefully and lovingly saved, as were Grandpa’s glasses and his “Fraternity Of” ring.

This is one of her stories and Sharon has been kind enough to share it. ~ W2

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When I was a little girl my grandparents sometimes had the questionable joy of keeping me for six weeks while my mother, a single parent, attended summer school sessions to keep her teaching certificate current.  Since they lived in the small village of Westbrook, TX, and we lived in metropolitan Pampa my social life was considerably curtailed.  Some of my best summer memories lie in that small Texas town.

“Land o’Goshen, all the water in the ocean wouldn’t get you clean today,” my grandma would say after an afternoon of making mudpies down by the barn.

“My stars n’ garters, you’ve got bird nests in your hair,” she’d say.  Guess SHE didn’t recognize a fairy princess when she saw one!

“Good grief ‘n little Ned, has there been a hippopotamus in this bed??” after my nights of dream filled slumbers.

“My land, child, have you got a hollow leg?” after my third peanut butter and jelly sandwich. (more…)

Thirteen days ago: Saturday Aug. 9

11:48 a.m. to noon – An officer responds to a call of a sick person.

11:51 a.m. – Another call comes in about a robbery at a convenience store. The dispatcher gives a description of the robber and says the suspect is walking toward the Quick Trip convenience store.

12:01 p.m. – The officer encounters Michael Brown and a friend as they walk down a street.  “Big Mike” Brown is shot to death as a result of the encounter.

FAST FORWARD TO TODAY — 

• As of around noon,  $235,010 had been raised for the safety of Officer Darren Wilson and his family, and to assist them with unavoidable expenses.
• As a result of the success and momentum of the fundraising which was initiated on GoFundMe four days ago, the friends, family, and supporters of Officer Wilson have made a pragmatic change.

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Cetera is an avid reader and friend of the Tree House, and an occasional commenter.  He currently resides in Wyoming, having given up on Colorado after 10 years and deciding to move his family to a more politically friendly state.  What follows is his effort at communicating Truths inspired by his Christian faith and the Spirit. 

The End?

All of these things will become clear to each of us in time, if they are not already.  Combine what we know with recent events throughout our country and the world, and you see a set of circumstances that may cause you to be fearful.  From the pro-abortion demonstrators chanting “Hail Satan!” in opposition to the pro-life demonstrators singing “Amazing Grace” to the lack of accountability and lawlessness in our own government and chaos throughout the world, things sure seem dark.  (more…)

Today’s MBOB is a repeat from a year ago. It’s harvest time again and depending on when the rain finally stopped last spring, harvest has been under way since July in some areas.
1951 was a good year. Dad sold 3,686 bushels of our wheat to the local elevator – 3,000 from the 1950 crop and the remainder a portion of the 1951 crop.
He didn’t plat out the wheat acreage in his record book for that year so I don’t know how many acres contributed to the total, but if we estimate 200 acres (which would be a little less than half of what we had in cultivation, the rest being poor-quality pasture) that year’s production was a little over 18 bushels per acre. Not bad. Thirty bushels per acre was considered a good crop. Some fields gave us thirty-six bushes per acre one year.
Although we had 500 of our 1181 acres under cultivation, only half of that could be planted in any given year because of the poor quality of the soil and limited, random rain.  Strip-farming helped preserve the soil so the ribbons Dad had carved out from our 500 acres allowed for 250 or so to be in production each year. Not all of that would be wheat (which is why I used 200 in the previous paragraph to estimate production). We usually had at least one field of oats to provide grain for the milk cows.
The grain elevators at the railroad siding in every small town were a hub of activity in August as the first loads of wheat were brought in.  The reports of crop quality and bushels-per-acre traveled with the farmers and spread quickly around the community as sales and services were tallied up, some of the wheat going into the grain car waiting on the siding destined for St. Paul, Minnesota, and some into the elevators for storage in the hope of better prices in the winter or spring. (more…)