Merry Christmas – 2016
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Merry Christmas from Colleen and Steve
A Joyous Christmas Greeting to Family and Friends!
Hello from beautiful Orange County where we can wear shorts all year and last year’s El Nino was a no-show.
We hope that this card finds all of you healthy and happy! 2016 was a very good year for both of us, and so much has happened that we wanted to share our news.
As some of you know, Steve completed 32 years of service in the Coast Guard in 2012, and this year, on his 60th birthday, he became eligible for full military retirement. This allowed him to take a big step in his civilian career as he has decided to completely retire in February of 2017. We are both very excited as we look forward to this new chapter.
Another big event this year was the wedding of our son, Michael to his partner Dustin. The ceremony took place at the historic Wayfarers Chapel in Palos Verdes with the reception at the Empire Grand Ballroom at the old Breakers building in Long Beach. An amazing time was had by all.
Colleen has been spending time in her Arts and Crafts Room where she is creating items that she sells on her Etsy site. She has sold out of her Halloween themed items, but there are more on the way. In the coming year, she is looking forward to exploring her family’s roots by travelling to Ireland with Michael.
Steve is just looking forward to – not working. He doesn’t have the ambitions that his brother had to build a house when he retired, but he did put together a mean gingerbread house for the holidays.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you!
Southern California Blackberry Stories
Couldn’t believe the size and flavor of these berries.
Unfortunately, we may only get 1 pound total – we only have one plant with 3 canes. I’m having vanilla ice cream with Blackberry syrup!
On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 7:46 AM, <Bob> wrote:
Unless that is a hand from a very small person, those are big berries!
Do you know what variety? I planted starts from about 4 different blackberries last winter, and they are healthily growing now, but no fruit until next year. I hope to come up with something approaching your obvious successes.
At the same time, I planted a big row of raspberries that were all from mature plants taken from an individual who said they were too productive and they couldn’t use so many berries. They are right now covered with a million small berries growing rapidly to eating size. I know that we will have to invite friends in to help harvest!
Happy ice cream with blackberry syrup!
Bob
On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 12:07 AM, <Stephen> wrote:
Here’s a big handful… I’ll have to look up the variety. I have to admit that we knew very little about Blackberries before this.
We see that there will be only 3 canes (primocanes) that can flower for next year, so we may not get many.
On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 10:59 AM, <Evie> wrote:
They are so big you need a knife and fork. Yum
On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 10:10 PM, <Stephen> wrote:
Reflecting back on things, this relatively tiny little blackberry plant contributed so much to the richness of life at the Caldwell Townhouse.
We put the pot right next to the chairs where we sit to enjoy our afternoons and evenings, so it was always part of the conversation. We thought that after it almost died last year when we were up in Sequim and Portland; that it wouldn’t ever blossom. But amazingly, one day we noticed a little growth on the canes and within 2-3 weeks, we had leaves all over the place. In another month, pretty little blossom clusters appeared and we had high hopes for a good harvest.
Then I noticed a little leaf damage and discovered tiny little inchworms. They entertained me for several weeks before I had to shoo them away.
New canes started to develop about the same time as the flowers appeared, and they shot up quickly and I clipped them off at 5′ on the 4th of July.
Our resident hummingbird, grumpy old Eric the Red, sits on one of the canes while he is resting between his efforts to terrorize every other hummingbird that dares to get too close. When he wants to approach the feeder when we’re outside, he announces his intentions by scolding at us to get us to move away – we never do, and it doesn’t stop him.
Finally, the berries appeared and the weight of the developing fruit bent one cane in half, and although we worried about it, the berries kept growing.
Last week we decided not to wait any longer and picked everything we could. We ended up with enough for a couple of Blackberry Lemondrop Martinis as well as about a cup of syrup which was great with Vanilla Ice Cream!
On a sadder note, while I was away at Luca’s birthday party, Colleen discovered a tiny, newborn, baby something that had been abandoned and was just squirming around on our patio near the blackberry pot.
When I got home, I told her that there was nothing she could do and that it would most likely be dead by morning. Well, it seems that I totally underestimated her mothering instinct! There she was at 11:00 at night out on the patio cradling the little thing on a napkin in her hands. I felt bad about what I had said and went out to take a better look at it.
I guessed that it was a newborn squirrel and confirmed it on the internet. It turns out that even though baby squirrels are not that difficult to care for, we didn’t have what we needed – all that we could do at midnight on Saturday was try to get it to take a little bit of watered down evaporated milk. It took a little and by 1:00 am, Colleen was prepared to check on it every couple of hours.
We tried, but by morning, little “Rocket J” was no more.
We covered the tiny body with a blackberry leaf, laid a berry next to him and wrapped him up in some hummingbird nest batting. The only thing left was to give him a corner of the garden.
.
.
They are big blackberries…
SC
Long Beach Pictures
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Happy Easter 2014
The Ship Model
About 12 years ago, Colleen got me a wooden model kit of the Flying Cloud Clipper ship. It has remained under my dresser, untouched, until last month when I decided it was time to slap it together and display it proudly on the mantle.
Now, I’ve assembled full-sized cars and motorcycles from bags of parts and put together and customized plastic models for years, so how hard could a little wooden ship be?
I’ve been humbled.
It has only been a little over a month, but I have seriously considered giving up several times. As I’m trying to decipher instructions, which sometimes have little or nothing to do with how to do something, as well as hard to identify drawings that give you just a little peek at the assembly detail you need. It’s not going so well.
The instructions, having been translated from Italian, contain terminology that gives new meaning to words that don’t seem to have anything to do with the process. The drawings give great dimensional info on each piece, but don’t show key intermediary steps to allow you to see how things are assembled. And I’m only on the second step!
Putting the planking on the hull of the ship requires you to have a thorough understanding of different types of glue; how to put complex bends in small strips of wood that you can’t purchase in the U.S if you break them; and how to remove cured cyanoacrylate glue from your fingers. And did I mention that 10 fingers are not enough?
Here are some photos of where I left off while awaiting delivery of replacement strips from Australia.
Was I a Hippy?
I think that for a short period in my life, I may have been a Hippy.
Some of the signs…
- I had a large afro,
- I drove a VW Bus with curtains and a bed
- I loved folk music (I still have ALL of Peter, Paul and Mary’s albums)
- I created art with “Peace” and “Love” all over it
However, I have never liked The Grateful Dead, I wasn’t into drugs, and I hate Patchouli!
It was a close call!
Growing Up Without a Father
I had an amazingly happy childhood. I never felt poor, or unloved or lonely, but I do remember feeling that I missed my dad. The sad thing now is that I don’t have many vivid memories of him being a part of my life, and actually I only have a few memories that include him:
- He would drive Evie and me up to and around Signal Hill
- He used to take us grocery shopping to McCoy’s market every Friday but I don’t remember if he actually shopped with us or waited in the car.
- Once when we returned from shopping, I dropped the bag with the eggs in it and he clobbered me on the head. It was more of a quick slap than anything done with anger or intent to hurt.
- He had a farmer’s tan, just like I do now.
- He taught me how he makes Fried Eggs and Bacon. I don’t remember how he did it, but I remember sitting and watching him as he tried to flip the eggs without breaking the yolks. This was before coated pans and there was a lot of bacon grease in the pan that didn’t seem to help much.
I wish there were more.
Basically, I was raised in an all female environment, but I did have several very important male figures:
- Charlie Thomas – was a strong disciplinarian and I gave him lots of respect and always listened to him. He was funny and easy going, but made sure that we all knew the boundaries.
- Uncle Bob – showed me the world – or at least his world. He took Evie and me all over his favorite desert haunts and even though we wondered why he liked the desert so much, it was always so much fun to go on a trip with Uncle Bob.
- Brother Bob – I never lived under the same roof, and as he was 18 years older, he really wasn’t around much, due to college and the Army, but I have distinct memories of going to the beach, fishing, and clamming when he would come to visit. When I was 12, I was sent to visit him and my sister Martha. While with Bob and Elaine, we went to Maine (which I will talk about at length later).
- Cousin David – David was a fireman that was always doing the most interesting things! Surfing, Fishing, Scuba Diving and Painting were what I remember about David.
- Brother-in-Law Gail – Gail bought me my first baseball glove and was the most encouraging figure that I have ever had. I remember hearing that as a young boy he had some kind of physical problem that was so severe that doctors said that he may never walk. However, his determination and hard work made him into one of the best college and professional basketball players of all time.
My Favorite Picture of Me
If I had to pick just one picture of me that I like the best, it would have to be this one. I believe that it was the summer of 1980 after I had joined the Coast Guard and flew back to Virginia to visit Bob and Elaine. I’m sure there will be other stories about this trip, but here, Bob and I were going down to the Chesapeake Bay to go out on a chartered boat to catch Bluefish. We drove down in the afternoon and had planned to sleep in the back of his Bob’s truck so that we could get underway early. On the way down, Bob made a quick detour to a little beach where we threw out our lines in the surf just to see what would happen. Sure enough, in no time at all, I had this really nice Bluefish. The fish was only 4 or 5 pounds, but I think that you can tell from the look on my face that it was pretty special .