July 3, 2013 – My parents, Lee F Caldwell and Dorothy P Caldwell were laid to rest today in the pasture of Llenroc Farm. Their ashes were combined and they are together again.
We all helped dig the hole in the stony soil, and then Bob led the service where we all had a chance to relate our feelings about Gramma Dorothy.
An extra-long extension cord allowed us to bring Mom’s favorite organ down into the pasture for a little music.
Search Results for: Caldwell
Onze
ONZE?
Onze is a family favorite card game. Similar to Gin Rummy, Onze is played with a sequence of 7 hands that are played with different mixes of sets and runs. The first round (hand) is played with 6 cards and each subsequent hand has one additional card.
Onze is the french word for Eleven. Evidently, most variations of Onze are played with an 11 card hand.
For maximum enjoyment, Onze should be played with at least 2 decks (2 jokers for each deck!), with 6 players you need 3 decks and with 8 players, you need 4 decks. Any more than 8 players and you’re asking for trouble.
Someone must be the scorekeeper. We used to use any old sheet of paper and then throw it away when we were done, but one of the smarter Caldwell’s designed a Score Sheet and created a booklet of them. This “Onze Book” now contains a fair amount of family history as the scorekeeper adds notes, comments and other bits of info that come up during the game.
Onze on the Family Housboat Trip
Here’s a clip of an early Caldwell Onze game. It took place during the infamous Caldwell Family Houseboat Trip in August of 1991.
Genealogy
Several of us have made attempts to consolidate all the info we have about our family history. The database project I’m working on is here:
Llenroc Chronicles – 1998
1998 UPDATE FROM THE ROC
The Llenroc Newsletter – Latest news from the Caldwell ancestral estate in the beautiful Sequim-Dungeness Valley, Washington
The Poet’s Corner
What could better capture the state of mind of a retired guy in Sequim than: “The Old Settler” by Francis Henry, quoted in:
The Living, by Annie Dillard, Harper Collins, New York, 1992 (sung to the tune of “Rosin the Beau”)
No longer the slave of ambition
I laugh at the world and its shams,
As I think of my happy condition
Surrounded by acres of clams.
Recreation
Strangely enough, just living at Llenroc is recreation and relaxation enough for some of us. However, for those of you who are locationally challenged, we have tried some new trails. One in particular that deserves mention is a 7-mile hike that connects Deer Park with Obstruction Point. Both are places you can drive to easily from Llenroc. Two groups can park at opposite ends, meet in the middle for lunch on a ridge top, exchange keys, and continue their hikes to a car at the end. We owe this trip to Rita and Jill Spoelstra, our ostrich neighbors.
Bob fished a lot of salt water this year with relatively little success. We went out time after time for halibut and salmon with either no results, or potentials that were squelched when a seal stole the catch. In October, he fished the Deschutes in Oregon with Wally and old friends from Arkansas, Ralph Mashburn and Dick Babeu. They caught a lot of good trout plus Bob got a very nice 9 lb. steelhead.
Squid were limited, crabs were generally short (in size and number), but clamming was excellent.
Livestock News
Nelly had a go at herding this fall — we took her out with some dog trainers and some sheep, and after Nell chased the sheep near to exhaustion, the trainers said, “Well, at least she’s interested in sheep.” I don’t know if I’m willing to commit the time and money to see if there is anything to that potential, but in the interim, I’m going to work her on what they call Agility Trialing. Nelly loves to jump through hoops, over hurdles, up ramps, etc, and I think she’ll do well at it.
The trout grew beautifully this year. By summer’s end, many were over 18 inches long. We caught and ate a few, but left most of them to grow even bigger next year. Big mistake! One morning in mid-December, there were 3 dead ones floating. The next day there were 12 more, belly up! Over the next 2 weeks, we lost 30 more for a total of 45 dead and buried. These fish were unmarked beauties, 16 to 18-1/2 inches long! I ‘m not sure what the problem is, but it’s heartbreaking. I hope that there are still some fish hiding, but I’m scared that they’re all gone.
The best theory is that with the fall and colder temperatures, an excess of dying waterweed settled to the 8-foot depths of the pond where it started decomposing. This used up all the oxygen down there. As the fall continued, the fish began to go into a semi-hibernating state and similarly settled into the deeper water. This phenomenon didn’t occur the year before because it was a new pond, and didn’t have any waterweeds. To resolve this, come Spring, we’re going to stock some grass carp, a water weed-eating fish that can’t reproduce. They will, hopefully, solve the weed problem, and thereby the oxygen deficiency (if in fact that was the problem). In addition, we’re going to aerate by pumping from the deep and spraying over the surface. With some choreographed colored lights and a little music, we may have a new tourist attraction!
Rocwork
We’ve been promising some stone walls since the summer of 1995 and we finally got some. My mason extraordinaire, Pete (Chris Caldwell) Roberts, showed up the first of August, and we spent nearly a week and did up the 13 feet of wall on both sides of the front gate (78 sq. ft.). I absorbed all the technique I could, and built the second 16-foot section by myself. It isn’t quite as good as the work of the master, but it ain’t bad either. Rocwork is slow and tedious as well as rewarding, so I don’t promise completion of the remaining 60 percent before the Fall of 2000. (The “Fall of 2000” sounds ominous — does this make it the “Millennial Wall”?) We’re going to build some windows, seats and a fountain into some of the remaining sections. They’re going to be magnifico! Thanks, Pete!
Other Construction News
No, the front door has not yet been painted, the built-ins are not done, and there is still some baseboard trim to go up behind the refrigerator. For everything there is a season: a time to plant, a time to till, and a time to harvest. We just haven’t come to “front-door-painting” season yet!
Crop News
We installed raised beds in the entire veggie garden and had a great garden year. Crops of mention include: russet potatoes, blue lake beans, tomatoes (as we write this on January 13, we are eating the last of them), salsify (vegetable oyster), beets, carrots, chard, leeks, lettuce, cilantro, green onions, and Walla Walla sweets. Dishonorable mention goes to: corn and peas (Spring was too cold and wet). I guess that’s gardening for you. One of the most vexing problems was being absent during September when much of our harvest came due. As we were leaving for the airport, I handed Mom the total of our first crop of pears — 6 extra large, blemish free, perfectly colored pears.
Travel
The Sequim contingent had a big travel year starting with Mom’s trip to Paris with Francie and Linsay in February. They brought back great photos and stories to share. In September, Elaine and Bob took a 21-day trip to Switzerland and Italy with a watercolor group from Portland. Half our time was spent in and around Thun, Switzerland, a small city with a medieval castle, steam ships on the lake, and a station that boasts 70 passenger trains daily to all parts of the country. Eurail passes made it a wonderful opportunity to really get to know the country and its charms. Most of the rest of the trip was spent in Lucca, an ancient Tuscan walled city in Italy. We couldn’t have had a better time. Stop by to see the photos and hear heartwarming anecdotes about our search for brodo del funghi.
Personal News
We lead fairly busy schedules here — well, at least as busy as can be expected of two old retired persons. In addition to teaching creative writing to home schoolers, Elaine was elected to the Board of the Olympic Theater Arts Association. Not to be outdone, Bob got himself elected to the Board of the Dungeness Irrigation Company. As you can see, it “ain’t” very difficult to get elected here. However, we aren’t too busy to spend time with you. We issued a general call for visitors in last year’s newsletter, and didn’t get many responses. Next we are going to try a drawing – – First prize will be:
An all-expense paid week for two in the fabulous Pasture View Suite at glamorous Llenroc Farm in Sequim, Washington! Pastoral walks, Frisbee with the dog, gourmet foods, clam digging! Participate in the daily events of a working home! Remember, if you don’t come see us, you may win this drawing. Give us a call, send an E-mail, and check your tide tables, even the Farmer’s Almanac! Just come! We miss you.
Love from Bob, Elaine, and Nelly
Llenroc Chronicles – 1996
This is the latest, enhanced edition of the Llenroc Newsletter, produced with our new computer and programs. I wish our eyes (and our seats) would allow us to spend as much time in front of this screen as we need in order to take advantage of all this new technology.
Livestock News
Nelly, a one-year old, short-haired, hot-wired border collie is the big livestock addition to Llenroc Farm. Nelly may even be smarter than the other regular inhabitants of Llenroc. When outside, she spends all her time barking at the horses or the UPS van. When inside, she spends all her time stealing and eating anything that isn’t tied down and washing it down with water from the toilet. Just before Christmas, she ate Elaine’s leather covered Bible. She is a real quick study on quite a number of subjects. She learned to shake hands in one evening. Following a close (and thankfully not fatal) encounter with a passing car, she no longer chases cars. I wish we could get her to come when we call or to stay home without a baby sitter.
Crop News
This past summer, our garden suffered a heavy loss from “Chicken Blight”. We planted row upon row of sweet corn, beans, and peas plus some pumpkins, squash, swiss chard, and beets. As soon as they sprouted, the next door chickens came over and ate all the beans, peas, and 87 percent of the corn. We ended up with all the swiss chard that three families could eat, 16 big pumpkins, two summer squash, and a few beets. This year, we’ve fenced the garden against canine and poultry depredation plus added 6 yards of aged cow manure and 2 yards of fresh horse manure. Although we’re a long ways from planting, we are expecting a bumper crop of all sorts of veggies including new, small potatoes to eat salted with butter and clams. (E-mail Llenroc18@tenforward.com) for your free pumpkin come Autumn).
Recreation
Hunter/gatherers found a new event this year with the discovery of night crabbing. Carrying a shielded Coleman lantern, a rake and a sack, an intrepid night crabber sets out in the late evening of a winter night and follows the receding tide to the crabbing grounds. There, while being buffeted by unseen incoming swells, by alarmed 40 pound skates, and by inquisitive seals, you search the waters for crabs scurrying away from the light. They are easier to locate than summer crabs, less likely to be soft, and sweeter from the chase. Finding the right combination of tide, time, clear water, no wind, and nothing to do the next day is difficult, but it sure is fun when you can put them all together.
Medical Report
Elaine’s Mom, Phyllis Plyter, suffered a broken hip on her 82nd birthday in November. She is home after a brief hospital and nursing home stay, and mending well. Gramma Dorothy caught the Sequim Crud and was quarantined for two weeks by those who thought they could avoid catching it if they avoided those who had it. The theory didn’t work. Even the dental assistant coughs in your face. We caught it and all we missed was the pleasure of seeing Mom regularly.
Construction News
It seemed as if all the heavy construction was done when we occupied the house in July ’95. However, it just keeps on. We constructed the landscaping beds, installed shrubbery, the skeleton of a garden wall including a gate, and a functioning landscape irrigation system. Then it was time to build a lean-to shed on the end of the lower barn to shelter the old Ford tractors, a concrete floor for the lower barn, concrete patios and pads outside various doors, 850 feet of buried electrical line and water pipe for the pasture irrigation system, a pond to supply the water, and a temporary fence to keep the cows off the new grass around the new pond. Then we rebuilt the fence on the Spath Road side of the property to keep Nelly out of the Ireland’s corral. Our heartfelt appreciation goes out to those who helped on these tasks. About the time our big snows melted, Bob got the greenhouse bug, and went out visiting those greenhouse owners who didn’t lose their roofs to the snow. That led to a design, a trip to Oregon, several weeks of hard labor, and a resulting metal bowed, polyethylene covered, 8 ft. by 24 ft., lean-to greenhouse on the end of the barn where the trailer used to stay. Although the soil is in place, the fan hasn’t yet been installed, and no planting can commence until the fan is operational. Why not? Today, a sunny but 50 degree day outside, the greenhouse thermometer “pinned-out” at 120 degrees! It was never this hot in India! Anyone for a wilted lettuce salad?
Poets Corner:
RAIN*
It rained and rained and rained, the average fall was well maintained;
And when the tracks were simply bogs, it started raining cats and dogs.
After a drought of half an hour, we had a most refreshing shower;
And then, most curious thing of all, a gentle rain began to fall.
Next day but one was fairly dry, save one deluge from the sky,
Which wetted the party to the skin, and then — at last — the rain set in.
Anonymous *(could be called “February in Sequim”)
Missing Persons
We have a lot of friends who haven’t been up to visit or haven’t been up to visit in a long time. Remember, life is short and you probably won’t get all the work done. Therefore, you might as well spend some of your time enjoying your friends and family. Besides, we want to share with you the wonderful bounty of this life with which we have been so richly , and undeservedly blessed! Raspberries, Rhubarb and Roses Just last week, we received a surprise gift from one of the Llenroc Foundation benefactors. It was a rose bush named Caldwell Pink. Seems that a certain heritage rose seller specializes in collecting old roses that have survived and bloomed without love and care. This one was found on an old farm stead in Caldwell, Texas and deemed worthy of propagation and sale. We’ve planted it against the concrete garden wall that faces south on the protected side of the house. That’s as close to Texas as we’re going to get here in Sequim, and we place it in God’s hands from this point on, although we’ll water and weed for him as needed.
Final Note
It’s too bad that the editor is also such a procrastinator! Under slightly different circumstances, we’d probably have the income taxes done, all the moulding nailed up in all the closets, the Model A Ford on the road, and a fresh coat of paint on the old 9N tractor. The rock walls around the formal garden would have been mortared in place, and the built-ins constructed neatly in the master bedroom and the den. Llenroc Update would’ve been distributed in November. But, you live with what you have, and that’s all we have; and we’re thankful for it every day . May God be with you today and all of your tomorrows!
Love from Bob, Elaine, and (even) Nelly Caldwell.
Llenroc Chronicles – 1995
Dear Friends:
Where has the time gone? We retired just one year and six months ago, and it seems like only yesterday. The days have just flown by – – every day Elaine and I get up with a big list of things to do, we keep busy all day and the next day, the list is longer. We work hard (mostly) and hurt worse than ever before. We have become addicted to pain. Everyday when we get up, we assess our bodies to see if we hurt anyplace special. If not, we go out on the construction site and do some damage to ourselves. We should rename Camelot Road to “Pain Lane”.
But we’re making excellent progress! The house is coming along fantastically well. It looks just like the plans, and we haven’t had to make any significant changes. The current status is:
The exterior is seven-eighths painted. The interior is nearly completed except for building and installing the cabinets in the second bath, the laundry room and the wet room (and of course putting the closet organizers in all closets but the pantry and the master bedroom closet). The wood stove chimney went in this week as did the railing on the stairs and the balcony. I have a preliminary fit on the two sliding glass doors into the den and that should keep me busy for a few days. On the outside, most of the concrete is installed including the porte cochere (Sp.?). The garden retaining wall is nearly done (I have to close one side of the octagon), the topsoil is installed one foot deep, the topsoil has been dug up and sprinkler system pipes installed and the topsoil laid back down again, the beds laid out, spring bulbs purchased, and some flowers are even planted. We have a plan from the landscaper and are waiting for the telephone company to move the buried cable from the middle of the drive so we can cut in Elaine’s turn-around and then start moving in rocks and gravel. Plants will come later. The basement is largely unfinished, but we should have a long cold winter one of these years to work on that.
Wow! If I think about it any further, I’ll get discouraged. Building a house is a big job, and don’t think that a contractor doesn’t earn his money. I know it would have been easier if Elaine and I hadn’t done major segments of the work, but it would also have been much more costly.
High points of the year:
In March, Bob suffered a mental seizure and agreed to provide about 4 months of volunteer labor for his old employer (they’ve gotten rid of so many people that they can no longer get the job done). Fortunately he recovered (with the assistance of some very pointed pressure from Elaine) and rescinded his offer. He still suffers from some recurrent nightmares, but may see those diminish in time.
In April (?) Pete and Chris Caldwell Roberts visited with son John Henry and nephew Bobby Caldwell. Gosh, it was fun finding a namesake after all these years thinking that you had only daughters. The really productive part of their visit was Pete’s assistance in cutting tiles. In a former life Pete was a tile contractor, and in one marathon day starting at 8:00 AM and ending at .10:00 PM, he and Bob measured and cut more than 500 square feet of Italian ceramic tile. On his next trip, Pete gets to do what he wants to do.
In April, Elaine and Bob also flew to California to help pack up Gramma Dorothy and drive her and her possessions to her new home in Sequim. We got her moved in and have really enjoyed her presence since. Bob gets good food when Elaine is out of town, and we’ve had some marvelous preserves made from the local free produce.
Crabbing and clam digging took a back seat to construction this past year, but we did do some serious damage to the squid in Port Angeles. The following people – – Justin, Michelle, John, Steve, Wally, Gary, Barb, Katie, Eli, Elaine and Bob caught, cleaned, and froze about 30 tons of sequid (at least it seemed like 30 tons- – maybe it was pounds).
At the end of July, Bob and Elaine flew to Portland, Maine, met Janette, Rick and Shelby there, drove on to Muscongus Bay and spent the week with the East coast branch of the Wing family (Ken, Sharon, and Krista). We had an excellent time, ate plenty of lobsters and clams, told lots of lies, drank some excellent beer and fondly remembered humidity and mosquitoes. It is an unrecorded historic fact that one of the primary motivators sending hundreds of thousands of people down the Oregon Trail was the chance to escape mosquitoes and humidity.
Sometime during the all-to-short summer, Margot, Wally, and the two much adored (by their Nonny and as much, but not so boisterously, by Papa) grandchildren, Austin and Averi, came up to spend several long weekends with us. Margot and Wally painted exterior walls whilst Elaine spoiled the children (which is, after all, a Grandmother’s most sacred obligation). I wish Wally were either 4 feet taller, or could hover like a hummingbird – – in either case, the soffets and facia would now be painted, instead of staring me in the face as a long deferred but necessary project. Perhaps we could learn to paint using a fly rod and a Woolly Booger instead of a brush – – then we could reach all the high spots and have fun in the process. By some unknown scheme (probably illegal), Wally managed to rake more crabs than Bob during these visits but he did share them, so all is forgiven.
August was a month of unremitting company. Fun? Lots. Work’? Almost none.
In September, Janette and Shelby came for a weeks visit – this took advantage of the fact that Shelby is old enough to travel, Janette was still early enough to travel, and it will be some time before the new baby will be big enough to travel. Again, we had a great time competing for the grandchildren’s attention. Little girls often have a compulsive attraction for gray haired old men that transcends anything that a grandmother can do – – this includes all the cookies, hugs, readings, games, and other nurturing strategy traps that Elaine could lay in Shelby’s path. All Bob had to do is walk by and Shelby came running, yelling “Papa! Papa!” Elizabeth (Wendel) flew up during that week and livened up the proceedings.
Since being in the house, Elaine has taken to cooking again without letting me know “that I shouldn’t expect much ’cause we’re living in a barn.” Tonight we had Indian food- – one of our favorite cauliflower and potato curries and some spicy kabobs. The other night we reinvented a garlic pork Thai dish that we’d had in Bremerton. Life is good!
Kid’s Corner
Q. Is there really a Llenroc? My Mommy says that Llenroc is actually ‘Jerk” spelled backwards.
A. Of course there’s a Llenroc. The original Llenroc was buried by a vast sheet of continental glaciation that swept out of Canada into the Olympic Peninsula region. About 10,000 years ago, this glacier retreated, leaving Llenroc buried in some sediments right near the corner of Spath and Camelot road in Sequim. In 1989, while building his barn, a humble farmer unearthed LLENROC. Not realizing what he had found, the massive granite boulder lay ignored in the pasture until the following summer. Stumbling over the rock and stubbing his toe, the humble farmer asked the excavator to get it out of his way. Using a Case 580K Backhoe/Loader, Llenroc was carried tenderly to its current place of honor, guarding the entrance to the Caldwell ancestral estate. Neighborhood dogs were among the first to recognize the significance of Llenroc, and even today, visit regularly to pay homage.
Thank you for your interest. The Editor
Well, this edition of Llenroc Update is about done. We’ve enjoyed bringing you up-to-date (or at least as up-to-date as we have time for) and look forward to the next one.
Bob and Elaine
Llenroc Chronicles – 1994
Dear Caldwells,
This is a note to all who might be interested about the activities of the summer at Llenroc, the Caldwell ancestral estate in the beautiful Sequim Dungeness Valley in Washington State Remember, Llenrock spelled backwards is Kcornell(?).
As most of you know, Elaine and I moved up here on June 15, after a very hurried early retirement (I left one step ahead of the personnel inspector). We sold our house in Aloha on the first day it was listed and feel very grateful for that. The move was a hassle, as most moves are, but we thought that because we have a barn here, that we’d be able to hang onto every single possession of our whole lives, and then found that we’d need another barn to accomplish that So we put up another barn, on the condition that it would be for the burro (when we get her), the boat, the unassembled Model A, and the tractor. That barn now houses most of Grandma PP’s (Elaine’s Mom) castoffs, all my old rabbit cages, and various and sundry other similarly valuable objets de’arte.
Elaine and I are comfortably ensconced in the “summer house”, a small but crude apartment in the end of the original barn where we have our bed up in the loft, reachable via a steep and somewhat rickety, pull-down stairs reminiscent of the one that led to the second floor at the Cape Rosier, Maine cottage.
We arrived with a set of house plans and the naive notion that we would start construction within weeks and have the house “dried in”, as they say, by the time the fall rains started. Well, here we sit on a cool and rainy September with the excavation half done and the prospects of a long and muddy winter looming ahead with no roof, windows, doors, gutters, etc. until spring. I’m not really discouraged, but I sure thought we’d be further along. We have accomplished a lot – – We had the water tested, found it contaminated, found out how to take the sample correctly, and got the well approved. We got engineering on the plans, and now can withstand sustained 90 mph winds and gale force earthquakes. We got the building permit, got bids on doors, windows, plumbing, heating systems, foundations, materials lists for the house, and got the old 9N tractor fixed, bought a new 2N Ford tractor (this one is a 1944 model as compared to the older 1940 one) and bought a Kubota tractor with a backhoe and a front end loader. We got the new 2N hydraulics fixed, got the sickle bar mower fixed and running and actually mowed for 2 hours before I broke it again. (Jim Luke helped me fix it today.) Does it seem like we have more tractors than you might actually need for a 5-acre farm?
Elizabeth (Wendel) came to visit for a long weekend in early August We had a great time eating goat cheese and dried tomatoes, drinking red wine and learning how to use a wheelbarrow. I also taught Liz the fine points of rolling up used barbed wire without creating a death trap. We had sort of a hectic spell at the end of August Chris (Caldwell) Roberts and her two boys, Mike and John Henry drove up from Eugene, Oregon, where they have just moved from Terre Haute. Chris’s husband, Pete, is managing the construction of a new Sony CD production facility in Eugene and it looked like a great opportunity to get to meet some long lost relatives. Pete was unfortunately called back to a business meeting in Terre Haute and so didn’t get exposed to all the West Coast clan. While Chris was here, Pete called from Indiana and I had a chance to talk with my namesake, Bobby Caldwell (John’s son). My Mom (Grandma Dorothy) flew in that week with Francie. Francie’s son Brien and his friend Kathy drove up early the next week Jaime was able to fly up later that week also, and Margot, Wally, Austin, and Averi (Miss America) Wing came up for the Labor Day weekend. There was a great overlap, and we did get to know each other better. We also played some great “Ons” games.
I warned everybody that there were no good crab tides during that portion of August but they came anyway. As a result, our crabbing and clamming was limited. Bob took Mike, Brien, and Kathy out on a beautiful afternoon for several hours in the boat pulling crab rings. We had a lot of action, but no hard keepers. Fortunately, we had some frozen. Brien requested a “local” dinner, so we had crabs, Bob’s famous clam chowder, (with clams fresh from our freezer) fresh barbecued Silver Salmon (from Safeway), fried squid (squid from Squim), and local blackberry cheesecake. “It wan’t too bad!” as they say in Maine. We later found that the sequid were quite good, even excellent, when simmered in a marinara sauce for about two minutes and served over linguini. Wait’ll next year!
Unfortunately, during this spell, a lot of local people were being eaten by cougars, and we were unable to keep Brien out in the tent at night. I’ve not heard of any grown men being pulled from their sleeping bags in the middle of the backyard, but then a body can’t be too careful, can they? At any rate, nothing was holding down that part of the living room floor, anyway, so we might as well have had somebody sleeping on it.
A large contingent set out for Victoria one day, and they had the strangest experience. It was the first group we’ve ever had that caught the wrong ferry. I guess we’re all lucky that there was another ferry going to Victoria. They might otherwise have gotten on a log carrier for Japan or a scallop trawler to Sitka.
We had the good fortune to locate a nice home for Grandma Dorothy while she was here. It’s a 28×40 manufactured home in a very convenient park right adjacent to downtown Sequim. It is convenient to all of the central city attractions, and about 5 miles from our place. We are fortunate that it will be available during the whole winter in case either Elaine or I get tired of sleeping in the loft in the cold. In addition, Elaine is going to do our laundry there instead of at the local Laundromat. With luck, Mom will move her things in the Spring, then go back to help Francie graduate the girls and pack up her house. Then all you non-Squimmers are going to have even more reasons to come up.
Bob, Jaime, and Wally took a chance on a very marginal tide, and went crabbing anyway. Except for some rain, it turned out quite good, and we each got some great crabs. Fortunately, not one person got their boot holed by a vicious crab (such as happened last summer to a novice crabber who shall remain unnamed, L.G.).
The tractors got a heavy workout by Wally who was ostensibly “taking Austin for rides”. He even had an “out of gas” emergency while going to see the hay baler working. Austin likes the Blue tractor best (at least it’s a Ford)! Our neighbor Jim Luke invited Austin to fish his pond one evening (Wally has been bringing his fly rod to Sequim for five years waiting for that opportunity). Austin caught a real nice (15″) rainbow and then Wally took the rod away from him. I would never have thought that a person could be so mean.
We missed a bunch of you folks out there, some of you for the second year running. I hope you know that our barns are always open to you and yours. One of these years, we may even have a house so that you don’t have to tempt the mountain lions by sleeping out in the open. My schedule calls for us to pour a floor and foundation on about the 28th, and start erecting basement walls about the 3rd. If the schedule holds, we could start framing on about October 15th. Some people estimate that the framing will take 6 weeks, so we could have the shell of a house up by the 1st of December. We’re excited!
There’s more time to do this sort of thing now, so expect to hear more from us during the upcoming year. We’ll keep you posted!
The very best from Bob and Elaine
Llenroc Chronicles – 1993
The 1993 Llenroc Newsletter
June 26 – July 4 1993
Dear Linsay, Dorothy, Tana, Francie, Margot, Michelle, Steve, John, Justin, Wally, Rich, and Austin;
This is just a little note to thank you all for the good humor, tolerance, and spice you added to our first Inaugural campout at Llenroc – the Caldwell estate, in beautiful suburban Sequim, Washington. Having that large a group of relatives there at one time could tend to put the pressure on the host to perform, but you people were so nice, that never once did we feel like saying, “Wow, this was a mistake!” or “When do you think they will go home?” As a matter of fact, Bob and at least two other people were reluctant to leave. And if we had the time, we’d be up there now.
To recap events for posterity:
1) The flounder fishing was fun — next time we need to take our earplugs and catch more ugly things. Everybody who fishes must sign a statement that they will try to eat at least a portion of their catch without getting sick.
2) Crabbing was fun — each person should be required to try to hold a crab without getting badly pinched in the finger or the boot. (Band-aids and patch kits will be provided)
3) Victoria was beautiful — we need more nice days and more people on the boat. Bring your photo ID’s!
4) Hurricane Ridge was spectacular — we’re ordering more snow and visibility. Pictures will be forthcoming.
5) The bathroom needs a lot — a door, a shelf, a sink, fewer scary things on the shower floor, and the list goes on. You’ll get everything except the door. How about a better curtain with Velcro fasteners?
6) Wildflowers.— Next year we’ll have our own with unlimited picking allowed.
7) Squeaky stairs In the middle of the night — See #1 (earplugs)
8) Playing cards. — All cards not fitting the standard size measurements, or exhibiting sticky tendencies will be summarily pitched into the wood stove.
9) Extracurricular activities. — Card playing, bike (endurance) riding sunset watching, trash duty, kite flying, cow chasing, weed eating, picture taking, target shooting, etc.
10) Tent sites — at least two good tent sites will be prepared in advance – flat, smooth, and accessible without traversing through the pricker bushes. No electricity or water!
11) Stile (old English – a set of steps for going over a fence or wall) — the management will provide a stile to facilitate getting over the barbed wire without leaving fragments of clothing or body pieces behind.
12) Clam digging (a dirty, smelly, nasty sport)— anyone who wants to get dirty is welcome to do so. The host will personally eat 12 clams at least 4 hours in advance of any public serving to assure the safety of all future consumers. All Llenroc children must be taught to relish clams from an early age. (Austin finished off the clam chowder so he’s passed the test.)
13) Talent night— Anyone possessing any talent will probably elect not to come to Llenroc.
14) Rain — we can almost guarantee some around the 4th of July.
15) Cliff swallows— we will try to have them evicted, but you know how hard it is to get rid of bad tenants once they have moved in. Maybe several different birdhouses attached to the end of the barn would at least bring a variety. (Thanks, Francie)
16) Livestock — The management will try to provide livestock that doesn’t paw the ground, roll its eyes, or snort when you wave a red flag at it. This is a sure thing for 1995.
17) Safety — Small people or old people who might wander in the night will be provided with a cage or a leg iron to keep from falling off the loft.
New events to be opened:
1994 – two ponds with fish, ducks (QUACK), water, mud, and snakes.
1995 – House construction – excellent opportunity for people skilled in sheet rock, insulation, shovel work and encouragement.
Reservations are not normally required at Llenroc. We’d love to be there with you, but if we can’t, you’re welcome to go on your own. Remember, we can sleep 14 in style!
We hope you all remember these and other good times. We sincerely hope you’ll come back often to repeat them and make more memories.
Bob and Elaine