My Travels up North

For my first tid bit of info this is a picture of a Monkey Puzzle Tree. This tree is along the Seattle shoreline and many tourists were taking pictures of it as it's so peculiar looking. While staying at my son's place, in Seattle, Wa, I was able to convenience him to go next door (in the rain) and smack down a big brown seed pod off the tree. In doing so a small limb came off. Much to my surprise it looked like it was from the aloe family but was it hard and had sharp ends! The seed pods look like baby shark pods. I plan to plant these seeds in early spring. The tree is about 70 feet tall and more than 30 years old so the seed pods should be viable.





And the highlight of my trip is my grand daughter, Eva ! She is a sweetie...just my unbiased opinion.













The Seattle skyline just up the road from my son's place. There's a seal in the foreground.

Me and Eva. You can see the Space Needle to the left in the back ground. When all the buildings and Space Needle are lit with Christmas lights it is an amazing view. I usually find city views not my cup of tea.




This little humming bird in the tree was here all though out the day. He looked so lonely and was there even when it started to snow! In the back ground are the Cascade Mountains but only the first day of my visit did I actually see them, even in this picture they are hidden by clouds.

Snowy North Idaho

This is the barn across the road from our place in Idaho. It's much more scenic than this picture. I should have taken a picture yesterday when the sun was shining, oh well.

I've been here since Wednesday and today is the first real snow I've seen. I just hope it lets up tomorrow so I can fly to Seattle to see my grand daughter.

I'll take some more tomorrow and post them when I get chance.

Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and New Year!

McKay's Christmas Fashion Show

This is our Gordon Setter, McKay. Again, she tolerates me putting on Christmas head gear. At fourteen years old she's in great shape! She just came in from a morning walk in the snow. I think I'll be getting her snow booties....

Back to Blogging and Genealogy

Since I'm off this week I though I'd dig my heels in and work on my genealogy brick walls. That meant putting in another phone call to a distant cousin who has, of late, been my best source for family information. After getting the scoop on the Sicilian clans from back east we started in on the families that came over, on the boats, in the early 1900's to San Francisco. Perusing the ancestry.com files for eight hours I came up with six people who all went to my great grandmothers home address during that time. And what does that mean? Well, probably that I'm related to most of them, ah, you see back in the old days, mostly the 1800's, Sicilians married first cousins so....back three or four generations I have double cousins, aunts and uncles. I did have one set of cousins that married from San Francisco even though the families frowned upon it from what I was told.

The communes in Sicily were small and villagers, afraid of outsiders, inter married. No, no one so far has any dreaded deformities or diseases. In fact, most of my family live into their 90's. I have a great aunt who lived to 100. My family, on my Dads maternal side, have blue eyes and blond hair, guessing only from the influence of the Normans around 1061. Where as I have brown hair and brown eyes, like my dad, this may be from some Phoenician influence around 700 BC. These are all wild guesses as I still have to get my Dad to test his DNA, he's agreed but the cost is about 600.00 for testing the mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome. It will just have to wait till after Christmas. From what I've read it seems most people in Sicily do not judge anyone for their dark curly hair or their blue eyes due to the diversity on the island, this stemming from the invasions of many societies.

Now I do realize that being half Portuguese and the fact that my Mother's family came from the Azores, they had the same influence of invasion in the islands history. She has green eyes and dark curly hair as does my sister. In fact, my sister has enough hair for three people. I have skinny hair, straight, thin and does not hold a curl unless I use hairspray with super extra hold, of course after ratting it all up and combing it over so I don't look like Amy Winehouse.

Getting off that subject, I just received a call from my oldest boy back east. That really made my day, you see I was able to talk to all my boys today and that is what makes me happy. The little things in life are the best!

Baptized Legal Bread and the Mafia?

Bakers in Napes, Italy are protesting paying "tribute" to the Camorra's (Mafia) by handing out free baptized bread... While I didn't realize any bread was baptized I guess it's the norm there? This same protest also happened in Sicily. I thought the Mafia was on its way out in Italy and Sicily. Just watching this video makes me wonder why the Vatican hasn't put the kabash on this atrocity, its BAPTIZED for Pete's sake, unless....ah! And yes, sometimes I'm too embarrassed to admit I was born and raised Catholic. Really, how much can a bread maker profit when paying taxes to the state and paying off the Mafia?

Flirting Siciliano and Italian Style

I was on my early morning perusal of the news online and came across this report from the UK, "An amorous offer you can't refuse". Of course, the words "can't refuse" got my attention. I found the video to go along with the article somewhat amusing and feeling a bit like the the British reporter lady when it comes to flirting. Since American's rarely flirt in this manner (maybe I'm just not in the right circles) I'd be quite stand offish and in another sense find it highly amusing. I do know that this guy does not float my boat in the looks department but I've long gotten over the "looks" being a priority when it comes to attraction. I know, I know, it sounds contradictory but it's my fickle side showing.

I can't wait to hear a response from blogger Welshcakes Limoncello at Sicily Scene as she lives in Ragusa, Sicily.

Smokin in Idaho

This is a pic at the top of our mountain looking down on
Cocolalla Lake. The smoke is from one of our burn piles.
















On my last trip up to Cocolalla we had to start some burn piles. What are burn piles? It's all the downed trees or left over timber that the loggers leave,about the only way to dispose of it is to burn it. We do cut some for fire wood but during the dry season you don't want a chain saw sparking a fire in the forest! We spent over two hours just gathering wood from a ten to twenty foot radius around the piles. If you think that doesn't sound like much just imagine 28 acres worth! Our logger, four years ago, left our place a mess. Of course after he was paid by the lumber company he found excuse after excuse not to come back and finish out his contract of cleaning up the mess. The contract says he's responsible for any fires that start on our property as a result of his "neglect", but it only covers 250K. That would barely cover the cost of my cabin let alone any neighbors homes or barns. So now we bear the task of clean up when ever the weather allows. Even though we have one year left on our contract we found early on "our" logger wouldn't even return our calls. We could always go to small claims court.....

Here is a pic of about 1/8th acre of timber down.
















And one small burn pile.

Happy Turkey Day....

well, maybe not for the turkey. I'm just off my work rotation of six nights, whew! I'm so tired when I am charge RN and have two patients. One on a ventilator and a new admit on a bipap machine. My only saving grace was that they weren't too needy and not on any drips. Tuesday night was my last night and that means I get off at 7:30 am Wednesday.

BUT ! Tuesday we ended up taking my Mom to the hospital ER. She wasn't feeling well and looked like crap, ah yes, "crap" a very professional technical term there. I made a MD appt for the next day but my gut feeling said to take her to the ER since she is a diabetic and sometimes have different symptoms for an MI than most...she had no chest pain for one. She had a CXR, EKG and all the other interventions they do to CYA. She ended up with a positive troponin (a cardiac marker)a small lung infiltrate (probably starting of infection or edema)and dehydration. They admitted her to med surg unit, not the ICU where I'm at-which surprised me since most people with pos. troponin are, at the least, observed there. I tend to think she had a non Q mi as nothing showed up on the EKG or she had it a few days earlier and because her troponin levels weren't that high and were already starting to drop. So on my breaks at work I would go over and check on her..(mostly snoring,lol). Today they are "supposed" to release her...any boy does she want to come home!

Guess who's cooking all day! Between me and my nephew, Paul, I think we can handle it. Paul's Mom, my sis, is off to Seattle to visit her daughter, Stephanie, who is house mates with my son.

Len says it should be a beautiful day in Cocolalla, Idaho. No snow for now which is so unlike last year and not good for the ski people up there. I heard Schweitzer Mtn. is making snow as they haven't reached the two foot mark in order to open. That's all for now, gotta get cookin!