Steptoe WA

Well, not much going on today so I thought I would share some photos I had of eastern Washington. Steptoe Washington is in the middle of the Palouse about 55 miles south of Spokane.

Steptoe Butte State Park is a 150-acre, 3,612-foot-tall natural monument. Thimble-shaped, the quartzite butte looms in bald grandeur over the prevailing flat lands. The park is famous for its stark, dramatic beauty and the panoramic view it provides of surrounding farmlands, the Blue Mountains, and other neighboring ranges and peaks. From the top of the butte, the eye can see 200 miles.

The butte is constructed of quartzite and looms over the surrounding terrain. Hawthorne brush abounds in the park, and was widely used by local Indians for the making of medicines, baskets and other essentials.

Native Americans called the butte "the power mountain." It was believed that a journey to the butte bestowed a gift of power from the mountain's guardian spirit.

The butte's present name honors Colonel Edward Steptoe, who gave years of service maintaining peace in the region. His men were killed in a conflict, which he tried to prevent, with Native Americans.


Enjoy the photos!

And that's it for today.

Head Cold

Well, I have decided that all this hype on TV about colds and the flue has given me a nasty old head cold. You know the one your head feels like mush and your nose is stuffy and then its runny and the more medicine you take the worse you feel. Well that's what I have got. Now I just teed to get rid of it and fast!!

My grandmother believed in a lot of herbs and medicines and had a cure for everything - even the common cold. She used Mullein tea for bronchitis, a mustard plaster for congestion, or a clove or two of garlic crushed and stirred into some warm milk. Now that may not cure your cold but it will sure scare the heck out of one.

To cure the sore throat you had to gargle with salt water and she always told me "drink a little bit, it'll help". A tall glass of liniment was always in order too. That'll stop your cough. We had this couple who used to come around about once a month selling Raleigh products . There was always a bottle of this liniment in the cupboard. Any time you got sick you were made to drink this vile tasting stuff. It must have worked because it is still on the market today.

Camphorated salve was another cure, my grandmother would grease my chest, the bottoms of my feet, dress me in my flannel nightgown and into bed underneath the big featherbed I would go. I dont know if it was the salve, the flannel or the heat but it always cured me.

Since my grandmother isn't here to take care of me I will load up on on all these newfangled drugs and go back to bed and hope I feel better by morning.

A man went to see his doctor because he was suffering from a miserable cold. His doctor prescribed some pills, but they didn't help.On his next visit the doctor gave him a shot, but that didn't do any good.On his third visit the doctor told the man to go home and take a hot bath. As soon as he was finished bathing he was to throw open all the windows and stands in the draft."But doc," protested the patient, "if I do that, I'll get pneumonia.""I know," said his physician. "I can cure pneumonia."

That's it for today.

Halloween Memories

Well, tomorrow is Halloween and time for the little trick or treaters to be out and about. It seems adults and kids both get in the act anymore. There are probably more adult Halloween parties than kid's. At the workplace, employees and bosses alike get in on the act. It wasn't that way when we were growing up.

When we were growing up we lived out in the country, there was no money for costumes. Heck, I don't even remember there being costumes. There may have been a few face masks but we never had any. However, we did have a lot of fun trick or treating.

We would find us some old "garb" to wear. We never had to buy anything - all our clothes were old. Maybe we would take a pair of my Dad's overalls and be a hillbilly (not that we weren't already) or tie a shirt around a stick or something and be a hobo. Sometimes we would find the biggest dress we could find (usually one of my aunt's hand me downs) and stuff it with pillows and be an old fat lady. We would unravel a couple piece of rope for hair..we never had wigs. A big fancy hat with flowers on it was a must with this outfit. We didn't have pumpkins or fancy sacks to carry our loot. We would take an old pillowcase and that was our trick or treat sack.

My favorite memory was the year all five of us decided to dress alike. We took some soot from the stovepipe on the kitchen stove and mixed it with some of my mother's cold cream. We then painted our faces and anything else that showed with the black "goop". My dad had several pair of old brown work gloves so we borrowed those. Dressed in our"garb" and our pillowcases for the loot we were off through the neighborhood.

There was this one neighbor lady who didn't have any kids but she made the most scrumptious popcorn balls. We always loved going there because she had lots of treats for us. We all go up to the door and knock on it. She opened it and then shut it real fast, then opened it again. She yelled to her husband, "OH!! Ben, you have to see this....Look at all the cute little "darkies". She made us come inside and parade around for him and then she gave us our treats.

We continued on our way and all the neighbors thought our costumes were great but they must have thought we were pretty poor because we ended up with more candy than usual.

By the time we got home our pillowcases were stuffed but we really had a chore ahead of us before bedtime. By this time the mixture of the soot and cold cream had hardened into a cement like finish and it had to be washed off before bedtime.

Washing it off with cold water didn't work. The more you washed the more it smeared. You would get one portion of your face clean and then wash another and it would smear the clean part. This really upset my mother. Now she had to build a fire in the cookstove and go to the creek in the dark to get water and and heat it and all five of us had to have a bath and our hair washed. What a chore!! It was midnight before we ever got to bed.

You can bet that the next Halloween we did not get to dress like that. The soot never came out of her towels and washcloths and my mother never let us forget it either.

And that, my friends, is my Halloween story for today. I have another but it will have to wait until the grandkids are a little older.

The Yard and Beyond

Well, the weather has not been very cooperative lately. There has not been much chance for good photo opportunities, however, I thought if I were going to get some fall pics it had better be before the snow flies. Note: There will be no beautiful scenery pics as in my Tennessee Photos.

A splash of yellow also known as Grandma's favorite flower
"The Dandy Flower"

The last Rose of summer

Would you believe this pile of leaves

All came from this little tree

Green is always good and this is "Ever Green"

Who decides when holly chnges color?

Construction in the back yard

Just over the fence

When the snow flies you will never see this mess. Who will clean up next spring?

The city fathers or who ever is in charge has decided to build a new Rite Aid Drugstore just over the fence --you would think that the superintendent or "whomever" is in charge would clean as they go --in this case - evidently not. Construction is to be completed in January. The mess will frozen and covered by snow by then. Who will clean up the unsightly mess??

That's it for today!

More Scenery

Well, the weather here has had its ups and downs. We haven't had anything but rain and cold for the last week or so and snow is predicted in the very near future. I don't think we have had this much rain in years. Other than the weather there isn't much to report

A friend of mine knew I was missing Tennessee so she snapped these photos for me...Thanks Weasel.

The trees in Virginia are almost as pretty is as Tennessee!!

Downtown Damascus Virginia

Now this is my idea of a banjo picker


The Virginia Creeper Trail

And the Gorgeous Gorge Between Mountain City and Trade Tennessee. If this is your mountain, thanks for sharing it with me.

That's it for today!!

A Wonderful Day

Well, It was a typical fall day warm and sunny. The temperature was moderate. A drive through the mountains and the backroads of Johnson County seemed a terrific way to spend such a gorgeous fall day.

Click on any photo for larger size

The mountains were splendid. From the bright yellow leaves of the birch, yellow poplar and hickory to the mountain ash, sumac, oaks, and maples that vary in shades from orange to brilliant red to brown and even purple it was a rainbow of colors.

A variety of wildflowers, Black-eyed Susans, goldenrod and asters, small shrubs, bright trees and a few cows dotted the roadsides.

An old barn full of drying tobacco caught my eye
Around every corner the beauty and splendor of the day could hardly be matched.

Watauga Lake was breathtakingly beautiful.

The top of the mountain awaits.

From the top of the mountain the scenery seemed to go on forever. I felt like I was On Top Of The World.

Beautiful days like this are like the last bite of your favorite candy ---something to be savored.

That's it for today.

Chow Chow

A friend of mine sent me this recipe for Chow chow and it reminded me of my Grandma's Chow Chow. This particular recipe was found in one of the cookbooks that were the property of Faye Street and her mother Uva Robinson. I found the recipe interesting since it was written on a notepad from K.D. Madron, the former sherriff of Johnson County.

In the late summer/early fall when the cabbage heads were at their peak they all needed to be harvested. Some were made in to sour kraut. We made chow chow out of some, some went in the cellar and some were saved for the "tater hole" and we would have cabbage in the spring.

Now there is a trick to making sour kraut --if you don't do it right it will either smell, get too sour, or not sour enough or it will turn dark and soft and not even be fit for the pigs to eat. My grandmother knew exactly when to make sour kraut. She went by the signs. The signs have to be in the head and neck and it can't be on the dark of the moon. I never knew her to make a bad jar of sour kraut. It was always as pretty and white and fresh as the day it went in the jar.

Often times she would grab a few heads of cabbage, some onions and a green pepper or two from the garden and an old metal dishpan, her kraut cutter and go out to the backyard on the wash bench and start chopping the cabbage to make chow chow. She would quarter the cabbage always saving the stalk. She would trim the stalk and give it to me. I loved eating the stalk of the cabbage and I still do to this day. She would end up with a dishpan or two of chopped cabbage. She would add salt and let it sit overnight. The next day she would add her other ingredients and put it in cans and into the cellar.

Chow chow is a southern type of relish. It is traditionally served with soupbeans and cornbread as well as a condiment for your hotdogs. It is normally a sweet kind of relish but I like to add a jalepeno or two with mine.

Here is the recipe I use for making chow chow.

Southern Chow Chow

4 cups onions

2 cabbage

12 green peppers

6 red peppers

10 green tomatoes

4 hot peppers

6 cups sugar

1 tablespoon celery seed

2 tablespoons mustard seed

1 teaspoon turmeric

4 cups vinegar

2 cups water

Chop onions, cabbage, peppers and tomatoes and mix together. Add 1/2 cup salt over them and let set overnight. Rinse and drain. Mix water, vinegar, sugar and spices together and bring to a boil. Pour over other ingredients and boil 5 to 8 minutes. Put in jars and seal.

The good thing about chow chow is you can eat it right away but it tastes better on a cold snowy day when there has been a pot of beans simmering on the stove all day and the smell of cornbread is fresh from the oven.

That's it for today.