Monday, July 13, 2009

When In Rhome

I’m just sitting here in Rhome, watching my dad catnap in between a few minutes of looking at his magazine. Yeppers, there are lots of exciting things going on around here.

For instance, here is a picture of dad inspecting his poke salad (or poke berry, as Gail would say). This was our followup to hours of discussion about whether it is poisonous. Dad says he eats it all the time with no problems, fresh or cooked. In fact, he even takes care of it to make sure he always has plenty on hand.

Then, of course, there is all the excitement of visiting across the fence with my brother and his family, or looking at the latest progress on their house rebuilding job..

A couple of days ago I took this picture of the house next door. It is on a ranch called the Chisholm Trail ranch. The Chisholm trail apparently ran through here. The house was built with a well inside to help hold off the siege of Indians in the old days. And, tradition holds that the Indians camped near the spring behind our house, where they had plenty of cool, clean water. Of course we’ve lived next door for over 50 years, but for some reason it seemed interesting enough to photograph on this day.

Of course, when all else fails, there are the absorbing pastimes here…like debating whether the high temperature each day will be 102 degrees or 103. Or whether to pick the tomatoes and squash in the morning or afternoon, and trying to decide if they’ll survive another day.. Or, arguing about the details of things that happened 40 or 50 years ago.

As is plainly obvious, it is time to head for Wyoming. So, I'm on my way. I'm filing this report from Amarillo, on the way to the Wind River Range in Wyoming. I plan to spend 2-3 weeks backpacking there before heading back to the farm in Temple, Texas, and then eventually to Houson.

2 comments:

nemattox said...

Sounds like an exciting time!

Gail James said...

Now what did I tell you about saying "yeppers"?

Smile nicely at any bears you meet out in them thar wilds of Wyoming!