Around the graves of five generations in our Strong family plot at Riverview Cemetery are these tiny Yellow Aconites. Their Latin name says that they come “right after the snow,” and sure enough they do. I love the way the Aconites bloom this early, and then disappear completely, their leaves melting away into nothing, so by late spring you wouldn’t know they’d been there.
One old tree fell in the windstorm last fall, and the other, grown to great age between the graves of Judge William and his wife Lucretia, is marked to keep an eye on. We hope they won’t have to take it down.
One of the sons of William and Lucretia wrote a book, Cathlamet on the Columbia, about growing up in the 1850’s. He was born after they arrived. They’d come around the Horn, losing one little boy to Yellow Fever on the way, the other one, Curtis, my great-grandfather who bought the land we live on now, surviving.
I came back from exploring the possibilities of classes at Oregon College of Art and Craft today, and realized that’s not what I need to do now. I have room here at home in my little studio up on the bank above the house. Hester and Tom, last time we were away for a good stretch of time, even cleaned it out and made it usable again. They removed squirrel nests, hauled out all those boxes of old camping equipment. We can heat it sufficiently. We can put in a vise I’ll need to finish the wood carving I started eight years ago, at a class at OCAC, in fact.
There are things I’ve made and finished, being used by my family and friends. This is a start. Photos, meals, table, dinner table, soap, garden veg, garden house, … to come ….knitted pieces, sewn pieces, cape, tie skirt, etc.
Journey in Old Age 