Huckleberries and Hugs

 

Last year all of two cosmos bloomed before frost set in. 

What a difference a few months make AND an unusual early summer growing season. 

One cosmos has bloomed, and it's possible I may enjoy a whole lot more before it freezes. 

I was wondering last year what the point was of buying cosmos seed, but I'll set aside that thought for a while. 

Nice to see these beautiful flowers mid summer. 

The boys go at this almost every morning while waiting for their turn to go to pasture. 

Between the dogs and the horses, I'd say we are far from kidless here at the Lovestead.

My mother's sister June, brother Frenchy (I think) and our Aunt Louise circa 1954.

My friend and editor Helen and I were talking about huckleberry coveting yesterday.

Helen's hubby Skip was going up to Schweitzer with a friend on a bus bound for the huckleberry patches.

Seems they pick pickers up at the parking lot and then bus them up to the patches for $12.  

Skip had already done some picking at a patch on someone's property who had given permission, but other huck pickers kept testing the waters to make sure Skip was there legally picking. 

Seems that if there's anything in Bonner County that can cause a ruckus rivaling the county commissioner meetings or the West Bonner County School board debacle, it's potential invasion of someone else's huckleberry patch. 

So, Skip and the friend decided to try the Schweitzer set-up. 

As we talked about berry picking, a memory of a long-ago trip part way up Schweitzer faded from oblivion and popped back into my mind. 

Twas almost 70 years ago, so if my recollection of this event is not totally accurate, there aren't too many fact checkers alive to dispute my tale. 

I believe it was the summer of 1954 shortly after Mother married our stepdad Harold.  

I know, from a little family research, that it was just a year after our Aunt Louise aka Mother's guardian during her childhood, lost her husband Glenn back in Michigan. 

Must be meeting Virginia's new hubby Harold offered a chance for Louise to get over her grief and come West to do some inspecting.  

So, Louise and a whole bunch of other relatives, including Mother's sister June, her cousin Dorothy and Dorothy's kids drove out to Idaho and stayed a month on our North Boyer farm. 

I know that  their arrival did not exactly thrill us three kids cuz we discovered that they all hugged.  

We were not accustomed to huggers in those days and with their arrival, those happy hugs not only shocked us but almost smothered us to death with all those arms embracing us and squashing our faces into their bosoms. 

For the longest time, I thought that only people from "Back East" hugged.  Maybe I was right, but eventually as our lives moved along, hugging became a bit more acceptable to us country kids "Out West." 

One thing I don't really remember about this visit was where all these people all stayed.  Our house had just three occupied bed rooms, so I'm a little hazy on just where they bedded down, but I think some stayed in the hay loft of our barn. 

Much of this visit remains a bit cloudy in my memory.  I was just 7 years old that summer. 

I do, however, remember that Harold, who allegedly married my mother because "he had a tractor and she had a farm," was mighty proud of his tractor. 

He also worked for the city water department and knew the area below Schweitzer in the watershed long before the thought of Schweitzer Basin Resort was ever conceived. 

The Michigander family visit was in August:  huckleberry season. 

So, one day Harold hooked up his hay wagon to the tractor and we climbed aboard with buckets and lunches to go on a huckleberry picking mission.  

All of us (almost a dozen peeps)  climbed aboard in the driveway except Aunt Louise, who was old and a bit rotund. 

It took a ladder and some gentle, careful maneuvering, but eventually Louise made her way onto the wagon. 

Off we went down our dirt roads to the Sand Creek watershed from our North Boyer farm. 

Just down Boyer at the boundary of our north woods, Harold turned left on to what is now Woodland Drive.

  That was the original route to upper Sand Creek and to the watershed where we would pick berries.  Twas also the original route in later years for skiers headed to Schweitzer.  

Our trip on that road took us west and then north up a hill past the old white cement water filter plant (still there) where Harold worked and kept a large supply of forest-green paint (the color of the filters) and many wooden boxes on our farm. 

I have no idea how long the trip up the mountain took, and I don't even remember how successful we were at filling our buckets with berries, but I know it was fun sitting on that open-aired hay wagon with occasional limbs brushing our faces.  

I also remember when the road offered a view of the valley down below.  I'm also wondering nearly 70 years later how Harold turned that tractor and wagon around to get us back home. 

Our Aunt Louise, who lived on a lake near Kalamazoo ironically had a lifelong fear of water and of heights.  

In fact, I don't think Mother, on visits back to the Midwest, was ever able to talk her into taking a trip over the beautiful Mackinac Straits Bridge which connected the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan. 

Louise's fears were apparent on that trip up into the watershed, and I don't think she ever relaxed until we pulled back in the driveway, and Harold retrieved her from the hay wagon. 

Could be that, after that visit, all the rest of the time our Aunt Louise was alive, we traveled to Michigan to see her. We also dreaded one aspect of those trips:  we knew those old ladies were gonna hug us first thing. 

No great stories of huckleberries with this experience but definitely a childhood memory never forgotten, mostly anyway. 

Can't imagine hooking up a tractor and hay wagon and heading up the Schweitzer Road for huckleberries these days when berry pickers reportedly now pay a fee to go to a designated picking site.     

Ahhh, the good ol' days and family fun, 'cept for that hugging! 

Happy Wednesday.