The Daily Grind

 Usually up between 4 and 5 am after a night of wild dreams about still trying to get through high school or wondering where I left my old dog Jack.  Probably need to cut back on those sleeping pills.   Next challenge is getting a fire going, pot of coffee and running the cats out of the house after feeding them.   By 7 am record the rainfall from the last 24 hours.   For this November we received 6.26 inches, almost making the 30 year average of 6.83 inches.   Going into December the next 7 day forecast is for more freezing morning fog and temperatures not much over 40 degrees.   Sure does not help with the mental outlook during these times of isolation.   By 9 am I help Celia get ready for the day and quickly thereafter it is lunch time.   It is either left overs or a pot of soup put together in the morning.    The daily exercise program consists of walking down to the wood shed to keep the fire going or patching potholes on our gravel road when I drive down to the mailbox at the highway.    Once or twice a week drive to town for groceries, prescription refills and replenish the beer supply.    The daily chores of washing clothes, and some sort of house work is never ending.    By 3 pm it is break time as I sit in my old easy chair that Celia wanted me to get rid of years ago.   Time to read a book, think about how my ancestors survived winter on their farm in the Ottawa Valley of Ontario in the 1800's and usually fall asleep for an hour waking to notice it has turned dark outside.   Time to feed cats, make dinner, watch news and learn all the great things mankind has accomplished for the day.   Hopefully to bed by 9 pm wondering what kind of dreams are in store for the night.   

Better throw another log on the fire

A Family Story

 In this story I have mixed some family history with some genealogy.   I must have been 8 or 9 years of age when we made this trip.    

Happy Thanksgiving!

CANADA

 

It took four days to drive from our home in Willows, California to Lacombe, Alberta where my dad was born in 1922.  It was in the 1950’s when we made the trip to a family reunion.   It was all two lane highways back then, no freeways.  The first day we drove to Bend, Oregon, then to Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho and by the third day to Fort MacCleod, Alberta before arriving at our destination at Gull Lake.    Here we stayed in a cabin that did have electricity, but no indoor plumbing, so an outhouse was available and a hand pump outside for water.   My grandparents were there to meet us since they had taken a plane from their home in southern California to Edmonton where they rented a car.   Over the next week there were different relatives coming and going.  Some were descendants of our second great grandfather, Patrick Burke and Bridget (Gallagher), who had migrated from Ireland sometime in the 1840’s to the Ottawa Valley in Ontario where he took up farming.    According to a census in 1851 Patrick’s father, Michael Burke was living with them.  He was born 1777 in Ireland and died 1852 at the age of 75. 

Patrick and Bridget had 10 children, including our great grandfather Edward born 1849, who later married Mary Kenney born 1860 to John Kenny and Ellen Gallagher (not sure the relationship between Ellen and Bridget, maybe cousins?).   Edward and Mary had 9 children and possibly two more that died in infancy.  They migrated to Iowa, then to Nebraska where our grandfather, John Raphael or as we remember him as J. Ray was born in 1894.  Sometime between 1900 and 1910 Edward and family migrated to Alberta to work on the railroads being developed from western Alberta into British Columbia.   Our great uncle Dan was born 1896 in Nebraska.   He told the story about working as a clerk for the railroads as they constructed the railroad down the Frasier River canyon in British Columba.   The crew lived in train cars and one car was used as the kitchen.   He said venison was the primary source of meat as deer were shot from the train.    Ahead of the train was a steam shovel digging out the grade to lay the tracks.   He would describe landslides that would push the shovel into the river and the train would back up to allow another shovel to be moved to the front and continue digging.  

Our grandmother, Agnes (Caldwell) and her family also migrated from Alabama to work on the railroads and sometime around 1915 she met our grandfather and married.   Their first born son, Vernon was born in Alberta, but later died of pneumonia at the age of 11 in southern California.   My grandmother still had two living siblings at the time of the reunion, a sister named Mary and a brother named Gavin.    Mary and her husband had a farm near Red Deer where we stayed one night.  Here again no indoor plumbing.   The outhouse was near the back door of the house as I remember.   Great uncle Gavin was in the hospital in the small community of Rimbey after having a heart attack.   He was not allowed visitors inside, so my dad, grandfather and great uncle Dan talked to him through the window next to the bed he was in.     I remember they all were smoking cigarettes, including the patent as they talked.   Gavin and his wife Anna lived on the family farm near Rimbey.    Anna had all of us over for dinner, with roast beef, potatoes, carrots, green beans and much more, all from her garden.   Gavin Caldwell died a few years later.

In 1968 my grandmother and I went back to Alberta by plane and visited Anna at her small home in Rimbey, since she had sold the farm.  The only others relatives living in Alberta were members of the Foy family in Edmonton, offspring of James Foy and Jane (Burke), an older sister to our grandfather.   There are other descendants of the Patrick Burke family living in Saskatchewan.   The rest of us are scattered in the states. 

Forest Roads and Trails

 This is a brief history on the development of forest roads and trails on the National Forests for your reference as we burrow in for the winter. 

Some of the first roads and trails on the National Forests were constructed by homesteaders, trespassers doing illegal logging, mining and ranchers grazing their livestock.    In the 1930’s some of these roads and trails were improved upon and new ones constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC).   Most of these served for access between fire lookouts and remote camps used by early fire and trail crews on horseback.    In 1964 Congress enacted the Forest Roads and Trails Act (FR&T Funds) which appropriated money for the development of roads and trails for recreation, fire protection and to access forest resources.    

With the increase in timber harvest after WWII roads were being constructed by timber purchasers to access timber sale areas.   They were originally located by the purchaser or logger and approved by the Forest Service with some changes to location to avoid damage to other forest resources prior to construction.   Most of these roads were not rocked and only used during the dry season.   As the timber on the easy ground was being harvested sometime in the 1960’s the Forest Service took over location and design of specified roads for timber sales that were on steeper slopes and harder to access.    These roads were located and designed by Forest Service engineers with cost estimates and were paid by the timber sale.    The purchaser of the timber sale was given credit for constructing and reconstruction of roads.  This credit was applied as payment for timber removed.    Specifications required disposal of slash by removal, burying or piling for burning from the top of the cut slope to bottom of the fill slope, known as the road prism.   All the trees within this prism are considered right of way timber included in the timber sale as a separate subdivision and usually was the first timber to be removed from the sale.  Culverts were required and installed with proper compaction.  A base course of rock was applied with four to six inches of crushed rock for the surface.    It was expensive, making some sales deficit and subsidized by the tax payers, especially in Alaska where much rock was required.    Road maintenance was performed by purchasers and/or by deposits made by the purchaser based on the amount of timber hauled per mile over a road system.  This collected money was used by the Forest Service to perform maintenance either by using contractors or by Forest Service road crews. 

According to the Forest Service Road Management website as of March 1, 2000 there were 380,000 miles of roads on the National Forests and used by 15,000 log trucks per day, down by 27,000 from 1990 when there were 42,000 log trucks per day.   

Today there is a small fraction of log hauling compared to the past, and therefore much less money is collected for road maintenance and most of that is for the maintenance of primary forest roads.   Some of the secondary roads have fallen to disrepair, closed to the public for resources protection or slowly being overgrown by encroaching vegetation.   Most trail maintenance work now is done by volunteers.  

Cabin Fever

 As of this morning, my Gmail account has 4,403 messages in the inbox.  The first message this morning is an ad to regrow thicker, longer, stronger, healthier hair.   No doubt I could probably use some of that.   Most of the emails deal with health issues, the latest news, writing classes, ads from publishers, and much political stuff, all wanting money in the end.   After checking all the items for deletion during my morning inventory much of it and more is replaced by the next day.   During these uncertain times, I really appreciate the stories many of you have shared.  As winter sets in along with the increasing spread of the virus cabin fever will be our next great challenge.    Nature is the best place to retreat from all the worldly madness and to share a few stories sure helps.

Keep writing!

Political Chaos leading to a shortage of TP

 Celia's daughter in Portland informed us there is a run on toilet paper in Portland, because of political unrest.  Could lead to a national crisis.  Anybody here see a shortage or panic buying?

Better stock up!

Lewis & Clark

 The Lewis and Clark expedition is the best adventure story I have ever read.   I think I have read every book on the subject.  Two books that stand out the most are Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose and the Journals of Patrick Gass, the oldest member of the party.  He became one of three sergeants in the party and lived into his 90's making him the longest living member of the expedition.   Another man that survived it all was John Colter, who left the expedition on the return trip and went back west with two trappers they met on the Missouri River.   His story is sketchy, but he did survive after spending two years, mostly by himself and became a farmer in Missouri after his return.   In summary if it had not been for the kindness of the different Indian tribes they would have never completed the expedition.  

After reading all these books it opened up more reading on the fur traders and mountain men that followed, some had been members of the Lewis and Clark party.   Only one other man covered more of the western frontier than Lewis and Clark and that was Jedediah Smith.   More interesting reading during these uncertain times.