Starting over...

I've learned, often the hard way, that it is not wise to count your chicks before they hatch.

I woke up Sunday morning to see that I had missed early mass. Too much late late night reading, perhaps. Went on to get into some projects, and again looked at the clock to realize I had missed the later mass as well.  Certainly not the end of the world.  Prayer can take place anywhere. Oh, and that sense of impending trouble, well that should just put you on notice to pay attention.  

Checked my phone to find a message from the buyer of Dad's house. The buyer was not going to go forward with the purchase. Seems the buyer's house would not come close to selling for what it had been bought for during a big bubble. Would I take less for Dad's house? Told the buyer, who is now not a buyer, I would have to think on that, but considering the amount of time & effort the estate attorney, the realtor, and I had gone through to get my brother to agree to the price we quoted, nope.

Starting over...

Grave tender...

When I was much younger my Granny Mid (Dad's mother) used to take me with her to tend the graves of long gone relatives.  There were several different graveyards to make the rounds in.  It was always interesting to me to hear Granny Mid's stories about people that I never would have known of without her telling me stories about them.

Granny Mid and grandpa, and a baby brother, rest in the shadow of the smallest mountain range in the West. My grandparents have flat headstones, and little brother just had a round disk with a number.  I didn't know til maybe 30 years ago that there was a brother between my younger brother and I.  No one ever talked of him.  He was stillborn. It hurt my heart that he only had a little disk with a number to show that he ever existed. I got him a concrete angel to do over watch for me.

When I lived closer to their graves I would often stop by to make sure the flowers were changed, and the angel that I got for Granny Mid was looking out for her as well. But mostly I would stop for a few minutes to say a pray for baby brother, and talk to Granny while I cleaned around the stones.  I try to bring a happy heart to that place, but sometimes it's tears, and that's ok. Granny would understand. 

Now that I don't live so close to Granny Mid's grave, I have taken to caring for my mother-in-law's grave here. Often during the years since she passed away I've gone by her grave, to check up on it or maybe just check in with her. I miss her, she was my mentor of life and loving. 

She and my FIL have flat headstones. Not quite sure why those bother me, I don't want a headstone, and my ashes will go rest high on that mountain next to the Cowman.  

When I moved up here I started out taking seasonal flowers to my MIL's grave. There is always one yellow rose in the bouquet as that was her favorite flower.  I got her a Madonna, the flowers stay til I change them out with the seasons, but the concrete Madonna disappeared.  I don't know if it was a grave robbing tweaker or the gardeners busted it while mowing. After a while I found a big concrete Angel to place there.  I glued that one down and it stayed for a few years. Last fall it too disappeared. Pretty sure it was the dang grave robbing tweakers, again. When I move away I won't be around to tend her grave, so I got her another Angel to do over watch duty. 

 This one I'm going to epoxy to the top of a concrete post and epoxy that to the surround. I'd really like to hot wire it, but with my luck a family member would be the one that got bit. 

Soon as I find the concrete post and get the Angel up the easier it may be to move on. 

MySean visits his dad, the Cowman, as often as he can, and is having a plague made to mark the area where his ashes are. So there is another grave tender in the family to carry on...

Bits & Pieces...

I've been looking for a place to land in the PNW and finding that they are just as expensive up there as down here. Maybe a travel trailer on a piece of ground will fit my limited budget. Til I find a place, I have been invited to camp out at MySean's. He has a five bedroom house, with only one of the kids still home.

Granddaughter Miss B, caught her first salmon out of Astoria this last weekend. 

One more family wedding this summer! I get to ride up with my BIL & SIL to that one, in Powell Butte. It should be great fun, as most all the family will be there. 

"Sam's" barn

Amy, MySean's wife, has been texting me that "Sam" has been asking about me, and wanted to know when I will be up there again. Sean calls me and says he has had a little talk with Amy about pushing this, and then said, "Mom! I never saw you even talking to "Sam" at the wedding!"  "Well that's because, I only said about two words to him."  LOL, at least my SILs have backed off for the moment...

The house/estate is keeping me busy:
Government: Dad had a death benefit coming from CalPERS. They have been very slow to respond to the repeated requests by the estate's attorney. Finally they called to tell me, they had decided to pay out to my brother and I as next of kin. They went on to say that unless each of us have a specific IRA to roll it into, we will each be charged a 20% TAX on our share. Neither of us have that specific IRA, so we are looking at estate attorney time, and a 40% TAX on $350. The state government needs fix'n.

The power to Dad's shop has gone out. I trouble shooted it as much as I could, but no luck, have an electrician coming next week to figure it out. 
Getting more things sorted, donated to the local Hope Chest. Have setup the online auction house to sell all the furniture, paintings, collections, china, wheel chair, walker, tools, compressor, etc.  I'm only taking the things that I moved up here with, the small hall tree and rolling tool chest that Dad gave me before he passed away.  My timeline is in a state of flux, if I sell all that stuff before I get moved, I will be camping out on the floor.  Oh well, I have good camping gear so it's not really a problem, just another part of the journey.

Last flight...

It was very smokey both here in the valley and in the mountains Monday morning, we took off just a frog's hair above the minimum visibility. Took a little over an hour to reach hunt'n camp, then we circled the area trying to figure the right place to scatter Dad's ashes. Found the area we were looking for and let'r rip.  It went well. 

I was doing fine with all of this til we got back to the house and T gave me a big hug and said, "Thank You for letting me do this for your Dad, he was quite a guy."    Yep, he was...

Dad's place

Fly'n and Hunt'n...

Dad and his best friend are going to be hunt'n together again...

 

We haven't been able to fly Dad up to hunt'n camp since T had a knee surgery, then flying, and off roading commitments all over the West.  Last Thursday worked for both our schedules.  So, I did a bit of checking and figured a way to scatter the ashes.  Most of Dad (saved some for my brother), and two big packages worth of wild flower seeds (suitable for the area) where mixed together, rolled up in a painters cloth, secured, and made ready to fly.

 T picked me up very early as we wanted to miss as much of the heat thermals as possible. Got all the maps plugged in, plane out of the hanger, gear & Dad stowed, fired up the engine, and checked the visibility. T doesn't have a IFR, and the rule around here is 3 miles or less visibility requires a IFR. Had to shutt'r down, as vis was down to 1.5 miles by that time. T was very apologetic, told him not to worry, there was no rush, and I certainly hadn't heard one word out of Dad complaining about the delay. (All the fires around us are not only making the heat worse but the air is horrible as well.) We rescheduled for early Monday morning, and if the TAF METAR maps hold true we should be good to go. Dad will be flying one last time...