Around The Farm

My camera is working again, so I've resumed taking photos around the house and farm. As always, the "hottest spot in town" is the kitchen corner, with its floor pillows and dog beds:

 And the second most popular spot in the house may be the yoga mats. They were put there because Seamus could no longer walk on the hard floors without slipping and falling, but they've since become playthings for the kittens and sleeping places for all the pets. In this photo, Sammy was demonstrating his total trust of gigantic old Seamus. I was nervous, but Sammy's faith in his big buddy proved valid:

 Little Caspar, when he isn't running full speed all over the house, likes to sleep in the pet bed atop the bureau:


 The sheep farmers up the road had a bale and a half of expensive, good quality hay which their sheep refused to eat. They brought it down to me and dumped it in my pasture in three loads, hoping my animals would eat it:


My animals balked a bit at first, then began eating it. It lasted seven days, helping make a crisis at the end of the season less likely. I am still worried about running out of hay this spring, however:

 Ah, the look of green grass, something we can no longer see because it's now all covered with ice and snow:

 The two miniature horses' hooves began to get sore again, but when the pasture grass stopped growing, they had to eat hay. I got their hooves trimmed and they again began to heal:

 Blue still likes to recline on the wasted hay when he gets the chance:

 The white fantail pigeons raised two end-of-season babies to maturity:

 It's getting kind of crowded in the the pigeons' room now. I may have to sell some birds this spring:

 The little hens are molting but I still get an occasional egg:

 Notice that brown Easter Egger hen at the top of the picture. She's molting so much that she looks like she's going bald. She needs to hurry up and grow new feathers because it's cold, cold, cold here!

Popcorn Wagon Update

Yesterday I posted the story of my grandmother's popcorn wagon in McMinnville, Oregon. When my sister and I were visiting as children, we'd often spend a few hours with her (Mom Jenkins), working in the popcorn wagon. Here are some recent photos of the beloved popcorn, all restored and residing in the McMinnville, Oregon fire department building:

When Grandma retired, the wagon was purchased by a museum in the capital city of Salem. But they eventually removed it from their collection and it was saved by the McMinnville Fire Department and has been displayed there ever since:

The door was at one end and the popcorn cooker at the other. You can see the cooker at the top of the photo. When the popcorn was done, that overhead "pot" dumped onto the steel tray beneath it. There, butter and salt were added. If I remember correctly, that tray was heated so the popcorn stayed hot until it was scooped up into bags:

This, I think, is a new sign, but it's an exact copy of the original. I know because I checked the old photos:

She also sold roasted peanuts. I can't remember if she roasted them right there in the wagon but I think so:

The popcorn wagon is now on permanent display in the McMinnville, Oregon fire station and brought out for field days and other special occasions:

My sister and I used to take turns accompanying our grandmother to the popcorn wagon when we were kids. There certainly wasn't much room inside, but there was a lot of love, both from Grandma and the customers, so it was a wonderful experience. And that's not to mention all the free popcorn, caramel corn, peanuts and Lifesavers:

Everything inside was shipshape, with a place for everything and everything in its place. Fresh popcorn was popped right there, but popcorn balls and caramel corn were made at home in the evenings:

The sign says "operated" by the McMinnville Volunteer Fire Department. Apparently they still use it to make popcorn for special events:

Our grandmother was a divorced woman with six children during rough economic times. She was an entrepreneur of the first order with her popcorn wagon and boarding house. She knew not only how to survive but to thrive. She lived to be 95. I come from sturdy roots:

The Popcorn Wagon

This is another post from the past, beginning with an old photo of the family's antique popcorn wagon:

Now, this is not just any old-time popcorn wagon. This is the one which was operated by my grandmother on a downtown street corner of McMinnville, Oregon for thirty years. This is the popcorn wagon from which my family received Christmas gifts every year of caramel corn and red and green popcorn balls. This is where my sister and I sometimes used to spend the day when we visited Oregon for the summer. This popcorn wagon has lots of memories for me and for my family. This photo was taken in 1955:

My grandmother, a divorced mother of six, supported her family by selling popcorn and by renting out apartments in her large, old Victorian home. It was a family business and in the evening, we might be expected to help out mixing up huge batches of caramel corn in the giant copper kettle (that's my sister on the stairway watching):

Because we only visited in the summertime, we never got to help make popcorn balls. But we certainly helped (well, we were young so perhaps I should say we watched, not helped) with the making of caramel corn. This is my mother in 1955, putting it into bags after it'd been spread out to cool:

My sister and I searched through all our old photo albums for photos and newspaper clippings. "Mom Jenkins Knows Her Corn" was a favorite sign in downtown McMinnville, Oregon for thirty years. This article was from the Oregon Journal in 1955:

And it became known widely across the state from human interest stories which appeared in many cities' newspapers. This was from the Oregon Statesman in 1964:

In 1966, my grandmother retired and sold her popcorn wagon:

It was loaded up and hauled to a museum in the State Capital of Salem, Oregon:

That's McMinnville's J.C. Penny store in the background. Just around the corner was the town's only movie theater. She made it a point to be making popcorn when the movie crowd was coming or going so that the aroma would draw them over to buy a bag of REAL popcorn (and she also roasted peanuts):

My mother, Viola, working the popcorn wagon somewhere in the 1938-1944 range:

I found this City Vendor's License from 1952 interesting, mostly because it cost forty dollars. That was a lot of money back then, especially for an elderly lady with a big family to support:

Eventually, the museum in Salem decided it no longer wanted to display the old popcorn wagon. Local civic groups in McMinnville rescued it and it is now displayed proudly in the City Fire Department Building. But I'll always remember it sitting next to J.C. Penny in downtown McMinnville, Oregon:

My Oregon Ancestors

My camera is broken and in for repair, so I thought I'd share some beloved old photos of my mother's family and, in the next two days, the family popcorn wagon. I've posted them before, but it's been years ago. The family originally settled in eastern Oregon, where most of these photos were taken. This was the man who became my grandfather, Charles Jenkins. He was 24 when the photo was taken but lived to be 87:

The boy on the left is again my grandfather, and the girl is his older sister, Edythe. The picture was taken by a traveling photographer in 1895:

The extended family. The only two I knew were the man on the right, again my grandfather, and the woman holding the reins, my grandmother. This was taken near Fox Valley, Oregon in 1913:

Lillie Shanks Moore and Connor Oliver Moore, my great grandparents, in 1897. The traveling photographer took photos in a tent, which is why you can see grass at their feet:

Circa 1898, left to right: Gladys Bessie Moore (my grandmother) at 6 years old, her brother Claude Moore at 2 years old, and her sister Inez Moore at 4 years old:

My maternal grandparents in 1910: Gladys Bessie Jenkins (nee Moore) and Charles Amos Jenkins, with their first born, John:

Gladys Bessie Moore again, this time in 1908, one year before she got married. She had ridden down to town on a horse to have the traveling photographer take her picture and was quite upset that her dress was wrinkled and her hair mussed from the horse ride:

A comparatively recent photo, this one from 1934. Gladys Viola Jenkins (my mother), her younger brother, Claude, and a neighbor:

Pleasant Hill School in Mt. Vernon, Oregon about 1914. The school was way up in the hills and two of my mother's older siblings went to school there before the family moved to another town:

The Fox Valley, Oregon, Sunday School in 1909. My grandmother went to church there:

Zella Viola Jenkins, my maternal grandfather's younger sister in 1895. She died in the great Heppner, Oregon flood of 1903. You can read about the flood here. My grandfather was out of town on that day because he was on a date with the woman who became his wife and my grandmother:

November Pets At Home

November has been cold and blustery, just right for staying indoors with the house pets. They make a house feel like home, as this picture reminds me. Daphne and Bugsy were watching me while I was at the computer. I turned around and saw them, which brought a smile to my face:

Ruby and Meghan, the resident guinea pigs, don't interact with me much but I stop and pet them every morning when I clean their cage:

The dogs sleep with me. Usually all four little dogs are on the bed and Seamus is on the big, green floor pillow, but sometimes Jack sprawls out there and Seamus uses the smaller floor pillows:

Daisy and Sammy have made friends. She doesn't want to play much, but she's a great cuddle-buddy. When Sammy wants to run wild and play, Caspar is always available:

Bugsy likes to cuddle with the dogs. In this case, he was happy to be Clover's pillow:

Daisy, Sammy and Daphne:

Sammy loves this bed and can often be found there. It's one place where he trusts me to pet him, though I'm still going slowly on his socialization lest I spook him:

Jack loves to back into the corner by my computer chair. He can watch me from there without getting run over by my chair-on-wheels, but he does leave a dirty smudge on baseboard:

Sammy and Seamus napped together on a yoga mat, and Jack was considering joining them:

Usually it's only Bugsy who sleeps with the dogs in the kitchen corner, but Sammy is beginning to get the idea now too:

I couldn't find Caspar one day and began to panic. I finally found him on a chair cushion beneath the kitchen table. He was sound asleep and oblivious to my calls. Playing with Sammy can exhaust a kitten:

Clover has begun sleeping on top of Seamus like she used to do some years ago. It seems to be an arrangement which makes them both happy: