cheese and crackers

None of the facts were clear until Uncle Cal died. His obituary stated he was born in Wisconsin but later moved with his family to Idaho where his father, William Miller, had taken a job with Kraft Cheese. Esther and William had two boys, Willis and Calvin, when they packed up and moved west. My mother was born after the family had settled in a verdant valley named Rockland where they raised cows, as did the Millers and the Rosins they’d left behind. Watercress grew on the banks of the Snake River nearby. William had been a valued member of the team establishing the first dairy facility in southeastern Idaho for the Kraft Corporation in the 1930’s.
Growing up I heard the name Colby only as it referenced Aunts Emma, Anna and Hortense or cousin Minnie Mae. My mother’s jaw would tighten when she mentioned the Millers back in Wisconsin. William had disgraced them and ruthlessly altered the history of his wife and children by walking off the Rockland farm one day during the Depression. Decades later word trickled down that he had another family in California.

Even more decades have passed leaving only the famous orange cheese, made in Wisconsin since 1882, as a reminder of what might have been. I’ve kept an image of my grandfather wrapped in the cooler drawer of my heart. He’s in the field behind the plow pulled by his faithful mule when he stops to watch a flock of geese pass overhead. Then he drops the reins and follows them.

Visit Sunday Scribblings and read more stories prompted by 'cheese.'

'Beige! Just my color.'

The color du jour for True Colours Thursday is the ever present, ever lonely color b-e-i-g-e and at first I was ready to give up before even started this post. Like our fearless host of TCT, I'm asking, 'when is cream, tan, off white, etc. beige?' So, being the Queen of waffling**, I get to pick what looks like beige to me. . .hmm, waffles. . .yum!

I think I have covered all the angles--animal, vegetable & mineral as well as dubious cat traits. Hopefully your eye will catch a bit of beige lurking in each shot.

[title quote attributed to Elsie DeWolfe]

**

'Ah the pity youth is wasted on the young.'

Y is ABC Wednesday's letter of the week-- impressing on me the youth or young among us. . .
a vigilant and petulant mother Wood Duck and her 12 (I counted them!) young ducklings


or young Wisconsin dairy calves, adorably inquisitive,

soon-to-be young turtles when this lady get finished laying her eggs. I caught her resting from the digging process--note the symmetry of the design on her shell as well as her footprints behind her. Amazing daylong--certainly exhausting--procedure.


And finally a young daughter of a mother running a race on the 4th of July (when she saw her mom pass by she had a sobbing meltdown because she wanted to go along!)
Many more Y photos are waiting for your visit to Mrs Nesbitt or to join in the fun!

abc Wednesday : love is in the air

This week's letter for ABC Wednesday is K for. . .

Kiss

I took this photo of these adorably affectionate creatures at the Minnesota State Fair last summer in St. Paul. [After spending time wandering around the stalls and petting as many cows as possible, my daughter Audrey hasn't eaten beef since .]

X O X O

For more photos of the letter 'k' check in with Mrs Nesbitt here.

read at your own risk: pouting & cuteness ahead

Its hotter than Hades here in Minnesota and I, for one, am wondering what July and August will bring. Our 3 rms, view apt has fans running at high speed, drying out our eyes and Pashka-dog is pacing from one room to another looking for a cool wall. Plus, I don't like to sweat if I don't have to. There, my rant is complete. Sorry you had to read this. . .
My mother's family is from Colby, Wisconsin -- home of that round, mild cheese. Her parents moved to Idaho in the 1920's and farmed in Rockland, where her dad sold milk to Kraft. Grandma never returned to Colby. Years later I took my mom on a trip to Wisconsin to visit relatives she'd only heard about. She was not surprised at the lovely rolling hills and lush farmland because her mother had continued to remember how beautiful it was in Wisconsin. Grandma was a school teacher before she married and moved to Idaho. We found the hillside where Clovernook School once sat. Walking up the hillside, my heart and my head were full to overflowing as I imagined young Esther Rosin teaching in a one room school house in that small farm community.

The reason for this history lesson is because I believe I've inherited dairy cow farmer's genes. My secret dream that I've always been cautious to share is that I've wanted to have a cow or two and learn to make cheese. Wouldn't that be lovely to travel on a grant to Europe and apprentice with a cheese maker? It hasn't worked out yet, but I'm not ruling out any future possibility. In the meantime I love to visit the Jersey and Guernsey cows at the state fair. So I was moved to tears when Dave showed me these photos he's taken especially for me at a dairy farm in, you guessed it, Wisconsin, where he worked at a motorcycle rally this weekend. And, these Jersey calves were for sale! No lie.

Sometimes grace comes with big brown eyes and wet noses.