A Life in the Redwood Empire: July 2012

They say time flies when you're having fun -- it's been almost a year since I've written -- so I guess I've been having lots of fun...(actually, I have been).

Too Much Free Time?

Where to begin?

DOG: Well, Topper turned 4 years old in January. He has become a wonderful, lovable, well-mannered pooch. The transformation from that first year, when he bounced off the walls and did not hear one word I said, to now, being Topper Grown-Up Dog, is amazing. He still often races with wild abandon from room to room, leaving 125 year-old soft fir floors the worse for wear in his wake. He still hears imaginary visitors walking up the front steps several times a day. He still freaks out when Sam the Cat dares to stroll along the back fence. He still has his allergies and itches, but enjoys his special diet and takes his meds. So while things aren't idyllic, they are definitely under control. He loves to go to his day-care/camp. When we get there, he drags me through the door. That place is heaven magnified a hundred times for a wire fox terrier. While there, all the dogs get to play together, so his usual at-home slower paced day is put aside. And later, when I pick him up to go home, he curls up in the back seat of the car and, plumb tuckered out, falls asleep within minutes

Yes, We've Been Talking about You

ANCESTRY: Talking about how fast time flies: I've spent many days this past year working on our family's history. Not only have we gotten from way back then to right now in a flash, but also, when working on this, it seems it's quickly 2 a.m. each day before I know it.

Back in the 1980's I was fortunate enough to have asked aunts and uncles lots of questions about what they remembered of their older relatives. They relayed stories and found old photos and clippings for me. That, then, formed the basis for the present research. And now, through ancestry.com I've met 2nd and 3rd cousins, of whom I previously knew nothing, who are doing ancestry research also. We are able to collaborate on common family lines, and it's been very rewarding.

Jerome, the son of one 2nd cousin, has built an amazing documented family tree with over 60,000 (!) people in it and has shared a huge amount of his research with me. Joan, the wife of another 2nd cousin, had written three times in the 1970's to my (unresponding) aunt asking for information about her husband's family. I came across those letters after my aunt died in 2000 and now, more than 30 years later, I was able to find this lady, and we've corresponded. Joan is a genealogist (among other things) in real life and has had books published of her family's histories. Also, in the meantime, as a gift to her husband, she did a very comprehensive search of his ancestry and produced a genealogical report going back several generations. And...since her husband and I have the same great-grandparents, his family is my family too! Jerome and Joan have each traveled to towns where our ancestors had lived, and visited the town halls, newspaper offices, churches where the relevant 18th and 19th century records were kept. What a trove of information they have unearthed, recorded, and shared with me. Thank you, Jerome, and thank you, Joan!

I did my own sleuthing in Bavaria last spring. I spent a day at the Catholic Church Central Archives in Würzburg and poured through meticulously-kept microfiche of pages from 18th and 19th century church ledgers from St. Stephen's Pfarrei (parish) in Wülfershausen-an-der-Saale where I found birth, marriage, and death records of my maternal grandmother's family going back to the 1700's (until the German script turned into an even older version I was unfamiliar with). Other days, I tramped around cemeteries, finding headstones of long-lost relatives indicating the dates and places of their lives.

The walled churchyard of old St. Stephen's Kirche in Wülfershausen-an-der-Saale in the foreground.
The steeple in the photo is the newer Church of St. Vitus in the middle of the village.

I must tell you about my sister-in-law's branch of the tree. I've been able to trace her family back directly to Gaius Julius Caesar I, II, and III, by way of a woman, Flavia Maximiana Fausta, the mother of a certain King of Brittany, born in a.d. 305, named...wait for it... Conan (the Barbarian, no less!). (That explains a lot! lol)

GARDEN: What else has been happening during the last 12 months? Almost went overseas again at Christmas, but didn't. Been mainly hanging around the house. Spending lots of time on the "new" one year-old deck and in the "new" two year-old renovated shed/studio.

Our Favorite Spot to Enjoy Fresh Northern California Air

I do a lot of my writing and ancestry work in the shed. Topper snoozes on the daybed (and makes room for me at times) while I play Ernest Hemingway, John Updike, or whoever writing whatever.

Nap Time in the Shed

But, of course, as I'm wont to daydream and thereby gaze out the windows, I oft see things that need some attention in the gardens. And then the day becomes a little of this and a little of that (all unplanned)! Here are some of this year's spring and summer blooms, borne of that puttering: