August 2014 – Marsha Ingrao

WP Weekly Photo Challenge: Texture in Edna Valley

Vince and I discovered tons of textures in this gem of a “Farm Stay” called Old Edna, the location of an artistic townsite in beautiful Edna Valley, CA. They offer their guests fresh ranch eggs compliments of “chicken liver coop.” The cottage we saw has a beautiful, functional kitchen.

The texture-laden tree house offered hospitality to some, but not to everyone.

I wonder if the sign applied to girl spiders.

The Bluebelly Barn welcomed one and all. In 1887 this was Tognazzini Dairy Barn.

We arrived at closing time. As we walked by this little building, out popped a flap. The owner, Pattea Torrence, said, “I’m Old Edna. Would you like a little tour of one of the houses? I’m getting them ready for guests, but you look like you are having such fun taking pictures. I hope you don’t mind that the bed isn’t made yet.”

We couldn’t resist such a friendly offer.

The texture of the gate highlights the romantic aura, but hides the textures of the house.

First, we visited the 1897 DeSolina House, the perfect bridal suite. Here Pattea displayed amazing uses for garage sale finds. My favorite was the copper table top headboard and overhead light. She mixed textures in this display in ways I would never have dreamed if I’d had ten million years to think it over.

My favorite little place was a Gypsy wagon her dad built for her mother, Pi Pi (pie pie). Pattea’s father taught her that “the bond of romance can come in the form of structure.” I fell in love with the structure and its story of the many textures of love which it bore.

Waning sunlight adds a romantic texture to the cottage, but when Pattea opened the door, we stepped into another world of competing textures.

Edna Valley Texture 7R — See Kalev’s little tail in the bottom? She wanted to add her own texture to this post. 🙂

The auto-focus setting of my camera couldn’t bring all the varied textures into focus at the same time, but concentrated on the fabric lining the post. I don’t know that I could have chosen either.

This was such wonderful experience, I know we will go back to Old Edna.

For more texture displays, go back to last week’s challenge.

Every Day You Learn Something – Sometimes It’s New

“In three words I can sum up what I’ve learned about life: it goes on.” Robert Frost

I’ve had an amazing week learning about our little town and the surrounding area. There is only one book in the library about Woodlake, published in 1971. I have a digitized copy of that book. This week I had the privilege of thumbing through the original handwritten manuscript of that little book housed in a 1950s-style blue canvas three-ring binder.

Grace Pogue ~ Within The Magic Circle copy-1

I have the original manuscript of her other book, The Swift Seasons, in a little blue canvas binder as well, which I am going to digitize starting today. I get excited about the little things I’m learning or at least surmising. Yesterday on one of my interviews Robert took me outside to his back yard.

“Want to see the old Antelope School?” he asked me. “This is it. It used to be on Grandma Fudge’s property. Then it moved to Blair’s property, and then they brought it on skids here.”

Antelope School

Robert and I shared information back and forth for several hours. “This is so much fun!” he told me.

What I know about Antelope School is that it was first built in 1870. Woodlake erected a new Antelope School in 1895. So would this have been the new 1895 school, or the 1870 one?

Antelope school3

The builder didn’t date the school anywhere, least of all the floor boards, but look how wide they are. Keep in mind that we cut down big trees back in the 1800s. This picture came from Linda and Bob Hengst.

Hengst1-42aR

When I came back from Linda’s house, Vince said, “What were you doing all that time? You were over there for three hours!”

In the evening I started the boring work. It takes 30 seconds to copy each picture, but I have someone to talk to the whole time. I copied about 45 of Linda and Bob’s pictures, and 75 from Robert. At home it takes about 1 minute to create a TIFF file for each picture, and another minute or so to resize it for my blog so I can see what I’m writing about as I write each caption. Finally I pick which pictures I know enough about to caption for the day, and that takes at least 20 to 30 minutes to write 50-70 words. You wouldn’t think it would take so long, but here’s the deal.

I wasn’t there when it happened. I don’t know the people, usually the place, because they aren’t around any more, or the time.
Usually I just have a name to go by, if that on the picture – that’s about 2 words.
Sometimes I have a little story. That’s about 20 words, if I’m lucky.
I have tons of books about things like trains and floods in Tulare County, Native Americans, and the general history of Tulare County. I have an 1892 Atlas of each township in Tulare County with the names of all the property owners at that time.
I have notes from all the people I’ve interviewed, and sometimes audio files.
I have a few newspaper articles that are photocopied, but all the archives from the Woodlake Echo have been destroyed, so all those pictures and original articles are gone.

Hengst1-41R — What do you think Abe and Carl discussed? I’ll give you a clue. It has to do with college.

So every picture is a bit of a puzzle piece, and I do my best to sort through my evidence, and write the best 70 words possible for each picture. As of last night I had finished 109 or about 60% of the required 180-200 pictures. As I talk to more people, I’ll have to narrow it down, and throw some of them out, I’m sure.

A friend asked me what I do all day, and how much time I take writing my book (probably wondering why I hadn’t been calling her much :)). It seems like I don’t do much, but I don’t seem to have much time to do tons of other things. I have lots to talk about – as long as you are interested in Woodlake’s history. Otherwise, I’m kind of dull. I chose the think I’m focused. 🙂

Marsha climbingcr

You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough – Mae West

Weekly Photo Challenge: ZigZag

California mountain road contain numerous “hogbacks” as my friend, Darlene, calls the switchbacks on the way to Sequoia National Park. It turns out that those same kinds of roads exist on the Coastal Redwood Highway as well. This park called Mystery Trees was about where our truck’s worn out transmission tired of lugging our new trailer. oregon trip 201320130915_0021138 We rented a car and enjoyed the “break.” Not only did the roads and the paths twist and turn, so did the trees, providing beauty and shade. oregon trip 201320130914_1105230R When we did get going again, the fog wanted us to slow down more than the zigzags. SFW Wildflower class20130420_93R These zigzags are closer to home – to anyone’s home. I never tire of the zigzag shapes of tree branches. These trees are in an educational property called Circle J Ranch owned by Tulare County Office of Education where I worked. It is close to a tiny town called Springville, east of Porterville, CA.

1969 floodR

I apologize for the quality of this picture. I heard that someone zig zagged on their responsibilities to posterity, and put the archives in the trash instead of the scanning machine, so this is the best picture I have. In this newspaper picture it was the Kaweah (Kuh wee’ uh) River that zagged.

The headwaters for the Kaweah River begin their zig zag course out of the Great Western Divide where mountain summits rise to over 12, 000 feet. The North Fork, which is just east of us begins at 9,000 feet. If the river could go down the mountain in a straight line, the Kaweah River would drop in excess of 2 vertical miles in a distance of 30 linear miles. The Kaweah River loses the same altitude as the Colorado River, but is 97% shorter. It is the steepest river in the United States. Even with a dam to control flooding, in 1969 the water zig zagged its own way into the Woodlake Valley. (Tilchen, Mark. Floods of the Kaweah)

To see more entries for this Zig Zag challenge, click the icon above. 🙂

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