Consumnes River Daze

Our house on Sandridge Road held many pleasant aspects to our little ones growing up. The vineyard of munchable grapes, a terraced lawn that a howling father could be pushed down in the red wagon, Cece’s play forts, Winnie the Pooh’s house, the old, rusty 1934 Chevy truck (sorry, Grandpa, had to get that in!). One of the biggest draws, however, was swimming down on the Consumnes River.

The trek to the swimming spot was about four miles long, down the canyon on a somewhat precipitous road, that I was told was an old stagecoach route to Placerville from Grizzly Flat. Our old van hit every pothole and bump in that road, I am sure. There was even a spot that had to be filled in and shored up occasionally where a slide had narrowed the road to almost impassibility. Getting there was just the beginning of the excitement. The river, at the point where the road crossed in a ford, was shallow and swift which is why it had been chosen as a bridge-less crossing in the old days.

A back eddy had created a nice pool and sandy beach that was ideal for our intentions. Cece, in her svelt blue swimsuit-clad figure and Dan in his roto shape and red swim trunks would frolic happily in the sand and wade in the pool defying the Summer heat. Xochitl came down with us when she visited and we floated scrap-wood boats into the current, letting them go and wondering if they would float all the way down to her home in Galt. Later, when we came back from Idaho, Becca made her debut at the swimmin’ hole in soakers and diapers and splashed little fudgy legs and arms in the cool water. After the Lopez ladies came to live at Sandridge, all of them and all of us filled the van to overflowing but made it down and back in style. Rosa kept pushing the limits of the “don’t go past” boundry, eagerly and bravely wanting to savor new territory.

Dan had near death experience once when his little feet went out from under him and he slipped under the waters of the shallow “wading” pool. Luckily, I was a step away and could simply reach under the water and lift him back up. He neither spluttered nor cried, but quickly went back to his serious mud daubing pursuits. He seemed nonplussed and it did not deter him from future visits. All-in-all, my memories of the river are warm, golden ones full of laughter and fun.
9-10-2010

Gardens, Then and Now

I am watching my wife out the window and as I write she is humming and busy in the garden. So much of our life together has had a garden involved. One of my first pre-marriage, memories of her is in the back yard of Ronnie Way, red bandana around her hair, cultivating the rock-hard ground in the back for a small garden. Millet’s famous painting, “The Woman With The Rake” would aptly fit the description.

On Sandridge Road, our garden was huge! Long bountiful rows of corn and beans, squash plants and tomato plans by the tens were loaded with goodies. The soil was so perfect, sandy, rich loam. Rototilling it into a fine powder was a snap and one of Dan’s and Cece’s favorite rides was on the handles of our big Sears tiller. Later, while I watered the trenches between the corn both of them would love to play hide and seek, back and forth, in and out. The eight foot high deer fence did NOTHING to keep them out and we often saw them from our wndow, jumping over it as if it was a joke.

Yakima, too, was very fertile and we had big gardens over on the east side of the house. One year we grew a whole ten foot square of sunflowers in a rectangle, gathering them up at the top and making a sunflower house. Twining morning glories that grew naturally, made it a colorful structure. Becca loved to go in there and considered it an impromptu playhouse. We had many (too many?) tomato plants and the kids were great at gathering and executing the tomato horn worms that would eventually show up (we did not spray). Boy, the chickens LOVED the hornworms…we had learned that from our little plot in the back yard on K Street in Davis.

Going back, out of order to Davis, the years we lived on L Street, we had a bionic garden, the result of rabbit poo brought over from the University animal area. (We always wondered if the miraculous qualities of that poo did not come from the rabbits being housed near the ill –fated nuclear beagle experiment. ) There are pictures of our children dwarfed by beans and corn and we grew immense pumpkins, one being large enough (a picture exists to prove this) that Dan could, and DID, get inside.

So now watching Kate in the garden, little suburban spot that it is, I am reminded of our larger, rural gardens and the fun we had with our kids, as they and the veges grew up together.
9-11-2010