Where Are You?

All right, everybody - where are you?  We either need an egg count from Ann, a book review from Dwight,  garden progress from Judy, or a quilt  from Louise.  I'm not sure of my responsibility in all of this, so I'll just post the picture that's a month old that Ron took some days after I was home from the last hospital stint.  Belated thank you all for the lovely posies.

A Little Detour

http://www.youtube.com/MormonTabChoir

I blithly followed the way to the above link and ended up spending a wonderful hour with uplifting music.   And I will be back for more.

News Flash

It is said a picture is worth a thousand words so - 

 Nesting Box #1 with golf ball in tact

 Nesting Box #2 with golf ball tucked in the corner

Nesting Box #3 with golf ball just sitting there

 Nesting Box #4 golf ball with a friend

And the little red hen must be saying, "Hey, I know I left something in here".

Harvest Time

As I am putting the garden to "bed" for the winter, there are still carrots and beets to pull.  However, as I started that little project, I ran across this really big carrot and have come to the conclusion that I will mulch that bed in with straw (thank you for the reminder, Judy) and just pull them as needed.  This carrot will feed us for two to three meals.  It has been a good year in the garden.

And then there are the chickens.  This is what happens when academics get together and try to solve non-academic challenges.  One of Paul's colleagues told him to put golf balls in the nesting boxes to encourage egg production (Huh!) and to teach the chickens to not peck on the eggs when they do appear, so the next morning when I went out to check the nesting boxes and found golf balls nestled in the pine chips, I have to admit my first instinct was to throw them out.  I asked Paul if I could post this on the blog, and he was just a little hesitant.  However, what if it will help?  Chickens are 22 weeks on the 29th so by Thanksgiving there should be something besides golf balls to gather!

As many of you know, we made a quick trip to Glendale, Arizona to go to church with Greg and Kim and to participate in their son's, (Shaun), ordination to the Aaronic Priesthood.  Their ward now has a new, handsome deacon to help out.  While we were there, there wasn't much time for doing anything, but we did manage to drive by where their new temple is being built.  It is about 10 minutes from where Greg and Kim live, and will be such a blessing to the church members in the northwest part of Phoenix.  After getting through so many obstacles, the framework is up.  Needless to say, this is an exciting time for them.

Rainbows, John Deere Tractors, and Squash and Pumpkins

I thought we needed some rainbows.  I know the background is too bright, but bear with me for awhile and I'll change it again.  This John Deere is much fancier than the one that we had, the one Dad constantly had to fix and order parts for and even drive it in to Powell to the John Deere store, and which I spent endless hours driving to rake hay and other field work.

To My Siblings: Penrose Memories

To My Siblings: Do you remember these little gems?

1. Mother: "Hurry up or you'll miss the bus!"
2. The water bucket on the wash stand inside the door with water carried from the pump about 20 yards from the house with the dipper that we all drank from day in and day out.
3. Dad: "Have you cleaned out the chicken house?"  Ghastly.
4. The "slop pail" which took the place of a sink with a garbage disposal into which went all the refuse of the day and which I proudly taught Steve to twirl over his head in the yard without spilling a drop and poor Judy never mastered the scientific principles of centrifugal force.
5. Taking baths in the galvanized round tub, usually Saturday night, but more frequent as I became more fastidious in my advanced high school years.
6. "Mother, Dwight's picking his pimples again."  Well, I didn't have a mirror in my bedroom so I had to sit on the vanity in the girls' bedroom to see the mirror.  Whereupon mother would show up the with mercurochrome bottle and paint red blotches all over my face so I would cease and desist my pimple squeezing.  Tattle tale girls.
7. Who got to read the serials in the Saturday Evening Post first?
8. Crowding six kids and two adults into our Model A Ford, which served as our family transportation until after WWII when we finally got a normal car.  We hunkered down when we got to town because we didn't want anyone else to see us in our historic automobile.
9. Gathering around the stove in the living room on frigid winter mornings when we left our unheated bedrooms to finish getting dressed when it was below zero and the wind howling.;
10. Watching for cars driving down the road near our house so we knew who was going to town and when they came back.
11. Going up to Grandma Wasden's when we absolutely had to make a phone call, whereupon Grandma would ring the number for us, we would listen to see who else was on the line, and then make our phone call.  We didn't have a phone at home until several years after I left home.
12. Who else could have known what it was like to be raised an only boy in a whole house full of girls, with my one little brother being born too late to do me any good?  Unbelievable!

Whatever we six Bloods remember, whatever we did without, whatever we did have, the six of us today are still here, with Judy leading our round-robin phone relays, and occasionally we hear when I reveal a secret that only I knew, "Well, Judy certainly didn't tell me that!"  I don't think any of us have ever left Penrose and we go their often in our dreams and in our quiet moments.

A Letter to My Siblings

Much time has gone by since I updated the stuff I know that may have heretofore gone unnoticed, unappreciated, or just plain ignored, to wit:

1. Ann has abandoned her nucular powered salt and pepper shakers.  Apparently her grandchildren think they are fun toys and so she had to put them away.  Sad.  She did, however, haul me to Costco soon after she bought hers where I foolishly bought my set.  I got back from St. George this year, and the batteries were dead in both the salt and the pepper shakers.  I put about 10 bucks worth of batteries in the salt shaker, which doesn't hold much sea salt anyway.  For pepper, I decided to give my Costco Tellicherry black pepper grinder a mild twist and thereby, voila, I have pepper without firing up my nucular powered pepper shaker with another ten bucks of batteries.  Moral:  if Ann tempts you to buy something, always wait at least two years to see if she has junked, abandoned, or donated it to DI.
2. Ann and Paul have the only bunch of chickens herded by a dog and a cat.
3. Ann's latest is 69 bucks spent on a Panini press with a two sided grill.  A Panini press, for the uninitated, is a press that squooshes decorative ridges into a sandwich, flattening all the stuff in the sandwich to boot.  But, she says, she can turn the grid over and fry an egg.  But from whence does the egg come from?  Not from the herd of chickens in her yard.
4. Louise has recuperated, apparently, from her awful bout with bronchitis or whatever she had, lucky that it wasn't pneumonia.  We assume she is back at her quilt factory churning them out one by one.
5. Judy walks on the wet grass in the middle of the night to ease her burning feet.  When I wake up in the night, I picture her out there, and communicate with her.  This is kind of eerie, ghostlike, sort of.  What will she do in the winter?
6. For those not in on the know, Judy left her Bosch mixer, some 40 years old or so, sitting on the counter mixing bread dough or such when she went in the other room.  Said Bosch decided to dance a jig, dancing itself off the counter, on to the floor, shattering into bits, throwing dough all over the floor, walls, and kitchen.  I asked her what she said.  She said, I said, "damn."  So now she has a spiffy new Bosch and has sense enough to stand watch over it every moment it is on and a huge load of guilt for saying damn.  Mother would have been proud.
7. Liz says her new pace maker is a Model T or Model A variety, whereas Ron has a Cadillac pacemaker.  Is this fair?
8. I have admonished Liz to hurry and get home because I noticed that her fabric stash is not all color coordinated.
9. Steve, from latest reports, is busy making furniture and posting fake pictures of locomotives chugging into Frannie.  I have thought seriously about relocating in Frannie since Steve posted this picture.  For one thing, Frannie is just Fannie with an R.  For two things, Frannie has a lot of urban amenities that Penrose doesn't have and you are closer to Deaver and Cowley, a huge advantage.
10. As for Velna and me, we voted straight party line on our absentee ballot and mailed it today, thus reminding ourselves that we are disenfranchised in the state of Utah where 98% of the vote is Republican no matter who should be elected or not, the magic letter in the ballot box is the letter "R".  We didn't even wait for the rest of the "debates" to decide who to vote for.

I hope this update has been informative and has provided you with the necessary information to guide your lives for the indefinite future.  As further tidbits become revealed to me, I will pass them along post haste, and if they are juicy or significant enough, I will pass them along even faster than that.

Letter to Elizabeth

Dear LizzyBeth,

Welcome home.  I hope you get home today with your Model T Pacemaker and that you will cease your stubborn attraction to exotic twitterpations.  But you have always been a stubborn one, to wit:

Let us analyze this picture carefully:

1. Who has the right to have their hand on the pitchfork?
2. Who has a look that suggests that he or she has a constitutional right to have their hand on this pitchfork?
3. Who has a look of total exasperation and disgust at the injustice being committed?

I think it is obvious that a miscarriage of rightful privilege of having one's hand on the pitchfork is being committed here.  I have worried about how this came about all of my life.

OK Lizabeth, hold my hand and we'll take our little can of worms and our primitive fishing poles and walk down to the river.  We'll wait for the cars to pass, if any, and walk out to the middle concrete pier which holds up the two sections of the old railroad bridge that once provided the entry into Penrose.  We'll climb down on the pier, dangle our feet over the edge, hang our fishing lines loaded with worms in the moving waters.  We will know full well that we will never catch a fish because we never, ever have caught one and, even if we did, it would be a bony sucker we would just chuck back in the river.

We will sit and while away the time, watching the river waters flow past, wondering where the waters came from and how far they will go.  So we will have a few moments of peace and tranquillity and calm that will light our memories for the rest of our lives, the waters moving by, the cars rumbling overhead, and no cares to trouble our minds.  But those moments were enough.  We never needed or wanted anything more.

Get well. Love, Dwight

 



OUT OF THE ROUNDHOUSE

A LITTLE NOSTALGIA 

Couldn't help but think of Garland, Powell and Laurel, still love it.

The End of the Shift

This video was taken close to the time for everyone to return to their happy home.  Watch as Charlie surveys his charges, sees me and wags his tail as if to say "I'm on the job and everything is ok".  Then he relaxes, after a hard morning's work.

Ok, so there aren't any eggs yet, but it has been very entertaining to watch a little piece of country life growing in our backyard.

Herding Chickens

I am not sure how well this is going to work.  I do know I can only post two little videos on one  posting, so please bear with me.  My morning routine now includes putting Charlie, the dog, to work "herding" chickens.  The dog whisperer says every dog needs a job to be happy.  I'll let the videos talk for themselves.  Because I am not sure of what I am doing, the videos get very distorted if you try to enlarge them.  I will figure this out one day.

Charlie saying good morning to his charges.

If you watch closely, the little red hen really "loves" Charlie, hence the peck on the nose.

Reporting

A feather in the nesting box does not an egg make.

HAVE ANN'S CHICKENS LAID AN EGG?

Dwight is 80 Years Old!!!

 I lifted these photos of  Dwight's party from his granddaughter, Lori, on FB.  I hope I have permission, if not I will ask for forgiveness.  The blog definitely needed a pictorial record of this highly significant event.  Remember  when we thought that 80 was so old we could never reach it?  Well, now two of the six of us are there and doing great.

I think that in spite of the noble comments of, "I certainly do not want any party....fuss...attention, or whatever", he does look quite pleased at the efforts of  his family, especially Velna.  Thank you, Velna!

Ann and Paul were the well-wishers representing the other Blood kids.  They make great ambassadors because, look, Dwight has his best birthday smile. 

This is pretty tramatic for all of us: for Dwight who is 80, for Louise who is already 80, for Velna who is married to an old man, for the rest of us who will someday follow.  Lead on, Dwight, lead on.

Where to start?  Twirling slop buckets around the head without spilling a drop, "if there's water on my brain," as the the grandparents made an unheard of stop at the house, a front row seat made of hay so that Ann and I could learn from the Stacey brothers what not to say in a yelling match, very bright lights in MY bedroom while I was trying to sleep, a knot board that was the benchmark in the ag room for 30 years, a fish cutting board that hung in the shop, a boy scout manual that held all the secrets of becoming an adventurer, a sleek black sedan stuffed with all worldly goods, an avid reader, a skilled speaker,  scared my brother would join the marines and go to Korea, (what's a Korea? sounded scary), trying to talk the girls into going to the Byron pavilion, a Christmas sock with a whole in the bottom for maximum volume.  teasing, funny, serious, smart.  Does this sentence seem to run on?  HAPPY BIRTHDAY DWIGHT.
Love Steve and Mary Lynn

Healing Flowers

When we arrived home from Ogden Saturday afternoon, there were tokens of love for us from family - this beautiful bouquet came from my five siblings with Dwight as the designated bouquet chooser.  Please enlarge this picture - the snap dragons were a perfect touch, with three red roses, deep purple carnations, the pink daisies and the white ones, plus a few other choice stems thrown in for good measure.  Thanks to all of you for thinking of me and sending these cheer-up reminders of the bonds and encouragement we share among us.  (Could we do this on our own?  I don't think so.)  Love to all five of you, Elizabeth.

A Letter to Elizabeth

September 11 2012

Dear LizzyBeth,

We all have images in our minds of you reposing in your bed like a Queen while Ron is hastening around and waiting on you.  I thought this morning I would add some bright sunflowers and a white daisy to hasten your recovery.  When you start recovering more, I did notice that some of the colors in your fabric stash are not carefully coordinated, with some shades that do not come close to the fabric next to it.  I hope you will fix this soon so that the next photo of your fabric stash I see will have a stronger ambience.

I do have some problems with my sisters I will share with you.  Judy calls me up one morning and tells me I am grouchy.  I was just fine until she informed me of my state.  As I insisted I was just fine, she said wait a minute, I'll call you right back.  Wait, wait.  Then Ann calls.  Judy tells me you are grouchy and that I should call and cheer you up.  Has anyone ever had more devious sisters?  Now I  worry continuously about whether I am grouchy and wondering why no one is calling me up any more to cheer me up.  Why is this?

We have all had a few issues of late, but mainly we are all thinking of you and holding your hand and postponing giving you a hard time until you are recovered.  May your actual recovery be quick, but fake it for awhile so you don't have to do laundry, vacuuming, cleaning, dishes, cooking, etc., etc., for several months.  You will be glad you followed this advice.  Our best also to your faithful caregiver who has been your lifeline through all of this.

Love from Dwight, who is speaking on behalf of the rest of us also.

P.S., I just remembered, Judy actually told me I was  "becoming more difficult."  Can you imagine such harsh words coming from your dear sister?

Look What I Found

Mother talking with Paul and Ann (holding Laura)

Trouble?  Who can you name?

Add caption

Mother and Dad outside the Lodge

Dwight standing by his faithful stationwagon

Ann holding Laura talking with Beth

More Trouble?

Grounds around Scout Camp

Steps leading to the "bath house"

I tried to enlarge these a little more, but they became very distorted. 

Remember This?

(not the writing, but the rest)

What Was This Occasion?

Laura (she looks pretty little), Paul, Kemp, and Dad perched on a log.

All I have labeled on these photos is "at a lake in Washington".

We must be watching the kids....and it must be windy(?) or cool (?).......Mom's scarf and the warmer jackets tell the story.  Who are those 3 cowboys in the background???

Anybody know anything about these?????

Tomato Soup Part II

The recipe I posted for tomato soup earlier today is really good, and it gets even a little better with a little cream mixed in and then heated.  However, it is really a lot of work.  Here is a second option, from Laura.

1 - 28 oz can whole tomatoes, in juice
1 rib celery, roughly chopped
1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/4 to 1/3 cup cream.
Puree the tomatoes, celery and broth in blender (VitaMix????) until smooth.  Season, to taste, with salt and pepper.  Stir in cream.  Transfer to saucepan to warm through.  Swirl a dollop of prepared pesto in to soup (off to Costco??).
I haven't tasted this one, but Laura has and she really likes it.

What To Do With Buckets of Tomatoes

As I was talking with Dwight (per Judy's instructions), he wanted to know what I was doing. Making tomato soup to put in bottles, says I.  And what is the recipe for said soup, asks big brother.  Finding it a tricky task to relate said recipe over the phone, I promised to post it on Penrose Mornings within the hour.  Who knows if I have made that deadline, but just in case it is still wanted, here it is:
(This beats the store bought stuff by miles, no nasty additives, is low salt, and ever so good.)
Home Canned Tomato Soup
1 peck ripe tomatoes  - how much is a peck of tomatoes,you ask?  According to someone who is supposed to know these things, it is about 8 quarts.  In my world it is a large kettle full of juice - very precise measurement.
4 onions sliced
12 sprigs parsley
2 bay leaves
1 tsp peppercorns
1 tsp celery seed
1 tsp whole cloves
2 Tablespoons salt (I cut this in half and then let people salt it according to their taste)
1 Tablespoons sugar

I put my tomatoes through the Victorio juicer, so get them to the juice stage any way you want to. Put peppercorns, celery seed, whole cloves in a tea ball, or tie in a cheese cloth bag.  Put juice in kettle, add parsley, bay leaves, onions,  salt and sugar and tea ball.  Let simmer until it is at the consistency you want.  Strain out the onions, parsley, bay leaves, and remove the tea ball.  Reheat to boiling point after straining.  Pour into sterilized jars, seal, process in boiling water bath 40 minutes for quarts.

Wasden Daughters with Their Mother

 

How I wish that this photo was clearer!  I don't know where I got this and maybe it has been posted before, but I saw it in my files today and fell in love with it all over again.

Grandma Tilda with her floweredy dress smiles as she is surrounded by her daughters.  Left to right: Elna, Sofe, Grandma, Cindy and our mother, Minnie.

Pictures from Reunion of 1978

 Sorry the pictures are so dark, fuzzy, etc. but they do tell a story.  Top picture, left to right, as far as I can determine, Louise, in front of her, Mark, Bob and Judy, Hillary, ?, Paul, ?, Steve, and the two in front are Kristen, and Shannon, with Kemp.  (Correct me if you think differently - you can double-click on the pictures to enlarge them.

 Left side, back to front: Linda (now Consoliver), John T., Kemp, Shannon, Kristen; Right side, back to front:  Mother, Dad, Brig, Greg T., ?, Jim T., Dorothy, Shannon B.

Left side, front to back, Gary Paul, Rex Baker, Louise; Middle row:  Steve, Pam, Mark, Judy, Hillarie, Cheryl; Next row:  Linda, Tony, Kemp; and last row, Mom, Dad, Brig.  Memories are tied up in pictures, even those as poor as these - especially when they are good memories!

Blueberries, Anyone?

This is a recipe that I got from Aunt Lorraine on one of our few trips to Medford.  It is so easy and so good.

Blueberry Betty

4 cups cubed stale (or so-so) bread

3/4 tsp or less Cinnamon

1/2 cup white sugar

2 - 4 cups of berries

1/2 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup melted butter poured over all

Bake 350 till berries bubble and bread crust is crunchy, about 20 minutes.

Eat hot out of the oven with a cold glass of milk!!!

Back to the Boy Scout Camp

 You snooze - you lose - I should have gone ahead of this while I was on a roll???  Another shot of Mother, Lou, and Judy - deep in conversation.

 I think that supper is ready (note the time on the clock)  with Mother running the show, helpers Diana and Cheryl.

 I threw in this picture of Kemp in his sleeping accommodations - certainly above the mouse fray.  When I got the pictures back from this developed film, there was a note that this was a very good photo.  ReallY?  Arty?

Now I know that the group pictures I took can be enlarged.  Be sure to double click on this one.  Hard to pick people out, but oh, well.  There will be a few more of these.

Letter To Dad's Uncle Roy and Aunt Eva October 1941

Ralston Wyo.
October 23, 1941

Mr. and Mrs. Roy O. Blood
Box 626
Wheatridge Colorado

Dear Aunt Eva and Uncle Roy,

We live 1 mile west of Ralston on a 100 acre farm.  I am in the fifth grade and so is Louise.  Elizabeth is just starting this year and is in the first grade.  Elizabeth is just learning how to read.  She can print her name.  We go to school in Powell Wyo., and ride 8 miles on a schoolbus.  I have been out of school for 4 days and have spare time to be onery.  My glands were swollen up a little bit but thats all.  Judith says nu-nu for milk and will yell any time she wants milk.  She can say kitty, flowers, dolly, daddy, oh, dog, and a few other words.  Her birthday was last April 23d.  She is about 17 months old now.  Whenever she is mad, we get the mercurochrome and paint her dignity.

Lucinda married Norman Sorensen last winter.  I don't know what else you would be interested in and my pen is so scratchy.

Yours truly
Dwight and Louise and Elizabeth

Comment;  After Dad lost both of his parents, he was sent to Denver to live with his father's brother, Roy, and his aunt Eva.  This time was an extremely unhappy time for Dad, and soon after he was sent to stay with Dewey and Elsie Riddle at their ranch in Sunlight basin above Cody which ultimately led, of course, to his meeting my mother when she came to the ranch to work one summer.  October 1941 was the last brief peaceful time before December 7 1941.  My time out of school then was nothing compared to what soon happened, as I contracted mumps in early December and then, along with everyone else, came down with Chicken pox on Christmas 1941.  I did not return to school until late March.  Liz reminded me the other day that she also was out of school for six weeks during this time.  Mother rode herd over my schoolwork and my sisters brought my homework and reading assignments home from school. I earned all "1's (A's) thanks to Mother's teaching skills.  I probably would have learned a lot more if she would have continued to teach me since I never did learn whether the sun revolves around the earth or vice versa in 7th grade science. Meanwhile, I read a stack of Life magazines over and over.  I can still see some of the war photos in my memory.  I also had resurrected an old Monkey Ward radio which Dad was going to throw out and tinkered with it a bit and, lo and behold, it worked.  This radio became my lifeline during those lonely days in bed as I remember Edward R. Murrow on the rooftops of London, the Lone Ranger (rides again), Jack Armstrong the All American Boy, Dr. Brent (call surgery), Jack Benny, Phil Harris, Fibber McGee and Molly, Dr. IQ the Mental Banker, Phil Spitalney and his All Girl Orchestra (we must be diligent, we must be diligent, American patrol, with arms for the army, ships (I substituted "legs") for the Navy, let this be our goal).  I had one jigsaw puzzle of the fife, drum and flag bearer in the Revolutionary War which I put together so many times I had it memorized and could start with any piece and finish it practically blindfolded.  Later that spring I won our 5th grade class spelling contest and got to go to the county contest in Cody where I promptly lost.  I do remember the fried egg sandwiches our teacher got for us, never having had such a wonderful sandwich.
I remember these days a half century ago more clearly than I do the television program I saw last night. (I don't think I ever posted this before, but, if so, here it is again.)

Letter to Dad March 23, 1943

Ralston Wyo.
March 23, 1943

Mr. Russell M. Blood
c/o Metcalf Hamilton & K.C. Bridge Company
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Dear Daddy,
Last Sunday we went to Sunday School in the morning and went to see Bambi in the afternoon.  The other show was All American Co-ed and it was about a man who dressed like a woman.

We filled our War Stamp booklets and we are going to get our bond tomorrow.  I have 50 cents in another book.  I am saving my money to get the Open Road for Boys.  It costs $1.60 a year and I have 60 cents saved toward it.

Mother took our pictures tonight.  Two of them were of us on the haystack.  At school we are playing marbles and I have lost a lot of mine, as usual.  I haven't had to stand in the corner any more but I got a red 5.  I did manage to get on the honor roll for this week though.

With love, Dwight
P.S. Mother forgot to mail our letters in with hers, so we sent ours in another envelope.  Dwight

Comment: Dad went to Edmonton with Les Utter to do war-related construction work, I believe on an air terminal facility, riding the train.  When he left, we kids knew nothing until Mom and Dad came to school and got us out of class to say goodby. I think Louise and I would have been in the 7th grade.  Our grades were "1,2,3,4,5", and not ABC, etc.  Red 5's were marked in red ink.  I can't remember what was so egregious as to merit a red 5 and I don't remember standing in the corner.  The system we had of going to church or Sunday School in the morning and going to the movies in the afternoon was an absolutely wonderful system.  This system came to a screeching halt when Mother became a Sunday School teacher and I guess she didn't want to be setting a bad example.  Sadly, we saw very few, if any, movies after that.  I thought Bambi was a stupid movie for killing off his poor mother in the fire.  Dad's stay in Canada was short-lived, however, as one day we came home from school and he jumped out from behind the door in our bedroom with a big "boo".  He had contracted pneumonia and had to come home to get well.  Thus ended another in his perennial, and often unsuccessful, efforts to make a little extra money.  But he and Mother never gave up. My penmanship in this letter was remarkably good for an 11 year old.  In the first grade, there wasn't much to do so I kept practicing the Parker Penmanship script on the top of the blackboard until I got all the letters right.  I didn't know until just a few years ago that my classmate and ultimate fellow annual editor Dolores had done the same. thing.  To this day, the handwriting for each of us is virtually indistinguishable. I ultimately ended up with enough money to subscribe to the Open Road for Boys, which I loved.

Who Is Moses?

Here is another important bit of information for your genealogy records. Can you connect Moses to us? Please note, this has been entered as it was written in the newspaper, so no corrections, even when I would normally spell ocupation with two c's.

The following obituary appeared in the Floyd County Advocate, Charles City, Iowa, April 28, 1893.   Mother's note indicates she obtained this from Roy Blood in Denver on June 3, 1968.  The address label on the paper said "Moses Blood".
DIED
"BLOOD - At his residence in this city, April 25, 1893, Moses blood, aged 45 years and five months.
Deceased was taken ill some six weeks ago but was regaining his usual health on the day before his death confiding in his wife that he was fast recuperating and would soon be able to resume steady work.  On Tuesday morning he arose and made the breakfast fire.  The meal was almost prepared when uttering some sentence explanatory of his condition he was caught in the arms of his wife and never spoke again.  Medical aid was summoned but he had passed beyond the physician's power to aid.  He was buried on Wednesday afternoon.  Rev. Chas Noble officiating.
Moses Blood was born in Belvidere, Ill.  When a small boy he moved with his parents to this county.  Thirty eight years ago he married Miss Sarah Hawkins, who with four children Mabel, Roscoe, Roy and Ray survive him.  After spending a year in Missouri Mr. and Mrs. Blood returned to this county and engaged in farming which ocupation he followed until about four years ago, when they moved to Charles City.  Deceased is a brother of Mrs. B. Page, of the east side and of Frank Blood of St. Charles.

Family Reunion, Boy Scout Camp, 1978

The family reunion in August, 1978, was the first and, perhaps only one that we held as the Blood Family.   Mother and Dad planned and invited all.  All six children and their families were there.  I had returned from Germany the last of June, and Brig had come back from England in the middle of June, so all of us were back on U.S. soil.  (Or was that when Ron Blood was on his mission?)
Mother and Daddy came to Lovell where I was living in the Sorensen house until I could find something in Powell.  We bought lots of groceries, and then they loaded Dorothy, Sara, and Tony and me into the car, too, and away we went to Northfork.
When we arrived at the Boy Scout camp (on the way to Yellowstone Park), we found things in less than perfect shape.  Mother simply rolled up her sleeves (they stayed that way during the reunion), pitched in, and marshaled the rest of us, so the kitchen got scrubbed, organized, and ready to go.  As people arrived, we were assigned places to sleep (mice scampered around on the floor).  There were only outdoor facilities as I recall, but Mother and Daddy did have better facilities, which their years certainly deserved.

 Louise was happy being grandmother to Michael, Diana's first baby.

 Daddy was the horseshoe king - where did he get to be so good at something he did so seldom?

And, Judy watched and cheered all participants on.