Thank goodness September, my favorite month of the year, is here! I dislike hot weather immensely so the cool weather this morning on our walk to pick up the newspaper from the box by the highway was most welcome. It’s been a very hot summer with too many days in the 30 Celsius plus high temperatures.
My lumbar discectomy surgery in March was a success, and I was able to garden and clean bathrooms again (much to my husband’s pleasure) after a six week recovery. During that recovery, I started work on the family history for David Racher/Rachar and Rhoda Toland/Tolland’s three daughters and their families. The three daughters were my Grandma Eva - Mary Evelyn Racher Collins’ -- half-sisters.
We’ve had a busy summer, but we did enjoy all the company because we were able to reconnect with many relatives and friends. We had a family gathering with 24 people from the Cathro clan attending in June. In July, we had a family gathering of 35 people including members from the White side (Doug’s mom’s family) and several members of my family. Thanks to everyone who attended. We also had some friends visit during July and August, and it was great to see those people in-person.
Doug continued working on cars and added another car project: a 1955 Chev which he and a friend drove to Spokane to pick up and bring home. The car had been in storage for almost 40 years so you can imagine the clean-up needed. Doug used an extended pole—the type you trim tall trees with—to stand back far enough to rip out the headliner in order to clean the interior. I told him not to bring any rats or mice home in the interior of the car! After many days cleaning with a mask on, the car was deemed clean enough on the inside to go in the garage.
The two of us continue to spend a great deal of time in the yard. Work never ends as those of you who live on an acreage know, but we are still enjoying living here. So, the work gets done albeit with some complaining on my part! Advil as needed for both of us does help.
As well as pulling weeds and mowing grass, we had a bumper crop of saskatoons. I put forty-750 ml containers of saskatoons in the freezer for our winter breakfasts. I’m still picking raspberries although we never have as many raspberries as saskatoons. We let the raspberries expand into part of the garden area so we’ll have a few more in the future. We just planted potatoes and carrots in the garden as everything else gets eaten in these parts unless you construct a 7-8 foot fence around the entire area which we aren’t going to do.
The bats are still here so my job cleaning up bat poop every morning continues as they love to hang-out by the front door and by one garage door. I talked with a bat expert at the Millarville Fair, and she was delighted that I could report so many bats. We are delighted too in that they eat huge quantities of mosquitoes. But, cleaning up by the front door every day gets a bit tedious as you can imagine!
They are the little brown bats and usually leave by mid-September. I asked the ‘bat lady’ whether the bats we have here hibernate or migrate, and she said they do both. As far as they can determine, the bats in this area probably migrate to the mountains and hibernate in small caves. They’ll be back here though as regular as clock-work on the May long weekend in 2023!
I’m looking forward to reducing my volunteer hours—which sometimes exceeded 60 hours a month—with the Okotoks Library. The treasurer’s role has been taken over by someone else, and I have greatly reduced my fundraising hours. The Okotoks Library Board has raised just over $175,000 as we were, and continue to be, responsible for outfitting the interior of the library with furniture and equipment. It’s been a long haul, but the basics have been supplied. I’m greatly appreciative to all the donors and sponsors. I enjoyed getting to know many generous people in Foothills County and Okotoks.
My library board term ends October 31st so I’m looking forward to being able to re-direct my energy and time to doing family history. My other volunteer work with a couple of Millarville area organizations takes just a few hours a month so I’ll continue with that as I really enjoy getting to know and working with more people in the area.
If anyone reading this is doing family history, or interested in doing so, I’m researching and entering information on the following families:
Lorraine’s side of the family:
Racher/Rachar and Greenfield
Collins/Collings and Legg/Legge
North and Beatty
Lohr and Hein
Doug’s side of the family:
White and Killaby
Germyn and Clements
Taylor and Reid
Cathro and McGibbon
For more information, please see my public tree: Lohr Cathro Family Tree on Ancestry. Thanks also to several relatives on different branches of the family tree who have contributed information. My tree is far from complete although I do have more information than I’ve had time to enter so far. Last winter I did some work on the Collins/Collings and Legg/Legge sides, and I’ve restarted working on the Racher/Rachar and Greenfield sides. Eventually, I’ll move on to the other family branches noted above.
Happy Fall to all!
My lumbar discectomy surgery in March was a success, and I was able to garden and clean bathrooms again (much to my husband’s pleasure) after a six week recovery. During that recovery, I started work on the family history for David Racher/Rachar and Rhoda Toland/Tolland’s three daughters and their families. The three daughters were my Grandma Eva - Mary Evelyn Racher Collins’ -- half-sisters.
We’ve had a busy summer, but we did enjoy all the company because we were able to reconnect with many relatives and friends. We had a family gathering with 24 people from the Cathro clan attending in June. In July, we had a family gathering of 35 people including members from the White side (Doug’s mom’s family) and several members of my family. Thanks to everyone who attended. We also had some friends visit during July and August, and it was great to see those people in-person.
Doug continued working on cars and added another car project: a 1955 Chev which he and a friend drove to Spokane to pick up and bring home. The car had been in storage for almost 40 years so you can imagine the clean-up needed. Doug used an extended pole—the type you trim tall trees with—to stand back far enough to rip out the headliner in order to clean the interior. I told him not to bring any rats or mice home in the interior of the car! After many days cleaning with a mask on, the car was deemed clean enough on the inside to go in the garage.
The two of us continue to spend a great deal of time in the yard. Work never ends as those of you who live on an acreage know, but we are still enjoying living here. So, the work gets done albeit with some complaining on my part! Advil as needed for both of us does help.
As well as pulling weeds and mowing grass, we had a bumper crop of saskatoons. I put forty-750 ml containers of saskatoons in the freezer for our winter breakfasts. I’m still picking raspberries although we never have as many raspberries as saskatoons. We let the raspberries expand into part of the garden area so we’ll have a few more in the future. We just planted potatoes and carrots in the garden as everything else gets eaten in these parts unless you construct a 7-8 foot fence around the entire area which we aren’t going to do.
The bats are still here so my job cleaning up bat poop every morning continues as they love to hang-out by the front door and by one garage door. I talked with a bat expert at the Millarville Fair, and she was delighted that I could report so many bats. We are delighted too in that they eat huge quantities of mosquitoes. But, cleaning up by the front door every day gets a bit tedious as you can imagine!
They are the little brown bats and usually leave by mid-September. I asked the ‘bat lady’ whether the bats we have here hibernate or migrate, and she said they do both. As far as they can determine, the bats in this area probably migrate to the mountains and hibernate in small caves. They’ll be back here though as regular as clock-work on the May long weekend in 2023!
I’m looking forward to reducing my volunteer hours—which sometimes exceeded 60 hours a month—with the Okotoks Library. The treasurer’s role has been taken over by someone else, and I have greatly reduced my fundraising hours. The Okotoks Library Board has raised just over $175,000 as we were, and continue to be, responsible for outfitting the interior of the library with furniture and equipment. It’s been a long haul, but the basics have been supplied. I’m greatly appreciative to all the donors and sponsors. I enjoyed getting to know many generous people in Foothills County and Okotoks.
My library board term ends October 31st so I’m looking forward to being able to re-direct my energy and time to doing family history. My other volunteer work with a couple of Millarville area organizations takes just a few hours a month so I’ll continue with that as I really enjoy getting to know and working with more people in the area.
If anyone reading this is doing family history, or interested in doing so, I’m researching and entering information on the following families:
Lorraine’s side of the family:
Racher/Rachar and Greenfield
Collins/Collings and Legg/Legge
North and Beatty
Lohr and Hein
Doug’s side of the family:
White and Killaby
Germyn and Clements
Taylor and Reid
Cathro and McGibbon
For more information, please see my public tree: Lohr Cathro Family Tree on Ancestry. Thanks also to several relatives on different branches of the family tree who have contributed information. My tree is far from complete although I do have more information than I’ve had time to enter so far. Last winter I did some work on the Collins/Collings and Legg/Legge sides, and I’ve restarted working on the Racher/Rachar and Greenfield sides. Eventually, I’ll move on to the other family branches noted above.
Happy Fall to all!
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