Johnny Jump-up

In the early 70s I wanted to write an herb book. I lived at Priest Lake, Idaho at Hill's Resort for two summers and wintesr. The summers were fun, swimming, water skiing, drinking Coors around campfires. The winters brought feet and feet of snow. One winter so much snow, the berms were 20' deep. There wasn't much happening after the crew went home. Of course it was dark early and Jack and would sit around reading--no TV--or I would knit and he'd play the guitar. We had a cat named Jude who was in the middle of everything, knitting, sewing, eating, always.

Priest Lake and later on Corral Hill in the Clearwater Ranger District is where I began my photography of herbs and the studio--Edgar Casey and herbalists, of the medicinal value of herbs. There a peach leaves to comfort an upset stomach, ferns for nettle bites, nettles for vitality in the spring. I don't remember what Johnny Jump-up is for. But it is sweet, and a cousin of the viola, the violet, the pansy.

My sister and I press flowers. It's something we learned from a great aunt. She pressed flowers in a dusty old year book from Anapolis where her husband went to college. Everyone has a nick-name in this book. Someone is probably called Johnny Jump-up. She used her pressed flowers to make framed pictures, groupings of panseys and coral bells, ferns, yarrow leaves, etc. Both my sister and I have pictures she made, and the frames, OMB, so ornate.

My sister now makes her pressed flowers into cards. One of these days I'll get some of her cards on this site so folks can purchase them. They are wonderful. Gardening cards. Perfect. Well now I'm off for a walk with my daughter and grandbaby. We walk three miles twice a week. It's good, the grandbaby in the stroller, mother and daughter huffy away--oh yes, and as only in the PNW, we stop halfway for a cup of joe.

Peace!