Memories...20

One of my "Hotsprings Buddies," lost her Mother over a week ago...I din't know her mother but the circumstances of death were similar to almost 15 years ago when I lost my Mom...Ninty+ years old, a fall, a broken hip, a flight to Boise, surgery, my Mom lived for 6 weeks after the hip was repaired, her Mom didn't make it through surgery.

I know how she feels but find it difficult to express sympathy in words, so I resort to baking bread and delivering it warm, along with a jar of huckleberry jam...I hope that conveys my feelings...I also want to tell her to keep busy, and she will, she is not one to sit still.

In the year following Moms death, I found my answer to keeping her memory alive and for me to move on...No more weekly trips to Elgin, where she lived, only one garden for me to take care of, it left a hole in my life...A notice in the local paper, caught my eye... "Needed, vendors for an afternoon market in Enterprise." When I called the number and asked if they could use a vendor selling "homemade bread,"...The lady said, "Really, you want to make and sell bread, that's a lot of work?"

That summer "Oma's Grainy Bread" was born...We started with a card table and 20 loaves of bread, that soon bacame 40 loaves (had to buy a new mixer) a bigger table, canope to shelter us from the sun/rain, and we added extra large carrot cake cookies to the table...Two days a week Herb and I made and sold bread and cookies for three summers...It left us exhausted, but we met new people, brought smiles to many faces and they came back week after week...It was a grand adventure.

I get my love of dough from my Mom...I don't remember very many times when she resorted to buying a loaf of bread from the store...On that fateful day when her hip gave way, she had just spent a week in the hospital for her congestive heart problem, but she was up that morning mixing a batch of bread because she wasn't about to eat a loaf of store bought bread...Hugs To All...OWAV:)

Warm from the oven.