Oh Dear! Has half of the year gone by, and this will be my first blog of the year. I am doing too much Facebook and not enough blogging. And really I haven’t had any of those, “I feel a blog coming on,” moments recently.

So what have you been doing, you ask? We started for our southern retreats in late September visiting friends and bluegrassing all the way. Daughter, Renee and her hubby, Neil bought as new place in Leander Texas and were able to occupy by Thanksgiving. A little Fix-er-up-er so the two families of us RV camped in their yard while the house was remodeled. Got out of there in mid February and visited friends and bluegrassed our way back to the Pacific Northwest. …… Viola, or “there you have it” our year in a nut shell.
We are currently camped at Fort Yamhill State Heritage Area. We are hosts for the month of June. This is our sixth tour of duty here at Fort Yamhill. This year we will be staying in the neighborhood for a few extra days and we will conduct some flag honoring tours on the day of the fourth of July. So if you have the day off and live close enough to make it; Please come and join us here near the Spirit Mountain Casino in Grand Ronde, Oregon.

To get ready for honoring the flag, I have been brushing up on my US History, (just to make up for all those times I fell asleep in class.) Fort Yamhill was built starting in March of 1856 by 2nd Lt. William Hazen and 2nd Lt. Philip Sherridan. At that time there were 31 stars on the US Flag and California was the latest addition. By the time they auctioned off the buildings and Fort Yamhill was just a memory, five more states, Minnesota and Oregon, Kansas, West Virginia and Nevada became states. We are flying a period flag from about 1859 at Fort Yamhill just at the time Oregon joined the Union on Feb 14, 1859. It has 33 stars. The fort was under the command of Capt. David A. Russell., of Company K of the fourth infantry. That was two years before Fort Sumter was attacked on April 12, 1861. The surrender at Appomattox court House ended the war just over four years later, the last battle was on May 12 th and 13 th of 1865. Fort Yamhill was abandoned in 1866. Depending on the period we wish to depict we could fly flags with 33 to 36 stars. The choice of 33 stars means we are representing the fort prior to the start of the American Civil War while the Fourth Infantry was garrisoned here.
I checked and over the past seven years Judy and I have volunteered right here at Fort Yamhill. The first year we were here I bought an $80 bugle and spent another $40 on a better fitting mouthpiece. I searched all over the internet and came up with bugle calls specific to the Infantry during the Civil War. I have quite a collection of calls that were used to direct the day in the life of a soldier. This year I have enlarged my program for honoring the flag. We have volunteered to stay over for four extra days to present this program on the July 4th holiday. Again I urge you; If you can make it to Fort Yamhill on the forth of July, come on out and raise our period flag from the Civil War era. At a real Civil War era fort.

We will be leaving here after the July 4th holiday. We will spend a few days in Sequim before we join our Son’s family on the Abby Normal, their 34 foot Hunter sail boat for a cruise of the San Juan and Gulf Islands.
I will end with a bit of flag trivia. How many stripes did the flag have as it flew over Fort McHenry on September 13-14 1814 when Francis Scott Key penned the poem “Defense of Fort McHenry?” It was later set to music and called the “Star Spangled Banner.” Hint: It was not 13.