Why Orchard Ranch?

It occurred to me today that I never explained why I call this blog "Orchard Ranch" and what that means. Orchard Ranch is the name of the fruit farm once owned by the family of Sharlot Mabridth Hall in Lonesome Valley near Dewey, Arizona. That's Miss Sharlot at left, at Orchard Ranch.

Besides helping to run Orchard Ranch from a young age, Sharlot was many other things. She was a poet, an essayist, an historian, and an editor. In her later years, she founded and ran a historic house museum in the Old Governor's Mansion in Prescott, Arizona. The Sharlot Hall Museum still exists and has indeed expanded since Sharlot's day.

You can learn much more about her here. Click around the links at the sidebar on the left. Click all over the site -- better yet, visit the museum. It's a jewel.

My tag line, "Phrases, Hints, and Odds and Ends of Thought" is taken from the title Sharlot scribbled on one of her handwritten notebooks. It's full of just that -- odds and ends of thought, some recipes, and a lexicon of Western slang. She collected Arizona's pioneer history by amassing a collection of artifacts, by writing things down in notebooks like this, by seeking out and interviewing old-timers, and by keeping memories in her head.

Sharlot's mother Adeline made a few scrapbooks, and Sharlot hung onto them first for herself and later for the museum's collection. One of my favorites is a volume of obscure Eastern philosophy, or at least that's what it looks like from the outside. When you open it, you find that Adeline clipped recipes, needlework patterns, and bits of popular poetry and glued them on the book's pages right over the philosophy. Recycling is not a new thing! From this scrapbook, I picked up a couple of nifty antique crocheted edging instructions including one that you work onto rickrack.

As for why Orchard Ranch, Sharlot Hall and her writings are among my professional interests. And, this blog really is a collection of phrases, hints, and odds and ends of thought... plus some musings on handicrafts. At least, that's what I want it to be.