New Years Eve Parties

My parents were not drinkers and most new years eve parties is drinking. My parents decided since we have a large farm house to have their own new years eve party for all their non-drinking friends.  They had one every year for as long as I can remember where all their friends came. They had potluck dips, chips, cookies etc. whatever anyone wanted to bring and mom, Margie or Mini would buy presents for the winners of the pinochle games. They would play progressive pinochle and have presents for high scoring man, high scoring woman and funny gifts for the low scoring people.

Mom always held the parties at her house until we sold the farm and moved to town and they had a really small house they started going to Mini & Floyds though Mom and Mini still hosted it.  It always was a lot of work but I remember Mini coming out and them making candy all day. We always had divinity, fudge & peanut brittle.

When my dad got his hands cut off he could not hold the cards. Even though they sewed his hands back on they never were good for a whole lot. Floyd made him a card holder. It was a 4x4 with place cut in it to hold the cards and covered with felt so Dad could still play cards. He loved it because he always did hate to deal...lol

When dad passes away and many of the friends they still held the parties every New Years and I would play taxi cab for all the elderly folks in the snow to and from the party.

The sad thing is that finally so many of them have passed they don't have enough to play anymore. They have trouble getting just one table going and not enough for more so the parties have became a memory.  The only time my mom gets to play pinochle is when my friends Jim & Ann come up and then we play and she loves it. She can hardly wait for the evening to come where she can play cards.

Trout Creek

I liked Trout Creek before anyone but the locals knew it was there. You had to have a tractor or some pickups to get down there. We used to load up the trailer and put our picnic basket on and load up the people and off for the day of fishing.

My dad was so funny because he would always lay down and lay his fishing pole beside him and tie the fishing line around his toe and go to sleep.  When I look back I know it was because he was exhausted but we thought it was so funny and would sneak up and yank on the line.

There was a railroad in the canyon with the biggest trestle you could imagine, way up in the air. When I grew up I realized it was a little trestle and smaller and not as high as the one is Madras but when you were riding on that wagon it sure seemed big.

It also had a vi-duct  under the railroad for the road just wide enough for a single vehicle. We thought it was a tunnel.  We would yell and holler when we went through it.  When they road got better and we drove the pickup we would have dad honk the horn and we would yell and holler.  Our tunnel was so funny when we got bigger and realized it was not a big tunnel.

Memories when you are small just look different when you grow up. That road and that area have became a big campground for fly fishermen and rafters unload there all the time. They even have a camp host. Things changes and life goes on.

Picking rocks

Anyone who grew up in Madras hates picking rocks and the job almost always falls to the kids.  Madras grows rocks, you pick them up and soon there they are laying on the ground just waiting for some farm machinery to come and grab them and break and cost a fortune.

My grandfather from Kansas always wanted a rock house. He moved to Madras and was happy because he could collect rocks and have that rock house. Well by the time he picked rocks awhile he did not want a rock house, he did not even think they were pretty anymore.

One of my friends that has an agate ranch now in the area said he hated picking rocks so much he got smart and let the city slickers pay him to pick rocks…Now that is using your brain.

You would have a tractor and trailer and you would walk alongside the trailer and throw the rocks on it. When it got full you would go throw the rocks off in the bad-stripe.

It got better when we got a bobcat with a bucket because you could walk alongside the bobcat and throw the rocks in the bucket and when the bucket got full you could rest while the driver went and unloaded the bucket. Everyone got a turn at being the driver unless grandpa was around. My dad had his hands cut off, they sewed them back on but they did not work well and he could not pick rocks but he was an expert at driving bobcat so that became his job. He called the bobcat “Bobby” and said it was his right hand. He used it for everything and was amazing with it. 

the bullfighter

As I have said before TV was the ruin of us kids on the farm. One day we were watching a bullfighter on TV and it looked like fun so................................

We had two baby black angus bulls that dad bought at the auction and we were raising on a bottle.  We used to feed them grain too and it came in a big gunny sack.  We started using the sacks to tease the bulls and see if we could fight a bull. You would put the sack in front of the little bulls and shake it and they would charge.  We played bullfighter with them until they got big enough it was no longer fun.  So what was the problem you say????????????

We were staying overnight at our friends house in town and it was dad’s turn to feed the bulls who are no longer babies. Well dad did not take a bucket like we did to feed them. He would always pick up the sack and take it and pour the grain in the feeder.  He got in the pen turned his back to the baby bulls who are no longer babies but thankfully not full grown and raised that sack and started shaking the grain out.  OH NO!  The bull charged and hit him right in his behind sending him flying into the feeder.  He crawled out and the bull was just standing there, he reached for his sack and here came the bull again. Dad jumped sideways and threw the sack over the fence. The bull stopped and just stood there.

Now what I want to know is how dad knew I had the great idea to make the bulls into bull fighting bulls. I mean come on they could not just wanted grain, or someone else could have done it. Nope I was in deep trouble once again, and once again told to think things through, like what would have happened if they did that when they were a full grown bull to someone.  Thank ended my bull fighting career. 

Somethings are better never to do to begin with...lessons learned

I loved my great grandpa, he used to come stay with us and was always fun to have around.  The only time I saw my dad smoke was when grandpa was around, they would share a cigar.  I kept bugging him once to please, please let me have one.  My dad gave me the cigar and said, if you smoke it you have to smoke the whole thing. I thought I was in 7^th heaven so I lit it and puffed away. Well it wasn’t very long and I felt terrible, I was dizzy and my dad said I had to keep going. Pretty soon my tummy was sick and I felt like I had the flu. You guessed it, next the window came down and I was puking my guts out.

To this day I hate the smell of a cigar!  I don’t mind a pipe in fact some of them smell good but I hate the smell of a cigar and my stomach will still become queasy when I smell it.

I am the same way with alcohol as my dad was making a hot drink one year and when he got the liquor bottle I wanted Pepsi. They tried to tell me it wasn’t Pepsi but I insisted it was. I was only 4 or 5 so dad gave me a shot of whiskey. That swallow burned all the way down to my stomach and I hate alcohol to this date. People have tried to spike my Pepsi but the first swallow I can feel that burn in my throat and all the say down so I know it is in there.

To bad he did not give me a cigarette to smoke when I was little as I smoked for years and it was super hard to quit but I finally made it. I made it by not beating myself up when I smoked. I kept a positive attitude and if I cheated and had a drag or a cigarette I told myself it was better then when I had a pack. Pretty soon I was not smoking them and it was my choice not a I have to quit thing.  One of the things in life I am so glad I did. I told my grandkids, don’t start because one way or another you will have to quit and it is hard, better just not to start.

In memory of my dad's best Christmas

One of the best Christmases ever was when we lived at the coast, my dad borrowed a Santa suit for the store and came down to play Santa for my brothers kids and mine. He was suppose to walk around outside and let them see him walking through the neighborhood.  They were all playing in the living room when he went back and forth about five times before someone spotted him. We all were excited as we thought they would all watch him walk through the neighborhood.

Those kids saw him and screamed “It’s Santa” and took off for their bedroom striping and throwing their clothes as they went yelling “hurry! Hurry! He won’t come unless we are in bed. All five of them were in bed in a minute flat with their mouths and eyes both shut.

He was so disappointed so he came up and rang the doorbell and asked for them.  They came flying out of the bedroom in their robes. We knew for sure they would know who he was up close, nope they were so excited they did not recognize him. He handed each of them a small gift that he originally was suppose to leave on the porch steps.

He was a brave man, if they did not know him now maybe he could talk, yep he went “ho,ho,ho” and they grinned from ear to ear. He sat and talked to them about what they wanted and then told them he had to be on his way. They went to bed with tears in their eyes.

Dad thought that was so much fun he went down to all the grocery stores he could find open and got candy and little stuff and then went to every friend we had that had small kids and played Santa.  Surprised the parents and the kids but since my husband was with Santa they let him in. The kids got their candy and one of our friends kids opened the door and just stood and cried. He picked her up and the whole time he was giving presents to the other kids she just hugged his neck and kept saying “oh Santa, oh Santa” with tears streaming down her face.  For years she talked about the year Santa came to the house.

My dad spent a lot of money that year and it was worth every penny he spent, he said it was the best Christmas he had in his whole life. Every Christmas he talked about that Christmas and is a great Christmas memory for us to share. I can never see Santa without thinking of that year and my dad.

A new recipe is born

Jackie Parshall 

I remember my part of the dinner was a sweet potato suffle. I had it all ready to go and was putting it in the oven to melt the marshmallows on the top. The directions said "put under broiler for 5 min." not thinking I did. When it burst into flame I pulled it out and blew out the flames. I peeled off the burnt marshmallow and there was a carmel sauce. My brother in law was quite impressed. He thought I did it on purpose and I never told that I didn't until now.

I love this one, thanks for sharing

What I miss about Christmas when I am in Arizona

Every year since my kids were small and we were broke one Christmas I have tried to make a home made ornament. Everything on our tree was homemade except the lights and tinsel.  I try to make home made cards when I can. I try to make home made presents. Every year in the fall I make scrapbooks for my kids.

My daughter Barb had bought a book for my mom that had questions and you filled them in as an example. What is your favorite memory of an uncle?  I was going through the pictures in a box and found a picture of someone I did not know who it was and no name was on it. I asked my mom and she said that was your grandpa Warren who died before you started school. (He was killed in a car wreck) Both of these got me to thinking, when mom and me go so many memories go with us. Even if we mark the pictures they won't know the people or anything about them so I started scrapbooks and trying to tell the stories that we have in our memories. They may not always be correct as they are our memories.  That is the reason I started this blog, where I can tell the stories even if I am not home to work on them.  My daughter is keeping them to pass on to the next generation. My grandson already says he is the next keeper of the memories. Each of my daughters gets a book every year until now. Well I still have 3 pages to do from last year in one of them.

Hopefully this blog will also help with the memories. I love my girls and sorry about the Christmas scrapbooks but great grandma and me are making more memories

Christmas when your broke became a tradition

Today as mom and I were discussing Christmas and traditions became a part of it made me remember some of the best Christmases I have ever had. Would you believe it was the one we did not have money. I think it forces you to be creative and to spend time with your family.  This is one of those years.

My husband left for 6 weeks for the police academy in Alaska and when I got back from putting him on the plane our furnace had quit. I could not get the parts I needed except to order them from Seattle.  Luckily for us we also had a wood stove but it meant that we had to shut off our water and drain the trailer house as the furnace is what kept the pipes from freezing. Then the pickup quit and I had to get parts for it and then the hot water heater broke and I had to order a new hot water heater. Needless to say we were broke. My husband was not getting any overtime and everything was breaking and Christmas was coming.

I had lots of stuff to bake with so we started in baking cookies to make this a special Christmas for dad when he came home.  We would bake cookies and then put them in the freezer in a box. The next day we would make some different ones.

This started a tradition that lasted as long as the kids were home except we would make them and put them in a box for Grandpa. My dad used to always shake his present Christmas morning and say “I hope this is something to eat” or “is this something to eat?”.  The year we came home from Alaska the kids waited in anticipation of Grandpa asking Christmas morning “is this something to eat?” Then he would open the big box and it would be full of cookies. I am not to sure who had the most fun that Christmas morning, my dad or the grandkids and we all enjoyed the cookies. We had so many we had to put some back in the freezer.

They also started making cookie boxes for our friends and the police departments. It remained a fun tradition until the kids left home.

That year we also made popcorn and cranberry strings for the tree. It kept us busy in the evenings sewing, eating popcorn and laughing. 

We made snowflakes out of paper and covered every spot we could find in the whole house.

We made Christmas ornaments out of everything we could find. One of the funniest and favorite for years was taking a round piece of wet suit material and poking round tooth picks all around it and then painting it gold and putting glitter in it. That thing lasted for years and years.

We made popcorn balls and cookies for the tree where everyone that came over could find something to eat on the tree.

The Christmas storm

One year we were planning on going to my parents for Christmas. They lived about 3 hours away.  We had just got married and were really broke so we were glad we were going home or else it would be a pretty bare Christmas at our house.  We had a tiny little tree about 1 foot high we had cut and nothing under it.  My husbands parents had sent their gifts to us to my parents house as that is where we were going to be.

Then came the big flood and put most of the roads in Oregon out of commission and you could not travel. We had $1.00 to our name. We each took .50 cents and went to town. Now how in the world do you buy a present for 50 cents.  I tell you it makes you stop and think that is for sure. I ended up getting him some cleaning stuff for his gun and he got me bubble bath.  It was a fantastic Christmas. I think because of the thought that went into it. We took a goose he had shot out of the freezer and had our dinner. 2 days later some of the back roads opened up and we took off to my parents.

A Christmas I will always treasure and I think of it every time I have a calgon moment which I still love to do.

A lost Barbie doll

My mom also told the story of hiding a Barbie doll and forgetting about it and buying another one.

Does anyone else have stories of forgotten presents

What did you get me for Christmas?

One Christmas my daughter Sandie who lived in Seattle was on the phone bugging me asking me what I had got her for Christmas.  She kept trying to get me to tell her. Finally she said, ok fine, what did you get Erik?  What did you get Travis? I kept telling her what I had got people then she would say "what did you get me?" Nope I am not telling. Back to what did you get Spencer?  What did you get Barb?  What did you get Cyndi? What did you get Sandie?  DUMB me told her..She was so proud of herself, but at least I have not fallen for it again since then....lol

Raggedy Ann bank

My friends story reminded me of when I hid the kids Raggedy Ann bank in a packing box in the basement and forgot all about it. Well when we moved next fall I found the bank all tucked away in the packing worms happy as can be....

Anyone else got favorite or funny Christmas stories to share

The Christmas book

From a friend of mine:

my friend John asked what my favorite Christmas story was..here's mine....one year I was so prepared that I had everything done...I even wrote in a Holiday book what was giving to everyone-no last minute wrapping or buying for this girl.... Barbie was sick one day and bored. She found "the book" and was reading it... she found out not only what she was getting but what everyone else was getting and then she went and told all of them what they were getting! I haven't written in "the book" since :=

Rocks for brakes

When my mom was 11 years old her family left Kansas and headed to Oregon.  They drove a 1928 Studebaker and pulled a trailer that was 18 foot long. Her family consisted of 2 brothers, one sister, her and her parents. Grandpa had made beds in the trailer that pulled down for everyone to sleep and then folded up for during the day. It was very crowed but during this time many were walking and living in tents and cardboard boxes so they felt lucky.

The trailer did not have any brakes and the brakes would not hold the trailer.  Her older brother and her each held a big rock and when they started up the hills and the car would stop they had to jump out and put a rock under the wheels to hold it there or it would roll down the hill. 

Everyone had a rough time in the depression but they made it to Oregon and worked in the fields and picking fruit.

I am so glad that in this day and age we have better brakes, what a dangerous job for a child but it still had to be done. The kids did so much more in those days then they do now. At least they had something to do except say "how much further?" "are we there yet", they did not want to stop because that meant they had to jump out and set their rocks....

The boy from New York City

One of my favorite summers was when they kid from New York city came for the summer.

Dad went into the unemployment office where people used to sit and wait for the farmers to come hire people for the day. Dad did custom haying and he wanted some extra help to load and haul hay.  Of course everyone wanted to tell him how much experience they had and then this young 18 year old walked up to him and said “Sir I don’t know anything about haying or a farm but if you will give me a chance I will work for room and board and learn”.  Dad was so impressed with his honesty and the fact that he knew he was inexperienced so would work just for a bed and food so her brought him home.  He ended up firing two of the men he brought home because they could not do the job but that city boy, he kept him all summer long until time to go to New York in the fall.

It was hard to imagine that anyone 18 years old could be as native as he was. He grew up on Long Island. His parents had lots of money and he wanted to spend one summer touring the country and seeing how people lived before he started college. He called them collect long distance every night and would tell them of his day and oh what days they were.

The most amazing thing to me was when we got in the pickup to teach him to drive. He did not know what a clutch, a brake or a gas feed were.  He had never in his life been in the front seat of a car. Now how do you get to be 18 and never get in the front seat of a car.  When I am a country girl and he is a city boy with money. He either had a chauffeur, rode the subway, the bus, a taxi, the tram, an airplane. When dad picked him up he rode in the back seat to the farm.  I thought he was so stupid until I realized he had never been in the front seat of a car but I had never had a chauffeur. I had never rode in a taxi, a plane, a tram or a bus if you don’t count a school bus.

I realized there and then no matter what someone else’s life is like they can teach you things and they have different knowledge then you do not better knowledge.

Teaching him to drive,  all I can say is I am glad we had 40 acres of open space for him to learn and laugh, oh goodness we laughed and then we laughed again when he called his parents and told them about his day.  Sometimes he would put me on the phone and I would explain stuff to them.

We killed that old pickup, we ran that pickup in the ditch, we stopped so fast we almost hit the windshield and the poor transmission grinded it’s way through the gears. He never gave up and he learned to drive.

You will hear many stories of the kid from New York in my blog. It was a great summer for a young teenage girl and I think for him as he kept in touch for years after he went home. I so much would love to find him again.

Cows, Horses, Camel are made for riding pigs are not

Cows, camels, horses are made for riding, pigs are not.   A hard lesson my mom learned.  We were out trying to get the pigs back into their pen. Pigs are terrible about getting out, they love to rout under the fences or just break them down.  We had them going the direction we wanted when all at once one of the old sows took off right towards mom. She was yelling and waving and the ole sow did not even slow down.

My dad yelled “kick her in the nose”

Mom kicked!  Whoops she missed and the pig ran right between her legs with one leg up in the air. The sow was to big to fit under there so she took mom right with her. Her was mom on the back of the pig facing south while the pig was running north and both of them squealing so loud you couldn’t hear anything else.

Down the road they go, both still squealing at the top of their lungs. I am not sure who was the most surprised. Mom finally slide off the side but by that time the rest of us were rolling around on the ground laughing so hard all the pigs were running every which way.

The money I would have paid for a video in those good ole days…..

Nobody was hurt, the pigs were gathered back up and put back in the pen. Not a one of us can think of this story without laughing, well except for mom, her pride is still hurt….lol

Mush for brains

An electric fence can be a good thing or a bad thing. You will notice I have a lot of stories about the electric fencer. My mom is especially sensitive to electric shock and my dad did not even feel it.  He would grab a hold of the fence and yell at us kids that we had not fixed the fence. We finally bought him a fence tester to use.

One morning mom and dad were going out to work in the field. Dad had told us kids to check the fence to make sure it was hot. That was a morning chore of ours. Dad got to the fence and grabbed a hold of it and was mad because we had not got the fence hot. He yelled at us to get out and get that fence hot before he got back.

Mom got to the fence and said “Gene are you sure it isn’t hot?”  He said that it did not even have a little bit of a zap, it was totally dead.  Mom started under the fence and hit the top of her head on the fence and it zapped her. Flat on the ground she went and could not even talk. She said later it felt like her brains were scrambled. She could not get up and dad picked her up and carried her to the house.  She finally came around but she always remembered the incident and would never touch a fence again I don’t care if you unhooked it.

We bought dad the fencer and he learned that day to not trust his judgment on the fencer. I know one day I was walking with him and my husband and got my elbow to close to the fence and got zapped and they thought I was having a heart attack or stroke. It just zapped all the brains into mush for a couple of minutes.

Watch out for my Aunt

You don’t want to mess with my aunt, she is not nice when she is mad.  Anyone that knows her would describe her as a lady. Very refined, ladylike, quiet, thoughtful, loving and kind. She always has her makeup on and dressed nice and just about perfect for the world to see.  But don’t make her real mad…………….

Her brother and her were out getting the cows in and he was being a typical farm boy and ignoring his part of the work. She was working hard to get the cows through the gate as he played with rocks and just messed around and would not help.  She was getting madder and madder by the minute.

She finally got the cows in the corral and was so mad she could hardly talk and he started giving her a ration of mouth. She picked up a 4x4 board that was there and hanging onto it around her middle she spun around to hit him but the board hit him as she was spinning as he bent over he wacked him right in the head knocking him out like a light.  She was terrified, she thought she had killed him.  She did not know what to do, she had killed her brother.

She finally went into the house as if nothing was wrong. When her parents asked her where her brother was she told them out in the corral messing around.  They were sitting in the living room and she was trying her best not to cry and afraid she was going to prison for her whole life or maybe hanged for killing him when he walked in the back door and that is when the real fight started.

She did not go to prison except to her room and grounded for 3 weeks but I guarantee he never mouthed her that bad ever again.

Tough guys

Guys like to be thought of as tough, they aren't afraid of anything. They think it means they are less of a man if they are afraid but that just isn't true.

One such tough man in my life worked as a welder/fitter and also the company had barges that hauled wood to Hawaii from Oregon that he sailed on. He was a tough long longshoreman doing a man's job.

He had about 3 weeks home and we were over at his house visiting and getting ready to go dancing sitting around the living room waiting for his wife to get ready. I noticed a small spider above the chair he was sitting in and told him so.  He just kept talking and went and got a paper towel and still telling his story stood up in the chair and reached for the spider.................................

OMG!  The spider dropped towards him, he screamed like a banshee and jumped backwards kicking the big arm chair flying, lamp came crashing down and he lit on his behind in the middle of the floor and the spider was still hanging there.

As soon as his behind hit the floor he looked at me and said "if you ever tell a soul I will kill you, I am terrified of spiders".

You think it would end there. Nope, no way, this story has to go on.  A couple of years later when he got back from Hawaii he called and wanted to know if we could pick him up at the dock.

We only had a small Datsun pickup with a canopy so we put his 3 girls, my 3 girls in the back of the pickup and off we went to get him.

My husband and him put his large duffel type bag in the back of the pickup and headed for home. All of a sudden the kids were all screaming and knocking on the window. We thought they were fighting as they all acted like sisters but they were all  6 making faces and hand signals like mad and then I could tell they were saying “big spider”

My husband pulled over to the side of the road and opened the back of the canopy and those girls tumbled out of there in 2 seconds and still screaming about this huge spider and holding their hands showing us how big it was. My friend said “no way is a spider that big”. He starts crawling into the back of the pickup and this huge and I mean huge spider comes out from behind his duffel bag jumping at him.

He never made a sound but I would have thought it was impossible but he shot out of the back of that pickup still on his hands and knees and landed right by the girls still on his hands and knees and said “big spider”. He was as white as a sheet and sweat all over his forehead.

My husband looked into the back of the pickup and sure enough a huge tarantula was staring at him, every time he tried to get in the pickup that thing would jump at him. I guess it was defending his territory. He must have picked it up in his luggage in Hawaii.

My husband took off his boot and climbed in and squashed the spider. Not a one of those kids would get in the back of the pickup and neither would my friend. So here we are with 6 kids and 3 adults and a small Datsun pickup and no one wants in the back.

You guessed it, my husband and I were in the back and my friend and all 6 kids were stuffed in the front.

Those sneaky sleeping bags

My parents loved to fish from the time I can remember and some of the best memories came from fishing trips.

After I had kids the folks wanted to go cat fishing at Prineville Reservoir.  They had a overhead camper so we loaded it on the pickup and off we went.  We fished most of the day and when it got dark we built a fire. The best cat fishing is after dark.  My folks were going to sleep in the camper and my family was sleeping outside to watch the stars. 

Mom decided she was tired and was going to bed so off up the slope she went. She said she would just throw our sleeping bags out for us.  Pretty soon here came a sleeping bag rolling down the slope, and then another one. We saw another one come rolling down the slope and all of a sudden it giggled!  Mom had lost her balance and instead of throwing the sleeping bag out the door she threw herself out the door.  Thank goodness for sandy slopes with no rocks.

By then she was awake and we continued our fishing trip.

Pig Snout Sandwich

We had a friend come stay with us on the farm one summer and his favorite sandwich was liverwort. I asked him one day if he knew what it was made of. He said he did not care, he did not have a weak stomach and he ate it cause it tasted good and it would taste just as good after he knew what it was.  Being the good friend I am I told him it had pigs snout in it.  He just laughed and said “pig snout sure is good”.

I never thought to much more about it and one day we made liverwort sandwiches and he could not eat any. He said he would pick it up and start towards his mouth and all of a sudden a old dirty snotty pig snout was where his sandwich was. He said “thanks for ruining one of my favorite things.

That was a long time ago and I wonder if he can eat liverwort again or if it turns into a pig snout coming towards his mouth even today. 

Old fashioned taffy pulling party

I wanted everyone to come to my house and have a party. My mom wanted us to have a taffy pulling party. They used to have them when she was small. I thought she was crazy and old fashioned and boy this was going to be the most boring party of the season. I was so afraid no one would ever come again. I mean who ever heard of a Christmas party that was a taffy pulling party.  She kept insisting I had to try it and it would be a lot of fun.  I kept thinking what will I tell the kids I invite. Do I admit it is a taffy pulling party. Do I just say a Christmas party. Do I say come on out we are making candy for Christmas? Being the brave soul I am I just told them mom was having a old fashioned Christmas party and could they please come or her feelings would be hurt.

The day arrived, I was so scared I would be in the dog house with my friends forever and ever.  They all arrived in good spirits and mom set us around the big table we set up for Thanksgiving and started putting things in front of them. Waxed paper, butter etc. they looked at me with this look that said “What????” I just smiled and I am sure I turned bright red. Mom explained how you grab some of the taffy candy and start pulling it, folding it over, pulling it and when it is nice and soft and pliable we make a roll out of it and cut an inch off the end and wrap it in the waxed paper and twist the ends to take home for Christmas.

We all looked at her like “you have to be kidding, this is suppose to be fun”. Well amazingly enough it was one of the funniest parties we ever had. We giggled and pulled and made shapes and had the time of our lives. We were so excited when each of them had their little sack of taffy to take home to their families.  The families loved it, best taffy I ever had. What fun to mix colors, I think this is where they got the idea for silly putty.  Our imagination went crazy, food coloring everywhere, candy like you have never seen, swirls, checkered..

Have an old fashioned taffy pulling night with your family. I wish I had the recipe she  used but I am sure you can find instructions on the internet.  Have fun and think of my mom this Christmas as you eat it..

My broken arm

I was so horse crazy when I was younger I tried to figure out how to use my horse for everything. I always wished I had a work horse I could use instead of a tractor.

Every fall we had to burn the stubble field after harvest.  I used to get the job of lighting the fire so I took some bailing wire and took some stubble and wrapped it in the baling wire and then I would get on my horse, my brother would light it and I would take off running around the outside of the field starting everything on fire. It worked really well and the fire did not get away as much because it burned back onto its self instead of starting at one end of the field and growing big.

We also raised a lot of sweet corn and dad would make us get the wheelbarrow and take the corn shucks down to the pigs. That got boring really fast so being clever I got this cardboard box and I would fill it and put it on my horse. I would ride backwards and hold the box and my girlfriend would ride on the rump and hold the other end.

We were having fun since now a horse was involved and then here came the dog barking and nipping chasing a cat and off my horse went at a run.  I was laughing but my friend did not ride much. Around the corner we went and she lost her balance and reached up and shoved on me to keep on. Well when I laugh I can’t stay on a horse to save my life and off I flew with the box of corn shucks.  There was an old gas tank laying there and I was going to hit my head so I threw my right arm out to block it and I broke my arm.

Where I live there is not hospital for 30 miles so mom wrapped it and put it in a sling. I was so proud of that sling like it was a honor badge. The next morning off to the doctor we went. The doctor put a cast on it but I wanted my sling back. He said I did not need it but I made me a sling when I got home.

It was a good lessons and has served me well through my life as now I can write either left handed or right handed. I so remember how bad it itched and how bad it stunk when they took it off.  I was terrified when the doctor got the saw out to remove my cast. I thought you aren’t cutting me with that thing. It took him quite a while to convince me that it would not cut me. Thank God for old time doctors that take the time with kids to calm them down.

The Hay Ride

A young lady just starting to want to kiss the boys should never ever ask their dad if they can have a hay ride but I did.

The big day arrived and since we did not have horses dad hooked the big tractor to the hay wagon. Mom was busy making home made cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate for us when we returned.

It was a beautiful fall day just enough chill in the air to make you want to snuggle, a perfect day for a hay ride.

All of my friends climbed aboard and with many giggles we started on our hay ride.  Nice and slow down the road we went singing and talking. It wasn’t long and we were snuggling with our boyfriends and getting dreamy.

Big mistake!  Dad got faster and instead of staying on the road out across the fields and corrugations he went.  Down through the ditches, up over the rocks, faster and faster he went. Soon we were holding on for our lives instead of snuggling our boyfriends and it was dad that was giggling and having a blast. We did bumps, turns, hard stops, hay flying off the wagon every which way until hardly any hay remained.

Finally having mercy on us dad returned to the house with a big grin on his face.  We were all still giggling but not snuggling and sneaking kisses.  A hay ride like no other but off we went for our hot chocolate and hot cinnamon rolls.  I always thought it was because he was bored until I got older and realized he was smarter then we gave him credit for.  He had kept us from kissing and did it with everyone having fun…..

Merry Christmas Story

Growing up on the farm we did not have much money but we had good food and lots of fun.  Dad grew up really poor and he so wanted to give us kids what we wanted.  You might not get what you wanted new but if you wanted something he would find a way to get it for you.

My mom always wanted a nice home so dad had her draw up the plans and he started building it for her a little at a time.  It had a living room and a family room separated by a big dual fireplace where each room had a fireplace.  The family room was done but the living room only had the paneling and sheetrock done. It had a wood floor but it still needed sanding and waxed so dad used it a lot of a work room in the winter where he would be warm.

One winter my brother had wanted a tool box. He was and still is a hot rod fan. Dad did not have the money to buy a set of tools and a fancy tool box so he went to second hand stores until he found this tool box.  He went through his tools and second hand stores until he found the tools he needed.

Every free minute he had he would be in the living room working on cleaning and polishing up the tools. He cleaned and fixed the tool box up like new. Now came time to paint the tool box.  He decided he would use this green, he took each wrench and spray painted one section of the tool green to match the tool box. That way my brothers tools would not get mixed up with his or anyone else. Then he got the tool box which he had spent hours cleaning and started to spray it to match the tools………OH NO! The top of the spray can shot up in the air and paint started shooting up like a geyser! Green paint was flying everywhere in mom’s new living room. I mean this was just not leaking it was spraying the ceiling, the walls, the floor. Dad stuck his hand over the top of the can where it would not spray everywhere.  He looked like the mad jolly green giant.  He was yelling “open the door” “open the door” as he ran in circles.

I don’t’ think it helped that he was running in circles but I guess he could not hold still. Paint was oozing between his fingers, paint all over his hair, his face, his clothes. I am trying to run from the other room and get the door open at the same time I am laughing so hard I can hardly stand up. Then he yells “quit your dang laughing and open the door”. He runs outside with paint still flying and about 2 seconds after he gets out the door the paint lets up.  He looks at me and the trail behind him.  You can tell by the look on his face he does not want to go back into that room.  I am sure he figures mom is going to kill him when she gets home.

Back inside we go to check the room. Ceiling only has a couple of tiny dots here and there but one wall, the built in planter have a lot but that hard wood floor is covered with green paint and green shoe prints right out onto the porch.

I guess you know we grabbed rags and cleaned as much as we could and then Dad went to town and got new paint for walls and a electric floor sander to clean that mess up.  By the time we got done we had no money to get more paint so my brother’s tool box never did get a second coat. 

I often wonder if he knew just how expensive that tool box actually was and how much work went into it.  My dad had spent weeks with steel wool etc. cleaning that box and tools.

Anyone can buy you something, they just need the time to go to town and some money but true love to spend hours and hours making something for someone just because you want them to have it so bad and you can’t afford it.  Spending time thinking of a present is sometimes the most fun.  Our family is still good at coming up with cool things at Christmas that don’t put us in debt but are loved.

A friend of mine asked how we did it because they put so much on their credit card it takes all year to pay it off.  I said the fun is really thinking of something. He said he wanted to get my son-in-law something but he did not want him to feel he had to give back. I told him Christmas was about giving not receiving. We thought together a long time to figure out something fun and cheap and decided to get him a six pack of beer, decorate it all up and take it and put on his step, ring the door bell and run.

That present was so fun as we watched him look around at his decorated beer with ribbons everywhere and a sign that said Merry Christmas to a special guy. We spent the next year not in debt but in conspiracy giggles as he talked the whole year trying to figure out who had bought him that beer……………he probably hoped it was a good looking secret admirer and was just afraid to say so…

Merry Christmas everyone….lots of stories like this. Christmas should be fun not stressful as to what you can afford.

Wheelbarrow ride

When we were small on the farm one of the fun things to do was wheel barrow races or just giving each other rides in the wheelbarrow.

Now here comes another one of those blasted I got bit by the electric fence story. If you read this blog you know there are several.

We had an old metal wheelbarrow my dad used for mixing cement. My brother was giving me a ride and he loved to go fast and hit every bump he could. I think he actually was hoping I would fly out. You had to hold on tight when my brother was driving that ole wheelbarrow.  He thought it was funny when I got scared.  We were flying around the yard and hitting bumps and I was bouncing around like a ping pong ball in that wheelbarrow.

He decided that was not rough enough and took off towards the bad strip where all the really rough ground and rocks were. To get there you had to go under the electric fence right where the electric fence crossed. We hit that ditch and started up the other side when the wheel barrow touched the fence and POW! ZAP! It got both of us. He dropped the wheelbarrow and jumped back which left me under the fence and the fence still touching the wheelbarrow. I would start to crawl out and POW! ZAP! It would knock me back in. I was yelling at him to pull the wheelbarrow out. He was standing there with his eyes real big and turned around and took off running.  I was yelling “where are you going?” “get back here” when I wasn’t getting zapped anyway. I was so glad that it has a couple of seconds that you aren’t getting shocked but it almost makes it worse as you know what is coming as soon as you can take a breath.

Well lucky for me he did not really leave me there, he had ran to turn off the electric fence. See red headed brothers aren’t all bad.

Making baby food

One of the things about growing up country is that you become pretty thrifty and you make things yourself.

When my twins were born they cost a lot of money. By the time they were eating baby food they had good appetites and baby food cost a fortune when feeding two babies. I decided to make my own.

Every night after dinner I took the leftovers and made them into baby food. Even two green beans makes some baby food. I would take whatever we had and then put it in the blender with some of their formula and presto, instant baby food. As they grew the less I blended it.  They got where they would not even eat the baby food you buy in the store except for the fruits and desserts.  As they grew I switched from formula to milk and continued to make their food. It sure saved money and nothing got wasted.

After they were eating regular food I was at a girlfriends house and she was complaining how much baby food cost for her baby. She said she swore half the grocery budget went to baby food, the baby ate better then they did. I told her about how I used to make it all the time and how much cheaper it was as it was food that would be thrown away as it wasn’t enough to keep for the next meal. If I got to far ahead I would freeze it.

She decided she was going to try it as she had a whole bunch of beets left that her other kids would not eat.  She got out the blender, put some milk in it and dropped the beets in and turned it on.  Parts of the beets were still on top so she took the top off and stuck the spatula in to shove them down.  Well you can just imagine what happened, that spatula hit the blades and beets flew all over her kitchen. I mean on the ceiling, all over the floor, in open drawers and cupboards, on the windows were little bits of beets. She had bits of beets on her glasses, in her hair, all over her clothes.

She called me and yelled at me. I told her, you have to shut the blender off before you stick something in it.  She said “you never told me that part”. Well I guess I just figured anyone knew that part if they ever used a blender.  She said someone had bought her the blender as a present and she had never used it before and was never going to again.  No matter how I tried to tell her that ended the blender use. I never knew her to use it again.

The sling shot dive

I have a scar to remind me forever of my horse Thunder I grew up with.  Like I said in the earlier story we rode bareback and we slide up his neck to get on.

I was out riding with some friends and we stopped at the small irrigation ditch to let our horses drink. It was a windy day and not real warm. My horse was down in the ditch with his hips still up on the ditch bank. He was at such an angle I kind of had to lean back where I would not slide down his neck. I lost my rein, instead of pulling his head up with the other rein and getting it I laid over on my stomach and slide down his neck.  As I reached for the rein a big gust of wind came and blew some paper up out of the weeds towards him. He threw his head up in the air and launched me like a sling shot. I flew way up in the air and came down head first in the ditch right where the cement ended.

It knocked me about half way out. I sat up but I could not talk. I could hear the other kids screaming and yelling that my eye was cut out. I could see blood everywhere but I could not talk or move. I kept thinking, shut up, I can’t move I have to get the rein or Thunder will run a way and I won’t be able to catch him.  They kept yelling and one took off on his horse saying he was going to get my folks.

My sanity finally returned and I still would not move, it was just a matter of seconds. Thunder came over to smell me and I grabbed his rein.  There was nothing to get on to crawl back up on the horse and no way was I going to get on that neck again so I started walking down the road leading my horse.

I was about half way home, about ¼ miles when here comes the pickup with my mom inside and my friend barreling down the road. According to her this is what happened. She was baking and all of a sudden she heard my friend yelling and he hit that door so hard she knew in her heart something really bad had happened. He was yelling “Linda got her eye cut out and it is laying on her cheek. “  Mom flew out the door and headed up to get me expecting the worse.

My eye was not cut out, it must have been because the water had pooled in the eye socket with the blood made it look terrible. Head wounds always bleed like you had cut your head off.

Mom told me to get in the truck. I did not want to let go of Thunder. I tried and tried to explain that I needed to walk my horse home or he would run off. She advised me to get in that truck right now or that horse was going to be gone for good. I climbed aboard the truck and let go of Thunder and he trotted off to eat as usual.

Mom took me straight to town to have the old doc sew me up.  I will never forget that experience. I thought it was so cool when he numbed it that I could not feel the pain. I was kind of used to pain as I was always doing something and this was the first time it did not hurt.  The doctor finally had to tell me to leave it alone. I don’t remember how many stitches I had but if it wasn’t that the cement edge was covered by several inches of water it probably would have killed me.

I did learn things for when my girls started riding. Safety comes first above all else. Expect the unexpected.  If you hurt yourself hope that you need stitches where they will numb it.

It took me a long time to catch Old Thunder when we got home too.

My riding pal

I think all horse loving girls played follow the leader with your horse.  The leader takes off and goes anywhere he doesn’t think the other horses will follow. Anyone whose horse does not take the obstacle in two tries goes to the end of the line.

I was lucky with my little mustang because if I asked him to go somewhere he would go. We would always win so they made me ride bareback. Well I rode bareback all the time, I never even owned a saddle most of the time and had to borrow one when I needed one.

They decided I had to ride double and the fun started.

They would go down into the canal and up the other side which is really steep and off we would go. They would jump something and off we would go. They would take off running and take a real sharp rollback and off we would go.

Then a new girl moved to town I will call Sue (not her real name). She did not have a horse but she loved them so she rode behind me everywhere.  We got so good at riding together it was like she was not even there. We could go and do anything with the two of us on that horse.

Back to the front of the line we went, into the house we went, through the canal we went, over the ditches we jumped and king of the leader we became and we never at the end of the line again.

Some of the best memories I have was flying around with her behind me. I had a friend everywhere I went. She finally got her own horse and started riding him but truthfully learning to ride double she was better at that then by herself. We just fit together like a hand and glove and never had to worry about where we went. I want to go swimming but my horse won’t swim. I want to go through the canal but my horse won’t go. I would go there but my horse is afraid to jump. If I could go, then she could go. It was a fantastic fun memory. That girl could ride on behind that horse like no one I have ever seen, it was like she was my shadow instead of a person.  To this day she is the only person I have truly enjoyed riding 

Losing my first horse Thunder

When I was 3 years old I got my first horse. Her name was Cindy like my first daughter. I did not think about that when I named my first born but I wondered later in life if subconsciously I did. Horses were the love of my life.  Right after Cindy we got Thunder and I really fell in love.  Thunder was a blood red bay with a white stripe. He came home to our house in the back seat of our car with my mom holding him, or trying to hold him still enough he could not crawl up front when he was a baby. We bottle fed him and he became my life until I was in the 8^th grade.

Thunder was so calm and mellow in some ways and such a big *#$& in others. Now I am older I think us kids are what made him a #)$*. We used that horse for everything. We could not get on him so we would crawl up his tail and try to get on. We found out if he put his head down we could lay behind his ears and then pull the reins and he would put his head up and we would slide right on.  Sometimes you had to get grain to get his head down. We would ride him 4 and 5 deep bare back.  You could do anything with old Thunder except make him go fast. He got lazy and you had to kick every step to keep him at a lope. The neighbor said it looked like we were trying to fly as here we would come with our legs and his just a flying.

If you fell off Thunder you had to lay real still until he came to check on you and then grab his reins. If you didn’t he would run off to home or even take off to Gateway about 3 miles away and you would be walking home.  I hated it when he went to Gateway, it was a long walk and then you had to chase him and pen him in a corner. He did not mind running when you were chasing him.

I almost always rode bareback as I could not put the saddle on. One day we were off to Gateway for the day and my brother put the saddle on Thunder where I could get on and off since I was going all day. We could also tie a lunch behind the saddle.  Off to Gateway we went. We came to a steep hill and started down it when I noticed it looked like Thunders ears were getting closer and then…………All of a sudden here came his ears towards me at about 90 mph. I jumped off and there stood Thunder with that saddle behind his ears penning his head to his legs.  We were lucky he was such a good horse, he stood there while we got him unhooked. We laid the saddle down and found a rock to get on the horse with and went home. Dad made my brother go get the saddle. He said he did not tighten the cinch cause he thought I could do that.  A good reminder to always check your gear before getting on a horse as it is your buns that pay the price.

One night about midnight I hear some noises out by our gas tank. I ran into my dad’s room and told him I thought someone was stealing gas. He said “turn the light off” I thought he wanted the light on to see the guy. He wanted me to turn the bedroom light I had turned on off. Instead I ran outside right across the road from the gas tank and plugged in the big yard light.  Dad was in hot pursuit of me in his under-ware because he was afraid I would get hurt. Anyway I plugged that big light in and the world exploded. Whoever was at the gas tank took off running, we don’t know how many there were as Dad was trying to get to me and I was plugging the light in. Whoever it was ran into the bailer and knocked it off the piece of wood the hitch was sitting on. They ran into other equipment. The noise they were making I am sure there were more then one or two even. They hit the electric fence hollering and tore it down and were gone. The animals in the pasture were running.

The next morning my dad came into my room and told me he had some bad news for me. I was afraid just by the look on his face and his tone of voice.  He told me Thunder had fallen and hit his head and killed himself probably when the prowler spooked him. I cried so hard and I wanted to see him because I wouldn’t believe it. Dad finally gave in and took me down there. I held his bloody head and cried all day. I never made it to school.

I did not want him to go to the rendering plant so dad borrowed a back hole to dig a hole. In central Oregon the ground is so rocky and dad hit solid rock each time he tried to dig a hole. He finally had to dynamite a hole big enough to bury Thunder.

What a dad, the expense when we did not have extra money and the time he took to try and help a girl’s broken heart.  He told me I could have any horse we could afford and oh how he would regret those words but my dad always said “Your word is the only thing no one can take from you, they can take everything else you have including your life but they can’t take your word so make it count for something”.  Another thing I am sure he regretted telling me after that remark which is another story on the horse I replaced Thunder with.

Thunder & me. Dig the cowboy boots with shorts

the Cove

I think everyone that grew up in Madras area hated it when they filled up the Cove.  We were all excited when they put Pelton dam in but Round Butte drowned some of the best memories a child can have.

The cove area was the area since Central Oregon was formed and before that by the Native Americans.  They used to set up fishing areas to smoke salmon on the Metolius River ever year to prepare their salmon for winter.  The settlers planted fruit trees that would not grow up on the plains and had big canning parties in the fall and the kids…well the kids loved the cove.

We used to have ball games in a big grassy meadow. We also had 3 legged races, my girlfriend and me were fantastic in the 3 legged race.  We had gunny sack races, we also excelled in that.

Families had big reunions and picnics in the park. Families still went and picked the fruit to can.

Business’s had big parties for the employees and family. I think everyone used the park for something. It was beautiful down there with green trees and waterfalls, now all gone, drowned under all the water that the Portland area and outsiders come play on.  You can’t  go out in a boat to relax, it is like sitting in a giant mixer from all the boats and water skiers, jet skiers and water boarders. It is like grand central station. If you try your canoe in any of the main areas you will get tipped over.

I think it is sad and I hate to go to the cove, it just makes me sad and all for progress?? Progress for who?

Donkey baseball & the Old men and women play

One of my favorite ball game of the year was when the old men would play the women’s team. It was usually the last game of the season.  My mom played on the women’s team and my dad played on the old men’s team.

Well maybe it was the donkey baseball team. Seemed like dad always got the good donkey, he bucked or he went the wrong way. What great times.

Anyway the old men’s team goal was to frustrate the women and have a blast. Dad was an amazing ball player and unless you could really pitch he could place that ball so well you would think he threw it by hand.  He used to love to hit it right over mom’s head and watch her jump and run. Every time he came to bat you knew it was going right over mom’s head. She would move closer in, she would move further out, she would play to the left, she would play to the right and every time right over her head. She would give him such dirty looks and then everyone would laugh. It was a big game with her.

The old men used to love to put a whole bunch of balls in their pockets and when the women would get a good hit they would get a ball out of their pocket and throw to first base.  It was good clean fun and lots of laughter as the woman ran no matter what ball went to first, every ball they hit was a home run because they never stopped until they got to home plate. Striking them out was the only way to get them out.

I would laugh so hard because you just knew what was coming and it was fun to watch the other one try their best to screw up the other team.

In Donkey ball it was really funny cause dad was an amazing ball player but I really think the guy with the donkey asked who he should give what donkey to. Dad would hit it clear over everyone’s head and he was lucky to get to first base. He would go to third, or maybe second or even out to help the fielder but he did not go to first base. He also went to the ground sometimes and that donkey would bray and look at him like ha, ha, ha and dad would get up and take off running after that donkey and the donkey would run like mad. If dad stopped the donkey would stop and laugh at him. Sometimes he would run so fast he would catch the donkey but then the real fight started. I don’t think he ever scored a run in donkey baseball….lol

Good old tummy hurting, eyes tearing fun.  The games I have gone to after I grew up the main thing the donkey will do is walk off the other directions and refuse to move. I was so disappointed because dad’s team donkey’s were live wires. I suppose in this day and age you would get sued because someone got bucked off and hurt.  I miss those games.

late post

I am so busy today that the post for today is going to be this evening. I hope you will come back later and read

Honking for a home run in Baseball

As I have said before I grew up on baseball. We played baseball in the pasture, Mom was on a team, dad was on a team and dad coached a team.  I wasn’t old enough at the time to be on a team but I was a enthusiastic fan.

We would hurry around the farm to get our stuff done enough we could go to town in the evenings and dad would play baseball.  Then after the game we would go home and do chores in the dark.  It was some of the best memories of growing up.

I would embarrass my dad with my yelling and jumping up and down when he did something and I mean anything. I could yell so loud and jump up and down and run in circles.

One day we were hauling hay and it was getting time for the game and we weren’t done yet. We went into high gear and got done just in time to take off for town. Dad did not go to the house to get the pickup we just took the ole hay truck to town. We parked it at the ball game and mom was there with dad’s uniform.

I chose to set in the hay truck cause the horn was so loud and I could honk for our team.  My dad came up to bat…yeah he hit a really good ball and off he goes for first with me laying on that old horn in the truck and screaming run at the top of my lungs. On to second base, horn still going, mouth still going, around third headed for home. Man I did not know I could yell that loud and the horn I was holding down steady by now. Dad went cross home base and looked at me with a dirty look, you can quit honking now he says. Nope I kept right on honking and yelling. He sat down and gave me a dirty look and I could tell he was getting mad but that dang horn was on a roll and I could not get it to stop.  I was frantically beating on it but dad thought I was still honking it.  Finally he started towards the truck. I knew I was in deep trouble as I was not minding and I tried even harder to hit that horn with vigor only a 7 year old can.  About that time here comes one of dad’s team mates that was a mechanic and says “Gene I think the horn is stuck”. I am thinking that Ralph saved my life. Sure enough they get there and can’t make the horn quit honking so dad unplugged it.

Thank you Ralph, my life is saved but I never did get to set in that old truck again. By the way we won the game!  

TV comes to Central Oregon

When TV came to central Oregon it came out of Portland and you got a signal that was split. Everything had a shadow, you saw two Lone Rangers, two Lassies.  The antenna was up on the highest part of our roof. Being in snow country we also had a very steep roof. We also have a lot of wind on the plains of central Oregon.  All of this combined made watching tv a chore.  The wind would always readjust the antenna and someone would have to go on the roof and start turning it slowly and someone inside watching the TV. One person would have to stick his head out the window and relay instructions.  When you got the adjustment right and put the ladder away you could watch TV until the wind blew the antenna off course again.  No matter how many lines you put on it the wind was the master and that antenna would move.

If you lived in a hole instead of up on the plains you could not get TV at all.  In those days baseball and fights were the thing to watch.  All of our friends that lived in the holes would come to the house to watch.  A lot of our Native Americans would come up. That is how I learned to dig roots. Us kids would head out and dig roots to eat and play baseball while the parents watched the fights on TV.

TV changed our lives. We were no longer back woods kids, we saw how to do things which got us in more trouble then anyone thing that happened in our lives. 

The day we waxed the floor with areowax (see previous story) was because on TV it looked like the wax was 6” deep and so shiny. 

We made our electric swords (from sword fights on TV looking like it was fun (see previous story)

We saw some parachutes on TV with people jumping and just floating down to earth. Yep, you are right we had to try it.  The Miller kids and us went and each got a sheet and out to the barn we went.  That was the tallest thing we could think of.  We all climbed up into the loft, grabbed each corner of the sheet, yell Geronimo and jumped.  Lucky for us the loft door was above where the hay was feed which made for a soft enough landing we were not hurt. Well we had the wind knocked out of us and our pride was really hurt when dad got a hold of us.   

Lesson one.  Dad said “think things through”

Lesson two:  Never agree to jump all at once, wait until last to see how it goes before you are stupid enough to jump.

Lesson three: To many of these incidents makes you afraid of heights when you grow up.

I know also I used to know these bible quotes and did not know why. Well one year when I was on graveyard in dispatch I was up on my day off watching TV land with all the old shows. The Lone Ranger was on, he was quoting the bible like mad. I swear when he hit someone he would say “an eye for an eye”

There will be more stories as to what TV brought to Central Oregon. The doctors are right watching TV is dangerous to your health.

skinny dipping

When raising kids it is always fun what they come up with. My three daughters and my two nieces decided they wanted to try skinny dipping.  We lived 10 miles out of town and the nearest neighbor that could see the swimming pool and deck was a good mile away.

They decided tonight was the night and they told everyone they couldn’t look and out the door they went. Our swimming pool was an above ground with just a small part of it underground. A wood deck ran around the top of the pool with a slide on it.

I looked out the window and here all five of them were going down the slide and getting out and running around and down the slide again just giggling and having a gay old time.

The problem, they had turned the big yard light on which was like a big search light directed right on them. Now keep in mind the neighbor is one mile away and it is dark but when you light the place up like daylight with a light it is worse then during the day.

When I went out and turned the light off and told them they were mortified, they had turned the light on because my one niece was scared because it was so dark.  They did not want to swim anymore and as far as I know they never did try skinny dipping again.

I also loved the fact that when we set up the pool my dad thinking he was being smart told the kids he had put some stuff in the water that would turn bright purple if they peed in the pool so to be sure and get out if you needed to use the bathroom.

Telling five little girls makes it a challenge and was not a good idea.  As soon as he left you could see everyone looking down at the water and then back up grinning. I know darn well they tried it out even though they swear they didn’t. 

The wiener pig chase

Very few things I have ever felt guilty about where my brother is concerned but oh boy did I this time.

My brother did not like being a farm kid. He wanted to be a big city boy like my uncle he worshiped. He did everything he could think of to get out of doing his work. He would rather be in trouble and grounded then to have to do farm work.

We raised pigs and if you have ever been around pigs you know how hard they are to herd anywhere. About the only thing harder to herd then a full grown pig is a wiener pig. They are like teenagers of the pig family. They are bull headed, want to go anywhere you don’t want them to go and they squeal and make more noise then a party of teens. They also are impossible to catch and if you catch them impossible to hold on too. 

So you get sticks where you look bigger, you sure don’t want to hit one of them with your stick cause all that does is make them run faster the directions they were going even if they have to knock you down to do it.  You wave your stick and yell and holler and hope against hope they will go where you want.

Well the wiener pigs got out, about 20 of them.  The neighbor kids were down to go swimming so when we saw the pigs were out we figured we had enough people it would be easy to get them in. WRONG!  I think it just became a bigger challenge to the pigs.

We rounded them all up and finally got them near the gate and opened the gate. The wiener pigs did not go in the gate, part of the pigs in the pen came out and they all ran off.

We decided someone needed to get in the pen and keep the pigs that were still in there back so they could not get out. Off we go to get the pigs again.  We found out that wiener pigs are hard but if you have the old sows and wiener pigs they don’t’ want to be together and go different directions.  By now we are getting desperate, our swimming time is being taken up by these stupid hogs.

We finally get them near the gate and they start to veer off to the left. Instead of running to turn them my brother just stands there while we yell at him. He says he is suppose to stay at the gate.  The pigs are gone again!!!  Blast it pigs and brother!  We yell at the pigs and we yell at my brother.

We finally get the pigs up there again and they veer to the right. We start yelling and screaming at my brother and making all kinds of threats and he takes off running and all of a sudden he lays down right in the gate no less and off those stupid pigs go again.

By now I am so mad I can hardly see straight and I run up to my brother and I kick him really hard and tell him to get up from there. He doesn’t say anything so I kick him again and once more for good measure. That gets a reaction, a moan and he rolls over and……Oh my God his nose is twice the size it should be. Come on I did not kick him in the head, right between his eyes is black and blue and his eyes are starting to turn blue too and his nose is still getting wider..

Well on a pig fence you always half bury a big log in the dirt under the fence where the pigs can’t dig under the fence the you put two big poles at the end of the log for to hold the gate and take a heavy wire and hook the tow poles together at the top and the bottom and twist them until they are good and tight to hold the poles in place when the pigs rub against them.

Well when he took off running he jumped that half buried pole and wire and caught the top wire right on the bridge of his nose knocking him out cold as a cucumber.

I ran and got dad but I never told anyone about kicking him just about the fence and I am so glad he doesn’t read my blogs.

Guilt is a funny thing, I have not hit my brother since that day but boy have I wanted too but I figure he will find a way to make me guilty about it…. 

My dad used to always yell when things did not go right, when you screwed up. He would always say “when are you going to learn to think things through?” “of all the num-skull things to do”

Well…………One early spring we went to Crane Prairie Reservoir for opening day of trout season. That was always one of our favorite places to go.  This was after I was married and had one child and was very pregnant with a set of twins. We brought a friend of ours with us who was a large man. He brought his bronco, we brought our car and dad and mom brought the white Chevy pickup pulling an 18’ blue and white boat with a small cabin that had a bunk on each side of the cabin and a small chamber pot type toilet.

Crane Prairie was a little low that year and it was a bigger boat then the small ones usually launched there so you always had to take off backwards and then slam your brakes on and pop the boat off. Timing was very important as my dad found out the hard way.

He took off backwards into the water and slammed his brakes on, oh no!!! to far!!! The brakes were wet and the pickup just kept going. He launched the boat, boat trailer and pickup. The water was pouring into the pickup. He crawled up onto the cab and hollered for us to get the bronco and pull him out.  The boat was floating beside the pickup, our watermelon was floating around. The Styrofoam cooler was floating off another direction. Our sleeping bags were kind of floating and sinking. Things were going every which way.  Pete was running for the bronco, my ex and my mom were scurrying all over trying to grab things out of the water that they could reach and me…………

I was laughing so hard the tears were running. I was useless as can be. I yelled “of all the num-skull stunts I have ever seen” “you should have though that one through before you did it” etc. and on and on as I laughed uncontrollably.

My dad by now was sitting on top of the cab of the pickup yoga style with everything floating around him yelling at me to help. Then he could not help it he started laughing uncontrollably too.

We finally got the pickup pulled out of the water and watched as water flowed out both doors. They got the boat pulled up and went around getting all of our camping gear and watermelon and gas cans etc. Man that water was cold.

The Styrofoam cooler was ate off right at the water line from the gas and oil I guess. I mean ate clear gone, no trace of it at all, just the part below the water line.

We went back up to the camp and spread all our clothes, sleeping bags etc. on tree limbs and what rope we could find and started a big fire hoping to dry things out. Clothes were hanging on anything and every thing, we looked like a homeless camp. The pickup was sitting there with both doors open.

We ate sandwiches for supper and decided to cut the watermelon. Well they should use watermelon to clean up gas spills because when we cut into that melon it smelled just like someone opened a can of gasoline. I am surprised it did not blow up. It had absorbed lots of gas.  No watermelon for us.

  

We continued to try and get things dry. No such luck.  My ex and me slept in one of the sleeping bags we had in our car and believe me it was a tight fit. Remember I pregnant with twins and I am huge. My ex is 6’ tall and this was a close encounter. If one person moved you both had to move. This is called spooning extreme. I swear we had to breathe together.

Pete, he had brought a sleeping bag too and my eldest daughter slept in his sleeping bag with him. That was even a tight fit.

Dad and Mom, well we gathered all the clothes we could find and piled them in the boat on those little hard bench beds and they slept there and froze all night long. They could not even snuggle to help them keep warm. 

We were lucky by the next night the other sleeping bags had dried and we all got our own sleeping bag.

One of those trips we are still laughing over. Why is it that the trips that things go wrong are the ones down the line you laugh and remember so well? 

Summer dance

* not the real names

My brother has always been smart. He also could lie a whole lot better then I could. Every summer my cousins *Jim and *Peggy would come up from California and spend part of the summer with us.  They had lost their dad when they were really small and they loved coming to the farm.

My dad always let us each have a building for a club house every summer.  This summer *Peggy and I had an old garage and the boys had a small trailer house.  The garage set right by the driveway, the trailer set up behind the garage past the raspberry bushes. We usually slept in our club house.

One Saturday night we wanted to have the neighbor kids down for the evening. My mom was exhausted and dad had to work and then go bale hay.  Mom said we could have them down as long as everyone went home at 10.  Mom went to bed and we were having a blast on the lawn. Tumbling, dancing and just being goofy.

10pm came and no one wanted to stop. *Jim and my brother said that mom was asleep and dad would not be home until around 10am when it got to dry to bale hay so no one would know when we went to sleep.

Sounded like a good idea to us. We continued to goof off and have fun when all of a sudden we heard my dad’s pickup.  We lived at the end of a county road and you could hear a vehicle a mile away and you also got where you knew the sounds of a vehicle. The neighborhood boys piled in the car and took off out the driveway with their lights off. My dad was very strict when he said something he meant it and they were scared. All of us ran like mad towards our bedroom club houses.

My dad saw a dark car come flying out the driveway with no lights on and turn left down where there are no houses and he took off in hot pursuit.  The boys were doing their best to out run him in their old car. At 14 they were not near the driver he was and he got close enough to recognize the car.  As soon as he saw the car he knew what was going on and he stopped and came home mad as a hop.

He came to our garage and we were laying there pretending to be asleep. He grabbed the covers and gave them a big yank and there we were dressed with our shoes on. The look on our face told him all he needed to know. He said “girls you are grounded for 3 weeks, no horses, no swimming, nothing!”

He then proceeded to go towards the trailer where the boys were. *Peggy and me snuck outside and listened. He yanked their covers off! We hear “I’m sorry boys, the girls have been up to some mischief you guys go back to sleep”

We were wondering, “what the heck?” What in the world happened that they did not get in trouble.

Dad came back out and we huddled against the wall where he couldn’t see us. As we were turning around to head back to bed still wondering what happened we heard a noise and looked up and here comes the boys in their underware getting their clothes and shoes out of the raspberry bushes where they had thrown them as they ran to their quarters.

The next couple of weeks were hard as they boys would go to the swimming hole and smirk at us as they went.  We were so mad as we had said we needed to go to bed and they were the ones that said to keep going and yet we were the ones in trouble.  We just had not thought it through, we were just running to get in bed, thinking if we could get in bed we would be safe.  BOYS!   We were mad enough but they rubbed it in all the time we were grounded. They were so smug about it you wanted to tell or kill them……well maybe beat them up but some kind of damage. 

Daisy the milkcow

We had a milk cow called Daisy, she gave almost 6 gallons of milk and day. Her bag hang clear to the ground. It was so big she waddled when she walked and running was a site to be seen as it would throw her back end from side to side. She was Guernsey cow and a sweet heart except………..

Daisy loved the garden and if there was anyway she could get out and eat the garden she was all for it.  When Daisy ate the garden she would become sick with bloat. We would have to keep her on her feet at all costs until we could get the stuff to drench her.

When you drench a cow you have to put a hose down her throat into her stomach and when it hit the stomach there was no doubt you were there as the smell and gases that escaped were horrible.  If you don’t drench her she would go down and bloat up like a balloon and you would have to take a knife or an instrument made for that purpose and stick her in the flank to let out the gases or it would kill her. We would then pour a gallon of mineral oil down into her stomach to keep her from bloating again.  She hated it!

The kids job was to get sticks or anything close they could use to keep Daisy on her feet. They would keep her on her feet until we could get the tube and the mineral oil ready. She got where she hated those kids if they did not have something in their hands and she would chase them.  I don’t know if she would actually do anything to them as she never caught one. She only chased them if she was in the garden.

One day we were sitting on the lawn getting ready for a BBQ and we hear this bellow and here comes my daughter running full out yelling, get a stick Daisy was in the garden and of course when she saw my daughter she took off after her.  My daughter goes out the long driveway with Daisy in hot pursuit. Daughter yelling, Daisy bellowing and her bag causing her backend to go from one side of the driveway to the other as it swung back and forth, they turn north on the main road. The weed Mullin grows alongside the road and they are quite tall. My daughter grabbed one as she went by and turned around and faced Daisy with that weed. Daisy looked at the weed, turned meekly around and walked as calm as can be like an old cow that doesn’t have any life in here.

A day of drenching was saved as Daisy was caught in the garden before she had time to eat enough to be sick. Everyone hated to hear “Hurry, Daisy is in the garden”. Probably would have got rid of that ole cow but she gave so much milk and I swear half of it was cream.  We made good money selling the extra. Everyone loved Daisy’s milk.

Suzi the Coyote

When we were young my friend and me found some baby coyotes in a den. We each took a puppy home.  I was so upset because my dad made me take mine back. He said it was a wild animal.  He said it had ticks and fleas and would grow up and still be wild.

My friend got to keep hers and she called her Suzi.  I was so jealous, that puppy was just like any puppy and a blast to have around. It followed her just like a dog.

When Suzi was about 2 years old she became a coyote again just like dad said she would and started killing sheep, chickens and everything else.  No matter what they tried she continued to kill everything. She still followed everyone around.  They had to have Suzi put to sleep and they mounted her head so they would always have a piece of her.

I was always so glad that my puppy was running around wild and not hanging on a wall. I felt so sorry for my friend and her family as they had loved that puppy.

A short post today as I have to get on the road in the RV today.