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. 

The day my family was baptized

What better story on the day we give thanks to God then the day my girls were baptized.  The pastor that baptized me and married us also baptized my girls and my husband.  I was so excited when the day arrived.

At our church they have a huge area above the where the choir sings that is glass mounted in the wall like a stage is a huge like aquarium for baptizing people. I don’t know what it is called.  It makes it where everyone has a good view of the whole proceedings even when they are under the water.  What a fun day this ended up  being.

First, my husband, the pastor underestimated how tall and how much he weighed. He was a slim man but solid muscle. He can not float, he can actually walk on the bottom of a swimming pool. He is dead weight in the water.  Pastor dunks him, OUCH, he hits his head on the side of the tank.  Hubby was trying so hard to keep a straight face and then pastor tries to lift him up and the struggle is on…hubby finally puts a foot back under himself where he can lift himself up.  Pastor and hubby are grinning from ear to ear and you can hear little snickers from the congregation.

Next comes my oldest daughter. All of the kids have been practicing all week for this as they wanted to be perfect.  My eldest was perfect, stayed right in form, hands folded on her chest never moved, body held straight, tears in moms eyes.

Next comes one of my twins. As they walked down the steps into the pool being so serious pastor watches very carefully to make sure the water is not so deep that they go under.  She makes it but she is stretching her neck as far as she can to keep her nose out of the water. This one goes great and tears to the ole eyes again.

Next comes the next twin. I guess pastor thought since they were twins they were the same height and he doesn’t watch but stays totally still looking at congregation. The other twin starts down the stairs and before she gets to the bottom step she is stretching as far as she can. Yep, she is lots shorter then the first one. She takes another step and you can see her eyes get big and she is clear up on her toes and really stretching and she still has a step to go. She looks out at me with this frantic look on her face, takes a deep breath and steps off the last step and under the water she goes.  Hands start flaying and feet start kicking and pastor looks around with a horrified expression on his face. My daughter is treading water all over that tank with legs and hands just a flying and pastor is trying to chase her in his long robes making it hard for him to move.  A few snickers then the whole congregation breaks out just roaring in laughter as he chases her around the tank. Now keep in mind this is like an aquarium,  you can see the feet and hands and all the action.  Finally he catches her and she is hanging on for dear life and pastor is struggling to keep from totally losing it as he is snickering. Finally he composes himself helps her get into position and starts to put her under, nope not going, little nose goes up until it stays out of water, finally a quick dunk and up she comes and looks at the congregation with the biggest self satisfied smile on her face. She stays in perfect form as he sits her down two steps up from the bottom so she won’t be under water.

Later he was laughing and said he just did not think about it since they were twins he thought they would be the same height. Well they are twins alright, but they don’t even look like cousins let alone sisters and no one wants to believe they are twins. They never looked alike even in the delivery room. Through out life they have got where they look like sisters but the only time they are twins are when they are on the phone. You can’t tell them apart on the phone.  We learned early never to play any games that takes communication with another with them on the same team. Like Pictionary or Password etc. cause no one stands a chance of beating 

I want a buggy

I think every girl that is horse crazy and grew up on western movies wanted a cart or buggy for their horse.

I decided that I could make a buggy, I got an old lawn chair, some bike tires, baling wire, rope etc and went to work. Now mind you I am not old enough to know better but I was too young to care. 

I proceeded to build my buggy. I took a young horse I had and hooked him up to it in the pasture. I did not have the vaguest idea how you went about that either but I tied ropes all over that young horse and the buggy was staying off the ground so I figured I had it made.  I very carefully lead him around the pasture and he seemed fine so being an idiot I decided that I was ready to go. I went over to the gate to the road. A gravel road no less and opened that gate and…………….

That cart hit the gravel and it rattled, it shook, it bounced and so did my horse. Off he went at a dead run with my hard work bouncing around behind him, hitting him in the hindquarters and pieces flying everywhere with me running behind as fast as I could go losing ground all the time yelling at the top of my lungs to WHOA! WHOA!  Down the road we went..WHOA! WHOA!  That did not even slow that horse down.

I was so lucky that he went berserk before I could get in that cart. As usual my hero, my dad was coming up the road from the field and saw the horse and was able to cut him off and get a hold of him. He drug dad quite a ways but dad finally got him stopped. I was so lucky that no damage was done to my horse except some minor scratches and a nightmare I am sure for the next few months. My buggy was nothing but a few pieces of lawn chair but mostly all that was left was my ropes.

As usual my dad said “of all the numb skull stunts to pull, when are you ever going to learn to think things through. You are lucky you did not kill you and the horse” He then proceeded to ground me and take my horse away for 2 weeks.

It did not kill that dream to have a buggy.  They have a draft horse show in Central Oregon every year at Eaglecrest resort and I always wanted to go but being in emergency services I could never get the weekend off. Weekends are impossible to get off as they are the busy times and everyone wants them off.  I finally had enough seniority to get a day shift with weekends off and guess where I went first…..Yep to that show at Eaglecrest.

It was a day I will never forget. I watched in amazement as all those beautiful horses with their carts, buggies and wagons went around the ring.  The first time the big eight horse hitches came behind the metal bleachers I was sitting on I about passed out, they were gorgeous! The noise of several eight horse teams and their wagon is more like a freight train, the ground actually shook and trembled as they came prancing by.

My favorite teams with the black Percherons and the black and white Clydesdales.  I did not miss one single minute of that show. I started back home thinking to myself, Linda if you are ever going to have a buggy you had better get with it.  You are going to be to old, you are almost ready to retire and you have not accomplished that goal. Better do it while you can afford it and are young enough to enjoy it.

Yep on the way home right alongside the road like it was meant to be sat a buggy for sale, training buggies and harnesses available…Think things through?  Nope, stop and buy a training buggy and a harness to fit my little Morgan/Quarter cross gelding and make arrangements to bring my pickup back and get it the next day.  Home I go with a big smile on my face.

The next day I went and picked up my harness and my buggy. I get home and get my horse out and look at that harness and all the straps and thought it through a little bit. How in the world do I hook this up.. Ok, off I go to Bend to Barnes and Noble and I buy three books on learning to drive a horse, everything from buckling them up to the first steps in training.

First step, get him used to the harness. He did not care at all about that harness even the coupler under his tail did not bother him.  Hook a pole to your harness and pull it around a enclosed area. He did great. I hooked everything I could find to that harness and drug it around. I even pulled my daughter that is as horse crazy as me around on the garbage can lid and everything I could find. Like I said all horse girls want a buggy. She might be a college graduate and smart as a whip but this was a horse..

Finally the big day came, hook him to the cart. Yep he did great, around and around we go in the corral on a rope.  Ok, I am getting in, around and around we go. Man this is as fun as I thought it would be. My horse likes this, he arches his neck and does his Morgan strut like he thinks this is the finest thing he has ever done. WOW, man this is fun. He likes it as well as me, we don’t need this corral.

Off we go to the sagebrush area with dirt roads running everywhere. This would be a good place.  I unloaded the buggy, hitched it up, walked behind the cart for a little while and he was doing fine so I crawled in.  Down the road we go, he is so proud of himself just strutting away and I am grinning so big I think my face is going to break.  All of a sudden he is getting slower and slower and his head is coming around to the left and he stops. I get out and drat my reins have gone through the holes in the floor of the buggy and have tightened up his reins until he can’t move.  That horse was a doll, he stood right there while I worked around and got us all loose again.  What a horse!  Lesson learned, keep track of your reins as they are long.

Off we go again, strutting down the road and we come to a 90 degree corner, well round corral don’t have corners and I get my rein under his tail.  He does a couple of half squats and jumps and I yell WHOA. He stops and trembles, I get the rein out. Maybe that is what was wrong with my first buggy, that horse did not understand the whoa part.

Off we go again and we come to a hill, just a gentle hill right, down the hill we go, the dang buggy goes up and hits my horse right in the butt, he jumps, I yell whoa, he stops the buggy hits him again, he jumps, I yell whoa, he stops, buggy hits him again, he jumps, I yell whoa and this time when he stops he tucks his butt and braces himself and just took it. I get out all shaky and think “maybe you should think this through a little more”

I lead him back to the pickup and loaded up and went home and got my book out. I had adjusted the brakes on the driving harness wrong. No dah!  I had better find an instructor who knows what he is doing. I try and try to find an instructor and none can be found in Central Oregon. I remember my favorite team was Sistersview Clydesdales so I look them up on the internet and sure enough there they are.  I called and asked if they knew of an instructor for driving.  She said that she did not know of anyone around but if I would wait a couple of weeks until foaling was over they would help me.  I am so excited that two weeks seems like two years.

The big day finally arrives and off I go to Sistersview.  Their horseman gets a big draft out. WOW he is huge! I am in seventh heaven. He starts showing me how to hook up the cart. He shows me to hook the reins actually called lines when driving. Tells me to be careful because it they get under the tail the horse does not like it and some will panic. Been there done that I tell him. Then he shows me how to set the brakes as this is one of the most important things of putting on a harness because the cart will hit the horse. Been there done that too. He proceeds through things not to do and I tell him again, been there done that and he looks at me strange every time. He asks, “what did your horse do?” I told him the stories and he laughed and said “that horse is a keeper and will be a great buggy horse”

My little Shilo will do about anything for me, he has total trust in me even when he shouldn’t. I fell in love with the owners and crew at Sisterview and became a crew member until they retired last year. I will always appreciate what they taught me with the horses and as people. A great time of my life and one I will always cherish. Some great times and stories will follow on my times with the draft horses.

All I can say is never give up on your dreams, even if you are older you can still accomplish a dream from childhood.

A month in the life of a modern country girl friend of mine

Hi

An update here about all of our goings on  My great granddaughter who is 3, and  is such a lovely little girl.  Long blond hair, lovely blue eyes, and is such a feminine little thing.  She is so curious, and eager to help with everything.  We made bread, and she helped feed the chickens, and loved running around so freely in the country yard.  So different from the city where she lives.  We loved every moment we had with them.  How blessed we are to have such lovely great grandchildren. 

Then today, Sunday, Brandie and her friend Shelly came along to pick  fruit.  Of course Grandma got to babysit.   Of course Grandma got to lay down with her and take a nap alongside her.  Such lovely eyes, she has as well as a happy little laugh.  How lucky we are that all of our great grandchildren know only love.  

We have also had quite a crop of fruit.  My tomato patch has gone wild.  I have been canning them as plain tomatoes, stewed tomatoes, and we are eating them with every meal.  Nothing beats the old fashioned tomatoes  that are not hybrid types.  The tried and true old fashioned ones.  I am lucky to have quite a few old fashioned seeds, yet.  I thought the seeds would not grow, but they did, even when they said to use before 1989.  Every danged seed I planted came up.  I noticed there were seeds coming up on the floor of the green house too.  Next year, I am going to plant only the old fashioned ones again.  The tomatoes are so red, so plump, and the skins are not tough.  

My chickens are beginning to lay. I got 7 small eggs today.  The pullets lay small, to extra large things, until they get the whole process going right.   Today, while Brandie and her friend were here, our dogs killed another chicken.  This is the one I called Houdini.  She would get out of the orchard, where we have them at the moment, and wander all over.  Then would stand by the gate, wanting in.  So With Brandie's dog , Tess  and our dog Joe, and then Sadie our stock dog who loves to eat chickens, it was a combination for disaster for Houdini.  She had a small hard egg in her too.  It was an accident waiting to happen.  So Houdini will be a nice pot of  noodle soup. 

 Our fruit is so plentiful this year, and not wormy.  I think it is due to the chickens feeding on the bugs and such. This year is a grasshopper year.  But not in the orchard!! Any bug that gets in there is a lost cause. They are always busy scratching up everything.  I have to get some paint, this year, and paint the trunks of the trees.  Last year we had some hard frosts, and it did some frost damage to the limbs.

I am letting my beans go to seed.  The hot weather has made them sort of bolt.  The cool wet weather was making them produce nice fat, long beans.  Now the deer have found the leaves.  So far they haven't bothered with the drying beans. 

My blackberries are being eaten by the quail, as fast as they ripen. I did get enough for a couple of pies, but that is all.

We took our 10 calves to the auction yard in Madras to sell them..  We actually made a profit on the calves.  But there were other expenses involved - water. gas. electricity, etc.  After our irrigation bill was so high, almost 300.00,  we decided to turn the pump off.  We were going to sell the calves anyway, and that was an expense we could do without.  We have had a couple of rains. At least that has helped keep the grass growing.  At least we haven't had a frost yet, and this is October.

 I have to take the new car to Bend tomorrow.  Our car has developed a computer problem, some say.  It is disconcerting to turn off the engine, and get out of the car, and get back in and have the key not work, the steering column locked, and the whole shebang sitting there.  We were at the dentists office, when it happened the 2nd time.  I called the car dearler place in Bend.  Marvin was having a tooth extracted, and I did not know what kind of condition he would be in when he came out.  They told me to open the  little tiny slot by the gear shift.  Then to stick my pocket knife in there, which would release the gear shift.  It did, and began to roll.  But the steering wheel would not unlock.  Marvin came out, and banged on the steering wheel, and it came loose.  I was so relieved to see him in good shape, and make the car work.  Then it did it again when we parked at the Church.  Now this was not a good thing, in my mind.  What if it took a notion to freeze up when we were driving down the road.  At no time was the car in a bind.  The steering column was not straight though, the big letter in the middle was turned slightly each time.  We were on flat ground, except at the Dentist's office. We never get close to the side walks or barriers, because the front end of the car is low.  We shall see.  I have to tell you, that we are very pleased with this car, and I will be very upset if it has something wrong with it.  We are getting, most of the time figuring the gas and the mileage, we are getting up to 40 miles to the gallon.  When we have to use the air conditioning, it can get down to 35 or 36 miles.  It is pretty roomy, for a small car, and quite comfortable. 

There is the place to go into for oil, and soaps, and  other things.   Then a couple of other stops at Prineville.    It should be an interesting day.  It has been cloudy the last couple of days, with some rain, off and on.  Once we had some lightening without the rain.  The cooler weather, we have been getting at night, though, has helped with the fires.   It is running in the 40's at night, with a nice heavy dew. 

They had some good fires near Madras on the Indian Reservation.  They always have something there, it seems.  Most fires were caused by the dry lightening.  We often have some real gully washers, but for the last few years, we haven't had any flash floods.  Not that I am complaining, but we could use a little more rain, now and then.  But not all at once. 

Marvin made a chicken garage for our daughter.  They call the moveable chicken pens, garages.  It is a mystery, to me, but it is what they call them.  She wanted some chickens, and we have a lot left, if we can keep the dog from murder.  She only wants 6 or 7 of them.  So the pen is not too large, and has a run in the front of it.  He even put a flower box below the window. It is wired for electricity too.   She has been painting it, and putting trim on the edges.  It is a cozy little affair. 

Seems like we are always busy.  We do a lot of things, keep busy, and things like that.  But I can't tell you what all I have done, except wash clothes, (we must be the dirtiest people in the world), do dishes (we must eat a  lot), Marvin gets the lawn mowed, made a chicken house (garage they call the moveable ones) for our daughter,  and  kept the  water changed in the fields.  It just takes us longer to do things, than it did before.  Now we are trying to find a cooling system to put in the store room, so that we can keep our apples better.  We are still looking, and Bob has been giving us some ideas.  Wish he lived closer to Bob, so he could set us up with one.

    Got to get.  Love and God Bless  Phyllis    

        

    

Rural life photos

Here are some rural photos for sale. A lot of them bring back memories for me and I hope they do for you. They are for sale but you can also just go look and even leave comments as all photographers enjoy hearing someone likes their work:

<a href="http://fineartamerica.com/art/photographs/rural/all" style="font: 10pt arial; text-decoration: underline;">rural photos</a>

My home state of Oregon. Here is some great photographs for you of my great state

Take a look at these great photos taken in the fantastic state of Oregon that are for sale:

<a href="http://fineartamerica.com/art/photographs/oregon/all" style="font: 10pt arial; text-decoration: underline;">oregon photos</a>

Calf Roping

 My folks took us to the local rodeo and my brother decided that we could make money if we had a rodeo. He talked the neighborhood kids into being in his rodeo and we started to practice.

We decided to rope the old cow to learn how to rope.  We go get dad’s lariat and went out to the pasture. In the pasture we have what we call a “bad strip”, that is an area that a small creek runs down part of the year and it has rocks and weeds and is too rough to farm.

I don’t remember who roped the cow the first time but I think it was my brother because I am not good with roping even today. Anyway when that old cow took off it rope burned his hand and drug him a long ways.  So in his wisdom he decided we should tie the rope around our waists and then rope the cow. They the rope would not pull through his hands and burn them and the two of us could hold her.

Well I bet you can imagine what happened next.  That old cow by now was really mad and when that rope tightened on her neck she let out a bellow and took off for the north pole with us bouncing behind like a rubber ball.  We not only could not hold her we could not get loose from her.  She drug us down through the electric fence and down through the bad strip going full out. We were bouncing and screaming bloody murder.

We were lucky that day that dad was close enough to hear our screams. We were also lucky that my dad was such a fast runner. He ran that old cow down and grabbed the rope and turned where his hip was taking the cows weight and brought that old cow to a stop.

There we were, bruised, crying and bleeding but nothing broke but our pride and my dad “yells, of all the stupid numbskull things you have ever pulled this has to be the top. You need to learn to think things through before you do them. You are lucky you weren’t killed and now we have two fences to fix” He yelled the whole time he was untying us but we did not get a spanking. I think he thought we had enough punishment for one incident.

By the time we got the fences fixed and the old cow back in the fence she was suppose to be in we were sore and tired and a whole lot smarter.

Well I thought I was smarter until I was on my horse trying to rope a corner fence post and my dad said “now don’t be stupid and tie that rope to the saddle horn because someday you are going to catch that post”  I said “I am not that dumb” remembering the old cow incident.

Well after two days of trying and not catching that post I got where I would ride by the post and throw the rope and not even look just start winding the rope back up. Well wouldn’t you know it, one day I caught that post. No I did not have it tied to me or to the saddle horn but I was hanging on to it when I hit the end of the rope and got yanked right off that old horse and landed on my behind right behind the horse.

I wonder if that is why I can’t rope. I took roping lessons when I grew up and still could not rope but I think it all goes back to when I was a kid and mentally I am afraid of roping… Anyway the lesson was learned, roping sucks!

Biscuits from scratch

My daughter decided she was going to fix Sunday breakfast. She was only about 8 and she went all out on breakfast. 

She made the most beautiful biscuits, lightly brown, flakey, fluffy and we just could not wait to eat them.  Buttered them and they were the lightest good texture biscuit. Bit into it and it was wonderful, took another bite, wonderful. Stopped eating my biscuit to take a bite of egg and this overpowering taste started growing in my mouth. I swear it was foaming…………….She had used baking soda instead of baking powder for the biscuit recipe.  They were ok as long as you did not stop eating but if you quit for a second that taste would grow and foam in your mouth. 

I felt so sorry for her, she had worked so hard and they looked so good.  At least she has a good sense of humor and has been a favorite story of ours, kind of like the sardine ice cream except not nearly as bad tasting.

Growing up with Baseball

When I grew up baseball was the thing.  My dad was an amazing ball player. He had a chance to go professional but he after getting home from the war he did not want to be away from his family anymore at any cost. The 50's were a time of families, they were appreciated and loved.  We still spent many hours playing baseball. My dad was on the town team and we too the state contest many times. He could play any position. Growing up with him was one of the reasons my red headed monster, as I called him when he threw eggs had such a great arm and throwing skill. I was good at hitting and catching the ball because............

When I was real small around 6 we were playing baseball in the front pasture, my dad, my mom, my two uncles and my brother. We were playing work up. Work up in baseball is when there is not two teams so the when the batter gets out the goes out to play field and works his way back up to batter. It is everyone for yourself but they would be nice to us kids and not hit it hard etc.

My uncle was up to bat and I was the one that was playing field as I had just gone out. He said "watch out I am going to hit a home run" as one of the neighbor hood cute girls was walking by. I did not hear him and I don't think it would have made any difference if I had. Here comes a line drive really fast and hard, I yelled "I got it" and stuck my hands out like a youngster does and that ole ball went right between my hands and hit me in the mouth and knocked my front tooth out.........and darn I swallowed them!!! How was I going to get money from the tooth fairy.  I cried and cried, not because I was hurt but I wanted that money.

I really laid it on my uncle over and over how upset I was about that money. That was the most expensive tooth I ever lost. I made such good money on it I was hoping to get another one knocked out and that sir is how I learned to catch really good. I went after every ball I could but instead of losing teeth I got to be a good catch. I think at the last minute I would remember the pain and forget the money....lol

My first store bought turkey

I think everyone has known someone who has done the same thing?  Right? I  hope so because I felt so stupid and I don’t like being alone….lol

The first year I was married we were really broke as most newlyweds are and could not afford to go home for Thanksgiving.  I was also very excited as this was my first Thanksgiving dinner cooked all by me…I was really going to impress my husband and have a romantic dinner just for two.

I went to the store and got all the fixings. I was making everything from scratch like we did at the farm.  All I could find was a frozen turkey; you have to order a fresh one before hand. First lesson learned.  I took my prize home and set it out to defrost. So glad I got it early enough I could defrost it.  My mom worked at a grocery store and always did the shopping and our turkey was fresh.

The turkey defrosted and I was ticked because I did not have any giblets. How do you make giblet gravy when they don’t give you any giblets? I don’t even know how to make turkey gravy without giblets so I guess it is going to have to be good ole white sauce gravy.

I made my stuffing and got mad because there was not enough room inside to put hardly any stuffing. My turkey was still a little frozen inside so they were stuck and not loose in there. 

I finally got my turkey stuff and in the oven. This day was not working at all like my dreams were but dinner was finally done. We set down at the table, carved the turkey and stated filling our plates. 

My husband started digging out the dressing to put in a bowl and out comes this slimy stinking stuff. Yep, the plastic wrap that was around the missing giblets in the cavity. He then goes to the neck to get the dressing there, yep the plastic bag around the neck.  I am in tears but he just laughs and said, the turkey is still good, come on lets eat.  It almost would have been better if he was upset. He was so nice it made it worse. I felt like a heal but soon we were both laughing and having a good Thanksgiving. I remembered what Thanksgiving is really about and it isn’t turkey.  Oh course now most of them are wrapped in paper which is not near as bad as plastic.

So as Thanksgiving nears remember what it is truly about. The mistakes will turn to humor though the years and become a wonderful fun Thanksgiving memory but I am sure glad it isn’t a Thanksgiving tradition…lol

Thanks for all my friends both in person and on the internet, you make my life rich.

The Werewolf

When I was young I was terrified of the dark.  Then we went to a movie that had a werewolf in it and I became even more afraid of the dark and especially full moons.

I had two teenage uncles that were living with us while they finished high school. They were a barrel of fun and ornery as can be.  One of my uncles loved to hunt and he would get coyotes and skin them as the farmers would buy shells for your 22 if you would shoot them as they were loosing so much stock to them.

We lived 13 miles out of town and ½ mile from the nearest neighbor so they were pretty bored. We did not have TV and we lived at the end of the road so if you heard a car it was coming to your house.  You got where you could recognize the sound of cars that came often long before they got to the house.

My parents were gone for the evening and left me with my uncles. Now put two 17 year old boys and one little 7 year old girl to watch how happy they were.  So many things you can not do if you have a little 7 year old tagging along.

Being typical farm kids they had a good imagination and a big ornery streak in them. The moon was nice and full and I was being a brat wanting them in the same room with me, reading to me, anything but not alone. Lock the doors and stay right by me please.

Well they started outside to do the chores and I had a fit. I did not want to be in the house alone. So they went over and talked and decided Uncle John would go do the chores and Uncle Bobby would stay inside with me.  This still did not set well with me, it was a full moon and I was afraid for Uncle John to go outside.  They advised me someone had to go feed the animals and I was just going to have to deal with it and out the door he went.

I was sitting there with Uncle Bobby trying my best to listen to the story and he says “gee, seems like John has been outside for quite a while, I hope he is ok”. FEAR!  He reads a sentence and says “what was that noise?”  BIG FEAR! Back to the story and all of a sudden he tenses up and says “did you see something by the window?” FEAR EXTREME! “I could swear I saw some movement but it was probably John”  I start watching the window and not hearing a word he is reading and OMG! OMG! I saw a shadow of something running but it was to far from the window to see clearly but I swear it was an upright wolf.  My eyes are bigger then a plate. Uncle Bobby says get away from the window. I squat down and he peeks over the window sill and says “you are right, I saw something too. I crawl over and look over the sill…OMG! OMG! There it is again and it is closer and it is a wolf, a WEREWOLF, a man with a wolfs head…HELP DADDY!  I am screaming bloody murder!

By now Uncle Bobby realizes this is not as funny as they thought it was going to be I was not just scared I was terrified and their joke is no longer funny but he has no way to communicate with Uncle John. He is trying his best to calm me down.  He tells me it is Uncle John with one of his coyote pelts on his head. I am shaking so bad and crying and now I am mad too.

We hear dad’s car coming down the road, Uncle John rips the pelt off and heads for the house as fast as he can to get there before dad and get me to not tell on them.  Boy let me tell you that little piece of fun cost them more as I demanded everything I could think of in blackmail. It was a nice couple of weeks for me until my blackmail bribes ran out.  

Electric fence sword fights

I hate electricity with a passion. I would not become an EMT III for a long time because I did not want to use the defibrillator on anyone.  I did not want to shock people; I lived in fear that I would be shocked by accident.  As you read my blog you will find many incidents involving the electric fence.  

A Chopper Fencer is one that they used to use and is strong enough to knock a horse or cow off their feet if they touch it.  It pulsates on and off with the currant or it would kill. They no longer are allowed to sell the ones that are that strong.  As a child growing up all the fencers were Choppers.

Being a farm child everything you see is made into something to play with. I am not sure where we came up with the idea of making a fencer into an electric sword but I am sure it was my brother’s fault.  I like to blame him for everything since he doesn’t read my blog.

First you get a long extension cord, a Chopper Fencer Box, A gate handle; a plastic tube type where the wire runs through the plastic where it won’t shock you. It has a hook on the other end that you hook into a loop in the wire on the fence to make a gate. Then you find some strong wire that is still bendable, some pliers and a small stick.  You fold the stiff wire in half, put the stick in the looped part of the half and the pliers on the two ends and start twisting until you have a very stiff sword about 1 ½ feet long.  You pull the stick out leaving a small round loop.  You attach the two ends that are loose to the hook in the fence gate handle.  You take a flexible wire and put between your fencer and the gate hook and you are ready.

You stand with one hand holding your fencer and the gate hook in your strong hand and the fight is on.  If you get hit with the wire of the other guys it shocks the begeezines izzens (a farmers word be gee zines) out of you and knocks you on your behind. If you are lucky that day you hit the right timing in the pulsations and do not get shocks.  You learn real quickly to fight. You watch a persons eyes more then his hands, you move as fast as lightening and you learn to get up in a hurry and continue even if you can’t hardly move.

As usual that red headed monster that was my brother had hands that moved way faster then ours. One of my friends that was really overweight when he was younger said the other day when we were memory swapping to his wife about our growing up years said, “yeah like you would know, I was the little fat kid that couldn’t move very fast”. 

They grow them tough on the farm but we had so much more fun then watching TV ever was. I think when TV came we only watched it to help us get more ideas on how we could do something we shouldn’t.

Assault in the cistern

On the farm we had two cisterns. For those that do not know what those are it is a hole in the ground, many different shapes, which was dug and lined with cement to store water in where the climate was dry. The collected rain water or went by wagon to a water source and hauled it home to fill the cistern.  There are many places in Central Oregon that use cistern water even today. 

 One of our cisterns was used for water storage in case of a fire as we also had domestic water but in cases that extra water was needed we had some.  The other cistern we had was shaped kind of like an upside down light bulb.  On top of the light bulb was a square box of brick with a lid on it.  Dad had built shelves around the inside of the cistern and there was only a small area with a ladder with just enough room for one person. You would store all your canned goods there and they wouldn’t freeze.

It was a lot of work when you got done canning to go out and pack the jars down the ladder and put them away.  Mom rigged up a bucket with a rope and she would go down the ladder and set on the edge of a shelf and you would fill the bucket with jars and let it down. She would take the jars off and place them and yell pull and you would pull the bucket back up and fill it up again.

It was my brothers’ turn to let the bucket down. He let it down and up and down and up and was bored to tears.  He would let it down and started goofing off.  He let one bucket full down and mom unloaded it.  When he went to pull it back up, he yanked really hard trying to make it fly back up. Well the bucket turned, hit the ladder and flipped and hit mom right between the eyes and kind of flipped again and hit her in the forehead.

I guess you know what happened, blacked both of her eyes. He felt so bad.  She worked as a grocery clerk and had to go to work the next day and it looked like dad had beat her up.  I don’t think many people believed the story either as they would look at her, like, right, we believe that. And that is how rumors get started…..lol

The Chemistry Set & the egg

The old chemistry sets are nothing like they make today.  Back then they did not have all the safety requirements.  My brother was a brain so for Christmas one year they had got him a chemistry set……..Guess I had better start at the beginning.

All of us kids would gather eggs when it was our turn that day and we would always sneak one or two eggs out to hide. The town kids that would come to visit would also get eggs out of frig and hide them. Hide, why would we hide eggs when it wasn’t Easter? First remember that we did not have the videos, TV’s, games, movies, computers etc. that kids have today. We hide them for fun games. That’s right for toys. We all had our hidden stashes on the farm and we would let them rot. The longer they ripened the better. When kids would come to play we would all get 3 or 4 nice ripe eggs out of our stash and the war was on. A rotten egg fight!  You learned real quite to run, hide and figure out good strategies as you only had so many bombs.  What a blast we had.  When we were done we would jump in the canal and swim and wash our eggs off.  My brothers had a wicked arm and really threw accurate so we lived in fear of the red headed monster.

One evening it was boring and the parents were playing cards. We were trying to think of something fun to do, my brother was the only one with any eggs left and we can’t throw eggs at night. What to do? What to do?

Out comes the chemistry set and we start mixing things together and nothing fun was happening so we decided to see what would happen if we put the chemicals in one of our rotten eggs.  Very carefully we poked a hole in the egg and got the little funnel out and started dumping everything we could find into the egg.  Drat, still boring.  We decided to play Monopoly so we set up the table and BOOM! That rotten egg exploded all over the room, the stink was like no other…How do you stink worse then a rotten egg?  You dump a bunch of chemicals in the rotten egg that’s how.  There is not a skunk anywhere that can smell that bad.

We yelled bloody murder, the parents came running, they yelled bloody murder, kids were grounded, kids were threatened with their lives, kids had broken ear drums from the yelling.

The end results, 3 town kids stayed the weekend and we scrubbed, we aired, we washed clothes, we washed bedding, we mopped floors and on and on.

The one thing we never did, we never dumped chemicals in an egg again our whole lives long. 

A blizzard coming in

Blizzard coming in

I was sitting in dispatch in Warm Springs on swing shift when my relief came running in the door and said “get out of here now before you can’t get home, there is a blizzard on the plains and visibility is almost down to nothing, getting worse by the minute”

I did not ask any questions but took off for home. I drove at that time a GMC Jimmy that did fantastic in the snow. It is about 5 miles to the top of the grade to the plains, I went up the grade with no problem thinking where is the snow?

I topped over the top and instant blizzard. You could not see 20 feet and the snow was coming down sideways. I made it the four miles to home. As I was sitting in the house watching the snow come down or I should say the snow go sideways and pile up in drifts I got to worrying about my husband. There is no way he is going to make it the 10 miles from Madras to home in this blizzard with no four wheel drive. I figured I could get to town and get him by the time he got off.

I fired the Jimmy up again and headed to town. It only took me about 1 mile to wonder if this was a good idea, maybe he should just get a motel room in town but it was snowing so hard I was afraid to turn around.

Below the hood of the Jimmy you could not even see the road. I could see the neighbor’s yard lights as a faint glow in the snow and I started counting residences as I was afraid I would miss the 90 degree corner I knew was coming. A few of the drifts were so tall already I had to back up and make two tries to knock the snow down enough to get through.

I made the first 90 degree corner to the left and I knew I had another to the right in about ½ mile. I watched the speedometer to try and help gauge where I was going to have to turn. As I got to the turn I noticed some head lights coming towards me and stop and just set there. I wondered if the vehicle was stuck. I was only moving about 5 mph where I could see.

I turned to the right; I could not tell what kind of vehicle was at the intersection, just the glow of their lights. I continued towards town watching as the vehicle pulled out behind me. I could tell he was having problems by watching his lights swing back and forth like he was turning sideways.  He finally got into the rut I was leaving and pulled right up to my bumper. Talk about a tailgater, he was really close.

We continued this way; I felt like I had a vehicle chained to my bumper he was so close. I hit a large drift and had to back up and try again. The car behind me had stopped where I could back up. I backed up about 4 times to knock it down where he could get through.

We continued this way me breaking drifts down and him waiting until I was done and then off again we would go.  Sometimes the drifts were almost level with my hood. I thanked God for 4X4 and for winter tires.

We got to the top of the hill going down to Madras and boom, the snow was all gone again. It was so weird, only on the plains was it bad. I continued to the Sheriff’s office to get my husband.  He was surprised to see me and I told him that I had come to get him because he could not get home without 4x4. He looked out the window and back at me like I was crazy because there was no snow in town, I mean not a flake.  Just about that time two of the deputies that were standing in the door said “Sgt. You had better listen to her, if we had not realized that was your Jimmy going by in our headlights we would still be sitting at an intersection wondering where we were. We had the patrol car chained up and still could not get around and we could not see. We figured we would end up at your house following you but instead she came to town”

My husband got in the Jimmy and we headed home.  We got to the top of the hill and all he could do was watch in amazement at the change. Just a few hundred feet made all the difference. My tracks to town were already gone but you could see where I had broke through the drifts.

I was so glad to see my warm home, none to soon either as we had 6 foot drifts by morning and by that afternoon most of it was gone. Just a freak storm in the middle of the night. 

A memory just for Bob

I am telling this story even though it embarrasses me to death just for my friend Bob as he always remembers it and says the experience is nothing anyone that had to face it will ever forget.  Some of us like this girl would love to forget it…How I wish I could erase it from every memory that was there that fateful day.

It was my husband’s birthday and I was going to make it a very special day that no one would forget. Well, no one there that day has ever forgot and has made sure I never forget.

I started the day going to make everything from scratch. One of the joys of living on a farm is fresh eggs, whole milk, fresh veggies every day, home grown meat that is pasture feed with no growth hormones or unnatural things they feed cattle to fatten them up. Lets get down to business of planning this party.  To tell the truth I am not even sure what I made for dinner as the other memory has overcome all others but I made a really nice dinner. I invited our best friends Bob and Carol and their kids for supper.

I used to decorate cakes for a living and I have one recipe for a chocolate cake that is out of this world.  One of these days I will look up that recipe and post on here even though for years I hardly ever share it. The cake came out fantastic and I set it aside to cool. I made my special frosting.  When the cake was cool, I frosted it but did not decorate it as this cake is so special you don’t want to add any decorator frosting to it. I set the cake aside all covered and ready to go.

I got in the refrigerator and got out fresh eggs, and whole milk from the frig. Our cow Daisy gave the best milk and it was about half cream. I skimmed the cream off the top of the gallon and got the ice cream maker out.  We have a new fang dangled one that is electric these days, no sitting and churning.  I was ready to go.

Everyone arrived and set down at the table ready to eat. We had a great dinner laughing and joking.

I put all the ingredients into the ice cream maker and plugged it in. We all went into the family room and continued our visit as we looked forward to our home made cake and ice cream, a real treat.

The ice cream maker buzzed that it was done. I went into the kitchen and got the cake and put candles on it and we all sang happy birthday while our mouth was watering. I cut the cake and dished up the ice cream on top of it and started handing out plates.  I gave the kids theirs and then I took Bob and my husband their piece. I went back into the kitchen to get Carols and when I came back into the room everyone had this funny look on their face. I asked what was wrong and they said “taste it”

OMG!!! OMG!! That was the most horrid thing I have ever tasted, nothing like my taste buds were ready for.  The ice cream tasted just like sardines. Sardines and chocolate cake do not go together. Sardine ice cream does not go with anything!  I put it right on top of the cake…cake ruined too……

How did this happen. My husband had opened some sardines and had put them into the refrigerator and had not covered them. That milk soaked up that sardine flavor just like a giant hungry sponge. I think the milk tasted more like sardines then the sardines did.  All the milk in the refrigerator had to be thrown out.

There was not one person but the kids that even had the guts to eat any of the cake that was still in the pan.

Not a memory I am proud of but one that no one forgets, especially Bob……So this one is for you Bob.

Waxing the floor

Penny, my childhood friend, and I could get in trouble no matter how good we were trying to be.  In the 50's they had this wax called arrow-wax (not sure how it was spelled). You would use a mop or rag and put a very thin coat of wax on the floor and then buff it when it was dry to make it shine.  My mom had lots of smarts because she would put clean socks on us kids and let us pretend it was a skating ring and slide all over polishing her floor for her.

My mom worked at a grocery store and used to buy things on sale to stock up when it was cheaper. Can you see this coming,.

TV came to central Oregon...yep those floors looked like they were coated with at least 4" of wax to shine that way.

Time for us to surprise my mom and make her floors shine like on TV. First you remove all furniture from the room...done.  Then you mop floor...done. Then you spread the wax on the floor...done with all 3 gallons we could find for a nice thick shine like on TV...Let it dry....Done. Off we go horse back riding until it gets dry and we leave just enough time to get home and slide and put things back before mom walks through that door and is surprised...yep all done.

We come back home 1/2 hour before mom is due home from work and open the door to see our big surprise and stand there with our mouths hanging open to the floor...OH NO!! MOMS WHITE FLOOR IS A SMEARED UGLY YELLOW!  OH NO, we are going to be dead soon.

Mop buckets out, scrub brushes in hand and down on our hands and knees. When mom and dad opened that door there was two girls up to their knees in suds and tears streaming down our faces scrubbing away.

Thankfully mom and dad had a heart and we did not get in trouble but they spent all their evening after working all day cleaning up the mess and we were helping.  Lesson learned, we never waxed the floor again and mom never asked us for help waxing. We were back to waxing with our socks and all were happy again

My playground

I was rich as a child. I had a playground that was a canyon, a whole canyon.  Growing up in the 50's when cowboy and indian and westerns were a way of life what better yard then a canyon.

We all had forts in the canyon. All most everyone for 5 miles was boys and then there was my friend I'll call Peggy were the girls. We hid everything from the boys and they spent their time trying to make us miserable.

Peggy and I named everything in that canyon, each tree had a name, each rock formation, each small cave. We could say "meet me at Rabbit Hill" and no one knew where that was except the two of us.  When I go walk there today I still remember some of the spots like Rabbit Hill, Lone Pine, Hole in the Wall, Bobcat Rock. This made it easy to hide from the boys.

Hole in the wall was the best hide out. We could go in there and not be seen and could set and watch the boys look for us everywhere. It was some rocks that we had taken sagebrush and put where there weren't any rocks. We would move a piece of sagebrush and go in and pull it back and we were hide. What fun we had, sometimes they would come so close we could hear what they were saying.

I think this naming of things made me see life a little different then a lot of people because I still name things and places and my grandson thought it was so much fun he came down and we went out and named places on horseback just like the good old days and enjoyed that no one else knew where we were talking about, I named cactus on my trip down here to Arizona. But I see each cactus different because he has to have a name. I notice the color, shape etc.  This is a good habit to be in if you paint or take photographs because you notice things that people fly right past.

My Tree

We had a big Elm tree just past the lawn that us kids played in. There has to be at least 200 stories involving that old Elm tree. It was a favorite playground for all.  My brother who I have to admit made his million in life started out young making money. He had a way of always talking the rest of us into things or making money off us. I finally learned to hide my money because if he knew I had it, it would become his somehow.

The Elm Tree was a good example. My brother and me are kind of opposites in likes. I wanted to make corrals under the tree for my fences for my toy horses. He wanted race tracks. We fought all the time because when the other was gone we would take their stuff down and expand ours.

Finally my dad getting tired of us fighting over the tree drew a line and half was mine and half was my brothers.  My brother instantly saw this as a money making adventure and went to work making his side of the tree something I would want. He had a toy barn, some fences and then sold me his half of the tree.

What a money maker since he was my playmate as the nearest neighbor was 1/2 mile away and when we had company we all wanted to play under the tree. We had a swing and it was shaded so you know who the smart one was. I owned the tree, he had my money and we all played under the tree and he moved his race tracks.  Easy money for him....

City boy and 3 wheeler

When we first moved back home to Central Oregon from Alaska a friend of ours decided they also were going to move back to the lower 48 and called and asked if they could stay with us and apply for a police job with the county that was open.  The only child they had was a teenage son named Tony (not real name) Tony was ticked off, he did not want to be a country hick, hicks were stupid and living on a farm was boring with nothing to do. How he would live to regret those words.  Here is only a few on the things the country girls of mine thought that city boy.

First off he thought he was a three wheeler expert as he had a 3 wheeler he used to run around the flats in Alaska on and thought he was quite good.  The girls were going out to the back forty to shut the irrigation pump down and invited him to go with them.  He bragged about how they could not keep up with him and this was going to be boring. The girls got on the 3 wheeler and off they went with the girl in the lead, what the girl in the lead, well when the girl came to the electric fence they ducked thinking that Tony would too, nope he hit that line going full out as he was trying to catch the girls, it almost de-headed him. He was minus the skin from just above his should all the way to his chin and his butt was laying in the field....first lesson, duck when you come to the fence.

Coming back girl had mercy on the city boy and stopped at the fence, keeping their feet on the pegs they held the fence up and went underneath. Yep, if you know anything about electric fences I am sure you can picture what came next. City boy pulls up to fence puts his feet down and grabs the fence to hold up. BAM! Electric shock extreme and he is on his back again.  Those chopper fences will knock a horse off their feet let alone a little city boy.

The country girl was still in the lead when they arrived back at the house. City boy was behind and walking very sore but I must admit he was not making any remarks about how no girl could keep up with him, in fact I never heard that remark again the 3 months they stayed with us but I did hear. You have to be tough to be a farm kid.  You really have to be smart about everything to be a farm boy......

Country girls rock, I always did wonder if maybe that Country girl was proving a point instead of just turning off the pump and did a little of that smart thinking about how to get one up on the city boy

I can't, I'm Bored, I don't know how

The three sayings you learn right off not to ever use!!!!  I mean NEVER!  There is no such thing as I can't, there is I won't, I don't want to, it is to hard etc. but never and I mean NEVER use I can't if my dad is in the hearing range of your voice.

Later in life this saved my butt so many times it isn't even funny especially in emergency services. I never used I can't, I used this is going to take a while but I always got done what I needed to do.  I remember one time especially as it was on a fire call and a man was on fire and the fireman had ran into the building to get people out and here I was with a fire truck that I did not know how to operate. I looked at all the gadgets and said "Linda this is not a fire truck but an irrigation pump" What do I need to do first "I know prime it, yep there is a button that says prime"  I started my irrigation pump and instead of watering the field I watered the man saving his life for a few weeks but sad to say he finally lost his life to his injuries. I think he just gave up from all the pain involved and the system just shut down.

The other saying "I don't know how" in my dad's hearing meant you might be up all day researching or him teaching you but you learned real quick to figure out a way to learn how.  I have been saved by this for more times then I can say.  It made me a very good reader. I found that if you did not pay attention to the way something was done and you knew how to read you could find out how to do it and save all the lessons of not  knowing until you could do something with your eyes closed.

I'm bored was the worst one of all. If you said you were bored on the farm it meant many hours of labor as he always found something for you to do. In my jobs through the years when I got done with what was expected of me I found projects that I could do before the boss found something for me to do. I always liked what I found a lot better then what they would find for me to do.

 My favorite story on that was when I worked for the Alaska State Troopers.  If you had your work done the boss would let you do something like read etc. but if he found your work not done and you doing it you can bet you had a 3 day unpaid vacation, 2nd time a weeks vacation unpaid and the 3rd time you were looking for another job.  One winter which was always a really slow time for us I decided I would bring music tapes out and put them in the Dictaphone to transcribe the words for one of the Sgt.'s that had a country band that played around town on his days off and in Alaska sheet music was hard to find.

Our Captain came from the Juneau post and he loved to just drop in unexpected to check up on all of us, days, swing or graveyard you never knew when he was going to walk through the door.  Little known to me one day shift he went into my Sgt.'s office and him and the Sgt. walked back out to where I was busy transcribing music off a tape for the other Sgt. and unplugged my earphones and out comes this country song. The Captain says "well at least she knows how to look busy like a good state worker". He had been in the Sgt.s office telling him what a worker I was, that no matter when he showed up I was always busy even in winter. He had said he did not know what all I did but I was the busiest dispatcher he had ever seen. The Sgt. smiled and did not say anything he just walked out and pulled the plug........lol

Three things dad thought me have served me well

Hello

I just started this blog today and will try very hard to post a new story at least once a day. If you enjoy this blog please let others know. I appreciate any comments and any stories that you may had about growing up country. We are thought of as hillbilly's but we are tough and smart and can handle almost anything. My years as a country girl have helped me through out life in so many different ways.

I look forward to exchanging stories and laughing through the tears.