Jaci Dawn

Kindergarten

July 12, 2015 by Jaci Dawn

I started school when I was 4.5 years old. In those days, there was no cut-off age. I turned 5 in November, therefore I could start school that September. I was not ready socially. I was far ahead academically.

Kindergarten, for me, started in Elko. Then it took a break when we moved to Paradise Valley where there was no school. It resumed after my birthday in Winnemucca.

My first day of school was with other little kids more worldly than I. I remember the teacher taking role and my name was Jackie. One kid joked “Jack Frost?” and it stuck. The teacher did nothing to stop this. I was mortified. I knew who Jack Frost was: pretty ice paintings in hoar frost on the windows. I also knew I didn’t want to be Jack Frost. I was ME.

We moved before October. Dad accepted a position in a different leg of the same National Forest. PIE (Pacific Intermountain Express) trucks came, packed all our belongings, and moved us to yet another white house with green trim. We lived in that house for two months and packed a lot of memories in there.

Then we moved into town: Winnemucca. I started Kindergarten, again. It was horrid. My teacher was a first year teacher, Mrs. Smith. The veteran was across the hall, and if my mother had known what I was about to experience, she would have pushed for the veteran.

I did make friends. Mary. Rita. Peggy.

I heard older kids sing-song at us through the fence: “Kindergarten Baby!” It was awful.

I had to stand in the corner once. I was never sure what I did wrong, but the teacher was angry and there I was – in the corner for some infraction I did not understand. I think it might have had to do with lollipop trees, but it could have been anything. I just remember that lollipop trees set the teacher off, too.

The little girl next to me raised her hand and whined, “Teacher, she’d drawing Christmas trees!”

I wasn’t sure why it was a crime to draw a Christmas tree, but I also knew I was not drawing Christmas trees. I was drawing pine trees like the ones around Mahoney RS. And I said so. Christmas trees have ornaments and lights on them.

Teacher wasn’t buying it.

Whatever. Bitch. My mother told me in later years that if she had only known…

Once, I tried to get on the bus. It seemed an easy way to get home. The bus driver stared at me. “You don’t belong on here,” he challenged. He was right: I could walk home and the bus went to the Air Force Base. Reluctantly, I got off the bus. I just wanted a ride home.

My brother showed up to take my home. Sometimes, he was actually handy to have around.

We lived four blocks from the school. You could walk along the street, take The Trail, or take the Horny Toad Trail. You had to pass the woman who lived behind the big red fence with the vicious dogs.

Once, early in my induction to this system, we took The Trail. And I walked into an abandoned roll of barbed wire. My head was in the clouds and my feet on earth. The barbed wire coiled and grabbed. My brother had to take me home where my mother nursed the wounds on my leg, scars that I bear to this day. I remember the blood.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged bad teacher, barbed wire, kindergarten | Leave a Comment »

Runaways & Rattlesnakes

July 11, 2015 by Jaci Dawn

One of my first memories has to do with cows. There’s a story behind the memory that has been repeated many times over the years, and that embellishes my memory. I don’t actually remember the events that have been told in the story: those memories belong to my mother and my older brother. My memories are in italic.

Sunlight filtered through the aspens. Quaking Aspens. Shadows. A narrow one-lane gravel road on an incline. I am sitting in the little Red Flyer™ wagon, holding on to the sides. My brother is pulling the wagon, his back to me. I can hear the tinkle of bells in the trees.

Torgerson’s cows. He belled at least one of them so he could find them when he needed to. They are beef cattle, probably cross-breed Hereford/Angus/Charolais. Maybe purebred Hereford. Red cows. Big. My fear probably originates from my broken middle finger, the memory I don’t have but my mother says happened: the cow that stampeded and stepped on my tiny hands.

I begin to cry. The bell, the cows. the unknown. No mom in sight. Only filtered sunlight and the tinkle of a bell on a mad Hereford cow that is probably going to charge us any second now…

Torgerson was a rancher who owned a lot of the land just north of Jarbidge. He paid for grazing rights. His cattle roamed free.

The story goes that my brother – probably age 4 – had a fight with my mother. He told her that he hated her and we were going to go live in town with someone my brother was certain would take us in. He loaded me into the little red wagon, with my stuffed bear and a few possessions, and off we headed. He was fuming mad.

Mahoney RS was almost a mile out from the edge of town. Terry pulled me in the wagon all the way. Our mother followed us in Nelliebelle – at a very discreet distance – until we were with in sight of the edge of town. Then she passed us and went on in to have coffee with Youra.

Terry hauled me on in, stopping only when he found his destination. Someone he thought would surely take us in and adopt us from our evil mother. They offered us drinks and lunch.

Terry stopped pulling when I started to cry. He came back and hugged me, and then told me that I had to be brave. He would protect me from the ‘mean mommy’. Always. I sucked it up and hugged Teddy tight.

After we were fed and my brother was calmed down, our mother came by and acted like she didn’t know we had dropped in for a visit also. She offered to take us home in the car, and Terry readily agreed. It had been a really long walk, after all.

~~~

We were visiting Jarbidge. Denny was maybe 4 at the time and I was 7? I just remember being down near the saloon when someone shouted that there was a rattlesnake. Then there was a terrifying BOOM! and someone else said, “Old Torgerson shot the head off of it.”

My sister and I were escorted along the street back to where we were staying by our mother. We saw the bloody length of snake in the street, but it wasn’t what we worried about. Mom hissed that the head had been shot off and to watch for the head. Rattlers could continue to snap for hours after their head was severed from their bodies – and it was the head that was dangerous. Don’t ask me what images that conjured up – but I never lost any sleep over it. Rattlesnakes weren’t the same as Dementors. Rattlesnakes could die.

I don’t think I ever saw Mr. Torgerson. I have no recollection of the man. Only his red-painted log cabin home and the spread along the Jarbidge River, the cow with the bell, and the doomed rattlesnake. Oh – and his name.

* it is a fact that rattlesnakes can continue to bite after the head has been severed. We never saw the head to that snake. I do not personally hold a grudge against rattlesnakes, but in the early 1960s, a lot of people did. Still do.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cattle, jarbidge, rattlesnakes, runaways | Leave a Comment »

Baby Sister!

July 10, 2015 by Jaci Dawn

Did I mention there was the possibility of Dementors in this? No, not my sister. She was more like a vampire. But not when she first came into the world. That happened when we fought over blankets and she bit me. Hard. I think I was six at the time, and she was three. And later, she and I both fought Dementors.

1959. Elko, Nevada.

We lived in Elko during the school year. Winter in Jarbidge country is harsh and the roads snow in. There was no need for a young Forest Ranger to keep his family in the high country during the long, cold, winters.

We stayed in a tiny white house with green trim in the metropolis of Elko, Nevada. The man who ate worms lived on one side of us (I did not make this up), and my best friend, Brenda Brush, lived on the other side. I didn’t make up her name, either.

The man who ate worms was problematic. He growled at us kids. He told us he ate worms. I believed him. My mother, on that unfathomable plane, thought he was funny. I think my brother thought it was a joke, too. But I was afraid of him. He ate worms, for crying out loud! What next? Pill bugs?

I was not aware there was anything odd about my mother, but one day my grandparents came to stay with us and my dad took my mother away somewhere. My grandparents let us eat out at the fast food place, and they even bought me a foot long hot dog, despite my brother’s warnings (the tattle tale) that I wouldn’t eat it. Grandpa put it in the fridge for me when I didn’t eat it, smiling kindly and patting my head. He didn’t get all mad like my dad.

I don’t remember her coming home. Just one day there was a crib in the basement with my brother and me, and we had to be quiet lest we woke the baby up.

I remember sneaking out of bed one night and climbing to the top of the stairs where the baby gate was locked in place. We had the gate because of my little sister, not me. Mom was bent over her books in the kitchen. I don’t think Dad was home, or I would never have been brave enough to sit on the stairs and whine. Mom never scared me as much as Dad did, but she wasn’t giving in and I had to go back to bed.

Mom had a dog. I think it was a chihuahua mix. Squeaky. That should tell you everything you need to know about the dog. Squeaky. Who names a dog that? What kind of evil dwells inside of a dog named that? Why would they unleash that horror onto unsuspecting small children in the early mornings? Squeaky would leave no bone unturned. No flesh un-nipped.

He nipped, whined, yapped, nipped. His sharp teeth pinched and I swear he grinned at my mom when she giggled at us. He never drew blood, but – by God! – his nips hurt!

I hated Squeaky.

I loved the little bundle of human being we called Denny. I didn’t even care that she un-throned me as Baby. There would be plenty of time for sisterly spats in our future.

She was olive-skinned, with dark hair and black eyes. Her coloring was so foreign to the rest of us: fair-skinned, brown-haired, hazel-eyed. Even Dad was fair skinned enough that he didn’t look like my sister, and his light brown eyes were no match for her fierce black eyes. His only advantage was his jet black hair – that trait my sister did not inherit. People looked at Mom and Dad, and then waggled their eye brows. Mom brushed aside the questions of my sister’s father with a laugh, “Oh, it was the old Indian down the road.”

Years later, her cheeks would flush red when she thought about that statement. She hadn’t meant it like it sounded. Mom only meant it as a way of deflecting people in the same way I learned to deflect people when I was alone with my children, a generation later. Only my children were pasty white with pale white hair and large blue eyes. My tan skin, brown hair, and hazel eyes was not reflected anywhere in them. I counted the rude comments. My mother made them into a joke.

And somewhere in there, Squeaky passed over the Rainbow Bridge. My mother cried, I am sure. She loved her little dogs. I didn’t even note his passing, cruel child.

But I did make friends with the man who ate worms. He let me in on the joke about the time I left the house to attend Kindergarten. He just said that to gross us out. I vowed to grow up to be like him and eat worms.

I need to tell my grandkids that I eat worms. They won’t believe me.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged eating worms, Elko childhood, genetics, sisters | 2 Comments »

Lions! and Tigers! and BEARS! Oh My!

July 10, 2015 by Jaci Dawn

Mahoney Ranger Station. Jarbidge, Nevada. 1957-59

There was a spider under the ironing board. I stood, transfixed, as it carefully made its way along the bottom of the ironing board. Overhead, above the top of my head, the iron hissed and steamed. The faint scent of starch drifted down. I could see my mother from the waist down, and beyond her, my brother sat on the floor coloring. I was not supposed to get close to the ironing board, so I watched the spider from a few feet away. It paused, raised one leg and waited. Then it moved forward again.

“Dey’s a ‘pidey dere.”

“Big or little?” My mother moved the fabric and touched the iron down again. The spider, startled by the movement, dropped a thread and scooted down it.

“Hangin’.” I watched as it dangled dangerously close to my mother’s legs.

“Good,” muttered Mom. “Don’t touch it.”

I was distracted for a moment and when I looked again, the spider was gone. It made me sad. I liked the spider.

We lived in a white house with a green roof and trim. The back yard was an acre of grass with a swingset at the far end and a forest that surrounded us. Aspen, pine, basalt rock. A tall pine tree stood in the very small front yard, between the picket fence and the front door. A wide gravel parking lot stretched between the house and the tall white barn, pastures on either side, and a corral by the barn. We were encircled by forest.

Serene.

But then – there was the Bear House.

It was a log cabin structure right next to the clapboard house. The logs were piled atop a rock foundation and a large, heavy, door met the little walk way with silence. A flag pole on one end of the cabin, and dark, gloomy windows set in the heavy logs. Only my dad could enter that building.

Only my dad could work with the bears. He kept them in there and somehow, he managed to keep them tamed and quiet. The bears were afraid of him. But they were not afraid of little kids and they would eat us.

I was terrified of the bears. Sometimes, I dreamed about the bears. I’d wake up in a cold sweat, screaming for my mom. Inevitably, I woke the baby up and my big brother, too.

We took baths in a galvanized steel tub between the house and the bear house. I could hear the bears prowling behind the stone foundation, and feel their eyes staring out through the chinks in the rocks. The hair on the back of my neck would stand up.

For some bizarre reason, some stretch of imagination beyond my knowing, my parents and my brother thought my fear of the bears was funny. Hysterical, even. Adorable. Something about the bears being “all in my head”…

I was not amused.

Winnemucca, Nevada. 7th Grade. Substitute teacher. Mrs. R (until my brother corrects me, anyway – I suddenly can’t remember her name). I groaned inwardly when I saw her standing at the front of the class, taking attendance. I was already picked on. Puny kid, shy, few friends. And there she was. Reading our names out loud.

“Jackie Wilcox.” There it was. That look. She smiled and raised her head to look at me.

“Did you all know that Jackie’s father works for Smokey the Bear?”

<sniggers>

<groan> Can I just dig a hole in the ground and die now?

“Let’s all sing the ‘Smokey the Bear’ song.”

My only consolation was that the popular kids who picked on me had to sing it, too. And she did the same thing to my brother when she taught his class.

Everyone sing along now.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Smokey the Bear | Leave a Comment »

Horses

July 8, 2015 by Jaci Dawn

Jarbidge. Mahoney Ranger Station. 1957-1959.

Mahoney. Ma-HOE-nee. Irish. “Descendant of the Bear”

Jarbidge. Shoshone, probably. Tsahabits? Giant in the cave. Site of the last know Stage Coach Robbery.

The best mud pies can be made in a gravel drive as long as the fire crews aren’t expected any time soon. If there are fire crews, you can’t play in the driveway.

I liked to pick the rocks out and mix the white dust with the old rain water until I reached a moldable texture. It was all in the feel of the mud, cool and brown between my fingers. I picked wild yarrow and Queen Anne’s Lace and pulled the tiny florets off to mix into the “dough”. I didn’t know the flower’s names then, those came with age.The idea was to make the pies pretty, but the mud enveloped the florets and turned them an icky brown.

I wiped my hands on my top and looked around. If there was an adult watching, I was blissfully unaware. In retrospect – not in memory – my mother was probably by the picket fence, holding my infant sister, and watching. My brother was probably getting into trouble.

There was an empty pasture to the west of the parking lot. The barn to the north, with the corrals. Eastward, where the ridge came down and the aspens mixed with pines, there was a pair of pastures between parking lot and tree line. In the southern pasture, a lone horse was held. The palomino.

There was something wrong with the palomino, but I didn’t understand what. He was wild? Crazy? Hurt? Today, he was antsy, pacing his pasture and nickering. When I turned to watch him, he suddenly reared up onto his hind legs and pawed at the sky, whinnying loudly. Sunlight glinted off of his cream mane and tail. He reared a second time and then bucked a little in the grassy pasture.

I was delighted. He’d done this just for me. I clapped my hands and bobbed on my legs, “Pretty!” I had my very own Trigger, in my very own back yard, even if I was supposed to stay away from him!

~~~~

I looked around at the fetlocks and hooves. The smell of horse was overwhelming. Dust swirled around me. I was so happy.

Then I looked up.

Maybe it was the voice that prompted me to look up. There was a face in the little window of the barn loft, a face pale and ashen. It was shouting my name. I didn’t know who the face belonged to, but he sounded upset. I froze. Was I in trouble?

“The baby! The baby is in with the horses!”

Somehow, I knew I was in trouble.

Then I was not in with the horses and the memory disappears.

My father confirmed that yes, I did walk into the corral while they were feeding horses once. Yes, his heart stopped. Yes, he thought I would get kicked. It never occured to me or to the half-wild remuda that circled around me, fighting for hay.

I have a crooked middle finger on my left hand. I asked my mother about it once and she blinked. “I think it was the cow,” she said, quietly. We were both nursing a glass of wine. I was 17 and she was my best friend.

“The cow?”

She nodded. “I sat you down. We were watching them rope or something. I forget. We were so far away that I didn’t think about it, then the cow bolted. It came straight for you and I couldn’t get to you in time. It stepped on you. I think. I think it broke your finger.”

I don’t remember the cow. She swore I was no more than 6 months old. She didn’t know if my finger broke or not. Who took kids to the hospital from remote Jarbidge, Nevada?

Sometimes I wonder if the horse memory isn’t mixed up with the cow charging. But I could stand when I toddled through the horse corral and the fire crew freaked out. And I only remember the smell of horses, that wonderful hay-y smell of horses. Hooves, shoes, fetlocks, and dust.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged broken fingers. Jarbidge, horses, Mahoney Ranger Station, memories | Leave a Comment »

Floods Along the Mississippi

July 8, 2015 by Jaci Dawn

I don’t intend to write this out chronologically. It’s too hard to put dates on memories. I remember living in Jarbidge, Paradise Valley, and Winnemucca in my early years. We lived in the house on Lay Street in Winnemucca from early 1961 until I was around 8 years old. I don’t remember how old I was when the following memory took place, and it could be a collection of memories of television news broadcasts.

The Bloody Bones incident happened during the same time period, in the same ranch-style house with the picture window and roses in the yard.

The view from under the couch was fascinating. I lay on my back and tried not to sneeze. The springs in the couch sagged slightly under my dad’s weight and he snored. Loudly. The television was on, but I don’t know if there was sound or not. The images were of flooding throughout the midwest, the worst in decades. The entire M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I River was washing away all of the states from Wisconsin to the delta, although I didn’t know there were states.

I could spell M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I. I watched in morbid fascination as houses were lifted from their foundations and floated down the muddy waters. There was no end in sight to the torrential rains.

I wondered if the Humboldt River would swell over its banks and drown us all. Would it come up suddenly? Or maybe it rose slowly, and you had time to crawl out onto the roof of the house to signal for help? Would Dad make sure we got our dog, Butchey, up there, too? What about all the horses? Could horses swim?

My dad was really tall and strong. He would save me. But what about my mom and Terry and Denny? They weren’t home with us. Would the wide waters catch them in the robin’s egg blue Buick called Nelliebelle, and would they be swept downstream like a boat? Would Dad and I be the only ones left?

How far away was the M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I River?

The front door opened. Voices floated in with the rattle of brown paper grocery bags. My little sister’s small feet flapped into view, with my big brother’s feet. My mother called out cheerily to Dad on the sofa, “Sorry we woke you up!”

I could hear Denny running down the hallway toward our bedroom. I was supposed to be in the bedroom. Maybe I was supposed to be taking a nap? Or I was sick? Dad’s feet swung into view as he rose from the sofa and blocked my view of the TV. Denny came rushing back, breathless.

“I can’t find Jackie!” she wailed.

(I suppose) Mom’s voice turned concerned, maybe worried. Maybe she was slightly accusatory. “Where is Jackie?” she asked my dad. He was supposed to be watching me. Terry brought in another bag and declared I wasn’t outside.

Maybe they thought I got swept up in the big flood!

“Here I am!” I shouted gleefully as I rolled out from under the couch, sneezing dustbunnies from my nose.

“What?” “Why?” “How long?”

I just shrugged. “I wanted to hide under the sofa,” I explained. “It felt safe.” Somehow, it felt lame to tell them about the floods and the houses floating and…

~~~

My sister and I could tickle Dad so hard that he would swallow his cigarette. It didn’t happen very often that he was even playful enough to let us do it, but, sometimes… Just sometimes… He wasn’t always the guy who shot out a cowboy boot and caught your rear end when you let slip a swear word you heard him use all the time. Sometimes, he was really funny.

He’d get down on the floor with us and start tickling us, and then he’d let us tickle him. He always had a cigarette dangling out of his mouth and he’d warn, “Don’t make me swallow it.”

You never knew if he was being serious and he’d get mad if you accidentally made him drop the cigarette on the carpet, or if he was going to do the magic trick where he swallowed the cigarette. We had to gamble it was the latter.

When it was the latter, suddenly, the cigarette would be gone. “Oh, you made me swallow it!” he would moan.

We’d sit back and giggle, waiting for it.

Then he would push it back out between his lips, still lit, and laugh. “That’s enough for now, girls.”

We loved those moments.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cigarettes, floods, memories, mississippi river 1960, tickling dad | Leave a Comment »

Changing up the Old Blog!

July 7, 2015 by Jaci Dawn

I have been thinking about updating and changing my blog for some time. Today, it came to me: it is time to write my history down. Now, before I get started, I have a disclaimer: my memories aren’t necessarily accurate. Sometimes, they are more of impressions of things, or clips of dreams, and sometimes they are short clips of things that really happened – but with embellishments for the reader. A for instance would be: smells. I don’t necessarily remember how things smelled, but I might toss in that “it smelled like fresh leather” because I know that the subject had to have smelled like…

Once in awhile, I will consult my only living family member on the facts. Other times, he will probably comment in the comments. We won’t always agree on the sequence of events or any of the details of an event. This is normal because people process information and events differently.

My life isn’t really that interesting, so I will probably include a lot of dragons and flying horses and things. That’s just in case someone decides to make a movie out of this: I’d want Steven Spielberg to be the director, not Stanley Kubric, and definitely not Woody Allen. There will be at least one Dementor.

I’m not going to sugar coat the story. If I wet the bed until I was 12 years old, I will tell you that. If I peed my panties in 5th Grade, well, that’s a true story, too. It isn’t all about the rainbows and unicorns, but sometimes it’s about the scorpions and rattlesnakes, too. I’m pretty sure Shelob makes a few appearances, and maybe Miracle Max. There’s vampires, hidden doorways, poltergeists, and religious conversions.

I started writing today, on a yellow lined notepad. Here’s my first vignette:

Bloody Bones waited in the dark hallway, rattling his chains. My stomach roiled and nausea washed over me. Bloody Bones wasn’t real…was he? Hot waves flushed over me and I regretted the hot dogs, cotton candy, and soda pop that I’d consumed at the circus in Reno yesterday. I’d been on top of the world.

I moaned. My helium balloon had exploded in the heat. The train that took us to and from Reno swayed like a boat on choppy seas. I couldn’t sleep like the other kids. Nausea escalated to vomiting and my mother pulled the car over to the side of the road so I could puke out the door. It was dark outside.

I cried. Someone on the train told ghost stories and my brother jabbed me in the ribs to scare me. Everyone laughed.

My dad would be so angry.

I wet the bed because I knew Bloody Bones was waiting in the hallway, and now I threw up. I had to get my mom to help me. My dad was no longer as frightening as the spectre in the hallway. I made it to the bedroom door, but I couldn’t go any further. Bloody Bones was there. I could feel him. He was by the kitchen and I could hear him sliding down the hallway to get me.

I whimpered for my mom to wake up and save me…

*All kid trip to Reno for the 3-ring circus. Little kids, like my sister, couldn’t go, but I was a big kid. Probably 1st or 2nd Grade.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged bloody bones, ghost stories, life history, memories | Leave a Comment »

Abducted by Aliens

June 17, 2015 by Jaci Dawn

Shhh. I only have a few stolen moments here at the console. I tried tapping out SOS, but I can’t remember if it is dotdotdot-dashdashdash-dotdotdot or Dashdashdash-dotdotdot-dashdashdash? Will anyone reply if I tap out OSO?

We have been abducted by aliens.

They have taken over our bodies. Our minds are hanging, suspended, in some sort of fluid. God, I hope it’s not formaldehyde!!

They got to Donald first. Made him purchase an old VW Van.

I should have known. He would never give up tent camping. He believes in sleeping on hard ground. He’d never give in to this: comfort camping!! He loves his Ford Explorer. (if you type “Ford Exploder into Google, it automatically pulls up “Ford Explorer”. I wonder why that is…??)

Then there was this:

It’s not the new roof so much, as improvement to the house. Supposedly, I signed off on this. I hate to spend money. I hate salespeople. This means being a grownup. This can’t be.

But if you need further proof that an Alien is living in my body, scroll down…

No, not that! That’s a hokey 1950’s movie about body snatchers! Pea Pod People. It was supposed to scare you.

No. I want you to see my cell phone.

This is my cell phone. It doesn’t have Internet and it takes a photo about the size of a pea. (Peas and pea pods are obviously on my mind). It works perfectly fine. I can call people when I turn it on. Occasionally, I read a text message. I delete anything that has to do with Internet access. It has served me well throughout the past 10 years. I HAVE NO REASON TO CHANGE PHONES.

And Donald doesn’t even have one.

But THIS showed up in my hand recently. Android powered. Camera, video, and Facebook capable. Apps. Email.

Shhh. I think they are coming…

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged alien abduction, invasion of body snatchers, pea pod people | Leave a Comment »

Happy Anniversary! To Us.

June 7, 2015 by Jaci Dawn

Do *not* tell me the sign is misspelled. I know. I do not care. The apostrophes are in the right places. No, I do not know what possessed me to misspell the sign. Get over it.

This. Brian (my sometime soon-to-be son-in-law) said, “It smells like a Vietnamese fish market.” He’s Vietnamese (well, he’s Canadian. That’s close, right?).

We counted at least 11 in one clump, 7 in another, and one on the far side of the yard. I’ll let the reader do the research: Voodoo lily. Dracunculus vulgaris. It’s an amazing plant in the arum family. Don and I found it in the yard of a rental we lived in, back in 1983-84. When we moved, we dug it up, filled in the hole, and transported the bulbs. The Lily loves the yard we have now – it’s been transplanted 3x and spent one year in storage when we were homeless.

It blooms on June 7, every year.

June 7, 1980. Donald & I got married. This is the first year we have hosted a “stinkin’ barbecue” to go with our anniversary, even though we have discussed doing it for years. And years.

We invited only family, so if you didn’t get an invite… Hey, we tried to keep it simple.

Chrystal & Brian came over. Then Don’s nephew, his wife, and their three daughters – all of whom we are just getting to know. I knew Don’s nephew back when he was just a little kid, but there have been long stretches of not being in contact, so this is really a sweet thing to have them come over and join us. The girls are adorable.

I turned around, and my camera had been hijacked. Chrystal wandered around taking garden photos with it.

A candid of Don (Brian’s legs in the foreground).

Oh, thanks. A candid of me. Friend Kate is in the purple next to me.

Awwww. Harvey candid.

We put the dogs in kennels because one of Don’s great nieces is terrified of dogs. Our dogs love kids, but between them, they weigh 160+ pounds. That’s a lot for a kid who is afraid of dogs.

“Who could be afraid of me…????”

Isn’t that the saddest face, ever? And, actually, Chrystal spent some time introducing the dog-shy great niece to Harvey. Maybe next time, we could ease Harvey out into the crowd. Then Murphy.

Why put our dogs into kennels when guests are at our home? Let me tell you why: it isn’t about our ego. We want our dogs to be safe and we want the child in question to have a good experience with dogs. Our dogs are spoiled. They can spend half a day in their little kennels while we party a few feet away. They have water and shade. the little ones pet them through the bars. It’s a much safer environment than having the dogs loose to beg for food, run after little girls who are running, and bark loudly (scaring kids and adults).

It’s common sense.

Chrystal handed off my camera to the oldest great niece (10). I didn’t even blink. Chrystal acted as tutor, showed her how to wear the camera around her neck, how to use the settings.

I must be getting old. this didn’t faze me. $500 camera in the hands of a 10 year old I just met.

I know. My own kids just fell over, dead. I wouldn’t let them touch my 35 mm SLR (the one *I* dropped and broke). But I just let some random 10 year old handle my DSLR.

She took the photo of the log (above), a couple selfies that I can’t post because she is not my child (but I will send them to her), some random mystery photos (not sure what she was looking at – a hummingbird??), and one of the Voodoo Lily.

That is a great shot.

Moreover, she decided she wants a camera of her own. *Score!* Child found an interest because formerly uptight adult person decided she was too old to be uptight anymore.

I am so glad I have dropped those reins. I think my grandkids taught me that: loosen up. You only have the now. Kids grow up too quickly. Cameras don’t cost as much as an ER visit. Or bail money.

Next year, we may invite more people. It won’t be a landmark anniversary year, but we are feeling confident in our ability to host a small party. Don barbecued 6# of country-style ribs, plus a few hotdogs and hamburgers to order for kids. 3 kids, 8 adults. Nearly 90 degrees (WHEW!!!) outside.

I won’t bore you with the details of the wedding 35 years ago. But… There was a cattle drive that we all got stuck in. My niece (flower girl) interrupted the wedding vows to ask her mother a question. Don’s cousin arrived late in his beat-up car with the hole in the muffler. There was a dog fight. I banned everyone from tapping the keg before the vows, so my mother-in-law tapped the hard liquor. There was a salad bowl that got run over three times. Someone named Justin filled my car with rice (we never did get the rice out of the windows, so when you rolled or unrolled them, you could hear rice rattle around inside). The State Police drove by three time because they were having a party in Union. just 5 miles away. We all drove home (drunk) the other direction (except my in-laws). My maid of honor got sick in my sister-in-law’s car (no, changed her mind when they stopped to let her puke). My mother-in-law’s future husband got pulled over for DUI AFTER he spent another hour or so at the bar in Unity with the State Police. And it did not rain on my wedding because I asked God (begged, pleaded, bribed) for a nice day on June 7. It resumed raining on June 9.

And my mother thought the wedding cake was made with buggy flour because the trees overhead dropped all kinds of critters onto the cake before we cut it. And ate it, because my mom didn’t mention the bug part to us until the next day.

And my brother’s date to the wedding was named Dorcas. If you didn’t get that, you didn’t have a brother in the 1960’s who called you, “DORKUS!” all your life.

*** I highly do NOT recommend getting behind the wheel of an automobile when intoxicated. If I were to do it again, we’d have slept in the park and driven home sober in the morning. Driving home that night was among the STUPIDEST decisions ever. I am ashamed to admit we did that. ***

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 35 anniversary, 35th wedding anniversary | 4 Comments »

DIY – Jaci Style

June 4, 2015 by Jaci Dawn

Quick! What do you do when your husband says, “Here’s a bucket of mixed concrete. I didn’t need the whole bag.”

Uh-

“Maybe you can make a bird bath,” he adds.

Uh-

Grab a bunch of roundish-rocks, a handful of rhubarb leaves, and haul the 5-pound bucket over to a bare spot in the yard. Pile the rocks in the center so they form sort of an inverse bowl shape (no need to be perfect) and place the rhubarb leaves (face down) on top of them, covering the rocks as well as you can. The shovel as much of the wet mix onto the leaves, patting the surface with the back of the shovel. (Wear gloves – I had some on when he handed me the bucket.)

I put an old lawn chair over the wet mound to keep the dogs away from it. The stuff my husband used is a quick-set stuff you can buy at a hardware store for less than $5. It fills a 5-gallon bucket. He added enough water to mix it thoroughly and used half of it to set a post in the ground. The rest was my bonus.

It hardened overnight despite the rain – it was pretty much hard to the touch before I went to bed on Sunday. But then we had two days of rain storms and I didn’t get back out to it until yesterday.

It wasn’t as heavy as I fear it would be, but I did need to lever it up enough for me to get my fingers under it to flip it. Some of the rocks fell out easily, but several were wedged in a little tighter.

I actually had to use a screwdriver to lever three of these rocks out. The lip of the bowl is embedded with filbert shells, but that’s easy enough to clear off.

Or not. I found the rhubarb leaves aren’t so easy to peel out, either.

The self-help video I watched (after I did this, of course) made that step look easy, but then she added, “Or you can let Nature remove the rhubarb.” So maybe she had a bit of a problem peeling the leaves off, too. (She was making stepping stones and was prepared for the process with a bed of sand, a level, and damp burlap. I punted.)

I stuck my foot into the photo for size comparison. It’s a nice-sized bowl. I got as much of the rhubarb peeled out as I could, but Nature will have to take her course with what is left. I’ll pick at the hazelnut shells, but some of them are probably embedded for the life of the bird bath (or whatever I decide to use the bowl for).

I filled it with water after I noticed I had a hole in the side. I wanted to see how long it would take to drain out. It’s actually a slower leak than I expected.

My mind has been running over this. If I was going to use the bowl as a bird bath, I would have to find a way to repair that. But if I were to use it in a home-made waterfall…

We’ve talked about building a waterfall feature in the back for years. There’s already a natural stone in place that collects a little water…

That will be another DIY post, and probably a long time from now. Meanwhile, I have a leaky home made bird bath, created with very little planning (as in, thinking on my feet).

Comments welcome. 🙂

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged DIY bird bath | Leave a Comment »

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