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Splat! Went the Lunch Box

October 7, 2013 by Jaci Dawn

I seem to be on a roll of confessing stupid things. Every body does them. Not everybody admits to them. There are some stories I will never confess. You know the stories: wetting your pants on the walk home from school because you didn’t feel the need to go when you left school, but halfway home…

Or maybe you don’t know that feeling. I do know that once I knocked on someone’s door and told them I needed to use the bathroom and they let me in. Small town. Everyone knows everyone. I was ever so grateful. Because usually, I managed to just wet myself and that was incredibly uncomfortable and embarrassing.

I was a picked on kid in elementary school. My weak bladder probably had something to do with it (a lot, even), but also my innate shyness. When I was very little, my natural introversion manifested in shyness. I could be a blabbermouth around people I knew and trusted, like my closest friends and my parents’ closest friends, but in a public school setting, I died in increments.

In 5th Grade, I had a teacher who refused to let anyone out of the room to use the bathroom and I had an “accident” in class. It was horrifying. I told no one about it, but every kid – especially the sharks – knew about it. My brother eventually got wind of the story and told my parents. My parents then surprised even me: they confronted the school principal to ask why they had not been notified? That meeting led to a confrontation with the 5th grade teacher, a young idealistic woman who thought she had learned it all in Normal School. After meeting with my parents, no one was ever again denied a pass to the restroom during classroom hours. And in that moment, I received my first affirmation that I was not only loved, but that I could stand up to a bully.

There were many more lessons along that theme in 6th grade. 6th grade was in the new junior high. I inherited a veteran teacher by the name of Mrs. Haskell. Mrs. Haskell could not pronounce the word “alfalfa” – a word which reflected one of the core economic bases of our community: she said “Alfa-alfa” which made most of us giggle with delight. She was strong on history, especially Nevada State history and a smidgeon of World History. She was also very astute in social matters and when she noticed that I missed more school days than attended, she began to watch what happened on the playground.

I brought cupcakes to the class Valentine’s Day party. Standing in line, this kid (who I shall refer to as Dipstick in order to avoid any lawsuits) turned and “accidentally” bumped my tray of treats, sending several cupcakes into the air. They landed icing down in the gravel. Dipstick did not know Mrs Haskell saw the whole thing. My friend, Trudi, and some other girls in the Un-Cool Clique, helped me pick up the ruined treats.

In the classroom, Mrs. Haskell helped me save the best of the cupcakes, but she insisted I leave the one with the most gravel in the frosting on the platter. When it came time to hand out the treats, she instructed me to place that cupcake on Dipstick’s desk.

His hand shot up in the air. “Mrs. Haskell! She gave me a cupcake with gravel in it!!”

“Really, Dipstick? Isn’t that the one you tossed on the ground outside? I think it is the one you deserve.”

The class erupted in giggles and Dipstick was forced to face his ruined cupcake. Happy Valentine’s Day.

I do not connect that event with the next one. I think they were months apart. Bullying is an ongoing problem and I was an ongoing victim. This day would be the first of the last of the days anyone would try to bully me. I weighed in at about 65# and stood shorter than 4’6″. I was a mite of a thing, bow-legged with thin, mousy hair.

I was walking home with a sort-of girlfriend named Debbie. I remember her whole name, but she was never a very close friend. She was just another loser like myself who needed someone to walk home with to ward off the bullies.

We were close to the city park when Dipstick and a follower came upon us. They were riding bicycles, wielding chains and taunts. Debbie ran. I continued to walk and was surrounded by the pair. They circled me, waving the chains and taunts in the air with threats of physical damage and hurt.

I can’t really tell you what went through my mind. I was a middle sister and routinely defended myself from a brother. Mrs. Haskell had empowered me. I knew my parents loved me. I carried an old-fashioned black lunch box (totally uncool in it’s coal miner look) with a real thermos in it. I had books I needed for homework. I needed to go home.

I lifted the arm holding my lunch box. All I wanted was for the boys to stop circling me, to stop the damn taunting, to Just. Go. Away.

And Dipstick rode straight into my lunch box.

Splat. His face met black steel and thermos. He crumpled sideways in a groan of agony. I turned and ran up the street to catch up with Debbie, wheezing out hysterical laughter: I HIT Dipstick and laid him out in the park!

She seemed doubtful. I was elated. I walked on clouds all the way home. I bragged at the dinner table. I had bonked the bully!

Ah, but the true taste of victory was yet to come. I arrived at school the following day and was swarmed by the “popular” girls, the girls who worked hard to make my life miserable.

“I heard you ran away from Dipstick in tears yesterday,” they suggested.

I burst out in laughter. “TEARS? I was LAUGHING. HAVE you seen his FACE? Yeah, *I* did that.”

I hadn’t seen his face. I would see it later. His eyes were black and blue. He had been in a fight that he lost – a fight with a motionless lunch box.

The bullying didn’t stop there, not right away. But it was the first step toward respect that I ever took, and it felt delicious.

And best of all? Dipstick’s parents never inquired as to who double-blacked their son’s eyes. My parents were impressed. Mrd. Haskell probably knew what happened, but never let a word slip edgewise out of her mouth. The bullying continued for a couple more years, but it had a certain lack of enthusiasm behind it. An enthusiasm that certainly went downhill when (in 7th grade) I turned in the hall and pronounced to the Big.Fat.Girl who had just said something nasty to me, “Just because you are a big fat bitch…”

My friend, Trudi, nearly died. “YOU SAID BITCH?”

And I said, calmly, “Well, she *is* one, isn’t she?”

Every time I read about a bullied child taking her/his life, I thank God I had: my parents, Mrs. Haskell. a few close friends, and an innate gut reaction that said: FIGHT BACK. Because everyone is worthy. Because bullies die into oblivion and lose any internet identity. Because bullies marry into abusive relationships and end up just as hurt and miserable as the ones they hurt in school. Eventually, we’re all on equal ground and you have to feel sorry for the person who made your life miserable.

Bullies hurt as much as the bullied, but you will never know that until you splat your lunch pail into their face.

Proudest Moment of My Life.

 

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The Fight – A Camping Story

October 6, 2013 by Jaci Dawn

My son asked several friends & family members to write down memories of him (he claims he can’t remember anything, but I really think he just wants to know how we remember things vs, how he remembers them). There are quite a few stories that are classics, like the year we took some of those air “pillows” they use for insulating breakables in shipping cartons and wrapped them in pretty Christmas paper. We put them in my son’s stocking with a straw and “Air Head Refill Instructions”.

He was not amused.

This story falls under “he was not amused” also, but in the retelling, it is funny.

The year was 1999 or maybe it was 2000. I think 1999, because my sister’s recent death did not haunt my memory and because I think we made the drive down to Ely in 2000 to see how my dad was coping in the wake of the loss of my sister. I also think it was 1999 because I am fairly certain my oldest was 15. She was enroute to Mexico for a missions trip with our church’s youth group. It was the first big trip out of country for her and the first family vacation without her presence.

Levi was still at the age when he asked me everything and conversations in the truck went:

“Mom. You know what, Mom? Mom. You know what, Mom? Mom. Mom.” We took to answering him with the same questions.

One night, we camped in a draw just outside of Bend, not far from the highway but hidden to the world. Sitting in the draw, we watched a big airplane fly over, headed south from PDX, at approximately the time our oldest would have been enroute. We waved, pretending it was Arwen.

Another night, we drove up to Glass Butte, just west of Riley, Oregon. We’d been there before but with Arwen. Glass Butte is a volcanic hill comprised of molten rock, obsidian of every hue, dust, pumice, sagebrush and low junipers. It is a favorite rock-hounding destination: you can easily dig several varieties of obsidian in varying degrees of quality. There are pits next to the road where rock hound have scored large rocks or collected enough to make their own arrowheads for events like Rendezvous. It’s a haul-your-own-water in, no amenties, public lands destination that is close enough to Burns to also invite the keggers, parties, and covens.

The average tourist rarely encounters those events as the locals know when the desert is empty and when the tourists are likely to be there.

We parked on the northern slope after a grueling search for a good place to rock hound that also had plenty of shade. The roads that wind around up there are jeep trails for the most part and ungraded. Shade is provided by junipers with low hanging branches. Open range Hereford-Angus mix cattle graze in the sagebrush and fight for the shade, so there are also plenty of dried cow patties, ticks (in season), and grumpy range bulls eager to take on citified dogs that try to chase them.

My husband is more obsessed about rocks than I will ever be, and I have a bit of an obsession about them. I pocket agates and pick up small rocks, always adding to a collection that will be eventually left behind the next time we move. He picks up rocks that fill the pound quota per person. I think (I could be wrong) that the pound quota is something like 50#s per person? Donald has been known to haul a 50# rock home “just because”.

It was easily a hundred degrees farenheit. The cattle hugged the junipers in the draw. We worried about the ice in our cooler melting although we could refill it the following day in Burns. We had not discussed where we would put up our tent should we decide to camp on Glass Butte (where nothing is flat – or soft).

Donald and Levi hopped out of the truck, eager to get to the business of digging rocks (well, I think Levi just wanted out of the truck and was sort of interested in watching his father toil in the hot sun). The dog and I were more reluctant. I was not going to toil in the sun. This is where my obsession with rocks does not equal that of my partner’s. I had a good book, my journal, and a lawn chair. I intended to make as much use of the shade of the California juniper we were parked under as possible.

Except that I heard this noise. And I looked under the truck. And I observed water – very hot water – streaming out of the engine.

“Don. Don – we have a leak.”

And in what will be remembered as a classic “ignore your wife at your own peril” move, Don waved me off. “Im digging,” he replied – or something to that effect.

“But…” I started.

And he gave me this irritated gesture, a shrug of the shoulder, a “go away, you’re bothering me” turn of the back. Levi was too busy looking for lizards on the hot rocks to care.

I thought about getting mad. I considered storming over there and getting in my husband’s face. I considered several alternatives. But I was very, very angry at being ignored and I took my book, my lawn chair, and my glass of iced tea to the shady side of the tree where I could look down on the highway far below and watch semi trucks roll on past. Several hours passed. Okay, maybe two hours, three on  the outside. My husband retrieved a lawn chair and made iced tea for himself. Levi pulled out a chair and a juice drink.

“I think the radiator has a leak,” I said, casually.

“WHAT??”

As it was, the radiator was empty, water and antifreeze poured out into the desert, steaming and evaporating away.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” my dear husband stormed.

“But I did,” I recalled, calmly. I told him how I had called out to him and he had shrugged me off. And he remembered.

We were stuck. We had to unload the camper while Don searched for antifreeze to put into the tanks and a temporary fix to the hole in the radiator. The temperature rose and the shade got shorter.

Levi threw up his hands and took his day pack. “I’m going to go get help,” he declared.

“The highway is five miles or more away,” we said.

“I don’t care. I’m walking out.”

The dog sat on her haunches and watched him go. We pulled out lawn chairs, poured another iced tea, and watched him hike down the draw, following the road, shooing red Hereford cows and calves out of his way. The big range bull sounded a mournful “Muh-muh-muhuh” at him but was reluctant to leave his shade. Levi climbed the opposite ridge and stopped. He looked down at the still very distant highway and the ant-sized truck and trailer units that rarely occasioned it. He scratched at the sweat on his neck.

And he turned back, silently trudging down and up again.

“It’s too far.”

In the end, Don put some temporary plug in the hole and we waited for sunset and the cool of night. We reloaded the truck. We ate dinner. And when it was finally dark and all we could see of traffic below was the headlights, we headed out. We made it to Riley. It was deep black out and we had to pay for a gravel campsite where we put up the tent for a few short hours of sleep.

We were up before the sun, loading the truck and heading to Burns, hoping the temporary fix would hold long enough for us to make this outback town where we would wait for the hardware store to open. And there, in an empty parking lot, Don soldered the radiator tank and we refilled it with more water and antifreeze. And we continued our vacation secure with the knowledge that Levi was ready to walk out on us and he was not impressed with marital spats.

We did have a lot more fun – just this was more fun.

I just Tagged this “listen to your wife”. HAHAHA

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I Hope She Still Loves Me

October 2, 2013 by Jaci Dawn

This one falls under Stupid Things I have Done. It is a classic tale told around the world by different authors and, unfortunately, in this tale, I am the author.

We lived in a little trailer park with a gravel road. Seven trailers, all small children about the same age. I was the stay-at-home mom to several of the working mothers. This did not involve babysitting in so many words and I want to quantify this with my opinion on leaving young children at home alone.

I was a latch-key child in the 1960’s, before “latch-key child” was a buzz phrase. It was not cool for mothers to work outside the home and nearly all of my friends had stay-at-home mothers. My parents agreed that my mother could work outside the home. She was light years ahead of her time and probably one of Gloria Steinem’s most ardent supporters (sans burning bras) back in the day. My brother was usually “in charge” but he was not always home, so my sister and I were basically on our own from the time I was eleven. I mean, my brother had a life and he was entering his teen age years! Before that, however, he was the one in charge – he became our primary babysitter when he was 10, when our parents came home to find the paid babysitter snoring on the sofa and my brother sitting up with her, bright-eyed and bushy tailed.

We got into trouble but our parents rarely found out.

That said, I could not judge my neighbors for the similar situations they found themselves in. Older siblings “watched” younger siblings and the stay-at-home moms (there were two of us in the ‘hood) were sort of a back-up in case something really terrible happened, like Darrel was running through the house, fell on a table, and broke his front teeth out. (Older sibling, Sharon, put the teeth in a glass of milk and I made repeated phone calls to the place my friend was employed, trying to get someone to pick up the phone during the busy lunch hour rush. All’s well that ends well, I guess, but I think Darrel lost his teeth permanently because the fast food joint where my friend slaved would not allow employees to answer the phone during the lunch hour rush.)

But I digress (do you see a pattern here?). There were 13 kids in the little isolated trailer park. They ranged in age from teenager to toddler. Four had mothers who were at home. I tended to be the mom the kids came to if they had a question, a weird bug to look up, a snake to show off, a razor cut to bandage (and hide from their parents). I was often the mom who was outside because I hate being indoors and the other stay at home mom actually worked nights with her husband, so kept rather odd hours.

My best friend lived in the single-wide next to me with her youngest daughter, who is the same age as my oldest. The girls went to Kindergarten together. That was in a different part of town and a different time. Now we were neighbors and the girls were in 3rd grade.

All of the children over the age of 6 owned and rode bicycles. All of them except for my best friend’s daughter, who owned, but could not ride, her bicycle. She was 8.

To understand this story better, I need to tell you about a little boy and a little girl, generations apart. The little girl grew up in the 1960’s and she was deathly afraid of everything and anything, especially of something that might cause pain. She pushed her bike around, following the older kids in the neighborhood. Even her younger sister mastered the two-wheeler before she could. She had a beautiful blue girl’s Hawthorne bike. It was blue and she named it Blue Ribbon. But she could not bring herself to get onto it and attempt to master the needed balancing act to ride the thing. At least, not when there was an audience. She finally got on it and rode it when none of the other kids was there to laugh at her and poke fun at her wobbly style. She was 8 years old when she taught herself to ride, practicing where no other children could see her and egg her on, or laugh at her when she wrecked, or otherwise see what she was trying to accomplish.

The little boy was just 3 and was gifted his first tiny blue bike with training wheels. It was 1990, in the spring. The older children in the apartment complex ran around, pushing their bikes or ignoring them – a generation that could not understand the thrill of a two wheeler. But not that little boy. He tootled around the cul-de-sac, happily unaware that his training wheels were not touching the ground on either side. His mother observed, however (she being the girl who had only mastered bicycle riding on her own in 1964).

“Don’t you think we could take the training wheels off?” she asked her husband. He looked, observed, and agreed. So the training wheels came off. And the little boy was set free.

All of the older children in the apartment complex rushed to master a two-wheeler, eager to not be undone by this 3-year old apparent bicycle prodigy.

Now this woman was in her late 30’s, her prodigy was competing with the other children in daring down-hill rides, and she could see her best friend’s daughter bravely pushing her bike around to keep up with the children who had mastered that fine art of balance. I watched out my window as the other children were up and down the hil five times and this little girl bravely pushed her bike along the side, one time down, one time up, smiling as the others passed her and taunted her to get on and ride.

So.

I offered my services. I promised to be gentle. to be kind, to remember how it felt to be the 8 year old afraid of riding a bike because falling off of it could be painful. I was entirely empathetic. And she grasped at the offer.

“Promise not to let go?”

“I PROMISE” Famous last words. You know where this story goes. Everyone knows where this story goes. It goes downhill.

We were aimed downhill. She was wobbling in her seat. I held her back as we went, and then she found her balance. She was pedaling. She was pulling away, perfectly balanced.

And . I. Let. Go.

OOPS.

For thirty beautiful feet, ten long yards, she was as graceful and even as an adult hawk, skimming the meadow in search of a mouse. The four or five neighborhood children who were gathered to watch cheered as she came even with them, her eyes wide. The front wheel began to wobble. She was going too fast. She couldn’t remember how to brake. The tire twisted, the momentum pushed her over the handlebars and she executed a somersault that wasn’t a somersault, but more of a face-splat. It was probably painful (she reminds me of this sometimes when we reminisce). It would, ultimately, cover her body with bruises. But I was in the moment and we had a neighbor hood of observers (many of them calculating the greatness of the wreck: how many times did her body collide with the earth? Was it a three-pointer or a six-pointer? Each collision with ground was a point.

She was crying, but not the heaving sobs of a truly injured child, only the sniffles of a bruised ego. I hugged her, brushed the gravel from her knees, promised her she would be all right. And then I did the Unforgivable. To this day, I cannot believe I did this. Not with my own memories of hiding and practicing and perfecting my own skill on a bicycle, ashamed if someone would have seen me wobble or wreck.

T told her to get back on.

Yes. I said that. Visions of my best friend’s wrath had not yet caught up with me. I was only hearing the voice of every cowboy who has been bucked off” “Get back on the horse or you’ll never ride again.” It’s true, by the way.

That little girl did what I told her to do. She got back on. And I let go, again. And the joy in her face as she balanced, pedaled, and braked was priceless. She spent the rest of the day riding with the other kids, keeping up with them and laughing with them.

Meanwhile, I ran back into the house and with shaking hands, called my best friend at work to confess what I had done and to assure her that no stitches were required or bones were broken. I hoped she still loved me.

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Need a Jump? A Cable Story. Or Not.

October 1, 2013 by Jaci Dawn

I told this story (the short version) to a co-worker last week and she insisted I need to share it on my blog. And since I need a good laugh, here it is. Count this one as “Jaci’s Driving Adventures”.

We used to live in a little trailer park set on the side of a hill. The drive through was a one-lane loop down hill (I taught my best friend’s daughter how to ride a bike on that hill, before it was paved – fodder for another blog). There were seven homes along the loop, and we were a pretty tight-knit community living seven miles outside the city limits. There was a blackberry infested “pasture” where I kept my two horses.

We were between cars. Well, we had a car, but not a pick-up truck. We didn’t have a good place to store hay and hay by the ton was more than we could afford. So when I ran low on hay, I would borrow my girlfriend’s little red pickup truck. Then we stowed the hay under our unfinished deck until I needed to make another run.

For the curious: we fed out horses alfalfa when we could get it cheaply. Second and third cut are the best. My husband liked to purchase Timothy grass, but I couldn’t handle Timothy: my arms would break out in hives and I’d be a sneezing, wheezing, eye-swelling mess. Orchard grass was next in line and the horses loved it. I am not allergic to Orchard grass.

I digress.

My girlfriend’s then-husband was notorious for switching out batteries among the several dead and half-dead vehicles around his trailer. He liked to go to the auctions and buy used cars and then fix them up for resale. He would move a battery from one car to another, sometimes not quite tightening the cables. It was always a guess as to whether or not the truck would have a working battery in it or not.

It didn’t on this particular day. So my husband and I pushed the truck out of it’s parking spot and aimed it downhill. It was a cute little five-speed, so popping the clutch on the downhill was not much of a problem. I had it running before we passed the first downhill neighbor’s house. My girlfriend had this truck for several years before she got married and she swore it was powered solely by the Bible she kept in the glove compartment.

I should note here that this same man who was always switching batteries around, hated to loan the truck to me, even though it was not, technically, his truck. It was my girlfriend’s truck from before their marriage. His objection to loaning it to me was that it was a manual transmission and he had some idea that women cannot drive stick shifts. See me roll my eyes? I had a private opinion of this man that I shared with my husband (who is either too cowed to admit to any such foolish chauvinism or who (wisely) shares my eye-rolling).

Anyway. I digress. Again.

The feed store was about 10 miles away. I drove and my husband rode shotgun. We wound along narrow two lane country roads, stopped at a couple stop signs and finally dipped into a narrow canyon where we passed the hobby rancher who kept a few bison. (Digression: the same girlfriend’s oldest child got confused between buffalo and bison. She called them “Bisaho”. Soft ‘i’. We still call them ‘bisaho’.)

The road stopped at a T where it met Redland Road. We stopped. The truck stopped. Everything stopped. Turn key. NOTHING.

Great. We got one of the half-dead batteries and it wasn’t charged enough to start the truck! Fortunately, there was a fire station directly across the highway – all we had to do was push the truck over there without getting hit by the 45-mile-and-hour traffic through the little “don’t blink you’ll miss it” town of Redland, Oregon. Not a lot of traffic and we were shortly in the parking lot of said fire station.

The fireman who came out to see what we needed was a nice young man. We told him we just needed a jump and he brought out a truck and cables. Then we popped the hood.

And all three of us stared.

“You drove this here?” the fireman finally said.

“Uh. Yes.” And then the fits of giggles hit us. How do you explain to a perplexed fireman that you just drove ten miles without a battery in the car?

The epilogue is we had to call my girlfriend to come rescue us and she had to figure out in which dead vehicle her beloved had stowed the truck’s battery. There is a mechanical explanation (all quite logical and techincal) as to how we were able to pull off this feat, but I find that logic often ruins a good story. My girlfriend’s theory about the Bible in the glove compartment is just as good.

Besides, I can still see the incredulous look on the faces of the fireman and my husband when they peered under the hood with me, jumper cables in hand.

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First Big Storm

September 29, 2013 by Jaci Dawn

The first big autumn storm blew in this weekend, literally. “Literally” here means it actually blew in, with high winds and lots of rain. It wasn’t too bad yesterday and Harvey got his long-awaited walk in.

He’s really quite funny. This 85# dog that does a happy dance on the end of his leash, barking shrilly and wagging his tail. I have learned to just let him have his head for the first 20 feet, and then he settles into “heel” and walks like the gentleman he is. We saw a lot of downed branches and pine needles. The deciduous trees haven’t had time to change color, so while there was a little smattering of oak leaves on the ground (usually with oak branches), there wasn’t a lot of pretty colored leaves.

The rain finally moved ashore around 7PM last night when I was making the drive back home from our dinner date in Estacada, Oregon. Lovely drive and enough said about that.

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A number of birds made use of the bird feeder – when they could get past the hungry squirrels!

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I hung that piece of root on a 12 penny nail someone hammered into the poor pine tree. The birds – and the obnoxious bird-seed hogging Eastern Fox squirrels love it.

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Thinking about making the jump to the feeder. Squirrel changed its mind and climbed up to the branch above instead. It was one of three that parked in the feeder and stayed there all day. All rainy, dreary, dark day.

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See this one? I posted this photo because 1) I made the suet cake it is dining on and 2) I got into an argument with an employee of the Backyard Bird Shop about squirrels and suet laced with insects.

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I didn’t mean to. It was just that she said “The insect suet is good for keeping squirrels out.”

And I said, “Hm. Doesn’t seem to slow down my squirrels. They eat it up.”

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And she snapped back in a most sarcastic tone, “Well. You must have special squirrels.”

So I decided to document my special squirrels eating insect-laced suet.

For the record, I wasn’t upset. She was possibly the first and only rude employee I have ever met at the Backyard Bird Shop. Maybe she was having an off day. But I still wanted to post the pictures of my insect-suet loving, special squirrels.

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The birds perched in the rhododendron by the kitchen window while they attempted to wait out the squirrels.

There are two males in the photo. I believe the one closest is a purple finch.

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A purloined sunflower seed.

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This girl was hard to coax out.

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Ah. There she is.

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The hummer feeders were busy, too. I only have five out now and I refilled them all yesterday. I am hoping to encourage the hummingbirds that do not migrate to stay in my yard.

I can hear it raining and blowing out even now, after the dark has blanketed the land. I am not ready for a stormy Autumn. I hope it does not mean an early – and lengthy – winter. I am so not ready for the loss of summer and sunshine.

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Cryptids, Aliens, Dinosaurs

September 25, 2013 by Jaci Dawn

I have felt the need to post about cryptids for some time, but nothing concrete has come my way, so I have allowed the subject to simmer on the back burner. But tonight, I am proud to say I have a few things to say.

It all started with a Facebook post by a friend that shows what appears to be a stegosaurus carved on a Buddhist temple some 800 years ago.

dddddd

(I didn’t find any photo credits)

I asked, like any good cryptozoologist if it could be real or photoshopped? It looks vaguely like a stegosaurus and I’m not opposed to the idea that mankind walked the earth at the same time as dinosaurs. Besides, one of my favorite childhood books was The Shy Stegosaurus of Cricket Creek by Evelyn Sibley Lampman. (The sad part of that confession is that 40 years later, I still remember the stegosaurus’ name and found the title of the book by googling: GEORGE THE STEGOSAURUS.) Heck the stego in the photo could be George.

No, George was in the United States, not Cambodia.

I did a quick search and found a lot of links, but this one made the most sense to me: The GeoChristian .

I’m not trying to disprove it is a dinosaur, but the contention that it could be a chameleon is a pretty convincing argument. I babysat a chameleon once and it looked a lot like that carving. I think I babysat the chameleon. Maybe it was the Chinese Water Dragon. But I stand by my statement: it could be a chameleon and not a stegosaurus. Although, it would be very cool if it was a stego, but no fossils of one have been found in Cambodia.

There are fossils of stegos near where George (the Shy Stegosaurus) lived.

That took me on a search for other odd news and I found (of course) some more Bigfoot links, all at one site: http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com. First, there’s an article where noted anthropologist David Attenborough admits that Yeti could be real. Then film of a Sasquatch taken in Canada.

They provide a link to the very cool map by Joshua Stevens covering 92 years of Bigfoot sightings.

Of course, I had to follow other links, like the Dogman of Michigan – just in time for Hallowe’en, I think.

New footage of the Loch Ness monster. (Possibly)

Oh heck, if you followed the first link I posted, you’ve probably already read all the great information on the site. There are a whole lot of links to UFO sightings, for instance.

And at least one very humorous story of a horse standing atop a garage roof where it had managed to get itself stranded the night before. Sadly, there was no photo attached to that story. I wanted to see the horse on the roof.

Aside from horses that do strange things, I think there are a lot of mysteries out there that we will never explain. One of the most recent to come across my desk is the tale of the ghost at a Milton-Freewater, Oregon, cemetery. It’s featured in some news articles, but even better – the photographer, Nathan Ziegler, has a blog.

Now, that’s freaky stuff.

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Found Art & Inherited Antiques

September 15, 2013 by Jaci Dawn

I missed so many yard sales this summer! I shouldn’t feel terrible about that because I really need to have a yard sale of my own and get rid of a ton of clutter instead of buying more clutter, but I do feel a twinge of sadness in having missed so many bargains.

Of course, I did hit a few yard sales that were duds, plain and simple. One notable one was touted as “Estate Sale! Everything Must Go!” I arrived on the first day of the sale. They would have done better to have rented a dumpster and let the city haul it all off to the land fill.

The month of September has been kind to me, however. I found some pretty cool (to me) junk for just a few dollars.

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What I like best about this photo is the fact that I left the sale tag on it. Heck, I think the tag is still on it! One of these minutes, I will remember and will peel that bright orange circle off. It was a silly purchase, but one that said it belonged on my house, by my front door. It says something about the inhabitants of this home, the bug lovers who dwell here.

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A bird house? This was seriously a silly purchase. A creature had chewed on it, the doll in front is missing an arm, and I don’t have a bird house collection.

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It adds a certain charm to my garden – so maybe it wasn’t such a silly purchase after all. I’m not going to attempt to fix it up: I like it as it is, a little rough around the edges.

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We don’t even have light switches that will work in this. It’s brass. It’s funky. It’s going to hang somewhere outside. I just don’t know where yet. I do have a power drill that is all my own, so when I do decide were it will go – I won’t have to bother my husband with the details. He’ll be as surprised as anyone else.

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I picked up this tin horse at the second-most funky of yard sales. Most of the merchandise was old lotions and powders from a stuffy bathroom. A pre-teen age girl was sitting at a card table acting as cashier. An elderly man wandered around picking things up and taking them back into the house.

“Grandpa, we’re selling that!”

“No, I want it.”

The mother and father wandered out as I bought the tin horse. I’ll try to refrain commenting on them, but they weren’t at the top of the ladder, if you know what I mean. And they didn’t have any change. Usually, when you have a yard sale, you stock up on change.

But the girl at the card table was cute, so I donated a buck to her cause.

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And I removed all the paint when I got the tin horse home. It will get a new coat, eventually.

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oil or acrylic on tissue paper covered canvas board. $0.25 each, “as is”.

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Framed and hanging by my desk, Artist Unknown. They remind me of a children’s book series I have been reading: The Wildwood Chronicles by Colin Meloy.

Outside of yard sales, we inherited two beautiful crochet doilies. My sister-in-law, Debbie, gave them to my husband this summer. They were created by their great grandmother on their father’s side. Today, I put the doilies into frames.

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I cut a printed calico just a hair larger than the cardboard backing. I chose something that was mottled, rather than a single color, thinking it would add depth and character to the doilies.

002I hot-glued it into place on the back side, stretching the fabric tight.

003I marked where I wanted the ribbon to go.

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And I hot glued the ribbon in place.

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I used different ribbon, so each doily is presented  in just a slightly different manner. Aren’t they beautiful?

We’re arguing about where they should be hung. My husband thinks about things like studs and placement of nails in walls and I think only of aesthetics.

I’ll win the argument solely because I will simply hang them one day when he is not at home. And that will be that.

 

 

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September 7, 2013 by Jaci Dawn

I have been meaning to do another bird post for some time now. This has been the Year of the Back Yard Bird for us and I find it a bit of a victory. When we purchased this house, the yard was devoid of animal and insect life. I remember sitting in a lawn chair and bemoaning the fact that there were no bees, butterflies, or even neighborhood birds in the yard.

We began planting bird- and insect- friendly flowers. We put out the bird feeders. We added bird feeders, bird baths, and hummingbird stations.

It worked!

Not all of the birds we see are visitors to our yard, however. Some of them are mere fly-bys, like the Osprey.

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He never came close enough for a good photo, but I could hear him calling as he circled in the up-drafts above the cliffs below us. A bigger zoom lens and I might have been able to capture him, but I will settle for this.

I have seen osprey much closer. I used to watch them fish the ponds below our rural home, before we moved into town. Once, I witnessed a young osprey catch a big Kamloops Rainbow Trout – the fish was nearly as big as the bird and the bird scarcely made it to the top of a fir tree to eat his prize.

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From March – October, the Turkey Vultures catch thermals above the cliffs. They migrate south in October and return in March.

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They came closer than the osprey did, but they were still pretty far away, circling over the edge of the cliffs.

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I think they are beautiful birds, even if they are quite ungainly on the ground. And they poop on my house.

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The hummingbirds have filled us with so much joy and laughter this summer. I need to refill all of the hummingbird feeders tomorrow because these little insectivores really suck up the energy drinks!

If you’re curious (and I know you are): boil 2 cups water for 2 minutes. Dissolve 1/2 cup sugar into the water. Cool and pour into a feeder. I actually boil 8 cups of water – that’s how many hummingbird feeders I have added to my yard.

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We have had a trio of Scrub Jays and a single Stellar’s Jay hanging out in the yard. The Stellar’s spends most of its time in the hazelnut with the neighboring Eastern Fox Squirrel, trying to open unripened filberts. I caught this Scrub Jay enjoying the evening’s last rays.

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This girl flew through our backyard, just feet from where I was sitting on the lawn chair, taking a breather from yard work. She kept peeking around the tree to see if I was going to come any closer.

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Convinced I was harmless, she came out into the open and feasted. She’s a she: no red moustache.

The real reason I wanted to do a bird post was this guy.

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He was hanging out with his two siblings, trying to rob the suet feeder and eating seeds knocked out of the feeder. There’s something terribly odd about him and I grabbed my camera to capture some images.

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This is one of the siblings, a normal looking Western Scrub Jay.

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And my bird. The lower part of his beak is twice as long as the upper half!

I did some research on deformed bird beaks and came up with some studies in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska – and in the United Kingdom – of a sudden rise in birds with deformed beaks. There’s no explanation for the sudden increase: they’ve studied environmental causes and come up dry. I couldn’t find a lot of information after 2010 and most of it was tied to studies by the USGS in Alaska. (that’s my link, not an advertisement)

I researched avian keratin disorder and came up with the same links and some research papers, but it’s pretty boring reading. Something is causing birds to grow abnormally long, twisted, or curled beaks. The studies seem to concentrate on chickadees, but jays are certainly among the birds affected. They don’t live long, lacking the ability to properly preen and care for their feathers.

British Trust for Ornithology

Wired Science

You can do your own search if you are interested. I am keeping an eye on my Scrub Jay friend. So far, he is still around.

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Getting Ready for All Hallow’s Eve

September 1, 2013 by Jaci Dawn

YES! I know it is early. And trust me, I have no intentions of decorating for Hallowe’en until the first of October rolls around. I promise I am not rushing the season – I want my hot, dry Indian Summer first. But hot & dry & summer = plenty of time to paint outside. And that equals the reason for this post.

I debated putting this on my Art blog, but I don’t think this really qualifies as serious art. This is just a simple craft project, no particular talent required, only patience while the layers of paint dry. In fact, the hardest part was researching funny epitaphs.

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I bought these at a yard sale for $7. Then I bought four cans of faux stone spray paint, some glow-in-the dark paint, and a roll of blue painter’s tape. Everything else I had on hand: paint brushes; black, orange, and green craft paint; black permanent markers; and stencils.

T washed as much of the moss that had been hot-glued to the stands, and then I taped over the pumpkins and cats. Several coats of faux stone later, I removed the tape and painted the cats and pumpkins. To be specific: I gave the cats a fresh coat of black paint and used the same white face drawings. The pumpkins became orange with green stalks.

Today, I used a couple different black permanent markers and I drew the new pumpkin faces and added the funny epitaphs.

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(click on photo for larger view)

I made up the names, but most of these are real epitaphs. I upgraded the jack o’lantern faces, too.

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Then I painted specific parts with glow-in-the-dark paint. And, last, I coated it all with poly-urethane to protect the new paint job from the wonderful Oregon autumn weather.

Since I didn’t have to make the forms or screw them together, this was pretty much an “anyone can do this” sort of craft.

Note: the stencils I used are an old set I purchased at a Tupperware™ party back in the early 1980’s. I did all the lettering and the designs on the headstones with the stencils. The jack o’lantern faces were Internet downloads. As I said, the hardest part of this craft was researching the funny epitaphs I wanted to use and waiting for the layers of paint to dry.

 

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A Novel by Snoopy

August 25, 2013 by Jaci Dawn

It was a dark and stormy day…

Okey dokey, this is not a novel by Snoopy, but it *was* a dark and gloomy day here in the Pacific Northwest today.

I posted my sentiments on Facebook and my cousin’s wife shot back: “Come to see us, bring shorts, swimsuit. We have sunblock.” She only lives in Texas.

I thought briefly about jumping in my private SST and zipping over to take her up on her offer, but one thing – well, two things – prevented me from doing that.

Primarily, today was the date of the Oregon City Antique Fair.

Secondarily… I don’t have a private SST, so that wasn’t really a viable option in the first place. Minor details.

I had planned on the Antique Fair. In fact, when I got up this morning, I headed down there first thing. There was absolutely no parking and I decided it was simply not meant to be. I came home, told Harvey that I was going to save money and work in the garden and on some Hallowe’en crafts.

Then the rains started. Dark and gloomy. I put away all the deck chairs, cleaned up my craft mess (which was outside), and stared out at the darkness and gloominess.

Rain. Why, I bet a bunch of parking spaces just opened up at the antique fair!

So I put Harvey in his kennel and headed out a second time.

I like antique fairs because I get a glimpse into what half my house is worth. Take for example: vintage and collectible medicin bottles and blue Ball jars. At approximately $3/item, I have a considerable fortune in my possession. Vintage spurs – $15/pair with straps. I have 2 pair. Old books, vintage opera glasses, half a hames – wow, the stock in my possession just keeps racking up. Who knew half a hames was worth anything?

If you are unfamiliar with what a hames is, it is a horse or mule collar, generally the wood-and-iron part.

I was alone because my husband was off camping all of last week, so I could peruse at my own speed. The only hindrances today were umbrellas (Oregonians do use umbrellas, contrary to the myth) and vendors who are not from Oregon and who were packing up to leave already. Oregonians just shrug and say comforting things like, “It’ll change” or “I think it’s slowing down now” or “it’s Oregon. It rains.”

Then they hit you in the nose with their umbrella as they try to fold it down. They are carrying an umbrella because they didn’t grab a rain jacket when they left home and the umbrella is always in the car.

I had a hat and a jacket and I left my umbrella in the car.

I saw a lot of over-priced items, pretty glassware, collectible miscellany, watch and clock parts (apparently antique fairs are a great place to sell to the Steampunk crowd), horse tack, and heavy old furniture (nothing of outstanding antique quality). I was hoping to find some old painting frames to display some vintage doilies my husband inherited, but nothing jumped out and tripped me.

In the end, I purchased one item for more than it is worth, but for less than the vendor was asking.

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The vendor wanted $10. I figured it wasn’t worth more than $5. I paid $8 for it and am reasonably happy even though it was not much of a steal and certainly not a real bargain.

It remained a dark and gloomy day, I didn’t fly down to Texas to hang out in the swim pool with my cousin’s wife, but I did get to wander around the antique fair. And considering that I spent $8 but I calculated how much money we’re sitting on in terms of junk collectibles, I feel rich.

And I think I’m a tad better writer than Snoopy.

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