Well, hello new neighbors! Looks like fun ahead!

And so with everything we owned on a hay rack and kids on top holding it down and  the old milk cow tied behind, we embarked on a new life clear across town.  Things would change here.  I was probably in the second grade by this time.  Josephine was 13, Jake 9, so I must have been 7 years old.  Mother was now cleaning houses and dad was still farming.  Josephine was in charge of us since she was the oldest.  Her job was to keep us alive, not bleeding and to clean the house.  I am here to tell you, that girl took this seriously all except the part about keeping us uninjured.  She damn near beat us to death!  And who do you think did all that house work?  Not miss "just figured out there were boys and she was a girl"!  We were banished from the house as soon as our work was done and not allowed back in to "dirty the place up" and besides one of her boyfriends was usually there and they were "baking cookies".  Eating the cookies too as near as I could tell, because we never got any.

The floors of the house were wood planks about 5-6 inches wide.  Not like the wood floors in the rich peoples houses that mother cleaned.  These had to be swept every day and everything in the house had to be wiped down with an oiled rag since the dust blew in every day as a matter of course.  Dishes were washed by heating water in a pan and rinsed in cold water.  The pump house was out the back door and Jake and I were in charge of keeping the stock tank full of water.

But we had better things to do than hang out at home.  Mr. and Mrs. Rumble lived up the road a ways and they sat on thier porch most days in the summer.  Mr. Rumble told me he would give me a whole dime if I would learn the words to "Buttons and Bows" and sing it to them.  I worked very hard, but never quite got it done.  They were wonderful people.

Across the road from us lived the Barthold sisters.  They were spinsters and school teachers.  I never actually spoke with them.  I did like to hide in thier forest and spy on them when they were out in the yard.  Once I even seen them setting in the chairs drinking tea.  And strain my ears as I might I could not hear a word they said.  So I made up lots of conversations.  I do not remember what they were, but I am sure they were wild!

Sometimes Josephine left us unattended and that is when we got our chance at the telephone.  Ah, it was beautiful!  It hung on the wall and  had a speaker that you spoke into and an earpiece on the side that was held to your ear so you could hear the other person.  We were on party lines back then.  This meant several families were all on one circuit.  Say you called Joe Blow.  It would ring his signal which was maybe 2 shorts and a long.  Ours might have been 2 longs and a short.  The point was, you did not pick up someone else's call.  And if you wanted to place a call and picked up the phone and heard a conversation you said "Excuse me, please." and quietly replaced the receiver.  That is unless you were 9 and 7 years old and bored out of your mind.  Then you could do a couple things.  One was to cover the mouth piece and listen in n the conversation.  Or you could act like you did not know they were talking and crank the handle that called the operator.  This would cause a very loud ring in thier ears.  And you could titter and then act like you weren't there.  Ah, but technology caught these damn Bartholomew kids every time.  Then there was trouble.  First Josphine whipped us with a strap for "making it look like"  she was not doing her job of keeping us in line.  Then Mother would follow up with a licking for not listening to Josephine and upsetting the neighbors and now maybe they were going to take our phone out and what would we do when no one could call her to come to work?  Not to worry about dad giving us the punishment because I am not sure he ever knew we were there.

I do not know when dad worked, but a pile of hay appeared in the corner of the yard.  Not the back yard where the cows and horses were, but in the front yard so anyone driving past would know we had hay.  Go figure.  But this gave us a hiding place when we hid and threw rocks at cars going past and "kicking up dust"   which in turn made our work harder.  Damn people from town anyway!  By the way, back then, cars were either black or a dung looking green.  That is how I recall it anyway.  Not sure what color came next.  Think it was white.

After the Rumble house and on the way to town was Bull Creek.  Most of the time it was just a creek bed, but in the Spring, Nickerson and that whole area was prone to flooding and that little creek could  do some damage.  See, the Arkansas is on one side of town and Cow Creek cuts through and intesects with Bull Creek.  When Spring rains come they all get out of thier banks and Nickerson is surrounded by water and travel is not happening.  Or at least that is how it was back then.  But when the water subsided and there was just a small bit of water running through Jake and I could go seine and catch crawdads.  We would get a few inches in the bottom of the wash boiler and then we cleaned them.  This was accomplished by ripping the tail off, pulling the shell off and then dropping them in hot grease and frying them.  A feast for a king.  Or it was back then  Do you know what a crawdad is?  It is like a lobster, but about 4 inches long and it lives in the mud.  I bought some at  Walmarts several years back and they were horrible!

Bull frogs also lived in Bull Creek.  Not for long though because Jake and I got the idea that we would catch them and we would take them home and grow them until they were big and then we could have frog legs.  Josephine did not appreciate our vision at all.  Especially when I showed up with one in my dress tail and opened it to show her.  Damn frog made a leap right at her and then proceeded to try to hide from her.  She stood over me with a broom and every time I missed the frog she smacked me.  The frog was fast, but with a lot of prodding from Josephine, I was faster and our dream crumbled there in that little unpainted house there by Bull creek when she beat it to death in the dust by the door with a shovel.

When I come back next time I will tell you about the cyclone that finished our stay at the Ailmore place.

New hydrant, old friend, blossoms on the tree

OK, I have been trying to get this out there for 3 days and can not seem to get my pictures to load.  You are just going to have to use your imagination and when I figure out where I am screwed up at I will post the pictures.  This is supposed to be a picture of a hole in the ground with water in the bottom of it.  Sad looking sight.  Well, there it is, but it is really big.  Need to fix that.
So several days before I had started draining the stock tank and started water running in which is how I keep it fresh for the geese.  When I noticed a problem with the filling process I pulled the hose out and no water.  That is always a bad sign!  And in keeping with my string of bad luck I watched the dollar signs flash before my eyes.  Or I could dig it out myself.  All it entails is digging down about 7 feet, crawling down in the hole, unscrewing the old hydrant, buying the new one, screwing it on, and refilling the hole.  Made my back hurt to think about it.  So I scraped together a small pile of money and called my friends, Clifford and Frank who own an excavation company and have access to power equipment and actually still like me.  And within the hour Clifford was here looking the situation over and arriving at a solution.  He had a worker who would dig it out by hand and I smiled.

And the next morning Cliff arrived early with Wayne in tow. I had already told him to bring his own shovels because mine were either lost or had no handles due to being left in the dirt and ran over several time. Same with the rakes, hoes and every thing I touch.

So here are the tool of the trade.  After much digging, a little cussing, a couple trips into town, the deed was done!  Of course Cliff thought this should be a good deed and I thought it should not be.  After much haggling we agreed on a price we could both live with and he toodled off into the noon day sun.

So I ventured up to the house and found my Apricot tree full of blossoms which I can not post on here because I have once more jacked with the programs and the photo's won't upload.  Has something to do with my pop up blocker or my default browser or the fact that my fingers poke before my brain is through thinking!  

Now yesterday I went to the dentist to have a tiny fragment of what appeared to be a piece of bone from when I had a tooth pulled over 2 years ago.  X-ray revealed that the root from said tooth was still firmly in place.  20 minutes of digging and several x-rays later she finally got all the root out!  That woman was good! Luckily I was numb from the neck up because I could hear cracking and other sounds in there.  She called me in a pain pill perscription because we were both pretty sure that was going to be sore and aching last night.  I woke up this morning feeling like a million dollars!  I love that woman.  Going to put her over on my Been There blog later this next month when I get the computer back to functionallity!

So let' just recap my luck of the last 6 weeks.:

Sewer routed out.

Hot water heater replaced.

Sump pump rewired.

Furnace fixed.

Tire on car replaced.

Hydrant replaced.

Jaw bone routed out.

As near as I can tell, I should be setting pretty good right now, but far be it from me to think I may be about to lose my black cloud.  Do still need to have this computer back functioning!  In the meantime I shall hold this in my thoughts:  

Look for the silver lining behind every cloud you see!

The Stroh place falls by the wayside.

I do not remember the layout of the house, but I do recall the yard.  In the summer time we were brown as little berries and spent very little time in the house.  Why would we stay in the house?  There was nothing there except our beds.  Television had not been invented to our knowledge.  When it rained the yard turned to a lake.  Well a giant mud hole might be a better description!  And just like a heat seeking missle we gravitated to the mud hole.  Since bath night was only on Saturday when we got muddy we could be sure that we were going to be crammed under the pump out in the yard and "rinsed off."    Life was dangerous for little kids.  Donna poked her finger at a turtle and the turtle latched on and did not let go.  The only solution for that was to cut the turtles head off and this caused his vice like grip to loosen in time.  Poor Donna.

I fell victim to the old gander which proceeded to give me a flogging that was one for the record books.  Mother did save me, to her credit.  The goose business and the fact that my brother Jake had whacked me over the head with a turnip when I was very small seemed to be my sole claim to fame in the Bartholomew household.  Dad farmed with a man named John Britain.  Mother drove the truck and hauled the grain to market, except for the year she gave birth to Dorothy.  Back in those days it was an unwritten law that when a woman had a baby she was to stay in bed for 10 days. I remember mother in bed and we were allowed to stand by her bed for 5 minutes every day and gaze at her and the baby.  We hated that baby that had made our mother have to go to bed for 10 days and maybe she would die.  But she didn't.

Life was good there, though.  We had the milk cow and every morning she was "staked out" beside the road so she could eat grass all day.  Then when it came time to milk her, we unstaked her and herded her along the road to home.  Some times she liked to just mosey along and we found that if we grabbed her tail, she would run home.  If we ran her all the way home, she would not give us her milk.  That got us more than one "licking".  A  licking did not entail the use of the tongue, it entailed the use of a leather strap.  I laugh when I remember mother saying on  more than one occasion, "Do you want a licking!"  Oh, yes, mother, you know I do!  I do not recall ever really wanting one, but I do recall getting them.  Today they would call it child abuse, but back then, it was called "keeping them in line and teaching them to be good."  I think we turned out pretty good and I never hated my mother for spanking me.  She never did it for fun, just to enforce what she said.  And I must confess, several times I heard my mothers voice issuing from my mouth, "Do you want a licking?  Do you want me to come in there?"

I recall one of the cows dying and we had to drag it to the pasture, soak it in coal oil,  and burn it.  That must have been when the anthrax epidemic happened.  I remember dad plowing with the horse and plow.  I remember taking him water.  I remember baby bunnies in the field.  I remember wolves howling at night.  I remember being afraid of a dog because he was stumbling around.  He had Rabies.  I remember my childhood and it makes me sad that it all ended, things changed and that era will never be again.  We walked wherever we went.  And when we left the Stroh place we put all our belongings on a hayrack that was hitched to 2 horses and it took the better part of the day to move across town.  We moved to the Ailmore place, which I think was a step up in the world.  It was a two bedroom shack on the other side of Bull Creek.  It was owned by a doctor.  There were trees in the yard and we would have a telephone!  

cooking and cleaning can wait for the morrow, for babies grow up, we learn to our sorrow

And that is what I woke up with, stuck in my head, this morning!  I did the online search and nothing turned up.  Does anyone else remember this poem?  Oh, crap!  I am the oldest one here and this is all I remember, so what are the odds that you can tell me the name of this?  Probably two; slim and none.  I can remember cross stitching this, but that is about as far as the memory goes.  I think I probably did it when Debbie was a wee one, but it could have been last week.  No, not last weeks since the fingers no longer curl around those teensy, tinesy needles which would make no difference since I can't see to thread the damn needle anyway!

Life certainly does throw us a hardball towards the end of the whole mess, doesn't it?  When we finally get our crap together and know what we want out of life and have a pretty good idea of how to get it, we are too late and the need to do the "bucket list" thing takes over.  While my mind is remembering winning dance contests at the sock hops back in high school, my reality is searching for something to loosen my joints up enough so I can tie my shoes!  While my mind is grooving to Gene Vincent, Fats Domino and Elvis Presley, my reality is singing "Shall we gather at the river?"

I am becoming better at checking expiration dates because I do so want to outlive the gallon of milk in the refrigerator.  Back in the mind, we called them "ice boxes" because that is what they were.  They did not get plugged into a socket some where.  We had a card that had 25 on the top and 10 on the bottom.  It was designed so that if we wanted 25 pounds of ice Mother placed it in the window which reflected the 25 right side up and the 10 would be upside down.  The ice man pulled up on the chosen day, looked at the sign, got his ice picker upper (which I have of course forgotten the correct name for [TONGS!!!!! I remembered when I reread this!]) and picked up the block of ice and brought it into the house, through the door which was never locked, and put it in the ice box, picked up his money from the top of the ice box, and went back out the door which did not lock behind him, and left.

The reason the door was not locked was because if some poor soul was in need of a drink of water, or shelter from the rain, or cold out of the heat, or was very tired and needed to rest they could  get in  the house.  If they could find something to eat, they were welcome to it.  See, back in those days, people trusted each other and crime was almost non-existent.  Horses were protected more that personal property.  And guess what happened if you stole a horse?  The towns folk would catch you and hang you, or so I heard.  Never really saw it happen.  Horse thieves were the most horrible kind of despot!  Wonder what my grandma would think about what goes on today?

The fact that the pump was out on the porch gave them access to a drink of water.  There was also a pump at the stock tank, so they really did not need to go in the house for water, but it was being hospitable, and that is what we did back then.

Bet you are wondering why I never said "use the facilities"  aren't you?  Well there were none in the house.  They were "out back."  Stands to reason that if we had no running water, we had no use for a toilet that flushed.  The school and the people in town had them and they were really nice.
 
Try to remember that we were the poor people outside of town, growing up.  I preferred to think of us as just like every one else, dirt poor.   I learned later that I was "white trash", but no one ever called me that.  It was after all, just a term they used.  I often wondered at the term and I am sure it was racist.  That was another thing;  Nickerson, Kansas, to my recollection, never had anyone except very white people.  Oh, there was the family that lived in the boxcar up on the curve, but they were Indians.  I loved to go to thier house.  The mother was very clean and even swept the dirt in front of the door.  Since we had a step and 2 feet of sidewalk, we were considered rich.

But I have once more digressed from my purpose.  If you remember this poem share this post on facebook and I will see it.  Or contact me over there on the left.  I will probably not remember what I asked, but that, friends, is how it goes in my world!

People who forget the past tend to repeat it.  ;)

Some things we just do.

There are things we do because some one asks us to do them.  Some are every day chores.  Some are for survival.  Every thing we do and say impacts our life as well as some one else's.  I am not negating that some times other people do things that affect us.  That is life.  A big circle we run every day.  Some times we win, some times we lose, but at the end of the day, we reflect.  You know, look back on the day and think, I could have done this, or that, or nothing.  My actions really are a moot point.

I have had this ring for almost 2 years and it is the same every time I put it on or take it off; just an action.  It is no longer connected to any one or any thing.  It is just a piece of gold, but I know some one who will appreciate it fully.  This does not mean that I am in any sense of the word, letting completely go of the past, only that I am putting it behind me where it should be.  I will be moving forward as I have done all my life.  You know, the serenity prayer,

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference."

That simple prayer covers a lot of our lives, and it is one of my mantras.

And that being said, and not wanting to belabor the point further, I placed this in a box and sent it on it's journey home.  To the person receiving the box, probably today or tomorrow, I want to say "Thank You for sharing these past few year with me and hope to see you in the spring!

Your could have been sister-in-law."

And back to the Stroh place.

Mother had a very big yellow Tom cat.  As with all cats, he was very independent and just did pretty much as he wanted to do.  One day he must have wanted to have his head chopped off because he showed up at the door with one of mother's baby chicken's in his mouth.  Since my brother Jake was the only male present at the time the job was given to him.  Mother handed him the cat, an axe and sent him off to the "forest".  Now the forest was a grove of about 8 trees that was about 50 feet behind the chicken house.  Jake was probably about 9 years old at the time.  You need to remember that times were different back then.  We never were allowed to be "kids" because the mere act of survival made us grow up really fast.  In society today if a 9 year old kid chopped the head off of a cat he would immediately be put into therapy because he had all the makings of a serial killer.  Back then that tiny chicken was part of our cycle of life and no cat was going to snack on mother's chickens that would someday lay eggs for us to eat, hatch more chickens and eventually end up in the stew pot to feed the whole family Chicken and Noodles.  The cat, by killing the baby chicken,  proved he was a chicken killer and that does not work on a farm.  So, off they went to the forest and only one of them came back.

The chicken house was also an attraction to either a Fox or a Weasel.  Dad patched the chicken house fairly regularly, but what ever was getting in was not to be deterred.  One night him and one of his cronies hid in the chicken house and when the varmit surfaced we heard the blast from the shotgun.  That problem was solved, but then there was that gaping hole in the chicken house.  That is another story!

Have you ever gathered eggs?  In the Spring when the chickens first start to lay, several of the old hens also begin ti "set".  The setting is the fine art of laying eggs in a nest and setting on them until the hatch.  The hen has to turn them every day, keep them an even temperature, and be the most patient creature in the world because this takes 28 days setting time.  Did you ever hear the saying "Mad as an old wet hen?"   I used to throw some of my biggest fits when Mother would tell me to go gather the eggs.  She would tell me which nests had the "setting hens" on them and I did not gather those eggs.

I would walk into the hen house and several of the nests would have eggs in them where the hens had laid early that morning and then gone off in search of bugs, seeds or whatever.  Those were easy to gather because I just had to pick the eggs up and put them in my basket, but some of the nest's had chickens on them.  I knew which ones not to bother, but I was afraid of those beady eyed chickens any way.  I was terrified of the "setting hens" because they were very protective and I had much respect for thier mothering skills.  I gave them a very wide berth.  However, I was supposed to reach under the hens who were setting on nests that were not designated as nest boxes.  These are the hens that really scared me.  You do know that hens have sharp beaks, right?  Thier beak is thier sole means of defense.  So I would slowly extend my hand while the hen watched my hand with those beady eyes.  Time would stand still as my hand got slowly closer to her body setting on the nest.  If she inclined her head even the smallest bit, I would run screaming from the hen house.  Usually it would scare her so bad she left the nest in fright.  In that case I could go back and get those eggs.  I do not recall if a hen ever pecked me, but in my mind I left the hen house a bloodied mass every time.  And mother knew when I left the house exactly how many eggs I should have when I came back.  Mothers' are intuitive little creatures.  Too few eggs meant I had not done my job.  Too many and one of the last hatching had started laying.

We had a cow also.  Well, as I recall we had several cows and horses.  The horses were used to pull the plow, combine, trailer, or what ever.  Dad did managed to get himself drunk once when he went to Hutch to the sale.  He came home with a Shetland Pony for us kids.  That was like a dream come true.  A pony of our own for us to ride.  OMG!  That was the meanest damned horse I have ever laid eyes on in my life!  That thing came out of the trailer kicking and snorting and I sought the solace of the chicken house!  Scared me out of 4 years growth.  His name was Star.

Star had a pen and went into the barn at night for shelter.  Star had been ours for about a week when friends came by to see our new horse.  The friends had kids our age.  So Jake and a couple of the boys went out to see Star.  By this time it was dark.  How they came up with the next part of the adventure is beyond me, but Jake decided to crawl across the enclosure and scare the horse!  (There was talk of actually "goosing him with a stick" which I am sure is closer to what happened then these boys let on to Mother.)  To make a long story short, Star did not take to well to whatever happened and in typical horse fashion, kicked backwards.  His hoof connected with Jake's right cheek and sent him flying into the fence.  Much scrambling as the friends loaded Jake into thier car and took him and mother to Hutchinson to the emergency room.  It was a very long night.  Jake carried that scar to his grave.  It was about 4 inches long and a 2 inch scar across the bottom.  It looked like a "J" so he told everyone it was his initial.

Star was probably with us for 12-15 years and I do not recall anyone ever riding him.  Well, Josephine might have, but not me.  He died when we were at the Strong Street house.  Dad called the "dead animal wagon" which in those days, made house calls.  They probably still do.  The man pulled out a long length of cable, wrapped it around Star's neck, turned on the wench and drug him across the yard, up the ramp and into the back of the big truck on top of whatever else was in there, and drove away.  Fond memories?  Not for me.

Will try to get back soon and finish off the Stroh house.  Or maybe not.  A lot happened there.

Lost! Found! Lost again! Damn!

For Valentine's day, I received flowers and a tube containing 25 pot seeds from a benevolent friend who works in the "grow".  He assured me that these seeds would grow the marijuana but not the kind you smoke.  Something about male and female and buds and other stuff that these were incapable of producing.  This fits my criteria to a "t".  I want to make stationary out of them and sell it in my online store.  See this leaf?

Isn't that pretty?  I learned how to make this stationary a very long time ago from a very old woman who wanted to pass the craft along so it would not cease to be.  She chose me!  She also gave me boxes of dried flowers, leaves, and about anything that grows.  Now I have not partaken of this leaf myself, but I am intelligent enough to know what it is and what it looks like.  And in the treasures she gifted me with was some of these.  Seems she went down on the river and came back with lots of leaves and among them was some marijuana leaves.  Now you must realize that all the greens she gathered were then placed between the pages of books and a weight applied so they would be very flat and very dry, but identifiable. 

Now isn't that pretty?  I think that is a Japanese Maple overlaid with Dill fronds.  Hard to believe that I made it, isn't it?  Making this stationary is an all day job and requires full use of the island in my kitchen.  I lay out 12 of them at a time.  First is a layer of waxed paper upon which I  place my design, cover with a single layer of tissue, paint the whole thing with thinned school glue, sprinkle each with glitter and leave to dry.  To fully appreciate my efforts, you just try to paint one layer of cheap tissue with a paint brush full of thinned glue.  When I go to bed that night the whole house  is filled with these things drying.  Next morning it is ironing time.  Then trimming and folding, so this is no easy chore.  Lastly my name is signed in gold ink and I am done.  I sell these for $2.00 each so they need to be nice.  Since this stuff is now legal in Colorado, I want to get in on the market.  Hence the growing and needing of seeds. 
Back on track here.  You now know why I wanted the seeds.  Being a pushy broad I generally get what I want by just wanting it.  True with the seeds.  So any way, here lay this vial of seeds on my counter.  Patty and Vanny were here and the seeds just laid there.  I have  a lady who is a very good friend who shall remain nameless, who helps me keep this house from becoming a true "hoarders nest."  This same lady has been known to partake of the herb.  She must eat hers cause she talks about "the bowl."  To make a long story short, she was coming by to visit and I was reluctant to let her know my future plans in the "growing of the weed" area.  So I grabbed the vial and hid it.  Now I am sure you are a step ahead of me here and you know how my mind works.  Later that day, I laid out the container I wanted to use to hold  the seeds and dirt.  Whoops!  Where did I put those seeds?
I looked in all the usual hiding places.  Patty and Vanna searched in all the drawers.  The next day Bret and Amanda came for a visit and they were full of guesses as to where they might be, but it was all to no avail.   I knew back in the far recesses of my mind that I knew where I put them.  It is just that I rarely venture back into that area of my mind, because there are things there in the shadows that scare me! 
So yesterday, Patty and Savannah packed up and went back to Lakin.  I immediately had a nap.  When I woke up, I spent a few minutes looking into corners and then decided to call my friend, John.  I explained the seed business to him.  He of course thought it was funny.  While we were talking about a fundraiser for our friend Daneya that is coming up next week, I wandered over to the sewing machine I keep here in the office.  I opened the door, pulled out the drawer and voila!  My little pink vial of seeds!  Knowing how fleeting my memory is these days, I told John of my find and told him I was moving them and where.  Now 2 of us know where they are.  I am trusting that he remembers where I put them.  That was, after all, his job.  My job is to report on me, and I might note that is a full time job. 
So once more the seeds are found.  The container to plant them in is , however, out in the shed where it is now very cold, thanks to that damn Polar Vortex!  Looks cold out there today.  I think I need to go to the El Pueblo today with my spinning wheel, but I am not sure.  Nothing is ever sure in my life two days in a row.  I was up late last night listing seed catchers on eBay in a variation format.  I am almost afraid to check those out today. 
So, I called Patty and told her where I found the seeds.  Now, I am off to figure something out, but I do not know what.  Will be in touch soon and we will return to the Stroh place, Nickerson, Kansas, and see what I remember about 60+ years ago,  because I am not having much luck here in the present!