Tag Archives: Memoir

Spring at Last!

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Word of the Day:  Vernal (vur’ nəl)  “pertaining to, appearing in, or occurring in the spring.”

Last week I chatted about our big April snowstorm.  Since then we’ve only had a couple more inches a few days ago.  Patches of earth are starting to peek out from beneath the snow.  The dogs are roaming the yard more extensively now and getting out of the poop loop which sufficed them for a few days.  This afternoon I finally received the official message that spring is here; a hummingbird dive-bombed me while I was standing on the deck.  Demanding little creature!  Hastily, I ran back into the house to cook up the first sugar syrup of the year.  We go through very little sugar at our house; that is until hummingbird season starts.  Then we go through pounds and pounds of sugar until cold weather returns in the fall, and they hitch a ride south with the Canadian geese.

I am reminded of one summer day several years ago.  Chris, Sonja, and the grandsons were at our family cabin about nine miles from our house.  They called to ask about  the proportions of water and sugar for the solution for the hummingbird feeders.  I told them I usually did a 3:1 or a 4:1 water to sugar ratio. Later that day I got another call from them stating that the hummingbirds weren’t eating from the feeders.  I asked them, “You did let it cool enough after you boiled it, didn’t you?”  There was a moment of silence, followed by “Boiled it?” Ah yes, it has to be boiled into a simple syrup!

The first hummingbirds to arrive are the Western Broad Tailed Hummingbirds.  People often refer to them as Ruby Throats, but we don’t actually get the true Ruby Throats here in Colorado.  They are only found on the east coast.  To be such tiny little creatures, they are surprisingly feisty.  In late July the Rufous hummers arrive for a few weeks on their annual journey from their breeding grounds in Alaska back to their winter habitat in Mexico. They are a bright orange color with a dark throat band and are even more feisty than the others.  This commences what we call the Hummingbird Wars, which is somewhat reminiscent of the Wars of the Roses in English history.  The males of the two species spend  entire days driving one another off from the feeders.  The two types of females can’t be worried with this show of male dominance and will share the feeders with one another.  I wonder if this has applications for the human species as well?

Those of you who know me know that I am an amateur bird-watcher.  I have counted well over twenty different species of birds hanging about on our deck at various times.  We feed and water them year round, and they reciprocate by serenading us morning and night and sometime pooping on the deck railing.  Having  a heated  birdbath gives them much needed water during the winter.  Yesterday a red-tailed hawk stopped by for a visit on the railing.  All of the little birds and squirrels quickly vanished.  Somehow I think the hawk was looking for a live snack and not my sunflower seed!

It is sort of ironic that we now live so close to the cabin and property my parents purchased over fifty years ago.  For many years it was our go-to place.  Now that we live so close, we don’t go as often, especially since I can sit on my own deck and gaze at the Indian Peaks and the Continental Divide.  Some days we ask ourselves how much longer we can cope with the snow and the inconvenience, but then I look at the white-capped peaks, the bright blue sky, and the vivid green pines and know this is home!

©, 2015, The Eclectic Grandma

Be sure to check in on Friday for my visit to the Spiritualist community of Lily Dale, New York!

 

SprIngtime in the Rockies

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Word of the day:  Blizzard (bliz’ ərd) “a severe snowstorm characterized by cold temperatures and heavy drifting of snow; an overwhelming amount.”

I think we’ve been in the mountains too long!  In the past four days we’ve had almost four feet of snow.  Yes, I said four feet, not inches.  Thursday we had about ten inches, not too bad for a spring snowstorm.  We kept up with that by shoveling a couple of times during the day.  The next morning the girls woke me up at 4:30 AM to go out.  Sleepily, I took them to the back door, which opens on to the upper deck.  One look assured me that the little blind girl and the other girl with some arthritis would never make it across two decks and down the stairs.  There must have been twenty inches of white stuff on the deck that had been totally clear when we went to bed, so the girls and I went downstairs so they could walk out on to the patio and head under the decks to do their business.

Normally Colorado snow is light and fluffy, but this snow was leaden.  This was the kind of snow the Eskimos use to build igloos. It broke up into heavy white chunks somewhat like white cinderblocks and about the same weight. I decided I would try the electric snow blower on the decks while Bill tried to plow out front.  Wrong on both counts!  My little snow blower  just said, “No way I’m even trying to move that stuff!”   Our plow truck had the same idea; it couldn’t budge the snow. After a consultation with our neighbor, we all agreed that a front end loader was called for.

This snow was so wet and heavy, I could barely lift my snow shovel.  We actually have multiple styles of snow shovels, one for large areas, one for steps, one for the decks, and so on.  I think that may say we have way too much snow.   Bill likes a big heavy shovel because it is faster, but I prefer my lighter weight little plastic one.  It takes me longer as I plod along with it, but don’t forget, the tortoise won the race!

To top it all off, we had more snow on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning; we even had a bit of thunder snow which is always somewhat intriguing.  I  shoveled a “poop loop” for the girls in the back yard.  When two hundred-pound dogs can’t make it through the snow, you know it is deep and heavy.  While I was doing the poop loop, I worked from both sides; somehow that made the task seem a bit less onerous.  When I finally joined the two excavations in the middle, I knew how the builders of the first transcontinental railroad must have felt when east finally met west.  The yard is beautiful with all the white everywhere, but more suited for January and February.  Finally on Saturday, the guy with the front end loader arrived to clear the driveway, and a good thing it was too as my supply of Kendall Jackson was running dangerously low.

At least snow shoveling is satisfying in that you can clearly see where you’ve been, unlike cleaning house or other repetitive tasks like that.  One of my previous bosses told me that when you got tired of shoveling snow, you should tie a snow shovel to the roof of your car and head south.  When someone asks you, “What is that,” you know you are far enough south.  He may have had a point!

©2015, The Eclectic Grandma

Check in on Friday for another trip to Texas in “Let Them Eat Pheasant.”

Another Move!

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Word of the day:  Arabian (ar-a’-be-en) “Any of a breed of horses raised originally in Arabia and noted for their intelligence, grace, and speed” Last week I chatted about our move to Texas. I had quickly settled in to the … Continue reading →

We move to Texas

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Word of the day:  Yankee (yang’-ke)  “a native or inhabitant of a northern state”

I found out I was a Yankee when my family moved from Long Island, New York to Texas midway  in my second grade year.  What in the world is a Yankee I must have wondered?  Little did I know I had just moved to one of those areas where the North-South designation was still alive and well! Dallas in the early fifties was not the cosmopolitan city of today.

Long Island when I lived there was a collection of sleepy little towns and villages, not the habitat of the wealthy and famous that it has become some fifty plus years later.  We lived in Glen Head, close to Glen Cove.  Today Glen Head is supposedly the wealthiest zip code in the United States.  It certainly wasn’t that way when we lived there!  Some people have extensive memories of their past in a completely linear fashion.  I find that my childhood memories of Glen Head are more like a series of old photos all mixed up in a box.  We lived in the top floor of a two-story duplex right across the street from my elementary school.  I always have a chuckle when internet security questions want you to answer, “What was the name of your first grade teacher?”  Excuse me, but I really don’t have a clue.  My most vivid memory of being in the Glen Head Elementary School was drinking an orange soda and throwing up at some school function.  To this day I detest orange soda!

My other outstanding memory of living on Long Island was making a trip into the “City” to Madison Square Garden to see Gene Autry and his horse Champion.  This was definitely one of the highlights of my young life!   I remember the name of the horse but not my first grade teacher; that tells you something about my priorities at age six.  My Dad even bought me a chameleon lizard to take home with me after the show.  Ahhhh, life was good!

Texas, on the other hand, was the land of the wild west, cowboys and Indians, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans.  Maybe this move was not going to be so bad after all!  Alas, there was to be no ranch, no horses, and not even a glimpse of Roy Rogers.  We moved to a little house on another quiet little street in University Park, the poor little stepsister to the wealthier Highland Park.  I was quickly enrolled into the local elementary school.  What could be more traumatic for a seven-year old than to change schools mid year.  This school had a cafeteria where you actually went through the line and ordered your own lunch.  Being totally petrified of this new experience, I think I subsisted on a diet of canned corn and a slice of white bread for the first several weeks.   Apparently, I must have gotten tired of this limited diet after a few weeks as I gradually melded into the new environment, ordered a better lunch,  and made some new friends.

By the end of the school year,  I had settled in to my new life in Texas.  I no longer felt like the complete outcast of six months ago.  I had a new bicycle,  complete with training wheels.  It wasn’t quite the same as a horse, but then I had a totally vivid imagination, so it worked for me.  I also had a holster with two silver cap pistols and a seemingly endless stash of caps.  I can still recall the wonderful gun powdery smell of those caps.  I was Dale Evans, Annie Oakley, and occasionally Pocahontas on a rotating basis.

Summer stretched out into long glorious days of firing cap guns, swimming, and roaming the neighborhood.  In the early ’50’s the United States was in a state of post-war euphoria.  The economy was growing; the troops were home.  Parents had not yet become the helicopter parents of today.  We grew up with no organized sports, no lessons on everything from piano to skating to martial arts, and no checking in on a regular basis. We entertained ourselves all day long, settled our disputes with fists, rocks, or sometimes tears.

In the summer we headed off to the local swimming pool daily.  We had little metal tags that our Mothers sewed on to our swim suits.  These were our daily admission to the pool.  I can’t remember not knowing how to swim. Luckily for me, both of my parents were good swimmers, and I learned at a very young age.  During those long days at the pool with no parental supervision, I swam to my heart’s content and often put on my Esther Williams persona.  Besides saving all of University Park from a wide range of outlaws and ne’er-do-well’s, I was also the queen of synchronized swimming!  So many accomplishments at my young age.

On Saturdays  I often walked by myself or with friends to the local movie theater for the Saturday afternoon matinée, two shiny quarters clicking together in my pockets.  I loved all the movies but a good western was definitely the best of all.  There were so many heroes to delight me–Hopalong Cassidy, the Lone Ranger, and, of course, my all-time favorite, Roy Rogers!  There was always a cartoon, a newsreel, a serial, and the feature movie of the day.  Those two little quarters got me into the movie, plus a Coke, a box of Milk Duds, and possibly a box of Junior Mints or popcorn.

I even had a tooled leather belt with my name embossed into the leather that I wore to the movies on Saturdays.  If I were to be struck speechless upon encountering one of my heroes, I could at least point to my name on the belt so they would know who I was.  After my Mother’s death, I actually  found that old belt among her things.  It gave me a feeling of fond remembrance, like meeting an old friend after many years, but  it must have shrunk over the years. It didn’t quite fit these days!

The scared little Yankee was quickly becoming a Texan.

©2015, Black Dirt and Sunflowers

The Great American Novel

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Word of the day:  Memoir (mem’-war) “a record of events based on the writers’ personal observation” I’ve always been an avid reader.  From the second or third grade on, I always had a book in my hand.  Like most young … Continue reading →

Welcome to the Eclectic Grandma!

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Word of the day:  Eclectic (i-klek’-tik) “made up of elements from various sources, as in an eclectic philosophy.”

So why am I doing a blog? Often I don’t sleep well at night because the words are all lined up in my head screaming to get out. As I lie there awake, I mentally keep composing little vignettes. Maybe getting all of this internal noise down on paper (of course, no one really does anything on paper these days) will help me get a good night’s sleep for a change. My muse is way too nocturnal! Hopefully, this blog will calm her down a bit.

I enjoy writing, and often people tell me that they enjoy reading my little narratives.  I even like the pseudo-modest annual Christmas letter, the adult version of “What I did on my summer vacation.”  Writing is somewhat like the sculptor working in clay.  Add a little here and there; shave off some extraneous materials there until just the right proportions are achieved.  I have heard that the sculptor in stone or marble often feels that the statue is already in the stone, and he just needs to chip away the excess to reveal it.  I guess writing is something like that.

I have several books tucked inside me just waiting for their release!  What you will see in my blogs will be excerpts from these little infants as I strive to bring them to life.  You may see some content from Black Dirt and Sunflowers about growing up in Texas in the 1950’s, The Irish Girls which focuses on my wonderful Irish Setters through the years, or Woman in a Man’s World, an account of my encounters with the glass ceilings in life.  From time to time, when I’m in more of a woo-woo sort of mood, you might see something from Home Again, A Spiritual Journey.

Remember, I said this was an eclectic blog!  In other words, whatever I feel like writing about might turn up from time to time.  Hopefully, you will have as much fun reading it as I am having writing it.  Do let me know what you think.  I have a pretty tough skin–I think.