Top National News of 1946

A dear friend, Mary Schumann, gave me a little booklet about the year 1946, for my 60th birthday, August 21. I loved reading about the way things were then, when I was brand-new and had just come into the world. The top national news in the United States: The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, a civilian group, is formed by an act of Congress. The CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) is formed. WWII veterans, making use of the provisions of the GI Bill of Rights, head to college in record numbers. Birthrates jump to over 1.4 million in one year with the return of WWII veterans. (That was my generation, the Baby Boomers!) The United States gives the Phillipines independence. AT&T announces the first car phones. (And now it is cell phones .....You've come a long way, Baby! Whodda thunk it?) Alaskans vote in favor of statehood. The world was a very different place than today. And here I came, ready to grow up and help change the world! 

With the Beloveds

I had to take a break from the blog, plus I had a problem with my computer....We had the Head Family Reunion on August 5th, 2006..it was wonderful...About 85 people, all family, were in attendance....Juanita Blanche Head Merritt, my beloved Aunt Sister, my daddy's last living blood relative of his generation, came to the reunion for a few hours..she was the reason it was held, so the family could be with her one last time. We really enjoyed being together.. all but a few of the cousins were there. I will write more about it soon. Aunt Sister died September 4th, 2006, peacefully, of congestive heart failure, at her home, surrounded by loved ones...she was 85 years old...she had told me not to be sad, that she had lived a good and full life with much joy and much sorrow, that that is the way it is supposed to be, as there is a time for everything, a time to be born and a time to die, that all things have a beginning and an end, and she would be with all the beloveds that had gone before but were never forgotten..... Her belief that she would be with the beloveds brought Aunt Sister great peace.

Daycare

Miss Nona from the Daycare (connected with the school that I substitute teach for) just called and asked if I could work three hours a day during the week doing lunch duty at the daycare. I told her, "Yes! Yes!" I had worked there before, with great pleasure, for several summers as a teacher or an aide and have filled in at each level....cannot say I have a favorite room, though the infant room is so much fun...getting to hold, rock, and feed those little sweeties! Changing diapers and wiping up spit-up is okay, too. Just part of it. It was awesome last year to be at the Primary School and have many of the little kids, walking decoriously in line with their teacher, suddenly break away to run up and hug my leg, just to say, "Hello! I am glad to see you!" A few even call me "Granny", though I don't really know where they got that. They like me as well as I like them. A child knows when someone really cares about them. You cannot fool a child. I love children..they are the hope of the world. I will be at the daycare for a few hours each day, until school starts and I go back to being a substitute teacher all day at the school. I work at all campuses and all grades....I will go wherever I am needed. I especially enjoy the Special Kids, though that class is more demanding and sometimes a bit emotionally draining, as they have so many challenges to face every day.  With the outrageous cost of gasoline today, it is good that I live only 3 miles away from the daycare. This will let me help them out, I will enjoy being with the children, plus make a little money and still be handy to be back home soon to check on the old mare, Jet, who is to foal any day now.  So....this works out good for all of us!  

A Summer Tan

This summer has flown by so fast! Many of the things I listed on my "Summer-To-Do List" (thinking I would have more time in the lazy ? days of summer) just will not be done at all. It has been a very enjoyable, though extremely hot, Texas summer. That stretch of 11 straight days over 100 degrees each day has worn me out, physically and financially. The physical part is from having to be out in the heat more often, to take care of the new filly, Stormy, born June 18th, and her mother, Esmo. My old mare, Jet,  26-years-old, is to foal any day now, so I am paying particular attention to her, going out into the heat and checking on her several times a day.  The financial part comes from the almost twice as high as usual electric bill caused by the continuous running of the air conditioner to keep the house cool.   The heat is so oppressive!  It zaps your energy completely. When I have to go outside in the afternoon to water the horses and give extra hay and so forth, I put on my bathing suit and stay cool by getting wet from the water hose...just as my sister, Sue, and I , and the cousins and friends used to do as kids on those long ago hot summer days. I think longingly of Cold Springs, where we kids would run from our house to just across the street to jump into that ice-cold swimming hole in Cameron Park, chill in that almost freezing water as long as we could stand it, then run back home, thoroughly cooled off and so cold our lips were blue. I firmly believe that global warming is real and  the world is hotter now than when I was a child growing up. I do not think we could have stayed out in the heat like we did then, if it had been as hot as it seems now.  Maybe it is the humidity.  The best thing to come out of the heat this summer is the fact that I now have a really great tan, something I have not had in years.

Planning a Family Reunion

Due to Aunt Sister's failing health, I decided we needed a Head Family Reunion, to be held as soon as possible.  Wanted to wait til Fall, when cooler and we could all go to my beloved Cameron Park for a get-together. However, I am not sure Aunt Sister will still be here by then... so we are going to have an air-conditioned fellowship hall of a wonderful church as our gathering place.  How we found this great little church is a story in itself. When I and my classmates of the Waco High Class of 1964 had our 40th Reunion in 2004, I was the Chairman of the Planning Committee (that was work and fun!). After the reunion, we decided that some of us wanted to stay in touch, so I have the e-mail addresses of over 90 classmates , and we keep in touch. We try to meet at least twice a year for a mini-reunion, with any classmates attending that can happen to make it. This is such fun, as we sometimes meet every month to celebrate classmate birthdays, a Birthday Bash, if you will...even if the birthday boys and girls cannot make it....a lot of fun, as different classmates attend, as well as the handful of regulars from Waco. We were to meet at Cameron Park for our Spring Mini-Reunion last May, but the F-2 tornado that hit Waco blew through the night before. Shirley McDonald Fuller, one of our classmates, had offered the fellowship hall of her church in case of bad weather, so we took her up on the offer. It was so nice that I wanted to have a family reunion there one day. Hopefully, we will get to see a lot of family that don't get to see often..usually only see them at funerals or weddings. David Allen Head and his wife, Pat, plan to come in from the Houston area. His sister, Sally Head Temple, my first cousin also, lives here in Waco, and she and her son, Parker Lockhart, and grandson Jake Lockhart, plan to come. I hope her daughter Carol and family can attend also. My little brother, Charles Lee (Charlie)  Head, and his family plan to be there, too. Carolyn Head Kline and her husband, Jerry, may be in Colorado then, but Pereugene (Perry) Head and his wife, Phyliss, may make it. Uncle Frank Curre ( married to my daddy's baby sister, Aunt Toots, who died in 1994 about six months after my mother, Marie, died) is a true Head family member.  He and many of his large family plan to be there. (His daughters, Linda and Peggy, are two of my beloved cousins that I grew up with.) My sister, Sue Head Lee, will be there. Her son, Robbie Wooten, will be at a bass tournament that day, so he and wife, Brenda, and their three children will have to come to the next one. Sue's daughter, Amy Wooten Warren, and hubby, Chad, and family plan to attend if possible...so much going on for the younger set ..vacation time and school starts in a few weeks.   My daughter, Jon Marie Powell Russman, and her hubby, Nick, and her son, Noah Ross Johnson (Ross)  plan to be there..also, my son, Jimmy Powell, wife, Esther, and the girls and the new baby boy...also, my son, Bobby Powell, wife, Spring, and their two children are to come, if the boys can get off work......there could be about twenty-five people or there could be close to fifty....just have to wait and see who shows up! It was such a hurry-up idea to have it, a lot of the family already had other plans that could not be changed. Aunt Sister wants to come, if only for a little while, and if she feels up to it. One thing for sure is that we will have a great time just being together and reminiscing, though it will be sad and bittersweet, knowing that this will probably be the last time many of us will see Aunt Sister alive.

Summer Visit from the Grandkids

Some of my grandkids came and stayed a few days with me, the old granny, as I call myself! Cobey, 5, calls me "Waco Mamma",  because they call their great-grandmother on their mom's side also Mamma. The girls, September (Seppie) 10, and Summer, almost 9, call me just Mamma. My oldest son Jimmy's wife , Esther, brought  them up to stay with me for a few days. Sunday, 7, did not want to stay that long, so she went back the next day with mom and little brother, Noah Elijah, 6 months old now. Sunday was the baby until little brother came along, so I think she relished having mom and the new baby to herself for a bit. My son Bobby's wife, Spring, and another granddaughter, Callie, almost 3, came up Thursday afternoon and joined us at The Mayborn Museum, one of our favorite places. We love the old Pioneer Village that is behind the Museum. Bill Daniels, the fine Texas gentleman that donated the village to Baylor University in the 1980's, died just a few days ago. He and his wife, Vara, had purchased land that had these 1880- through -1910- era buildings on it....an entire small town, well-preserved...I remember visiting it in 1985, when it was just being set up next to Baylor. The kids love the little white church with a piano they can play, the little red one-room schoolhouse, working the handle on the pump on the well to get out the water, grinding corn by hand to feed the chickens, guineas, and turkeys....just all of it. As you sit in the shade of huge old pecan trees, enjoying the breeze off the nearby Brazos River, it is fun to imagine you are back in time and living in that simple place with its slower pace of life.  When the Texas heat finally forces you inside, you do appreciate the wonderful coolness of the Museum. In one day, we try to see everything in the Museum, which is quite a task. When Spring asked Cobey, only five years old, what he liked the best, I was surprised at his answer. I thought he might say he liked the miniature train display or one of the wonderful car or toy interactive displays that we had a time getting him to leave to go on to the next wonderful thing.  However, Cobey said he liked the elephant bones and the video showing the elephants (actually prehistoric Mammoths), and being able to walk and crawl around on the glass above the bones (actually plaster casts of the original bones) the best. The Mammoth Display is the centerpiece of the Museum and an important and unique prehistorical discovery. The actual site with the real bones from 28 or so Mammoths that died in a mudslide in the now-Bosque River, just a few miles away, will become a National Park open to the public next year. What is amazing is that the adult Mammoths tried to lift the baby Mammoths to safety on their huge curved tusks, but all died and were preserved that way by the mud about 65 million years ago. Perhaps Cobey is going to be a paleontologist, archaeologist, scientist, or something along that line when he grows up. That would have made my mother, Marie, who died in 1994, especially proud. She was a rockhound and charter member of the Waco Gem and Mineral Society in 1950, loved nature, and had a great interest in science. I was very proud of him for liking the Mammoths the best. The girls love anything pioneer (as do I), especially the Pioneer Village behind the Museum......We could stay out there all day if not for the heat this time of year. We also love  the Pioneer Room in the Museum. I had braided Summer and Seppie's long dark hair into two braids...  dressed up in the period dresses and sunbonnets , they really did look like Laura and her friends from "Little House on the Prairie". The Mayborn Museum is a great place to go and spend the entire day...fun and learning in one place! I was sad to see my grandbabies go back home...they were good help at the barn and in the house, plus we had a lot of fun. As it was so hot outside, we had frozen slushies, played in the water to cool off, and watched videos in the cool air-conditioned house. I have a good selection of films for young folks.....They especially like "Old Yeller", "Johnny Tremain", "Samantha: 1910 American Girl", "Black Beauty", "Where the Red Fern Grows", "Felicity: Colonial American Girl", the wonderful documentary "Seabiscuit" by PBS, and (surprise!) the 1940 black-and-white movie "L'il Abner" with Buster Keaton... It is somewhat like the Beverly Hillbillies, and it is funny! They also like the black -and -white episodes from TV of "Fury", "The Cisco Kid", "Bat Masterson", "Annie Oakley", "Jim Bowie", "Death Valley Days", and "Sergeant Preston of the Yukon", all shows that any kid from the 1950's would remember well. Cobey had also brought some of his videos: "Free Willie II",  "Captain Nemo", "Toy Story Two", "Lion King and a Half", and "Babe". They loved petting the new baby colt, Stormy, and  playing with the half-wild baby kittens... once they figured out out how to catch them.  I know they went away with wonderful memories of quality time spent at Mamma's house.

Stormy

  My palomino mare, Esmeralda, "Esmo" for short, had her beautiful little filly in the middle of a huge thunderstorm in the early morning hours of Sunday, June 18th, 2006. Stormy came with much fanfare.....thunder, lightning, and lots of rain. Just before midnight, I had gone to the barn to check on Esmo, found her pacing up and down the fence drenched with sweat and realized a birth was imminent. When a mare is foaling the only thing you can do is stay out of the way, watch that all goes as it is supposed to go, and hope for the best.  I have been present at probably ten or twelve foal births over the years, so I know the way it ought to go. However, after 45 minutes of trying to spit that little darlin' out, without success, I called the vet, Dr. Tom Meurer from West. Thankfully, Doc is only ten minutes away down I35.  For quite a while, I had been able to see the two front feet and about half of the little head on top of the feet, still in the placenta, protruding from the mare, as supposed to be. But no further progress was being made, as it should have been. I was  getting worried that Esmo could not have the foal without some help. I was praying hard that all would be well. However, having been around Nature all my life and knowing how cruel it can be, I had to be realistic. I could lose both mother and baby, if things did not go right. Doc got there just as the big storm hit. Both of us thought we would get to the stall and find a dead foal and a mare in real trouble. We were relieved and thrilled to see a little reddish-brown foal just born and trying to get up on those long wobbly legs! Doc stayed a while to be sure all was well....and it was. It was raining too hard for him to leave right away anyway.... I stayed in the stall most of the night with the mare and foal, a blaze-faced, stocking-legged filly who looks just like her sire, Mighty. I told Mighty, who was in a stall nearby, that he had a new baby, a girl, and gave all the horses some extra hay. It stormed and rained heavily for three hours. About an hour after the vet had left, the mare caught the hanging placenta on the side of the stall, and it was forcibly removed from her uterus, rather than slowly releasing itself naturally over the next few hours.  Now I had a new worry. The blood ran for a while, then thankfully stopped. It was chilling to realize Esmo could have bled to death right then and there. I also had another big problem. The new filly had not figured out how to nurse her mother.  Esmo's bag was full and tight, and, never having a foal before, the teats were short and hard to get a little baby mouth around.  A new foal MUST have the mare's first milk, the colostrum, within eight hours of birth, when the foal's intestines are able to absorb the antibodies, or it can die within a few days from massive infection.  I milked out the mare's bag a little, then held that new baby up to the mare's side for several hours. As a last resort, I rubbed white Karo syrup on the mare's bag, and the baby finally nursed! I had spent most of that stressful night, about five and a half hours, hoping the mare was going to be okay and that the baby would nurse. My sister Sue said the name for this baby had to be Stormy...and Stormy it is! Baby and mother are both doing fine a few weeks later. The best thing is that Stormy and I bonded after all those hours spent up close and personal. We are friends. She accepts me as a natural part of her life, probably because I was there with her from the beginning. She is very gentle and likes to be petted and scratched. She even nickers at me as if I am another horse! She also tries to kick me as if I were another horse! Oh, the joys of a new baby!

Aunt Sister

My daddy's last living immediate relative, Juanita Head Merritt, known and loved by all of us cousins in the family as "Aunt Sister", born March 31st, 1921, is not long for this world. She told me not to be sad, that she has accepted it and has lived a long and full life. She has courage.  She was comforting me, instead of the other way around, when she told me the doctors could do no more for her, that her heart is worn out and her time is short. She has trouble breathing, as her heart does not get enough oxygen, and sometimes the spells of not being able to breath are quite scary. At those times, she must take an anxiety pill and a nitroglycerin pill and go to bed to rest. Her loving grandson, Bill, is taking care of her, along with hospice and assorted helpers. She just about raised him, so he is paying his debt to her. He will get a star in Heaven for his kindness and caring. Hospice has been coming about a month now, so it will not be long.  She is the last of  Daddy's immediate family, the last of the older Heads, that I have known and loved all my life, the Old Guard. She will soon be with the beloveds already gone but not forgotten. She will be reunited with Uncle Thomas, her husband of many, many years, gone a few years now, and with her oldest son, Tommy Merritt, my first cousin and a rodeo cowboy who died at the age of 54 in 1997.  I ask that the Lord bless and keep Aunt Sister, and make His face to shine upon her, and lift up His countenance upon her and grant her Peace.

Cowboy Passings

Going to a visitation tonight at the funeral home. Been to quite a few of those recently. All the old guard are passing away. I know they are of that age, but it does not make it any easier.  Jack Parks, one of the horse folks from the '60s horse show era, passed away......I recall so many no longer with us that were real-deal, old-time horse people ......To name a few:   Jack Johnson.....he was Margaret's husband, Billy Jack's father, and famous for his Appaloosa horses and the Tuesday Night Horse Sale at his JMB Appaloosa Ranch in Robinson.....Stanley Holmes, way too young, and a childhood friend.....Gene Tanksley, husband of Ann, father of Corey----Gene is with them now.....Raymond Parks, father of Ronnie, grandfather of Todd, and a champion horseshoe player....Glenn Wingo, one of the best old-time ropers and one sweet man.....the unkindest cut of all is with the passing of John Crawshaw, husband of Betty, father of Jane, Susie, Bill, and George, and so dear a friend that my daughter, Jon Marie, is named for Big John, and so close for many years that my children called her "Aunt Betty" and him "Uncle John". He lived away from here the last twenty-five years,  but the one consolation is that he is now home where he belongs, laid to final rest beside his beloved Betty. I remember these great cowboys with sorrow at their passing and joy and honor in having known them.

A Simpler Time

  My paternal grandmother, Sally Lee Allen Head, known as Mama Head, was born in 1886 and died in 1955. My paternal grandfather, John William Head, known as "Billy" or Daddy Head or Papa Head, was born in 1886 and died in 1976. They were born into and grew up in a pioneer era and lived to see a rapidly changing world. By mid-century, theirs was a way of life that would soon be gone forever. They and their children had made it through the hard times of the Great Depression and the sacrifice of World War II. The battle-scarred sons and son-in-laws had all come home. They were old-time country folk, thankful and humble, living a simple way of life, independent and self-sufficient. Most of their food was raised or grown on the lots behind their old house. Mama Head raised chickens for the dinner table, as well as a calf to butcher now and then. She milked the cows for butter, cream, and milk to go with the biscuits made from scratch, spread with homemade plum or wild grape jelly or peach preserves. The Head family raised and killed their own hogs for bacon, ham, and pork chops, saving the rendered lard for cooking, baking, and homemade lye soap. Whatever was not eaten right away from the bounty of the big garden and the fruit trees was canned. They bought only what was absolutely necessary at the store....coffee, tea, sugar, salt, pepper, seeds for planting.... those things they could not grow or make themselves. A loaf of Jones Fine Bread or a bottle of Dr. Pepper were considered a real treat. They made most of their own clothes and beautiful patchwork quilts. They were a close-knit family, gathering around the radio to listen to "The Shadow", "Fibber McGee and Molly", "The Lone Ranger", and "The Hit Parade". No matter how much work she had to do, Mama Head never missed an episode of the soap opera, "Ma Perkins", on the radio.  Papa Head was a Master Gardener.  Their families had grown roses and watermelons as their farm crops in Tyler, Texas. The Heads came to Waco in 1914. Papa Head worked 42 years for the City of Waco, helping run Cameron Park. He retired in 1957. He was sent to the 1933 World's Fair in Chicago to see the famous Rose Garden, then designed one like it for Cameron Park.  The old house where the Heads lived was at 2224 N. 4th Street, just down  the street from the Park entrance on Herring Avenue.  Their children and grandchildren grew up in the Park, playing, fishing, and swimming in the Brazos River and Cold Springs.  It was a simpler time than today. Life was lived at a slower pace. By the 1950's, that simple way of life was fading away. Modern times, a new faster-paced era of conveniences and new technology, had begun. The story of Mama Head and Papa Head is the story of that simpler time in American history.    

School is out!

School was over for me on the 23rd of May...the very last day was May 26th...got to work quite a bit, most of it at the primary school...the Kindergarten, First and Second grades.....love those great little kiddos, even the ones that have "problems".... Some of it is actual behavior disorders..other is from poor or no parenting at home. Looking forward to school starting again on August 15th. The year after next it can start no earlier than the last Monday in August...a new law effective in 2007.  When I was in school in the '50's and my kids, too, in the '70s and '80's, school started the first Monday after Labor Day, in September..usually about the 8th....in the '50's there was no air conditioning......it was not as humid as now and did not feel as hot as the same temperature feels now. I am sticking close to home for the next few weeks as Esmeralda (Esmo), my palomino mare by Mighty and out of Peanut, my old long-dead barrel mare, is due to foal in that time frame. Have been cleaning at the barn....last week, was bitten on the left hand between thumb and wrist by a brown recluse spider....will have to tell you about it in the next post....doing well, thanks to, I believe, my quick thinking to soak it in Tide Detergent..the washing powder...to pull out the spider venom that can cause the tissue to rot from the bite. Whatever caused the great improvment, it is doing very, very well. Forty years ago, a renowned doctor told me to soak all punctures wounds in Tide....kids stepping on a nail, horses stepping on something and causing a puncture wound to the hoof, a hoof abcess, etc. have all been treated successfully with the Tide treatment. When I saw the two punctures and realized they were fang marks and then read on the web about how venomous the bite could be, I thought about the Tide treatment. I will write more about the spider bite incident later. Going to the barn to let out the old mare, and then to bed. Good mid-summer night to all! Oh, wait, it is not mid-summer with all the attendant heat yet, Thank Goodness, though it is still plenty hot!

Clarabell the Clown

Clarabell the Clown died yesterday. Actually, the person, Les Anderson, 85, who was the last and best to play Clarabell on the Howdy Doody Show, died. The first person to play Clarabell was Bob Keeshan, who became Captain Kangaroo. The Howdy Doody Show, airing in 1947, was the first network children's show. It was important because it showcased the novelty of the new technology of television and also sold tv sets bought by parents so all we little kiddies could see it. The show was in black-and-white until 1955. Buffalo Bob, Howdy Doody, and Clarabell the Clown were characters in a circus town, Doodyville, which had a mix of puppets and human beings as well as a Peanut Gallery of Kids. Clarabell was a mute, lovable, and mischevious clown who communicated by toots on bicycle horns and with a bottle of seltzer. It was a big surprise when Clarabell the Clown, who never said anything, spoke the very last words, "Goodbye, kids," when the show went off the air in 1960. My family did not get a television set until 1952, when I was six years old. I remember the Howdy Doody Show as one of my favorites and the very first television show I remember. Clarabell's death heralds the passing of an era.

Writing

Have not written in a while....too much other stuff going on....I do plan to write more about the Head family...the newspaper may do a layout of old photos of them and a short article....they were very interesting folk...turn-of-the-century,self-sufficient, and independent folk ...very close-knit family that cared about each other a lot. I also want to write about Gloria Dickson and our wonderful adventures with her and her family.....will have just one foal this year...from Esmo, my beautiful golden palomino, the only daughter I have left that is by Mighty Prince Deck, the Quarter Horse stallion that started me in the breeding business in 1979. My stallion now, Pay Mighty Deck (Mighty), is also by Prince, who died in 1997, at the age of twenty-two. I had owned him since he was a three-year-old colt.  He was an extremely beautiful shiny black horse that stopped people in their tracks, he was that good-looking.....the best confirmation and a wonderful gentle disposition....all the horses I have now, except for Jet, the twenty-six year-old mare by Jet's Payday, carry his blood. Prince was by Mighty Deck, an own son of Top Deck, both legends in their time...on the racetrack as well as the breeding barn. Top Deck came off the King Ranch and was a foundation sire for the modern-day racing Quarter Horse. Prince was well-named..he was quite regal. I hope this foal is a filly..more breeding stock for the future....I have been very fortunate to be able to live my dream as a child of having some really good horses, right in the back yard.

Easter Memories

Easter is next weekend! Late this year..not in March, but in April.  One of my favorite childhood memories of Easter was wearing the beautiful dressy- dresses made especially for me and my sister, Sue, by our wonderful mother, Marie Ellison Head, an excellent seamstress.  Mama made most of our clothes until about junior high, when we decided we wanted clothes "bought off the rack" as our friends had. They were not nearly as good as what Mama made, with all her love for us put into them. Another fond memory was making our own Easter eggs.  After growing up, I realized the importance of the ritual of making  Easter eggs was not the eggs themselves, but making them together, as a family. It was real fun to first boil the egg, then color it with a crayon, making all those different decorations on it, then dipping it in the colorful Paas dyes, to produce an "original' design that no one else had, so when it was "found", you knew it was the one you made. Mama would collect all the Easter eggs we had first hidden, then found in our Easter egg hunt, and make Deviled Eggs, a real treat, for the next few days.  No candy eggs for us! Beside, Mama would not have let us eat all that sugar.  The things we did as kids were simpler than today and were usually done in a family setting. I like to think that is one of the reasons we turned out to be such great folks...we had wonderful guidance.

Spring Has Sprung

Spring is here! Finally! Hope we get rain and the drought does not continue..we have had some rain, but still need more on a regular basis. The burn ban for McLennan county was lifted not long ago. I have a lot of stuff to burn down at the barn....old wood and paper feed sacks..a lot of feed sacks! Everything is green from the recent rains....just hope it stays that way. The warmer temperatures are very nice. It is good not to have to run the air conditioner day and night, just yet.  Jayla, my 4-year-old beautiful black mare, got in the wire and cut her hind leg in the hock pretty badly a few weeks ago. All you can do is give antibiotics to combat infection, wash the wound as often as possible with a water hose, apply a topical antibiotic, and hope for the best.  It is looking pretty good..still has a way to go to be well.  It will leave a scar, but I can live with that.  The good news is that she will not be crippled from it. She is in the front trap by herself, eating all that green grass that is coming up. Wow, the world looks so much brighter when it is Spring. My stallion, Mighty, is looking at his mares in a different way, as love is in the air! Hopefully, there will be two foals this year. Not sure if the old 26-year-old mare, named Jet for her sire, Jet's Payday, is in foal or not. Hope so, as she has been the money mare all thru the years, producing the barrel horse prospects that bring the most money due to her bloodlines. I have been so busy ...and just not felt like writing  much lately. I was ill a lot in the winter months..I catch everything the kids at school get! I plan to write soon about my paternal grandmother, Sally Lee Allen Head, and her life in the '40's and '50's, before the time of TV,  computers, and modern technology.

 

Night

Just came in from putting out some more hay for the horses......When it was so hot last summer, I got into the habit of waiting until late in the evening, after dark, to feed the horses... plus the wind usually lays after sundown, and you can tell what the night will be like...do you need to put up the old mare and the young one, or leave them out for the night? I like to leave them out if at all possible...does a horse good to be able to move around. Sometimes the night is so beautiful, especially if the moon is full with silvery light everywhere. It is easy to imagine an Indian encampment on a night like that. The way my land slopes slightly toward the creek, in my mind's eye I can "see" all those teepees of long ago that would have been stretched out in the valley from my place down to the creek. The night is peaceful and calm, as the few near neighbors are inside their homes. The silence is broken only by an occasional hoot owl, the nightbirds, and the horses munching hay. About nine or ten o'clock, the coyotes start running in the pasture right behind the house and up and down White Rock Creek, chasing a deer or a rabbit.... just as they have done for centuries. It is thrilling to hear them howling, yapping, and yodeling ....true shades of the Old West. One night a few years ago, I had burned some scrap lumber down by the barn. It was a really cold night. I got one of my old handmade quilts from the house and was sitting wrapped up in it on the ground by the fire. I had part of the quilt over my head, like an Indian. The night was dark and still. It felt good to be by the fire.  The coyotes were howling all around. I was thinking  how "Western" it all was, when I sensed something right beside me. Two of my horses had come up and hung their heads right on my shoulder, one on each side, as close to me as possible. The firelight shone our our faces. It would have made a great picture for a Western greeting card. We stayed that way for a long time, enjoying the companionship and the night, until the fire went out.

A Little Moisture

It has finally rained a little..just enough to make some good old MUD! Only got three-tenths of an inch at my place, but it was a good slow, sinking-into- the -ground rain. I finally broke down and watered my St. Augustine grass, the irises and cannas..never had to water them in the winter before.....the St. Austine grass came from my parents' yard, planted in the 1950's,....I have had the flowers forever.... they came from my great-grandparents yards before the turn of the century..they are native Texas plants that have survived droughts before....but this drought is something else. Hay is extremely hard to find, and what you can find is very costly. A lady at the appraisal office was telling me that her son works at the West Auction Barn, and they are deluged with huge numbers of cattle...another month or two and the market will fall drastically.....it has held for the time being, but a lot of cattle are being dumped. Sheep and goats, too, and horses, as cannot afford to feed them.  Eventually, meat should go down in price as a result of too much supply.  With every cloud, there is that tiny silver lining.  

New Baby with Old Names

Whew! A lot going on in the last few weeks. I went to Normangee the evening of the third of January...spent the night with my son, Bobby, his wife, Spring, and their two children, Cobey, four, and Callie, two. Fun at their house, as always. Jimmy and Esther had to be at the hospital the next morning for the cesarean birth of their fourth child....a boy, this time, to go with the three sweet little girls, September, Summer, and Sunday. Esther's sister, Virginia, "Ginger", and I took charge of the girls while Esther and Jimmy tended to the birth of their son. All went perfectly, and by afternoon, Noah Elijah Powell had come into the world. I had dreamed (Twice!) that their baby was a boy with black hair.....long before the doctor confirmed he was a boy....and guess what? He has black hair, not red like his dad and one of his sisters. Everyone wanted to know how I knew that!  (My mother used to tell me beforehand what color my mares' new foals would be and if a boy or girl, so I guess it runs in the family.)  Little Noah is named for three of his ancestors....Noah is for my son Jimmy's father, William Noah, who was named for his maternal grandfather, Noah Speed Williams; and for my grandfather, Samuel Elijah, called "Lige". Little Noah had a bout with jaundice, but is doing fine now. His mom and dad are doing well, too. Jimmy is 39 years old, and Esther is 43, so the chance of having a baby with problems was very high. To say the least, Little Noah was a HUGE surprise, a wonderful gift from God. My son is just astounded, and pleased as punch that he has a son, as they thought they would only have the 3 girls. But all is well that ends well, and actually, this is a wonderful BEGINNING. Now, if they can only keep those three adoring  older sisters from spoiling him rotten!!

Wildfires and Cows

Smoke from the wildfires up around the Fort Worth area was in the air this morning when I went out to get the morning paper. I was careful to look all around, just in case something was on fire here. It is so absurd that California is washing away, and we are burning up (literally) from being so dry! I went to Cranfill's Gap last week to see my sister, Sue, and her family, and to get some more of that wonderful alfalfa hay from my friend, the lady horse trainer. Picked up a small nail in my front tire, so we drove over to Meridian to get the tire fixed and visit with my little brother and his family. As we came off the mountain into Meridian, we could see a huge blackish cloud that looked like smoke. Turned out it was the little town of Cross Plains burning up from a wildfire. Back in the 70's and '80's, my cowboy husband and I would meet our horsetrader friends from Lubbock at Cross Plains, as it was about the halfway point from their places to ours. I remember a neat and friendly small town that now seems to be tragically burned up. My sister and I spent part of the day checking her cattle. It is so dry and has been for so long, that all the livestock have had no pasture or grass since last summer. A lot of the cattle ranchers are culling their herds, getting rid of some of their animals, as the cost of hay and feed is so prohibitive. Sue has several hundred head of cattle and leases a lot of places for them, so we had a full day. Getting out and opening all those gates is what keeps you young! We loaded a little "ranny " (a very young calf without a mama) into the trailer and brought him to the lot behind Sue's house, so she could feed him.  The calf that brings the best money at auction is called a black-baldie (black with a white face), and he is a black-baldie. His mother, a weak, really old cow, had been down, contracted pneumonia, and couldn't get up, so her calf was about to starve. Here we two old cowgirls were, out in a big pasture, in the dark of night, and in the cold, trying to get this poor old cow to eat and drink and give her a shot of medicine, while fending off the sixty or so other cows, their calves, and two huge bulls, all at the same time! So typical of the life of a person raising livestock. Reminded me of the many, many times throughout the 55 years I have had horses and a few cows, goats, deer, sheep, etc., that I have been out in horrific weather, trying my best to help that animal. All you can do is your best, and let God do the rest.... sometimes with great results, and sometimes not. The key thing was that you did go out there in those awful circumstances and do your best. My Daddy would have said doing things like that builds character. If that is the case, all of us who have done so must have a lot of character built up! Besides, they don't call me A Little Ranch Gal for nothing!!!!!

A New Year and a New Baby

Happy New Year, Ya'll!  I am getting my things ready to go to Normangee, Texas, for the impending birth of my SEVENTH grandchild, a boy. His pleased parents, who have three girls so far, are thinking of naming him for his grandfather, my ex-husband, William Noah, and calling him Noah. I told them that William Noah was named for HIS grandparent, his mother's father, Noah Speed Williams. This was many years ago, as Noah's mother, Sara Ethel Williams, was born in  1902. They also like the name Elijah as a possible middle name. I told them that my grandfather, my mother's father, was Samuel Elijah Ellison, nicknamed "Lige", so that would be naming their new son for TWO grandfathers on each side of the family. Lige was born in 1886 and died in 1948, when I was two years old. I never knew him. He was a handsome, red-headed , charming Scots-Irishman, a school principal who spoke five languages fluently, as well as a Texas farmer.  My oldest son, the parent of the soon-to-be-born baby boy, is the spitting image of him, so it would be fitting to name their child for Lige. What a wonderful way to start out the New Year, with a new life. Ain't Life Grand?!?!!!!!!!!!