The Friends That Shape Us

Growing up we had some good friends, Papa and Ruth Gordy. Papa Gordy was named Otis but no one ever called him that. He was Papa Gordy to everyone.

They were some of my parents best friends. Papa Gordy was a deacon in our church and Mrs. Gordy was my Girls Auxiliary leader at church. They were kind soft-spoken people and the memories I have of them are all good ones.

With Mrs. Gordy my class went to visit a girl in the hospital who was older than I was. She was in her late teens and had been badly burned. She was burning trash and threw some gasoline on it; the back draft of the flames on the fumes burned her. We were all scared, horrified actually, and silent on the visit but Mrs. Gordy talked to her as if everything was normal and that calmed us down and gave us courage. She died a few days after we visited her. I learned from Mrs. Gordy that sometimes you have to be brave and strong so that you can comfort others and that sometimes that is all you can do for them.

While we were still living in Monroe the Gordys moved to Grayson, Louisiana. This was about 40 minutes south of Monroe. It was also before we lived in Houston and a 40 minute drive won't even get you across town. At the time it seemed far far away. My parents weren't big on driving long distances and my dad never went over 25 miles an hour if he could help it. My grandparents lived in West Monroe and we only visited them on the weekend because it was such a drive. About 15 minutes at Daddy's speed!

But my parents loved their friends the Gordys so we went to visit them more often that I would have imagined. The Gordys had children but they were either younger or older than me. I was closer to Mrs. Gordy than to her children. I loved to visit her partly because she had a whole collection of Connie Francis records! This was getting pretty wild in my circle. She let me play them on her record player and I spent most of the time on our visits doing just that. Where The Boys Are had me dreaming of a handsome true love, Everybody's Somebody's Fool proved to be prophetic in my case when Lipstick On Your Collar told the tale; then I was Breaking In A Brand New Broken Heart, and Who's Sorry Now offered me hope of revenge if I was ever sporting that newly broken heart! She was beautiful and glamorous and sang dreamily about things a young girl wanted to experience, not the more grown up beer drinking songs of country music that my parents listened to. 

Where The Boys Are by Connie Francis

They lived in a wonderful old house like you see in small towns. The rooms all went round and round from one to the other. There were big trees in the yard and the yard sloped down on a slight hill. My sister Jackie (in photo) was 4 or 5 years old and she decided to climb into their car one day. We were in the backyard and looked up to see Jackie staring calmly out the driver's side window, both hands on the window, as the car rolled down the hill. She had put the gear shift in neutral and off she went! We yelled for Daddy and she was saved!

A year or two after the Gordys moved to Grayson we moved to Houston. They came to visit at least once but we rarely saw them after that. Mrs. Gordy passed away a few years after I graduated from high school. By then I was married with two small boys and a job in the big city. Responsibilities lay on my shoulders and the day-dreaming 12 year old child I had been was so far gone from me I barely remembered her. But every once in a while when it's a warm summer day with the breeze blowing on my skin, that young girl resurfaces and I'll find myself humming I Don't Hurt Anymore, an old Hank Snow song Connie Francis recorded on her country album. And I'll remember Mrs. Gordy and her wonderful old house and her kind heart and that you should always try and be brave even when you are scared.

Wednesday Morning Comin' Down

It's 68 degrees and overcast. From the cabin windows it looks like a wintry morning but it's not, of course; it's still August. There's no wind, no birds singing and flying around; the air is heavy.

(The photos in this post are from earlier this year and last year. I didn't have my camera out this morning.)

There's one little fawn staring at me from the longhorns' pen. She's been here since her birth so she's familiar with seeing me. But still, the deer never trust us completely. Our area is very rural with few people so the deer don't eat out of our hands like some places. They retain their wildness even though throughout the years my neighbors and I always have "pets" among them, those deer that tolerate our presence a little easier and show a little less fear of us. We often name those ones, sometimes unimaginative names, like "yard deer", and sometimes, as my neighbor did, after a grandchild, and sometimes after Texas characters, like the orphan twin bucks we called Waylon and Willie.

I need to go get a haircut today but hate to leave when there is any chance, however slight, that it might rain. Not because I don't want to drive in the rain but because rain is an event to be celebrated and enjoyed around here. I like to see the ground soaking it up and the trees dripping with water.

I should have gone yesterday but couldn't muster up the energy; sinus headache problems had me dragging. What with the dust from Africa and the smoke from Idaho all blowing in the last couple of weeks, it's causing allergy problems. It really is a small, small world.

I've taken my coffee and iPad to the front porch. The birds are waking up. There's a hummer on the last salvia greggii that is blooming now, the one on the porch right by my feet. She spies the red cover on my iPad and comes over to hover in front of me. 

The little cottontail that lives here has moved into the grass in the center of the driveway. I almost stepped on him the other morning. He was eating some birdseed that fell from the feeder in front of the pump house as I walked by. He was born here in the yard; I first saw him as a tiny thing hiding in the giant rosemary bush by the cabin. He's always out and about in the early morning.

The white-winged doves are following him across the grass eating whatever it is they are finding on the ground. I count 13 as I sit here. There's a little cardinal eating buds on the cenizo. I hear a raven squawking from the neighbor's direction.

Out in the pasture by the deer feeder there's a jackrabbit and there's one in the boys' pen. A couple of does came in there to eat any alfalfa Woodrow and Gus have dropped. They don't like me sitting here though, so they move on. Sometimes I wonder why they never accept me like they do the longhorns and turkeys but I guess their survival depends on staying leary. I also wonder if they know I am the provider of the alfalfa they're eating!

It's peaceful out here in the mornings. No sounds but the soft ones of animals waking up and getting on with their day. No vehicle noises, no television, no human voices, the AC isn't running, just the quiet sounds of the natural world.

The promise of the seasons changing, one of the best times of the year. No matter what season it is we are always glad toward the end that a change is coming. We've either been too hot or too cold for too long and look forward to something different. Right now I'm thinking about the crisp cool days of Fall, soups and chili, pumpkins on the porch, scarecrows in the garden. Sitting on the porch with a warm throw in my lap and some Bailey's in my coffee.

Life is good. I hope it's good wherever you are this morning too.

Me vs. the Pump House

I only meant to put up a new can of paint I had bought. I hadn't meant to spend two weeks building shelves, installing plywood on walls, moving everything from the pump house to the garden shed, and painting the inside of the pump house. But one look at the unorganized creepy pump house where our paint is stored and I had one of those Popeye the Sailor Man moments - "it's all I can stand and I can't stand no more"! Does that ever happen to you?

We had plans to reorganize things there after Rick retires. We're going to build a lean-to and move the riding mower from where it sits now in the middle of the garden shed. But that day I made up my mind I couldn't wait another minute. Never mind if it was 100+ degrees. Never mind there wasn't a place for shelves in the garden shed. Never mind I was in the middle of several other projects. My mind was made up and common sense be damned!

I don't want to talk mean about a little building that has served us well for storage and protection of our well. But the pump house has always been creepy. It is dark and crowded and gloomy and the ceiling is low. There are no windows. Things are lurking there. I've painted and decorated the outside and it looks cheery and happy. Until you open the door. There is so much stuff in it you only have a narrow place to walk in the middle of the room. I avoid it as much as possible.

I'm familiar with creepy buildings. My dad had a workshop that was super creepy. I wouldn't go inside. After he passed away, I went as far as the door and Rick went inside and got a huge old rusty pipe wrench for me to keep. I could see that from the doorway. My dad was a pack rat and never threw anything away. He also never cleaned. The shop was dark and full of those creepies-who-must-not-be-named. And snakes. And mice. And goblins and trolls.

I have my method of entering the pump house. First I open the door and stand back a step or two. Just waiting. Giving anything there a chance to hide. I look at the ceiling to make sure no creepies are waiting there to jump on me. I sniff the air because sometimes you can smell a critter; I once smelled the musky smell of a snake before I saw it in our backyard in Houston. Then I zero in on what I want, take a deep breath, and move in fast and retrieve the item. I don't look around when I'm in there because I don't want to see what might be there looking at me! Scary!

But on this day I've decided I won't be defeated any longer by the creepiness of this pump house. I'm going to face it and I'm going to be the winner. And I'm not just going to accept the creepiness of it; I'm going to take the creepiness away! I refuse any longer to have a building here that I am afraid of.

First I went to the garden shed and pulled things away from the wall where I was going to build shelves for my paint. We had scrap plywood in the pump house and I used that to cover the studs in that section of the shed. I had to make a trip to town to buy one piece I needed. We had some leftover insulation in the pump house and I put that behind the plywood. I try to utilize leftover things instead of tossing them out. For storage buildings it's more important to me to use leftover materials as much as I can rather than new. For a project in the house where looks are more important I might prefer new. After installing the plywood I built the shelves and attached them to the wall. I feel happy now with all my paints so easy to get to.

Once I got things moved and organized I remade the shelves in the pump house so I could move the freezer from the side wall to the back wall. Then I mixed some leftover paint and painted the walls. It's not beautiful, but it sure is an improvement! I should have taken a before picture but it was just too horrible.

After Rick retires we need to replace the roof. We'll put some plywood down under the tin so we can seal it better. And before then we need to put a new door on. So there are still things to do but it's definitely less creepy already! I may address the floor then but it is a pump house in the country and we're in and out with dirty boots all the time, especially in the winter, so I have to keep that in mind and keep it real.

I had a few things that didn't fit anywhere; they were parts from a broken wagon, a galvanized trash can, a tripod cooking stand. I turned all these into decorative accessories, painting some of them, hanging them on the outside of the sheds or putting them by the bunkhouse. I painted the old trash can and I'm going to turn it into a planter. 

It's taken two weeks and I'm declaring myself the winner in the pump house war, but it sure did put up a fight!

Now, back to my other projects. The chore list fills the chalkboard and there are several I am working on that aren't on the list. Hmmmm, maybe I need to make a bigger chalkboard my first project!

One of the projects I had been working on was a little bench. I did get a chance today to finish it. I added a piece of iron fencing to it as a back. We've had the fencing for years and have used it in different ways. I like how it turned out.

Taking a Back Road with the Bowie Brothers

Rick said he was pretty positive he was the only person in the world that got a call this afternoon from someone saying they had found where Jim Bowie and 10 other men fought off 164 Indians, killing 80 of them. I'm pretty sure he is right.

The summer doldrums have set in here so I thought I would drive up to Brady, run some errands there, eat some good Mexican food, and get away from ranch projects. I did all this and headed back home. I did pick up another quart of paint. It's a red called Hot Tamale! I think I'm going to paint the legs of the little work table I made and leave the top unpainted. 

The county I live in and those surrounding only have one road that's more than two lanes, and that's the interstate. So you could say all our roads are back roads. But what really determines whether a road is a back road or not is whether it qualifies for the finger wave. If it's a road where you lift one or two, no more, fingers from the wheel in salute to any drivers you meet, then you are on a back road. These are my favorite roads. You plug your phone in and listen to all the good music you have downloaded, preferably Texas music, and sing along. 

If you come to a ranch gate and it's flying a U.S. flag, it will always have a Texas flag too. Most of the gates you pass won't be very fancy. If they are chances are good the people live somewhere else and this is their hunting ranch.

You won't see much traffic on a back road. In fact on the main road to Brady from Menard I only met two or three vehicles. None of us gave the finger wave because we knew we weren't on a back road. 

Coming back I decided to take a sure enough back road. I've been on parts of this road but not this part. I soon came to a historical marker. I stopped in the middle of the road and backed up. You can do that sort of thing on a back road. 

I pulled over to read the marker. It told about a fight Jim Bowie, his brother Rezin, and 9 other men had with 164 Indians. I did wonder if someone had counted them to get that exact number of 164. But, hey, it's Texas. If we say we were attacked by 164 Indians, you can believe it! 

Rezin Bowie invented the Bowie knife that his brother Jim is remembered for. The brothers were in the area looking for a lost silver mine when they ran into the Indians and had to fight it out. 

I take a few minutes to look around. There is a ranch gate there by the marker. The countryside in our whole area is sparsely populated and most people have their houses set back where you can't see them. It's easy to imagine that you are back in the time of Bowie and Indians and lost silver mines.

You never know what you'll find on a back road and that's part of the appeal. There's a little church on the Ivy community back road. You drive along beautiful Bear Creek on a back road near Cleo. On the road over from us there are old wooden telephone poles with blue glass insulators on them below you on the hillside, almost hidden in the trees.

My dad loved back roads. When we first moved to Houston from Louisiana we went back to Monroe a lot to visit family. The uncles used to make fun of him because he got off the interstate as soon as he could and went the back way. It took longer but it made him happier to travel that way. I used to wonder why. But I don't wonder anymore. 

And then, there's that back road that takes you to the best place, home.

Guacamole!

No, not the kind you eat! But if you have ever tasted Rick's guacamole, you wish it was that kind. Delicious!

It's the name of the color of paint I bought last week. The lady at the paint store and I were having a conversation about how hard it is to pick paint colors. I told her I like my paint colors to be named after food and if I don't like the color name I won't buy the paint. Crazy, I know, but I have to have some way to narrow down the thousands of colors!

I painted the screen door on the cabin back porch and the risers on the bunkhouse steps. I considered painting each riser a different pale color, like yellow and blue, in addition to the green. But I figured that was more than Rick could live with. He's not as crazy about paint as I am! I like the green because it is so often brown out here in dry country. 

I've fallen madly in love with the houses Reclaimed Space does and was inspired to paint the screen door. I rarely stop at one thing, so had to find something else to paint and there were the steps! Check out Reclaimed Space!

We've had a colorful week with the cenizos blooming! We have several we planted but this one came up in the driveway. It is gorgeous! I could hear the hum of the bees on it long before I got close to it. 










The little bunkhouse was shared last week by Tiny House Design and Tiny House Talk. THD did a post about using a shed as the basis for a tiny house. Since that is what we did with the bunkhouse, I commented on our experience and costs. THD then did a post on that using some of my photos from the blog. Tiny House Talk included it in one of their posts for the week. They both used only one inside photo and it was one before we had put the curtain up around the toilet area. As you probably know, our main purpose of building the bunkhouse was to have room for as many beds as possible and for our bookcases. To keep family and friends from having to go to the cabin in the dark we added a toilet and sink. There wasn't room to wall it in so we bent a galvanized rod and hung it and added a curtain. But the photo that was used in these posts didn't have the curtain.

Well, there was a lot of serious distress over a toilet in a one room bunkhouse without a curtain! So I'm thinking I probably shouldn't share my "hunter's toilet" with those city slickers. When we were building the cabin there was a period we had to shut down the travel trailer bathroom and the cabin didn't have one yet. I cut the bottom out of a 5 gallon bucket and with a toilet seat moved it around as needed, carrying my shovel for restoration work on each site. It happened to be in the winter and some mornings the snow fell around you as you took the seat! I called it a "hunter's toilet" because I got the idea from a hunter down the road that comes out every year. I've since seen it on Mary Jane's Farm Glamping ideas and she uses a disposable diaper in the bottom! 

So I thought I would share a photo of the toilet area with the curtain in case it has been distressing any of you! :) It's not a perfect arrangement, but I think everyone that comes out will agree it sure beats going to the cabin in the dark and cold and maybe rain and trying to avoid rattlesnakes!

I finished the outdoor kitchen with a little help from Rick on the stove section. It's easier to get things put together with two people! He hooked the stove up and it's ready to go. I used it for the first time this weekend. I decided to make the grape jelly outside. We didn't have many grapes due to a couple of late freezes. Even though I covered them, we still lost most. But the jelly came out delicious and it was nice working outside! It gets messy getting the juice from the grapes. I still have to make a cover for the stove for when we aren't using it. 

I found that I needed a little table in addition to what I already had. Last week I dismantled a 23 year old picnic table we had that had some rotten wood on the legs and braces. I saved the top pieces that were still good. Today I made a small table with some of that wood. I wanted it to be small enough that one person could move it around so we can use it for different things. I'm not sure if I am going to paint it or leave as it and wax it. I'll let it set a while and then decide. I like the feel of the old wood after I sanded it. It's not the most beautiful table but it's sturdy and the cost was zero! 

In addition to all this old wood, old tin, painted wood, beautiful blooms, and jelly we have had lots of birds around. Here are a couple of the more beautiful ones, although there are some not so beautiful ones that I like just as much or more!

Stand By Me

489-9xxx 

It was a phone number we all knew by heart. Our own personal 911, the number we called when we needed help. Often a last resort, but sometimes the first call we made.

The man that answered the hotline knew us all by voice. He listened to what we had to say and took the steps necessary to help us. Sometimes he had us come by for money or to borrow a vehicle. Sometimes he went on the road and came to us to solve our problems with plumbing, mechanics, or other household issues. Often he came when our cars wouldn't start or we had a wreck and no way home. 

But even more valuable than these things was the comfort we knew he would give us. He let us cry; he didn't tell us everything was fine and we shouldn't worry. He took our heartbreaks as seriously as he did when we had our house flooded or lost our job. 

He came when our babies were born. He came when our kids graduated and got married. He came when we were threatened and physically abused. He came when we were verbally beat down. He came and he stood with us, whether in good or bad times.

He came when my marriage fell apart. He took off the cowboy hat he always wore, turning it in his work worn hands, sat beside me on the sofa, and said to me "what do you want to do, sweetheart? Tell me and I'll support you in whatever you decide."

When he lost his eyesight to macular degeneration and could no longer come to us, he continued to answer our calls for help. We had only to dial the number and tell him the problem. He understood that sometimes a person only needs a phone call and someone to listen to them. And when we called and told him one of his grandchildren needed his help, he made a point to call them, not once, but every week or so, just so they knew he had their back. That they didn't stand alone in a world that is often hard to navigate safely through. He stood with them.

Eight years ago this month, our dad was taken from us by a heart attack in the middle of the night. The hotline operator we had come to depend on no longer there to answer our calls. I keep his number in my cell phone, removing the area code after my mom passed away so I don't accidentally dial it. It comforts me to see his name and the familiar number. Sometimes I call him up in my mind. He always answers and I hear his soft voice telling me "I'm so glad you called, sweetheart; I was just thinking about you."

Granite - It's Not Just For Countertops!

We've spent the last week making some walkways and improving the outside areas between the bunkhouse and the cabin. We got a load of granite gravel (decomposed granite). We wanted to use something that was permeable in case we ever get any rain (keep hope alive)! And something that had a natural Central Texas look to it. We also have to be able to drive over it to get to the back pasture. And we wanted something affordable.

Rick and I started out digging by hand to make a trench several inches deep for the walkway. He used a pick and I used the shovel, following in the areas he had picked. Our ground is rocky, so it was slow going. 

The next day we were rescued by our good friend and neighbor Scott and his tractor! He not only did the digging but moved the gravel and spread it out for us, and spread the dirt he removed. We get by with a little help from our friends!

Sarah and Bixby came out that afternoon and Scott gave Bix some lessons on how to operate a tractor. Then we left the fellas working and went to the river to cool off and continue Bixby's river rat training!

We were all done in for a few days and I tackled the outdoor kitchen area today. We didn't dig it out as it is a little low there and somewhat bowl shaped. When it rains water doesn't run over that area. Scott had told me to call him back when we got ready to move some more gravel. But I am always thinking up projects and hate to impose them on others, even though I know he would have come and helped me. It went better than I thought and I was finished by 1:30. I still have to build another part of the outdoor kitchen counter to hold our two burner stove. I'll attach it at a lower height to the side of the bar cabinet I already made. And I still need to add a shelf to the bar cabinet to hold an ice chest.

The next part of the project is moving the fire pit. It will be where the scraped area is in this picture, which puts it between the cabins. Can't wait to gather round it in the winter, star watching and making s'mores! 

The gravel finished off the outdoor cowgirl/cowboy tub and shower, which doubles as a swimming pool for little ones.



With the bunkhouse project winding down, it's on to a new deer blind before hunting season gets here!


"The block of granite which was an obstacle in the pathway of the weak, became a stepping-stone in the pathway of the strong." Thomas Carlyle