Shoes 15 August 2014

Posted on August 15, 2014 by Sally Gerard

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I sometimes wonder what life would be like if all we ever saw were sunrise and sunset. I never tire of them, but I guess we need the day and the night to prepare us for such beauty.

This morning as I returned from my run after a nice rain last evening, I’d just gotten the rocks out of my running shoes, come in, taken them off and poured another cup of coffee. The phone rang and I grabbed my boots, put them on barefoot and drove south with my coffee to check rain gauges. It got me thinking about shoes.

A shoe is good for:

slogging through mud, skipping across hot sand, tapping on hollow bridges, smashing gross bugs, supporting arches, setting off graceful ankles, dancing, kicking annoying brothers, leaving in a pile by the door, tripping over, stealing your socks, trying to fill, learning to tie, early morning runs, riding horses, checking rain gauges, and taking off at the end of a long day.

 

 

 

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You Move Me 13 August 2014

Posted on August 13, 2014 by Sally Gerard

You move me like a shiny antique tractor red and gleaming in the light of a full moon.

You move me like the cool breeze taking the heat of the day from my skin as the sun sinks into its orange bronze bed.IMG_1438

You move me like the tomato plant struggling to have enough water to grow one, juicy piece of fruit.

You move me like the creek running over rocks and leaves next to the trail as we ride up the mountain.

You move me like a wheat field, green and wet after a rain.

You move me like the feeling of driving a Minneapolis Moline down the road on a bright sunny morning.

You move me like a field of sunflowers, yellow petals waving in greeting as we pass by in the pick-up.

 

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Building Corrals 11 August 2014

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Sally Gerard
This is the view down the old loading chute.

This is the view down the old loading chute.

It was time to make some changes to the corrals. While they have worked for many years to sort and load cattle, everyone could see improvements that would make the whole process easier on both bovine and human.

Of course, we had to tear down the old chute and one of the small corrals to get ready to begin the new ones. We did that on Friday so we’d be ready for the work crew on Saturday!

Many holes needed to be dug in order to set new posts, and we were happy to host our friend, Roger and his skid steer auger to save all that labor with post hole diggers. We’ve done plenty of that. This part was timdig holese consuming because everything has to be in line for all the boards and/or panels to be flush.

Then the work began in earnest as the huge posts were put into the holes, leveled in every conceivable direction and dirt was shoveled back into the hole as we tamped

South posts of new loading chute are in and the rest of the holes are waiting for posts!

South posts of new loading chute are in and the rest of the holes are waiting for posts!

and tamped and tamped until the post was firmly set. We worked the posts, leveling, shoveling and tamping for two days, as well as: cutting boards, drilling pilot holes, securing the boards with washers and screws, wiring panels, setting gates-lots of gates, and sharing a lot of good natured teasing. new chutes

 

 

 

At the end of the weekend, although there is still more work to be done, the loading and sorting chutes are ready, the posts are set, the gates are up, some panels are set, and we were rewarded with a beautiful sunset and a super moon! IMG_1421

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The Cemetery 7 August 2014

Posted on August 7, 2014 by Sally Gerard

IMG_1386Every morning I run by this cemetery and ponder the lives of those who were laid to rest here. This country is covered in tall grasses, and there is a path worn by many kinds of feet. Ball cactus blooms burst open, wild sweet roses, delicate pink and robust yellow and white iris stand in bunches and batches. The old gate was rusted and looking around there are stone markers, dates, names, verses and one small stone with a carved lamb curled around the top.

I am drawn through the gate to this one–a child, a boy who barely touched this Earth, then left. He shouldn’t have gone, being loved so much even as he was torn from the fabric of their lives. This stone, old and crumbling is all they had of him.

There are many young children, babies buried here. The years are 1800’s and I think about the lack of medicine, medical attention out here and in thaIMG_1390t time. There are mothers and babies side-by-side, clearly having died in childbirth. One whole family of children who all died the same day–we’ve heard it was a fire.

It is a place of rest. The stories of the lives are loud and want to be heard. I find myself wishing, in the dawn, that someone was here to tell me about these people and how they lived.

I turn there, stretch a bit, and run home with the shorn golden stubble shining as the sun comes over the horizon. IMG_1388

 

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Moving Cathy 5 August 2014

Posted on August 5, 2014 by Sally Gerard

IMG_1380I am ever grateful for the rising of the sun each day because it lifts my spirits giving me hope that a new day will bring about joy and productivity in whatever it is that I need to be doing.

We will soon be going to California to face the man who violently murdered our little sister, Cathy. I’ve spent some time recently rereading some of the pieces I’ve written about Cathy.

Cathy smiling down at her nephew, Jared who was just four years old.

Cathy smiling down at her nephew, Jared who was just four years old.

This one will be recognizable to several of my siblings because we were all there together to make this happen. Anyone who knew Cathy, knew her moods were never half-way, good or bad!

Cathy standing by a huge tree in Australia.

Cathy standing by a huge tree in Australia.

Moving Cathy: A chaos of books, crates, Rubbermades, glasses stacked and glass shattering–pinpricks of blood from tiny wounds. Loading, stacking, laughing, unloading, muddy footprints on new silver-grey shag. Grumpy, undeserved snapping.

John Denver on the juke box at the A&W. Unpacking, sweating, re-arranging-a necessary intrusion on a private life. The cable guy, the new neighbor, laundry across the hall, quarters and a basket on a leash. Tempers, patience, pain in knees, shoulders and backs.

Four empty trucks driving away: one apartment empty, cleansed of the life it held; the other filled with that unorganized life, waiting for it to settle in.

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A trip for a steak 1 August 2014

Posted on August 1, 2014 by Sally Gerard

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What I noticed when we stopped in this one-horse town known for the steakhouse was that not too many people get out at five for supper. Last time we were here together, it was packed at 6:30. Still, we waited just as long for our steaks. It is dark in there and I was chilled, even with my warm grey Carnegie Mellon jacket on–odd coming from 90 degree heat, and yet normal for me. Air conditioning always chills me.  

The cook, a rather large woman, spent much of her time sitting on a high stool at the bar counter. Our waitress checked on us frequently to fill our ice-tea; I think she sensed my partner’s impatience. Booths with red plastic seats lined the walls that were hung with the posters from years of Cheyenne Frontier Days. Cheyenne Frontier DaysLarger tables filled the room’s center. Above the bar hung the many mounts of someone’s hunts: bobcat, deer, elk, the biggest fish I’ve ever seen in a steakhouse, and a rattlesnake skin. The two flat screens seemed out of place-one filled with images of 9-11 and the other with a football game or maybe it was baseball. Some locals, judging by their ease with the bartender, sat at the “sports” end of the bar. A sign taped to a pole read, “no credit cards or checks.”

Looking up, the ceiling was covered with fancy tin tiles,tin ceiling tile like maybe this was a carriage  house at one time in its history. I sat in the booth opposite him. He was leaning against the wall, legs outstretched along the bench seat. I pictured fancy carriages being driven in one end, unloading people dusty from long drives or in their “going to town” finery, dropping the dust robes as they exited with the doorman’s help. stock-photo-antique-illustration-of-carriage-house-original-from-drawing-of-gaildrau-was-published-on-l-69680680Did this town have an opera? A fancy eatery in a hotel?

Soon enough, we were back in the pick-up, the windshield eating more bugs than we could see through. Back at the farm we unloaded and checked the stock, settling in for the late evening news.

 

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The Old Piano

Posted on July 30, 2014 by Sally Gerard

These photos and your thoughts echo inside me. I remember the piano lessons -this is up, this is down, let’s go up and down… and mostly the making of chocolate chip cookies in Aunt Suzy’s kitchen. Music pulls at all of us. Sitting next to our Dear Old Dad in church and hearing him sing the hymns brings me strength still and I can feel the music in my bones. I’m so glad you saved that piano.

julieburgii's avatarjpburgess

The old pianoIt is sitting here even now in my family room against a wall that is too short to hide its open back. It’s a Mendelssohn upright piano made in Derby, Connecticut, sometime around 1905. You can still find something about it on the Internet. The serial number is something like 102. It’s old, the soundboard is cracked, it’s scratched and beaten, but for something that has celebrated its centennial, it sits up straight. And I love it for the memories it brings back and the people I most associate with it. I had it tuned several years ago for a choir retreat at my house. The tuner said the best he could do was tune it to itself because of the crack in the soundboard, but that was good enough. The fact that he was willing to tune it told me he appreciated it for the music it could still make.

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wheat binding 28 July 2014

Posted on July 28, 2014 by Sally Gerard

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We finally had a day and the right weather to bind wheat. We do this every year to preserve the traditions of old and to provide wheat bundles to thresh at a couple of antique farming events. It is a day much anticipated, at least by me, and much too short with only an acre to bind and shock. binder on the roadWe had a date all set with an antique tractor that had not yet met our 1947 model binder, but we got rained out so my 1949 Minneapolis Moline ZA had to fill in. I know, it was a burden, but someone had to pull through! I cannot wipe the smile off my face as I head down the road about a mile and a half to the wheat we didn’t cut so we could bind.

 

Once in the field, several hands of experts help to set the binder so that the sickle blades cut low enough to make the stalks long enough to get a string around and to set the stringer so it ties in the right spot so that when you pick up the bundles with a pitch fork, they don’t fall apart. It is especially tricky when the wheat is this ripe and the stalks are so dry! It makes for very bushy bundles, but beautiful shocks. binder operatorYou can see the binder operator behind me on the binder, as we get ready to make the first pass.

 

From the tractor, it is incredible to watch the waves of wheat cut by the sickle blades and laid over by the reel onto the canvas over and over, just like the ocean currents. Before you is the golden stand of wheat. You can see this from the binder operator seat as well, view from binderbut the wheat falls right below your feet into the canvas that moves it through where it is pushed together and then tied and spit out the side of the binder to await shocking.

 

The turning reel and the waves of wheat constantly moving through the canvas to be bundled and tied and dropped into the stubble mesmerize me.reel Once we finish, everyone helps to form the bundles into shocks which would cure the wheat before being loaded onto wagons to be threshed.

It is a day to be cherished, taking you back in time and leaving your imagination, if you are my age, to dwell in simpler times with honest labor, the fruits of which are right before you. Call me crazy, but I know I would have loved living in this time…or the earlier one with horses before tractors.

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Jana

Posted on July 27, 2014 by Sally Gerard

I remember the night I had to make that phone call. What I know is this, If Julie weren’t on the other end with the phone calls I’ve had to make, I don’t know what I’d do. We are sisters too and have had those moments, but she is such strength to me and she’ll never know how much. And Jana, when I was little, she was the woman I wanted to be. Her courage stands. Susan is always there for all of us–the great mediator and the one who drops everything to come to the rescue, whether it’s a deer that needs to go to the meat processor or a movie partner on a down day.

julieburgii's avatarjpburgess

Jana enjoying the homemade ice cream off the dasher. That's the Prescott way! Jana enjoying the homemade ice cream off the dasher. That’s the Prescott way!

She is the second born of the seven Prescott siblings and the oldest of the five girls. That’s Jana, and she is my big sister and I love her. For the last almost 30 years we have been housemates.

Jana was hit by a train on February 14, 1983, when she was 25 years old, in Longmont, Colorado. I was living in Omaha then as now, and was woken up by an angry roommate who took the call that came to our apartment at about midnight that Valentine’s Day. It was my sister Sally calling to tell me the horrible news about Jana and Susan. My job was to go wake up my dad and tell him. That’s another story for another day.

Jana and Susan both survived what should have killed them both, and now, over…

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Writing 25 July 2014

Posted on July 25, 2014 by Sally Gerard

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People have asked my how and why I write. I can’t help it. I see the beauty in this old flat bed truck and it strikes me. When I look at this truck, I see Christmas! I observe, wonder and make mental notes or sometimes heart notes. Words take me places I’ve never been, let me revisit old favorite places, keep my feet firmly planted or let me fly or fall; they inspire me.

I write because I have to–for school or classes or to fill out forms, and I love to touch the reader and make them smile as they slog through a million of the same boring forms. Sometimes I can’t keep up with the thoughts hurtling through my brain.

I remember learning to write on that special paper with the solid lines top and bottom and the dashed lines in the middle. I traced around dotted letters until I could form them without help. Writing is so connected to reading for me: words on the pages of books I loved were magic to me. I write every day, in different places and formats, but I write. Sometimes I love what I write; sometimes I wonder what I was thinking; sometimes I want to toss it out, but I don’t because it is all part of my process, and who knows what might come in handy in some story!

This engine is one-hundred years old

New Holland Engine

New Holland Engine

and of course it’s been restored, but can you imagine it’s story? I cannot help wondering whose farm it came to new and how excited they were to have this kind of power to help with the work. Did the family gather around and gawk at it’s beauty? I don’t know, but I can imagine and that is what it’s all about.

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