Barnmaven

Passages

Over the years I've fallen in love with so many blogs.  Every so often I'll see someone I really look forward to reading stop posting with any regularity, and I wonder if they're OK, if this is the beginning of the long decline to the end of blogging altogether or just the silence while they weather a crisis or a dry spell.  When I first started blogging I was so enthralled with the form and the media I couldn't imagine ever wanting to stop.  I'd see someone I really like put their blog on haitus or take it offline entirely and I'd be so perplexed...why would anyone want to go silent like that? 

I also remember being a woman without children and I'd watch people who were parents say and do certain things and I'd be absolutely flummoxed why parents were so crazy.  I, after all, would never say or do such things.  I'd never buy my kid a happy meal just to make him stop crying for one goddam second.  I'd never fill my kids rooms with plastic crappy toys or ignore them just so I could have one minute of sanity in the bathroom or let them wear clothes made in third world countries by indentured servants to the smiley face or...and so on.

I gather this is the standard process for most people.  When something is new or not yet experienced, we bury ourselves under the weight of uninformed opinions and find ourselves surprised when we one day find out just how little we actually know about anything.

The good news (depending, I suppose, on your point of view) is that I'm not planning on falling off the web into that large graveyard of discontinued blogs.  The bad news, if there is such a thing, is that I have no current urge to write much at the moment and no idea how to solve that problem.  Or even know if that's actually a "problem."   My health has been a bit difficult of late, work has been very challenging and stressful, and the things that need doing far outnumber the hours of time available.  In truth, my attitude about blogging and bloggers has changed dramatically over the last year or so, and my reasons for writing, such as they were, are no longer the same.  My goals for blogging have changed significantly, and my self-knowledge of my place in the world of blogging has clarified.  I'm ok with where I am and who I am, and I'm less worried than ever about accidentally offending anyone or even whether or not anyone "important" is reading, because I DO get, frankly, that everyone who takes the time to come here and read my continuing attempts at writing has given me a great gift of time and attention, and I'm grateful for every single one of you. 

Lately I'm in a state of wonderment at the ability life has to be simultaneously amazing and awful.  Or joyous and depressing.  Or stressful and flatlined.  Pick your metaphors, they all fit. 

My friend Debbie, who has taken the reins over organizing my barn, my pastures, my horses and trying to convince me to implement ten thousand fabulous ideas all at the same time, says constantly "Its amazing how you're just so normal!"  I think she has it ass-backwards.  I think we get along really well because on a certain level we have brains that work the same (wrong, not-normal) way and we don't get frustrated by the tangential nature of practically every conversation we've ever had.  Over the course of the summer we've repaired stall doors and expanded so that I now have three working stalls.  When there was only one stall functional and three to four horses being fed with different requirements for supplements and each with the right to be able to eat without someone else chasing them away from breakfast, things were a little crazy out there.    She's also picked my dry pen clean of weeds and rocks.  She's found someone to haul away the manure pile.  She's found someone to put up wall racks for tack and someone to paint.  She's cleared the area behind the barn where all the scrap lumber and fencing materials used to get tossed (don't look at ME, the old owners started it, I just kept the tradition alive) and put down pallets and tarps and quadrupled our ability to store hay.

She also drives my husband a little batty because he is used to being along much of the time and she is by nature a very chatty person.  I can tell he likes her though. 

The kids this summer...what an amazing change in both of them.  My daughter is getting taller and more beautiful by the nanosecond.  She's taken two sessions of swimming lessons, gotten to level three and only needs to perfect two things to get to level four.  She's at that stage of transformation between little girl and startling long-legged tween and she's just stunning.  That's not even subjective mother-pride.  Its just God's honest truth.  What I find fascinating is her ability to verbalize her understanding that she knows she's growing up but she's not in any hurry to do so.  "I just want to be a kid, mom.  I don't want to grow up yet," she'll say, and my heart melts with love and pride and bittersweetness all at the same time.  She will grow up whether I will it or no.  I know that little girls can change dramatically as they age, and I hold onto the firm hope that the person she is, the things about her that make her so awesomely her will stay intact.   She gets more out of my reach every day, and as I let go with a heart that strains under the hope and fear, I simply pray that God lets life be gentle with her for as long as possible.  In les than two weeks she will be a fifth grader. 

My son is learning to negotiate.  His anxiety and ODD issues make certain things difficult.  He hates taking showers because he doesn't want to get any water in his eyes, but baths take too long and his anxiety informs him that soaking in your own dirty water is just YUCK.  So showers were always a struggle, until he came home from his dad's one weekend and announced that he and his dad worked out a deal:  Daddy bought him swim goggles and now he doesn't get upset in the shower.  I'm not sure who thought up the idea, but hot damn if it hasn't made getting the little dude clean a much less stressful event.  Hallelujah and pass the cornbread!  He's gotten tons more compliant about taking his meds, and he's learned to negotiate that as well.  We've also had to learn to listen when he starts to refuse things - sometimes we have a hard time remembering that his anxiety makes certain things far harder for him to tolerate than we can understand.  

SG has been a stay-at-home stepdad all summer and has had both kids pretty much every day of the week since their dad and I are both working, and I really believe his even-tempered nature has had a positive impact on both of them.   Their dad and I both tend to moodiness, and I sense that our unpredictability has been stressful for them.   They have evened out much, both of them, they fight with one another a lot less, and its clear that they both adore their stepdad.  School starts soon, so my husband will be joining the ranks of the employed unless I either get a highly unexpected and very large pay raise or I actually buy a lottery ticket and it turns out to be a winnah.  He's been my rock the last month or so while I've struggled physically and mentally.  That's love for you.  I am not afraid to admit that my patience is thin and my attitude bad, and he has endured it with a great deal more grace than I would likely exhibit were I in his shoes.

We lost Mojo kitty this summer.   He disappeared in the spring for a few weeks and when we finally found him he was so skinny and deteriorated we weren't sure he would make it.  He recovered for a while with special food and supplements and monitoring, but then he went suddenly downhill and we had to make the tough choice to say goodbye.  I suspect it was cancer.    He's joined Hercules, Lady and our little old banty hen Cin-Cin under the tree out in the back pasture.  I think I've learned pretty well the last few years that people and animals too often leave our lives far sooner than we are prepared for them to do, and it reminds me to make a point of taking time each day for each animal to have some attention, for me to be more vigilant about picking up the phone, and to treasure every opportunity to play with my children and create memories to sustain me when they have grown up and begun lives of their own.  It will happen sooner than I think.

How's your summer been so far?

 

Lessons Learned Chapter 28

Just because your husband leaves you a voicemail that says he's heading home shortly and by your most generous calculations he will be home by dinner doesn't mean he actually will be. 

If no one else will eat the tomato pie, you probably shouldn't either.  You might end having it come out of you in the form of hot lava for the better part of the following morning.

Just because you've had the same crappy Blackberry with the cracked clitoris (isn't that what those buttons are, really?) for three years don't assume you're going to be on the replacement schedule sooner than the guy who's only had his for a year plus two months. You haven't been cultivating the IT department like you should.

Don't wait until the betta fish starts swimming sideways to clean the tank.  It is much less traumatic to keep the current fish alive than to live through the waterworks and wailing when you have to replace her.  Apparently it is possible to LOVE a fish.

Even though your enormous rottie mix is completely gentle when playing with your Chihuahua does not mean he will extend the same courtesy to your cat.  Or your chickens.

Never ask your kids what they want for dinner.  Tell them what they're having and then become selectively deaf.  Its louder but it saves you an hour when you don't have to cook three separate meals.

If your dog asks you to go outside at three o'clock in the morning, let him.  Opening the door to let him out and then back in again takes less time than cleaning up the massive pile of vomit he'll leave next to your new pair of shoes.

Your husband has learned nothing from the last thirty times he left the water on and flooded the dry pen. 

You - and your horse - are capable of so much more than you know.  If you're willing to give the relationship time and trust the guidance of a good trainer, you'll find out just what.

Flooded pasture aside, you know the relationship is forever when you'll let your husband have a look at the ingrown hair...well...THERE.  And he actually will without complaining.

Go ahead and drink the really expensive bottle of wine for no particular reason at all.  It will taste better and be more memorable than you think.

Life can be really awesome.  If you let it.

 

 

 

 

 

So, it wasn't ghosts

For months now we've been having problems with our electricity.  Weird problems.  The lights will flicker dramatically for a few seconds and then half the house will lose power.  It will stay off anywhere from 10 minutes to several hours, and then pop back on like nothing ever happened.

None of the circuit breakers trip when these power losses occur.  Flipping the breakers on and off does nothing to make the power come back on.  Occasionally, like yesterday, it will come on if you flip on a single light -- the light comes on and so does everything else.

But the parts of the house that go out are not all on the same side.  The TV in the corner of the living room goes and the entry way light - but not the table lamps on the other side of the room.  The hood light on the stove goes out - but not the stove.  My bedroom lights and my bathroom lights go, as does my bedroom TV and the hall light, but the kids' bathroom right next to mine and the kids' rooms all work fine. 

This is annoying enough for obvious reasons - blow-drying your hair in the morning when there is no power anywhere near your mirror is a seriously inconvenient thing to cope with.  Many a morning I've had to stand in the kitchen with my little round magnifying mirror.  Not being able to watch a show when the kids have everything else tied up - or even worse, having the bedroom DVR shut off in the middle of recording this week's episode of Game of Thrones -- that's seriously impacting my world.  But the worst, the absolute worst part of it is how it impacts the kids.

My son's classroom is designed around helping children with autism learn social and behavioral skills.  Everything is based on positive discipline.  The kids have several tools to earn prizes.  Sticker books for a toy out of the classroom toybox, a penny board for bigger rewards at the end of a day if enough pennies are earned.  Race Car Man's challenge has been to earn the letters K-I-N-D-L-E every day.  If he displays an expected behavior - complying with a request, transitioning from a task, being kind to another student, working on the task at hand -- he earns a letter.  If he earns all of the letters, that evening at home he can do his favorite thing -- play Roblox on the computer, or Skylanders on the Wii.  It started off as earning Kindle back when I first got the Fire and he wanted to play on it all the time.  Currently he is obsessed with gaming, and it is enormously motivated to earn the privilege of playing. 

Imagine a day when he has been great -- TERRIFIC in fact, and he comes home excited to continue the level he had to stop in the middle of on his Skylanders game last night because it was bedtime.  He turns on the Wii, turns on the TV, powers up the Portal of Power, and puts the chosen Skylander on it.  He starts playing, and he's having a great time.  "Mommy!" he'll call out.  "Look what I got for Gill Grunt in my upgrade!"  If I don't come running, he'll pester me until I look.  He's enjoying his reward, rightfully earned.  Suddenly and without warning, the power goes out and his game cuts off. 

This would be hard enough for a neurotypical child.  For a child with autism, it is akin to the end of the universe.  You can imagine the screaming.

If we were lucky, the power would come right back on.  If we were not, it would be out for hours and my son would be nearly inconsolable.  If he and his sister were playing the game together I 'd have two upset children howling at the same time.  You probably don't want to check my store receipts to see how much the consumption of wine and comfort food increased since this started happening.

We had some very miserable nights the last few months.

Our first assumption was that it was spikes or lags from the utility district.  We've had a lot of new construction in our area the last few years.  A 5 acre field that used to have grapevines on it was turned into a small development for about 12 big houses, and there are similar developments popping up everywhere.  After all, the additional users has had a huge impact on our internet service.  Five o'clock rolls around and the internet slows to a damn crawl anymore.  (Hel-loooooo Charter?  Upgrade your lines already!)

I called the PUD and they sent a guy the same day.  He looked at the power pole in the pasture and the transformer on the street, took some readings at the box on the house, and told me he could find nothing wrong.  He determined the problem must be in the house.

I called an electrician.  They dispatched a technician to diagnose the problem.  He couldn't really find anything but made a couple of recommendations.  When I had the money to implement, I scheduled the work.  The guy came out yesterday and did his thing.  I paid him and he went on his merry way.

I left shortly after that to pick the kids up from school and came home 15 minutes later to find half the house was dark and unresponsive.  SHIT.  I flipped a few breakers, went to my bedroom and turned the light on - and everything came back.  OK.  Hopefully this was just a fluke because someone was working on the box?  Of course not.  We went to Race Car Man's therapy appointment and came back again to a house without half its power.  My son had earned his reward in school and been very good for his therapy appointment, and he was itching to play Skylanders, so you can imagine the level of meltdown.  I called the electrician back.  He said he would come as soon as he could.  The power didn't come on for a couple of hours, but managed to resurrect itself ten minutes before he arrived.

Figures.

He still couldn't find the problem, but while he was looking, it went out again.  He tested the incoming power to the breaker panel and guess what?  We were getting almost nothing in on the left side of the panel from the lines to the house. 

After a rather terse conversation with the PUD, two very nice gentlmen arrived and worked on overtime hours to fix what turned out to be corroded and loose wires at the transformer.

Somehow I don't think they're going to reimburse me the $500 I paid to the electrician for something I didn't really need, but I'll forgive them since all I really wanted was for the screaming to stop.

Grounding

I never sleep well on Sunday nights.  The person I am on the weekends and when I'm at home is who I really am.  Shedding that costume when I leave work is effortless.  Putting it back on Monday morning is like trying to squeeze into a dress that just doesn't fit quite right.  Its not painful or even uncomfortable, but you know that it just isn't "you."

I hauled my three pasture guests up to Michelle's on Saturday.  They're going on 12 acres of grass for the summer, which will be great for them.  All three are looking shiny and healthy and happy.  Such nice girls, really, and I look forward to going over and working with them some in the coming months.

I brought my boys back home, and good gracious does it feel nice to have them back.  I missed their faces, missed watching Bugs stick his head over the fence in order to provoke T-Bone and laugh at him when he gets in trouble for barking at the horses. 

Sunday was a gorgeous day, and I took full advantage to gain traction on the many projects that need doing in the yard and pasture.  I cut down and cut up one of the three junk trees, mowed, watered, and got about 3/4 of the chicken run fence done.  I let Bugs and Zenon into the "free" area between the barn and the front lot so they could "mow the grass" for me, and after I wore myself out physically, I took a break, took off my shoes and sat down in the grass with my horses and just hung out with them for a bit. 

I was reading some stuff lately about a thing called "earthing."  The theory, confirmed by research, is that human beings carry a positive charge.  Just walking barefoot for 20 or 30 minutes a day produces physiological changes in our bodies and connective tissue.  Earthing proponents claim that it reduces pain, helps us to fight off the effects of aging, and promotes a better spiritual connectedness to our environment and to other people. 

All I know is that the simple act of sitting barefoot on the ground, listening the the rythym of grass chewed and tails swishing gave me a small piece of time in which I felt truly at peace and and really at home in my own skin.  I needed it.  We all do, need to have time where we can relax and just be.

Work and life and troubles are always there waiting for my attention.  That doesn't mean I have to focus on them 24/7.

 

More cuteness than you can possibly handle

Michelle let Buck cover one mare this year, and she decided to drop her baby in the wee dark hours of Tuesday morning, after Monday night's thunderstorms had used up all their rage.

As soon as we could stuff dinner in our faces and get the animals stuffed full of dinner, we climbed in the truck and went to pay a visit to the shiny new filly, who has yet to be named.

Begging your pardon for the cruddy cell phone photo quality, meet the cutest damned thing EVER:

Look at that sweet little star on her face...and her dorsal stripe!  I'm guessing she'll be a buttermilk buckskin or a very light gray/silver grulla. 

Dinner!  Or Breakfast!  Or something!

 

Proud mama.

 

I'ze tired now.  You go 'way so's I can sleep.  ZZZZZZZZZ

Momma is a super sweet, balanced mare who is also stacked like a brick shithouse.  She's my very favorite type of quarter horse - deep in the chest, big in the hip, short back, wide forehead, big eyes, little ears.  Daddy is also the sire of my gelding Bugs, and he is a dark red buckskin.  I'm hoping she gets Buck's size and Momma's personality.  Except that means I'll never convince Michelle to sell her to me.

Baby horses are just about my favorite thing in the spring, closely followed by baby cows, baby ducks, chicks and...pretty much anything that's a baby.  Except maybe baby spiders, I'm pretty sure I don't like those.

On trying to have the right attitude

I am alive again.  Sort of.

My new doc has diagnosed me with low thyroid and last week I started medication.  Whether it was the 80-plus degree weather all weekend or the new medication, my energy kicked back into gear for the first time in a long time.  I did dishes and laundry, cleaned floors, took the dog to the vet,  pulled the mats out of the horse trailer and scrubbed them, bought horse feed, cleaned stalls, groomed horses, took the kids to the circus and had dinner with my parents.

Last night our hot weather broke with a vengeance.  The Eastern Washington sky lit up like a Christmas tree for several hours, with lightning and thunder from all sides.  As the colder air moved in, we also got some seriously heavy winds at the house.  Usually the storms don't bother the kids, but for some reason this one had my son feeling anxious and afraid.  I don't often let the kids sleep in my bed, but if ever a night called for a sleepover with Mom, this did.  The storm kept up well past our bedtime, but even after it finally quieted down enough for us to sleep, the jostling and the Move over!'s meant none of us slept much. 

It made for a tough morning.  Both the kids were downright buggers.  I was really late for work, as a result.   Nobody wanted to take medication, nobody wanted to get dressed, nobody wanted to do much of anything except fight with everyone else and make a lot of racket.  And its hard when you haven't gotten enough sleep to be very cognizant of the fact that my children are not struggling because they want to make my life miserable, my children are struggling because they are exhausted and its even harder for them to cope with life's demands than it is for their mother.

It was easy last weekend to have a good mindset about SG being gone.  I felt good, I was getting things accomplished, the house looked good and I was managing it all without too much struggle.  This morning had me singing a different tune.  This morning I felt resentful and tired and frustrated with being what I've come to think of as a "married single." 

When did I forget all the stuff I learned when I really was a single mom?

I had day after day after day just like this morning without the hope of an end in sight.  It was HARD.  I didn't think for one second I would ever have a partner in my life to share the burden with me.  It was not a truly irrational assumption to make that there aren't many people out there who would be willing to partner up with a middle-aged woman with two high-needs/special-needs children, an aging house, a mountain of debt and more animals than hitched a ride on the ark. 

I read some of my blog posts from those days and I am surprised at how much I was able to put a positive face on things, because I know exactly how tired and hopeless I often felt.

When I met SG I was really hesitant about getting involved with someone.  First of all, I didn't really think I was by any means a "catch" and I wasn't sure he really understood what he was getting into.  Second, I didn't want to burden a partner with issues that had nothing to do with him.  We've had a lot of discussion around what things were mine to deal with and what things were "ours" and that I didn't expect him to feel responsible for things that weren't his responsibility.    But there's never been a moment where he's hesitated to step in and shoulder the load of my kids or my animals or the shitstorm of chores this rural lifestyle requires.  And the more he does that, the more I come to rely on him being here to keeping doing it.

Because he helps so much, the contrast in my life between "together" and "apart" is about as stark as it can possibly be.  I'm not dependent on him to survive, oh hell no.  I've done this before, I'll do it again.  There's a difference between being dependent on someone else and knowing you can depend on them. 

If nothing else, our situation allows me to be grateful for how much of a good partner SG is to me and to realize how generous and loving a man he is.  It also reminds me not to complain to much about having to do the heavy lifting on a temporary basis, because there are millions of moms and dads out there who are doing all this and more and they don't have a partner to help them, ever, or parents who can pitch in like mine do.  They may not have the good fortune of an employer like mine, who not only says they value families, but put their money where their mouth is and don't make a hard situation even harder by punishing me for being late when days like today happen.

So I'll acknowledge that today I am tired and dragging and feeling frustrated as a parent and a partner, but that things could be a hell of a lot worse and I really can't wait until my husband comes home.

 

 

 

Brighter days

Its almost seven a.m. and I need to get up and get moving.  The farrier's coming in two hours and then the vet, and if the girls get the all clear, I can get them vaccinated and wormed.  The oldest of my guest horses is the slowest gaining weight.  Getting her teeth floated helped, but I'm hoping that once I can worm her we'll turn the final corner and start seeing some roundness to her.

I've been sitting in bed watching Gizmo chew on Roscoe's ears.  He does this weird thing where he'll start chewing on the end of one long floppy ear, and then he gradually pulls it all the way in so he's got a mouthful of ear which he masticates with eyes half closed, clearly enjoying it.  After chewing blissfully for a few seconds he spits it out and starts all over again.  By the time he's done (or I speak sharply at him to stop), Roscoe's ear is absolustely soggy with Chihuahua saliva.  He patiently lies there the whole time Gizzy's chewing on him.  I can't tell if he really likes it or simply tolerates it.  Dogs are simply unknowable at times.

SG comes home today.

Yes, it was a surprise.  He picked up a cold that turned into a bronchial infection the last week or more of the job he was working.  He'd been to the doctor and gotten antibiotics and such, but as he was packing to head to the next job, he still wasn't feeling right.  He went back to the doctor and his blood pressure was really high, which is worrisome.  But the doctor wasn't comfortable with him driving 2500 miles to work six twelve hour days a week for several weeks, so we talked it over and he made the decision to come home.  Fortunately he may still be able to go to the next job on a delayed basis, so if he gets the all-clear from his doctor here, it won't be a complete wash.  He'll get the work AND I get a conjugal visit.  We all win!

I've been on vacation most of the week with the kids on spring break.  I've managed to do at least a few of the tasks I was hoping to accomplish, which means my house and yard have begun to approach "acceptable" status.  They'd look even better, but I wisely chose to use as many days as possible this week to ride Bugs.

Its hard to put into words just how satisfying its been to ride him.  He is progressing so nicely right now.  Mentally he's become a more reliable and mature fellow.  Physically he is beginning to understand and respond to my requests to collect and round his back.  As he begins to collect and round for longer and longer segments, the pleasure of being the person on his back becomes indescribable.  There is something intensely pleasurable about riding a horse who is completely collected.  His face is at the vertical, he's flexed at the poll and his neck is nicely arched.  His feet are underneath him and the action at his knees and hocks becomes more obvious.  If  you're watching him from the ground you can hardly take your eyes from him because he just looks so great, and if you're lucky enough to be riding him, you can't keep the grin off your face because you know he feels and looks spectacular.  My cheeks are actually sore from the grinning this week. 

We also worked on some trail obstacles in preparation for our riding clinic tomorrow.  Michelle dragged out some old tractor tires and we took the black plastic from her garden and made a "black hole of death" obstacle.  Bugs negotiates the tires quite well, and even when he's stepped on the side of a tire and it flipped up and banged him in the hocks he did not get perturbed.  I can run him through them on the ground or on his back and he's a tire-crossing demon.  The black tarp of death is an entirely different matter.  He's pretty sure its going to kill him.  We made great progress with it, and yesterday I had him standing on the tarp while I flipped and rattled the edges of it.  He didn't like it much, but he stayed put. 

To have a good trail horse, you've got to get two things to happen.  You have to get your horse to trust you enough that he believes you will never ask him to do something that will get him killed.  He is a prey animal, and as such is highly reactive to unfamiliar stimuli.  Things that flutter or move can be terrifying.  Water looks like its a huge hole he could fall into.   A level headed horse who doesn't spook easily is wonderful to have, but more often than not a horse is not born that way, you need to help him learn to be that way. 

It is also a lot of fun to torture your horse when you think he's being unreasonably sensitive. 

Chicks arrived this week.  I've got three silver-laced Wyandottes, one Rhode Island Red, and four tiny little yellow banties.  Four layers and four pets. They're so cute and fluffy, we love to hold them and listen to them chirp.  If you hold one long enough it will fall asleep on your hand, and its almost unbearably cute.  They are doing much to satisfy my baby cravings.

Happy Easter to all of you who celebrate it this weekend, happy Spring and happy Eoster to those of you who don't.  Spring reminds me that life is a continual opportunity for renewal and redemption.  This week has certainly felt that way.

Characters

When I was really young, we lived in the city, but my parents had a Big Plan to eventually live in a more rural setting.  Dad is ten years older than Mom, and so by the time I arrived, he already had a good 15 years or so in the Fire Department.  As he got closer to his 25, my folks bought a two and a half acre patch right smack in the middle of a small island in Puget Sound.  The Island, as residents call it, is about seven miles long and maybe a mile and a half wide at the widest point.  We lived on the belt of the island, and if you stood in the middle of our road you could see water on both sides.  We could watch all the ships going into Seattle from the Strait of Juan de Fuca from our living room window.  When she still sailed, you could set your watch by the Princess Marguerite on her way to Victoria.  7:10 AM sharp she would appear between the trees.  I never got to sail on that ship, and I always wondered what she was like. 

Our small island was a wonderful place to be a kid.  It was safe.  Everyone knew everyone else.  People always waved at one another when they passed by in their cars. 

Mr. and Mrs. Kidd lived in a small white house off the main road.  They had several acres and Mr. Kidd mowed the grass between the big clumps of blackberry bushes, so it was a favorite place to ride horses.  Before I had horses of my own they had a shetland pony that someone kept at their place and they would let me ride her.  She was a nasty little pony, as Shetlands are wont to be, but it didn't stop my friends and I from pretending she was an enormous brown steed.   Mrs. Kidd would always call us into the house for a treat - usually cookies or a coffee cake she had made, served with a big glass of milk fresh from the neighbor's cow.  Mr. Kidd was a slow driver.  When he was alone on the road he would drive exactly five miles under the speed limit, but if someone got behind him, he would drop to ten under.  The island is full of a lot of curvy roads and few good places to pass.  No one liked getting behind Mr. Kidd.

When I had my own horse I spent a lot of time riding on the beach.  If the tide was out my friends and I would race along at full tilt on the tide flats.  When the tide was up, we would go up the beach as far as we could before turning around and heading home.  I would usually see Bob, the local drunk, when I was on the beach.  He was a harmless guy, probably in his mid- to late- 40's, though it was hard to tell sometimes.  He lived with his parents on the island.  I don't remember his whole story, though Dad may remember it, but I know that he was always nice to me.  He'd be sitting in the sand, using a big log as a chair back, with his big jug of Gallo.  My folks taught me to be pleasant to people, always, and because he was so very unthreatening, I would always stop and say hello when I saw him.  Later on when I went away to college, I would sometimes get cards and letters from Bob.  He even sent me a Valentine's Day card once, which I guess in retrospect was kind of weird, but at the time just seemed really sweet.   His kidneys eventually failed on him and he went on dialysis.  He died a few years after I grew up and left home. 

Rod and Willie's house was a favorite destination to ride my horse.  Rod was an independent home builder, and he helped Dad build both of the houses we had on The Island.   His wife, Willie, was a real character and always fun to talk to.  My first horse was named Willie Wonka and I think she got a perverse kick out of having me ride Willie to visit Willie.  I'd ride up the beach to the trail to their house, tie my horse to a tree in the yard and go in for a pop and a snack.  Willie got throat cancer and died, sadly.  Before she got real sick she had to have her voice box taken out.  She had one of those electronic voice boxes and she would talk by holding a microphone to her throat.  She never did seem to lose her sense of humor and she was always nice to me even after things got bad. 

Sometimes I would ride up the main road to and meet my friend Glenda and her horse and sometimes Lori and her appy gelding and we would go across past the Seventh Day Adventist school to the big open field behind Shold's house.  You could go over the hill and through a path in the woods to the Island's other main road (there were really only two).  The trail led you to a small group of houses everyone called "SDA Village" because that's where most of the SDA families lived.  The trail was what the kids used to walk to school.  There was one family there I babysat for.  They had a beautiful golden retriever and their kids were easy to babysit. 

A few miles up the back road was Finis Steven's place.  Mr. Stevens was an immensely interesting and erudite man.  He's gone now, but he had lived on the island most of his life.  As late as the 1970's he still heated his house with a wood stove, grew his own hay, ate from his own vegetable garden, and fixed all of his own equipment.   He had a large block of acreage on the back side of the island, and there were wide grass trails through the trees that he maintained.   He spent years establishing relationships with the squirrels that lived in the trees there.  Every day he would go walk the trails and feed nuts to his squirrels, and he had taught them to do all kinds of tricks.  I don't think he every took money to give demonstrations with his squirrels, but most of the kids and families in the area at one point or another had walked those trails and watched him run those squirrels through their paces.  I wonder what happened to his squirrels after he died.