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My Fourth blog on WDC |
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Welcome to Almosta Blog, the stories that happen every day here on Almosta Ranch. Come on in and be welcome, draw up a chair and set a spell on the front porch with me and my sweet wife, Melinda, better known as Mel. What you will find here are stories about our many animals, and our daily life on a working ranch. Not the most riviting of subjects but I will try to hold your interest. |
I just put a new short story in my portfolio and I would really appreciate it if you could take a moment and let me know what you think about it. "Invalid Item"  It is about a three minute read and I hope to add more such stories in the future as I try to reconnect with my writing roots. thank you, in advance. |
| I have decided that with this new blog I want to use Sundays as a day to remember my blog past and visit the vault to find something to share again with you who may not have been around the first time the story appeared. Today's entry is from 2010 and first appeared in my blog on Open Salon. Many things have changed since then. My wife has died and I no longer live on the farm but this memory of our early time endures and is one of my favorites. JUNE 27, 2010.....A YOUNG GIRL ON A CHESTNUT STALLION.... The Red Truck carried me toward Poplar Bluff, inexorably toward work, on the now familiar ribbon of blacktop. Inside the truck I hold one hand on the wheel and let my mind run free....this is my time and I have grown to cherish the half-hour commute. The radio is playing softly and the strands of Dan Seal's country hit, Everything that Glitters is not Gold fills the cab of the truck. I love this song but not because it is about a woman who leaves her husband and child behind to pursue fame on the rodeo circuit, but because of one verse in the song: "But, oh sometimes I think about you and the way you use to ride out in your rhinestones and your sequins With the sunlight in your hair." That one verse always reminds me of my wife, Melinda. Now all of you who have followed my blog for any length of time know that Mel and I have only known each other for ten years and have been married for nine and we met on the Internet. She was born and raised in Michigan and I in Texas. In those early days of "Getting to know you" time, we use to talk endlessly on the computer and the phone. We stayed up all night exchanging life stories and telling tales of our childhood and generally sharing everything of importance in our lives with each other. It was during one of these phone calls that I told her the story of my Summer of Discovery. My buddy and I were supposed to be traveling to Michigan to work on a pipeline for the Summer....no nonsense...just work. We were teenagers for God's sake...like that was gong to happen! Now the trip itself was a once in a lifetime experience, filled with high drama and low comedy that I may one day share with you in its entirety but for now the important part of the story is that my friend and I ended up in Flat Rock, Michigan working on a pipeline. On the way to Flat Rock, we were traveling a little used, rural black-top road when we happened upon a vision of beauty that stayed with me for the intervening forty some odd years. As we blasted down the road at seventy miles per hour, we topped a hill and entered a flat stretch of road that ran through a large farm area, the land on both sides of the road was plowed and planted as far as the eye could see. There, on the side of the road and headed the same direction as we were headed was a sight that took my breath away. A young girl, maybe fifteen or sixteen, was riding this big Chestnut stallion bareback and at a full canter. As we passed her I turned and looked closer and saw at once that she was beautiful. Her long blond hair blew in the wind as she rode that horse not like a rider, but rather like she was a part of the horse; knees tucked in and back straight. Her hands held the reins loosely and her head was slightly turned in our direction as we passed. Her bright, blue eyes pierced me and held me captive and there was a slight smile on her full lips. She blew me away. My buddy was driving and in spite of my repeated blows to his shoulders and my yelling: "Stop the freaking car! I gotta meet this girl!" He kept going....we had miles to go and work to do.....damn his soul! When I related this story to Mel there was a sudden silence on the phone line. "What's wrong?" I asked her. "Well," she said. "That particular stretch of road is very familiar to me. Back then it was sparsely populated and I rode my horse along there almost every day during the summer." Now it was my turn to be quiet. I was wondering.....could it be that she was that girl? Fast forward a few months: I am standing at the airport gate waiting for Melinda to step off the plane for her first visit to Texas. She was the last person off the plane and when I first spotted her striding confidently across the space that separated us, her blond hair tossing on her shoulder, a lump formed in my throat. When she got to me and didn't even slow down.....just walked into my arms and kissed me.....I knew....she WAS that girl. She brought further proof of my first "almost" meeting with her in the form of old pictures of her on that big Chestnut Stallion! So Saturday, as I rushed toward work and I listened to that song again and that one verse, my mind was filled with the beautiful sight of that young girl on that horse....so wild and free and so very beautiful. But that's not so very peculiar. You see, every time I look at my sweet wife I see her as she was that long ago Summer day; riding that big horse bareback with the wind in her hair and that smile on her face. She will always look that way to me. |
| I was reading blogs this morning when I ran across one that was answering a prompt. The prompt was: "If you could travel through time to another era to live what would it be and why." Or words to that effect anyway, and it got me to thinking. There is only one other time in history that I would consider and that is the American West during the era of the Mountain Men. Roughly from 1810 to 1840 men like Jim Bridger, Jedediah Smith, and Hugh Glass, roamed the great wilderness West of the Mississippi river. Jedediah Smith once remarked that while he was out trapping beaver, if he happened to spot the smoke from a chimney, he knew it was time to move on, that it was getting too crowded at that spot. THAT is the America I would love to see, one that is free of the pollution and destruction brought on by today's overpopulation. Can you imagine coming upon a wide, green, valley bordered by aspen and fir, with a wild, clear and clean river flowing through it and the only living things you see are deer and buffalo, wolf and cougar and bear. My God it would be enough to make a man believe in Heaven again. To be able to live a simple life in that valley surrounded by nothing but nature and with no other people within a hundred miles or so....perfection. As long as I can remember I have yearned to live the life of a Mountain man. When not grudgingly attending school, I spent every free minute I could manage, riding my horse through the deep pine forests of East Texas and spending my nights camped along a creek or river and trying to imagine myself exploring a new land with Jim Bridger and his companions. So here I am today, well into my sixth decade of life and that yearning and that dream is as strong now as it was when I was a child. Who knows, maybe one day...... |
** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Today I was reading one of my absolute favorite blogs here on WDC written by zwisis in which she was telling about Winter in Africa and it reminded me of my own experiences with this season when I lived in Missouri, on Almosta Ranch. Now you have to understand that because I was born and raised in Southeast Texas I knew little or nothing of the phenomenon of four distinct seasons. All we ever had was varying shades of hot, warm, or mildly cool. When my wife and I first moved into our old farm house it was well into Fall in Missouri and I was lulled into a false sense of euphoria by the mild temperatures and the beautiful, changing colors of the foliage. Then, within a month of our arrival, Winter made its appearance and I was shocked. Never in my life had I experienced temperatures below zero, never watched ten inches of snow accumulate in my yard or ice cover my trees. In short, I was spending days, snowed in and checking train schedules for passage back to Texas. I hated everything about Winter! Then, one day when I had just about reached the end of my tether, the temperature took a spike upward to almost 50 degrees and I was amazed at how warm that felt after sub-zero weather. The snow had started to melt and patches of bare ground was visible when we ventured outside onto our front porch. That was when Mel pointed toward the back of our property and said softly, "Look at that sight." I looked in the direction she was pointing and saw the sight pictured above. I can truly say I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life. All those trees, leaves striped bare by howling winds, had now replaced the dead foliage with new, sparkling " leaves" of ice which sparkled like jewels in the weak Winter sun. From that day forward to this one, Winter became my favorite season. Oh yes, I would still bitch and moan about the cold and snow, but secretly I reveled in each and every day of that lovely season I was lucky enough to experience. |
| Today I thought I would bring you an excerpt from one of my older blogs. I have saved a collection of my favorite entries from my three blogs on this site as well as my long running blog on the now defunct Open Salon which i will one day publish as a collective work in the genre. I know some of you might remember this particular entry and I hope you don't mind this retelling of a good story. HELLO DOLLY, THUD!..... To those of you who say that animals don't have the ability to reason like humans I say: Balderdash! Animals think things through just like people....better sometimes, the thing is their thought process is done without vocal support. Case in point.....Not long ago I was sitting and watching our collective herd of horses and goats graze in the front pasture (Yes, my life is that exciting) when I noticed Billy, our Quarter-horse stallion standing very still and watching the goats intently. All the goats were more or less grazing together at the lower end of the pasture while the horses nibbled the grass up near the front fence. Billy watched them for a few moments and I could almost see the wheels turning in his head. He was thinking: "Da goats ain't paying me no mind. They got their heads down and eating so....if I run at em they are gonna scatter." So he did. Just like he figured, the goats scattered when he came thundering toward them. Except Dolly. Dolly is our Fainting goat and when Billy came running at the goats, neck extended, teeth showing, and whinnying loudly, all the goats ran away and Dolly promptly FAINTED! THUD! This turn of events caught Billy completely by surprise. Dolly dropped to the ground so quickly that he had to jump over her to keep from stepping on her prone body. Billy cleared the downed goat with room to spare and came to a screeching halt about ten feet past her. As the dust settled, Billy turned around and stared at Dolly who was just then struggling to her feet, having recovered her senses. "Wow, now that was different." I could read his thoughts through those big, expressive eyes. " I wonder if she will do that again?" Billy then made a quick turn and ran at Dolly again. THUD! Dolly hit the ground again. This time Billy merely stepped carefully over the prone body of the poor goat. For the next two or three weeks this became Billy's new hobby.....Run at the goats....watch all the goats run off....watch poor Dolly hit the ground. Watching Billy do this became MY new hobby. I'm not sure who got the biggest laugh out of it, me or Billy. Funny thing is, I caught Mel looking at me and just shaking her head and a few minutes later, I noticed Lucy, our brood-mare looking at Billy and doing the same thing...just shaking her head. Yeah, that proves it.....horses are a lot like people. |
| And so it came to pass, in the fullness of days, that I wandered into this place called WDC....translation: Back in 2004 I was directed here by a friend who said it was the place to go if I was serious about writing. Well I joined and I was amazed by the depth of talent here.Fiction, non-fiction, drama, Syfy, horror, suspense and Romance; all the genres you can imagine were represented here and I loved the place. Then, one fateful day, a few months into my membership, a friend suggested that I try something called a "Blog". Now to be perfectly honest, I didn't even know what a Blog was. I had no idea how to even start, but I figured, "What the hey, how hard can it be?" You see, back then I was pretty cocky about my writing, having done it nonstop for most of my life. I was a storyteller who loved to weave words around a campfire and the writing just stemmed from that love. Alas though, my very first trip into Blogville(that's what it was called back then)proved to me just how little I really knew about writing. As I wandered along the streets of Blogville, I would randomly open the doors of these homes and I would find.works of art in the form of the written word. It was like finding the Mona Lisa hanging over the mantels and I realized that these weren't just houses, they were mansions inhabited by masters of the Word. I knew then that I had a lot to learn and this was the place to do it. These Masters who called Blogville home did not write diary entries or small blurbs in answer to prompts, they wrote magnificent, stand-alone essays on life and the human condition that moved the reader and inspired the reader. In turns I found myself cheering at their words, or moved to tears and sometimes laughing out loud at their humor. It was a magical time and I learned so much from all of them here. Now, upon my return after a long absence, I sadly find most of those mansions boarded up and empty, their occupants long gone to greener pastures and their masterpieces which once hung with pride, gone with them. All is not lost though, I have managed to find a few of those mansions still inhabited, some only part-time, by Masters who have not gone on to other places. I still see a shadow of the place it once was and so I think I will hang around a bit and maybe move my own simple travel trailer into the outskirts of town and see what else I can find. I will keep opening doors and hoping to find more masterpieces hanging over the mantels...who knows...it could happen again. |
** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Melinda, my wife, was the undisputed Heart of Almosta Ranch. It was she that decreed, shortly after moving in, that this place would be a refuge for all the unwanted, unloved creatures great and small who were fortunate enough to cross our path and she made good on that promise over the years. Among the animals though she had a counterpart, a kindred spirit who saw himself as the protector of all creatures and humans that lived on the ranch. His name is Sherman and he is a gentle giant. A mix of Labrador and Great Pyrenees, Sherman was a large, strong dog. He weighed a hundred and fifty pounds in his prime and every pound dedicated to nurturing the babies born on the ranch and protecting the weak from all predators Sherman was one of two original dogs we brought with us from Texas when we moved to Missouri and bought the ranch and he was there from the beginning, greeting each new castaway that Mel brought home. It was common to see Sherman playing with the many baby goats we had and curled up taking a nap with a couple of baby pigs curled up next to him. They would all follow him around when he came into the barn and call to him when he left. There was one baby goat in particular, a little orphan, who we brought into the house for a time who stuck close to Sherman everywhere he went, indeed we had trouble when it came time to introduce him into the goat herd because he was convinced he was a dog, not a goat. Sherman was the first dog to greet the little white puppy Mel found freezing in a snowbank one night on her way home from town. The little fellow was half frozen and starved, barely alive and Mel and Sherman hovered over him all night, keeping him warm and feeding him. We named him Booker because he was found on the same day my first book was published and as I write this he is laying asleep on my bed. I think he still misses his big buddy, Sherman. When Mel passed away and I left the ranch for the last time I knew i would be unable to take Sherman with me so I did the next best thing; I found him a great home with my friend and neighbor up the road who Sherman already knew and liked and now, today, Sherman has his own couch to nap upon, two humans who love him, and a whole new set of babies to care for and raise. He's an old dog now and in a good place.....what more can a dog or human ask for. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
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