WV

Wadestown, WV : A bend in the road, a garage with a tiny store, a post office and a church. Turn the bend and head up the hill and you'll find a gate and a driveway on the right. Open the gate and head down the hill and you'll come to a rill and a foot bridge. Cross the bridge and come around the house and this is the sight you'll see in the fall when deer are in season.

This is where my kids and I lived from 1988 until 1992. Wild and wonderful West Virginia. We lived in a tiny house without TV or internet. If you had to go to the bathroom and it was chilly out you had better plan ahead. The outhouse had a heater with a switch in the house, but you needed to turn it on about 10 minutes before you made the chilly trip out there or you would literally freeze your buns off.

In the winter if you wanted a hot bath  it involved a big galvanized tub pulled up close to the wood stove and heating water on the propane stove. You could have a hot shower in the summer, but you'd be showering out in the yard using the warm water from the garden hose. For a cold shower you could use the indoor shower, but that water was COLD. It came out of a spring on the mountain and flowed downhill to the house in a pipe.

I wanna be a carpenter

This is Anders. That is  Grandpa Dave's hat on this head and I suspect that is his hammer too.

Grandma Dorothy's guessing wall

When I was little my Grandma Dorothy went to a lot of auctions. Her house was full of beautiful antique dressers, chairs, davenports and interesting old books. Some of her more interesting finds ended up on what I thought of as the "Guessing wall". Some things on the wall I knew what they were for and some things remained a mystery for years.

A few of the oddities on the wall in this picture include: a calf weaning appliance that looks like something from a castle dungeon, a hand auger, a mold for making a "pudding", a kraut cutter, and a butter mold.

Now & then

My Great grandparents' house now . . .and a long time ago...

I love this old farmhouse. It sits at the front of our farm close to the road. There was a lilac bush in the front full of lavendar blooms in the spring and an apple tree in this side yard. We used to pick the little hard green apples and my Great Grandpa would whittle a short stick sharp on both ends so we could spear apples on it to make "dumb bells" so we could play "strong man". Ok so I'm a girl... at that age it didn't really matter.

There used to be a big carpet in the living room that had roses on it. I remember sweeping it as a child and up until a few years ago I still had that carpet. Walking through the house now it seems small. But it was big enough to hold a whole lot of love. Years ago my great grandparents, my great aunt and uncle, my mom and her brother were all living there in the summer. Mom says she never felt like it was ever crowded. Years later my parents lived there and I moved in with them while I went to nursing school.

This is the house where my great-grandmother taught me to bake sweet rolls and big soft loaves of bread. The house where we would all sit down to dinner and when my great grandpa was full he would look up suddenly and say "Look at that bird!" When you looked he would slide his leftovers onto your plate. He was always full of mischief like that.

There used to be a workshop on the back of the house with a ceiling so low that I still wonder how Grandpa Webb, who was tall, could ever have done anything standing up in there. The workshop is gone now, replaced a patio and a 3-season room.

My daughter and her husband live there now. She's planted tulips beside the sidewalk and painted the rooms in cheery colors. That old house is still full of love.

Rats are people too

And they like story time as much as anybody. This is my son, Anders, and his pet rat reading together. Don't ask me what the safety glasses are all about, but this is one of my favorite pictures. He had put the arm rest cover on his head so the rat couldn't climb in his hair. That rat went everywhere with him.
I believe the book in his hand may be either Fifteen Rabbits or Brighty of the Grand Canyon. Two of the first "chapter" books I ever read to my kids.

Belle Pony

This is Belle Pony as apposed to Bell the horse. When we were growing up we had both a horse and a pony named Belle. The pony came first and she stayed around the longest. Many of my childhood adventures have Belle Pony in them. Like most ponies she had some ornery habits.
When you went to get on you had to be sure you had the off rein pulled tight to keep her head turned away. If you didn't she'd nip you on the knee as you got up. She could open any feed bin no matter how clever you thought you were about closing it up tight and pony proofing it. As a consequence of her over eating she foundered and needed careful hoof care and a watchful eye.
Oh and I swear she deliberately stepped on my toes.

But for all of her less than perfect ponyness, she was my favorite and my partner in adventure. When we were very little my mom and my grandma would load all of us kids on her bareback. At the time that was 3-4 kids on board. Then they would lead us around the field to check the corn. When the pony went around the corner we would all slip off into a heap. :) Grandma would put us all back on again and off we'd go.
My best friend and I used to try to "roman ride" one Belle - like in the circus. One of us standing up on her broad behind while the other one lounged her in a circle until we lost our balance and fell or slid down to sit on her back. It's a miracle we never got hurt.

I can't even count the lazy afternoons when I packed a "lunch" and headed out alone to wander over the farm. I'd find a likely spot for my picnic and tie Belle to a tree. More often than not while I was nibbling and daydreaming she would  untie herself and light out for home leaving me to hoof it home on my own.

Bell taught me about the circle that is life. The picture above is of Belle with one of her babies. Belle's was the first foal I saw born. And one year Belle was expecting and she caught pneumonia. She was my pony so it was my job to go out and give her an antibiotic shot each day. She coughed and she coughed for what seemed like forever to me. When she foaled the baby was stillborn. I buried the tiny foal in the rain up on the little hill behind the barn with a little stick cross to mark the spot. Then I led Belle up the hill so she would know where her baby was. I cried. Belle nuzzled my hand and we both trudged back down the hill with water dripping off of our noses.

Belle lived to give my children rides when they were small. She died at the ripe old age of 36 on the home farm where we grew up.

Meet me

This is me 24 hours old and already looking around for something to get into!