I'm Published!!!

 I'm finally published y'all! The book is available on Kindle right now. The paperback will be available in a few weeks. Whoop!! 😁

The Initiation

I played a trick on my little sister a few years ago that still makes me laugh out loud. I crack myself up.

We had just moved to our Montana mountaintop home the year before and my younger sister Lauri came for a visit. First, let me paint a picture for you of my sister. She is nothing like me. She's a real city girl. She likes expensive clothes, nice cars and take out food. She's a successful, professional, business woman, who works for a big pharmaceutical company. She looks like a Barbie doll - blonde, about 5'6", a size two and boobs big enough that always make me wonder how she doesn't just topple right over. She may have been 49 at the time but she looked 30. And even if she's not my favorite sister (oh please, don't even pretend you don't have favorites), she's really funny. 

Now my sister may have been a city girl but she was a real trooper. She handled all of the inconveniences of our off grid life very well. But still... she was such a fish out of water here. When we took walks, she insisted on carrying my big shotgun and spent the entire walk looking behind us for the bear or mountain lion that she KNEW was coming to eat us. And she wouldn't go anywhere by herself. She thought our mountaintop place was beautiful but it was really scary to her. She couldn't believe that I wasn't afraid to live here.

While Lauri was visiting, our bestest mountain neighbors Tim and Sue invited us all down to their little cabin in the woods for a get together, which we gladly accepted. 

As we drove down the mountain, on the curvy road in the trees, husband Butch driving, Lauri in the front seat as the Guest of Honor gabbing away, me in the backseat being ignored and all, I decided to play a trick on her making her think she was about to have to do something horrible. I was hoping Butch would just go along with it. 

Lauri had never met Tim and Sue and had not been to any of our mountain friend's homes. I said, out of the blue as we headed down there, "Lauri, ok I need to tell you something. The first time you go to a mountain person's house, there is a type of um, initiation and there are things you have to do. It's just part of mountain life. Just do it ok? It's expected. It wont hurt... that much and..."

Lauri, who even though tiny, has a HUGE mouth on her, looks a little alarmed and then her mouth starts running, "NO. No way. Unh uh!"

I continue on, "Really, it doesn't taste that bad. It won't last long. I only gagged a little! I did it. You can too!"

Lauri's mouth is still going a mile a minute, "Nuh uh bulll dookey I'm not doing it you can't make me let me out..."

I'm trying so hard not to laugh while Butch keeps looking at me in the rearview mirror, nodding his head seriously like what I'm saying is true. I went on, "Look you need to do this ok? If you don't, it will hurt our relationship with the mountain people. It's not that bad! Really. Just hold your nose and look brave. It's not THAT horrible. These mountain people are scary. We can't show any fear here or we're done, ok?!"

Lauri has her hand on the door trying to open it as we were going down the road, "I'm getting out now I'll walk home I'm not doing it no no no no NO!"

I finally started laughing and decided I'd better tell her the truth before she jumped out the window. I told her I was just kidding, there wasn't any initiation, that I made it all up. She looked at me with squinty eyes to see if I was telling her the truth and she couldn't tell. She thought it was just a plot to get her down there. To her credit, she stayed in the car and then met Tim and Sue with obvious trepidation. She looked like she was prepared to take off running at any moment. 

When I told our friends at the dinner table what I did to Lauri on the way to their house, we all had a hearty laugh together then Tim slowly stands up, grabs a bowl off the counter and starts to walk toward her with this scary look on his face. Lauri bolted out the door and we never saw her again.

Ha ha! Just kidding. Tim got her to come back in, eventually. It was dark outside. I guess she was more afraid of the bears than she was of a possible Initiation. 🤣 Poor thing! 

So now you know - all work and no play makes me ornery, so visitors will be treated as playthings for my personal amusement. I apologize ahead of time. 

Next: The Sasquatch Head

(👇That's not the Sasquatch below. That's Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top with us. Although he kinda looks like a Sasquatch, doesn't he? ;) )

TOLE You to Tamp Down the Snow

   

Let me tell you a story about snow ... and about not listening to your husband ... and the consequences thereof.

The first time I came up to our new mountaintop land was in January 2008 after my husband had already bought it. So exciting! Our very own homestead! The place was under a blanket of beautiful, fresh (way deeper than I thought) snow. Stunning! I had grown up in Houston, Texas so snow was a new, delightful thing to me. Little did I know.

 My husband Butch, my stepson Jay and I came up to the property to have a proper look around. We were tickled to find an old, log miner's cabin that had yellowed scraps of newspaper on the walls dating back to 1911. There were also signatures and notes on the walls from people who had visited over the years, some as old as 1913. Very cool!

After exploring the cabin, we all decided to sit down and rest for a bit - the trek in here on snowshoes had been long and difficult. I realized that I needed to pee so I told the boys I was going outside to potty, please don't come out there. As I was leaving the cabin, my husband quietly tells me, "Tamp down the snow before you go pee." Huh? Ok, whatever ...... I go on my merry way, whistling, around to the side of the cabin to the small berm of snow where it had fallen off the roof.

 Now to paint a picture for those of you who aren't used to being where it's very cold, the attire is this: underwear, two pairs of long johns, an assortment of about 20 T-shirts (layering!), a sweater, jeans, two pairs of gloves, two pairs of wool socks and one pair of cotton ones, scarf, fluffy cute hat, big warm boots, coveralls and large, clumsy snowshoes. Unzip coveralls and pull down, then the jeans, long johns and well, you get the idea. I am bare from my knees to my stomach and it's freezing! So awful having to go potty when it's this cold. Pretty much the only time I wish I were a man.

 I look back at that little two foot high snow berm and (mysteriously) think, "Ah, that would be a good place to go." (???) Long clumsy snowshoes still on, I balance myself atop the berm and tell myself, "OK. Go. Before you freeze." As I am concentrating and admiring the view, waiting for my body to do its thing, I feel myself slowly tipping forward and have nothing to grab ahold of. I am thinking, "Well, when I hit the snow I'll just put my hands out and stop myself." Riiiiiiight. You see, I had NO IDEA how deep this snow was.

So, to my utter surprise, instead of stopping me, my hands go right through the snow and I keep going until my whole head then plunges into the snow (Face plant!) and guess what? My bare butt is up in the air. And I'm stuck. Lovely. My snowshoes are still firmly on top of the snow berm, making my feet higher than my head, thereby throwing off my balance and keeping me from lifting my head up. To add insult to injury, when my head hit the snow, I gasped - and hey, did you know you could choke on snow? I am stuck, choking, freezing and desperately need to get my head OUT of there.

Bare butt sticking up in air.

Pulling my hands out of the snow, I put them back on top of the snow and push. All that happens is that my hands go right back down into the snow and my head moves not one inch. I am still choking, can't breathe and

Bare butt is still in the air.

I am getting fairly alarmed at this point by a few things. First I am TERRIFIED that my 25 year old stepson is going to come out and see what all the commotion is (I can't do anything quietly.). Second, I am wondering what my face will look like after they deal with all the frostbite. Third, I am not only choking, I am now laughing because I can see how truly funny this looks. Kind of like an ostrich except for the sand part and no feathers on my butt. And last, I am FREEZING!

Bare butt STILL in air.

STILL haven't peed yet.

I finally realize that pushing myself up with my arms isn't going to work and that I am going to have to fall over in the snow just to get my head out. Still in the same position, actually having an argument with myself.

"But I don't WANT to fall over in the snow. It's COLD!"

"But you will suffocate and DIE here if you don't. Is this really how you want to be found dead? With your naked butt in the air and your head planted in snow?" (as funny as that would be).

"Well, no. Of course not but I'll be laying semi-naked in the snow and it's just so miserable."

"Just DO IT!"

So, over I go and oh man, talk about COLD and gasping! I am however relieved that my head is finally free even though I am still choking and laughing and making quite a ruckus. To my horror, I then realize that not only are my snowshoes hopelessly entangled but that I chose to fall over facing towards the door of the cabin where my bare butt is still completely visible. "Please God, don't let Jay come out here. We'll never be able to look each other in the eye again!" To get my snowshoes untangled takes quite an effort - bringing them up off the ground (better view of my rear!) and thrashing away, hoping that they will just LET GO.

STILL haven't peed.

"WHAT is going ON out there?"

"NOTHING! DON'T come out here!!" choke, hack

I finally get the shoes apart and lay there just exhausted for a moment. I manage to stand up, turn rear AWAY from front of cabin and notice that I have snow in my collar, under my shirts, in my sweater, coveralls, long johns and jeans. I then notice that my butt is now a very pretty shade of purplish red and quite numb. (What if some of it is frostbitten?! Is that going to make sitting down an issue??) I also realize that

I still haven't peed

and say, "Forget THAT!" I don't even bother to get all the snow out of my clothes before I put them back on. I just want to get dressed and inside the frigid cabin which is less frigid than outside. My hair is completely wet and hanging limply at my face. Dragging myself to the cabin door, I lean against it, looking a bit bedraggled, totally worn out, sighing loudly, and my sweet husband quietly says,

"TOLE you to tamp down the snow."

Monkey See NO Evil 🙈

Sigh..... it's time to go get water again, which isn't THAT big of a deal except for the fact that the road to our spring is pure ice and I just HATE driving on ice, especially since that road is steeply downhill from my house AND has about a 1000 foot drop off on the side. Luckily, that road doesn't turn to ice very often but when I complained about this scary situation to my husband Butch, he encouragingly said, "Shoot. You won't go far if you go over the edge. You'll hit a tree or boulder and stop, at some point. Heh heh."

 Well wow. I feel ALL better now, thanks!  

The last time I had to go get water with these same set of frozen circumstances, this is what I did: first, I groaned REAL loud and then prayed begging-style, for an all-expense paid trip to the Bahamas to magically appear in my email inbox. It didn't. Bah.

Pouting at the unfairness of life, I got everything ready to get our weekly water, chained up the truck, prayed for courage and started down the terrifying icy road and thought, "Hey wait a minute. I am GREAT at driving backwards. Even Butch says so. Maybe I should BACK all the way down there!" 

So, that's exactly what I did. I backed all the way down there. I've already mentioned that this road is twisty, turny, snowy, icy with a LONG, LONG drop off on one side. Since all I could see what was out of my rear view mirrors and since I had to concentrate so hard, I didn't have time to be afraid. And I wasn't! I got all the way down there with no problem, no sliding and no fear!! Ta DA!

When I bragged about the absolute genius way I handled that problem, it horrified everyone in my life. Some told me to never ever do that again or at least don't tell them about it if I did. Butch slapped his hand on his forehead and yelled, "Do I have to tie you to a CHAIR before I leave in the morning?!" 

 Hey, I'd rather slide out of control backwards than forwards. For some reason. Hmmm... That's odd. Why did I feel that way?? Now that I thought about it, I guess I've always been the kind of person who if she can't SEE a problem - icy road, monster in the dark, dirty house - it's simply not there. I'm a hide-under-the-covers kind of gal. Hmmm......

Self-analyzation began.

I thought back to when I was little. My sisters and I were often alone when we were young because my poor mom had to work two jobs. When we'd hear a scary noise at night, I would immediately march to the closet and hide. My cute, tiny, blonde youngest sister who is impressively brave, always went searching for the cause of the noise. And I being the big sister, let her. Thankfully it was never anything bad but I still hid, each time. 

I then remembered the time I went rafting for the first time ever with my family in Montana in the spring when the rivers are swollen and full and rushing like mad. Where people die every year. There were eight of us in the boat, all ages, from five to eighty years old. Every single person in the boat was laughing and having fun. Except me. What was I doing? Putting my head down, eyes closed, not watching. Still having fun mind you, but I didn't want to SEE the froth and waves that were about to swallow us all up. (I have a picture to prove this btw. It's hilarious.) 

So. My self-introspection revealed that I prefer to calmly (bravely?) take what comes but I will do it with my eyes closed. I am apparently the personification of Monkey See No Evil.

I'm not necessarily afraid of dying, I just don't want to SEE it.

 Hence, driving backwards down the hill. It's not like you can control where you're going when you start sliding anyway, whether you're going forward OR backwards. I'll just go with it, not watch and slide till I stop. Somewhere. At some point.

Or hey, you know what? Maybe I'll just wait for Butch to get home and let HIM go get the water. Yeah, that's what I'll do! I'll even go with him.

But I'm not looking. 

~~~ The End ~~~

(Well, hopefully not!)

Christmas on the Mountain 🎄

Our kids sent these two Christmas ornaments to us a while ago. Mine looks pretty close to the actual me but the male had white hair and a beard. They said that this was as close as they could find to looking like us, that this was, "Future Butch", but Butch wasn't satisfied. So he set about working on his Christmas action figure for 30 minutes, cutting off the beard, painting the hair brown and putting the ever-present cigarette in his mouth. When he was poking the cigarette toothpick into its mouth, I heard him mutter under his breath, "Gosh I hope this ain't one of them voody dolls."

Ha ha ha 🤣 He's so funny.

Country Boy and City Girl Go Off Grid, Oh Boy!

In a nutshell: 

-- Country Boy marries City Girl 

-- CB and CG move from hot, humid Texas to lovely, snowy Montana 

-- CB and CG look for gorgeous land to start new lives on

-- CB and CG drastically lower expectations and look for affordable land

-- CB and CG let ALL expectations go and look for land that no one else wants

-- CB and CG find severely logged land with no electricity for miles around

-- CB and CG go Off Grid

-- CB and CG bravely decide to build their own home ALL by themselves! 

-- CB and CG quickly realize that CB is doing all the work and CG is useless 

-- CB wonders why he married a CG

-- CG wonders why CB is so ANAL

And that right there is the beginning of wonderful love story. Ok not really. That right there could be a recipe for disaster.

Note to all young married couples: Starting out your holy matrimony by building your own home together, is (oh how do I put this?), going straight from the frying pan into the fire. It's a baptism by fire, a complete submersion, all in for better or worse, whereby in working together, you will quickly learn all of your partner's most annoying habits and worst traits, right off the bat. No honeymoon period for you! 

Oh. Ahem. 

You get the idea. It's just risky, that's all I'm saying. Building your own home together is a huge job and colossally difficult. And that's just picking out tile and flooring! It's ESPECIALLY difficult if one of you (I'm not telling who), doesn't know the names of tools or how to wield a hammer or how a tape measure works. 

It's even MORE difficult if people of completely different persuasions are trying to work together. Country people have their ways and city people have better ones. Ha HA! Just kidding! 

It began to seem as if the twain shall never meet. Country mouse and city mouse just have different ways of doing things. City mouses are practical and prefer to hire other mouses to get things done. Country mouses, weirdly enough, want to do it all themselves. 

They simply speak a different language. 

Allow me to give you a few examples if I may. 

When City Girl graciously offers to help build their new home by way of chronicling the exciting adventure, and follows Country Boy around with a camera, taking pictures of him working without a shirt on, Country Boy is not pleased or even appreciative! Ungrateful!

When City Girl is doing her best while sitting in the new tractor that she has just recently been taught to use, trying to follow Country Boy's confusing hand signals that look like a mixture of directional pointing, Japanese Sign Language, with some offensive gestures and a few friendly waves thrown in for good measure, while he's standing in the bucket of the aforementioned tractor, apparently hoping City Girl will move him up or down in said bucket, per confusing hand signals, and City Girl INADVERTENTLY dumps him out on the ground, and busts a gut laughing, he has the gall to get mad! Especially after the tenth time! So weird!

When CB and CG are in the freezing cold, dark barn trying to fix the snow blower on the tractor and City Girl wasn't complaining that much, and then Country Boy tells City Girl to go get a sledgehammer, the grinder, clamps and the 60-11 welding rods when he KNOWS perfectly well that she has no idea what any of these things are and she goes into the tool room and hopes the tools will just take pity on her and jump off the wall but they don't because they're a bunch of tools! (Haw!) And Country Boy then has the temerity to act put out because his CITY GIRL wife doesn't know tools?? Well he has no one to blame but himself. He's the one who married a City Girl. Maybe he should have married a Country Girl!

Am I right? Can I get a witness? 

And yet.

Even though the Country Boy and City Girl often misunderstand what the other one is trying to say, they still somehow manage to hear each other. They manage to build a house and a good life together.

And somewhere along the rocky road of trying to mesh two worlds, they discover, to their surprise, that they do in fact share a common language - humor - and realize that laughter makes everything more bearable and way more fun. 

And so...

-- Country Boy and City Girl live happily ever after.

                            The End 😉

A Day in the Life ♡

 (Author's note: This 'day in the life' did actually happen but I admit, it's not usually quite this difficult.  And my attitude has vastly improved over the years. I swear. 😏)

This is a day in the life off grid, in our particular situation, on top of a mountain, in Montana, where it’s cold and we have lots and lots of lovely, beautiful snow.

 My winter ‘day in the life’ is WAY different than my summer ‘day in the life’. In the summer I am deliriously happy. In the winter I’m a little crabby. Just sayin’.

4:15 – Drag butt out of warm bed. Trip over excited dogs. Start fire (in wood stove). Make coffee, breakfast and husband’s lunch. Send him on his way with a kiss and a pat on the hindquarters.

5:15 – Flush toilet, power goes off. Stumble down garage stairs in the dark to generator. Try to start generator. Discover that it has no gas. Fill with gas. Spill everywhere. Start generator. Let run for 30 minutes while changing gas-soaked jammies. Check weather. Curse imminent snow.

5:45 – Put wood on fire, put burning log that has rolled out of stove onto wood floor back IN stove, put salve on blisters.

6:00 – Eat breakfast, clean kitchen. Realize you have no water left. Realize you have to go get water today. Ugh.

7:30 – See that it is snowing, a LOT. Wonder who in HEPSHIBA is praying for more snow. Vow to find them and beat them senseless. Put more wood in stove. Bring wood into house from garage wood bin. Pick out evil, mitochondria-sized splinters. Scream and do freaked out spider dance when discovering granddaddy long leg on shoulder.

8:00 – Feed dogs, let them all out, pray there isn’t a hungry mountain lion in vicinity.

8:15 – Get dressed for going outside. Decide that putting coveralls on over warm jammies is totally understandable. Who’s gonna know?

8:30 – Realize you have to go pee. Sigh….

9:00 – Now that you’re all dressed, AGAIN, put more wood in stove, shut down wood stove so house won’t burn down. Shovel off 3 porches, solar panels and truck. Feed and water frozen chickens. Fight off mean rooster. Put frozen solid eggs in pocket so dogs won't get them. Feel sorry for them (the chickens not the dogs).

9:30 – Get gun. Fill back of truck with water-getting paraphernalia complete with shovel and ice-breaking tools. Start to drive down to spring. Realize that snow is too deep to get through. Realize with sickening thud you have to plow first. Drive back to house. Mutter a lot. Rain curses down on the person who made up the “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” song.

10:00 – Walk down to barn, get tractor. Plow out of barn, drive to house, fill tractor with gas. Oops! I mean diesel! Phew! That was close! Rest for few minutes after contemplating what husband would have done to you if you’d put gasoline in the tractor. Laugh nervously.

10:30 – Wonder if you remembered to shut down wood stove. Go back in house and check. Have a quick snack.

10:45 – Plow 1/4th mile to spring. Since it’s windy and snowing, stop a thousand times to wipe blowing snow off windshields. Sweat and grumble profusely. Tear off hat and scarf and throw into snow. Watch dogs run off with them.

11:00 – Look at pretty view while plowing. Almost run off road. Wonder how many people have hurtled snowball-style down mountain in a tractor. Be relieved you've never heard of such. 

1:00 – Drive back to house, proud of job well done. See that fire is dead. Start over. Eat lunch. Feel sleepy. Resist urge to take nap.

2:00 – Drive truck to spring, shovel your way into spring house, pray water pump works. Look for bears. Look for dogs. Watch as lovely brown water fills up tank. Feel glee. Drive back home up scary, icy hill, hyperventilating whole way. Quickly put water into house tank before all hoses freeze. Fish ice chunks out of tank with bare hands. Wonder why hands don’t work. Put everything away per husband’s (anal) explicit instructions.

3:00 – More wood in stove. Realize wood bin in garage is low. Remember that snow and really cold temperatures are coming. Decide that mature, responsible person would go get more wood NOW. Realize there is no rest for the weary. Decide to thaw out first. Have another snack for strength.

3:30 – Get RE-dressed. Shut down stove. Drive good ol’, hard working truck to wood bin in yard. Shovel out covered-in-three-feet-of-snow wood pile.

4:00 – Fill back of truck with wood while fighting dogs away from pack rat homes built in wood pile. Drive to house, unload wood into garage wood bin. Wonder if you can tell when you’re getting frostbite.

5:00 – MORE wood in stove. Realize you have no power since sun has decided not to make an appearance today. Turn on generator. Make dinner. Feed dogs. Notice that road you just plowed is already filled back up with snow. Can't it just stay clean for five minutes??

5:30 – Husband home safely. Thank God! Someone to talk to! Watch as husband shovels food quickly into face, gets dressed, heads out to plow road until midnight so he can get to work the next day. Feel proud of husband who isn’t complaining one bit.

6:00 – More wood in stove. Realize you don’t have enough power to watch a DVD. Decide to spend evening alone with good book by the fire, feeling sorry for husband who is out in dark and cold and snow.

7:00 – Dogs barking furiously. Heavy footsteps on porch. Door opens. Husband standing there looking pooped and breathing hard. Flat tire on tractor. Needs your help. Get RE-DRESSED, go out in cold, dark, snowy night. Help husband with tractor. Dream of lovely hot, humid, mosquito-filled days in Texas.

8:30 – Walk back to house alone in the dark.  Sing loudly to scare away any Sasquatches who might be around. Try to take cold, frozen coveralls off. Realize zipper is frozen shut. Thaw by fire. More wood on fire. Sit down on couch to read. Fall asleep immediately. Snore cartoon-sized snores.

12:00 – Husband back from plowing, frozen to death. Get fire going again. Fix coffee and sit with him while he warms up by stove.

12:30 – Off to bed to much-deserved rest and warm snuggles.

4:15 – Alarm goes off. Sigh…..

My momma said there'd be days like this. 😉