Tortilla Chicks

   I love to wear dresses in the spring and summer…to be outside in, feeling the breeze on flip flop feet…I prefer dresses over shorts if the weather is warm. I either make or buy second hand bright, ridiculous flowy little things to wear. Then, I’ll plop a hat…I’ve got  two or three  to choose from..either a straw summer hat with a rolled brim or a floppy big hat to keep the sun off my face and shoulders or one of those ridiculous fake cowboy hats that the young girls wear to try to look cute. I’ve noticed that if a 40 something year old woman puts on something that a young girl would wear to be cute, the 40 something woman comes off as CRAZY. Not like “oh, my mom! she is SO crazy!” but “we the jury find this woman…” crazy.  The issue of my hair is settled with two braids, often done while still wet from the shower. On a farm, it is ludicrous to wear makeup or fix your hair on a hot day. It’s a complete waste of time AND makeup. I’ll catch a glimpse of myself sometimes in the reflection of a window while puttering outside and think “who IS that crazy old lady?” then I’ll realize it’s ME and chortle.

  My daughter Tara makes fun of me for this and was with me once at a second hand store where I came upon a loud, turquoise dress with brightly colored embroidered flowers all over it. It looked like those dresses that you see Hispanic women on the cooking shows wear, the shows that the host goes to Mexico to check out the street food and comes upon a woman wearing just this type of dress. I saw this dress and held it up to me and hollered at Tara. She looked at me sternly and said “NO. You are NOT getting that dress. Where would you wear it?” I thought for a second. “umm…the grocery store?” “NO. You are NOT wearing THAT to the grocery store.” she repeated. “ummm…over my swimsuit? maybe out in the yard?” I wheedled. “NO. Not in the yard. Not out of the house. Only IN the house. Good Lord.” she said. Good Lord is what Tara says to me when I’m acting like myself. If I’m REALLY acting like myself, she adds “Mother” to it. So if I came in from mowing and I had on a dress and flip flops and braids and an old cowboy hat, that’s what I would hear. “Good Lord, Mother” and then she’d tell whoever she was talking to on the phone “my mom’s just being a crazy.” She does this with love and affection. I know that she does this with love and affection  because she will still hang out with me even though once we were at Fuji’s ( a Japanese restaurant in Fort Smith) and I thought that the green glob on my plate was avocado and just as I exclaimed “YUM! avocado!” and plopped the whole walnut size chunk of it into my mouth just as she said “GOOD LORD MOM THAT’S NOT AVOCADO!!” and it was WASABI and I swear I felt FLAMES come out of my EYES and NOSTRILS and I spit it out and SCREAMED and drank water and scraped my tongue with the napkin and CRIED and wolfed down my rice. She just stared at me, holding her chopsticks. She waited until I calmed down my thrashing in the booth, looking like a flopping perch on a boat floor, gasping for air. She said three words. “Good Lord, Mother.” and calmly ate her hibachi chicken.

        A few days after I bought my beautiful turquoise dress, Tara was eating lunch and watching “What Not to Wear”. Tara yelled at me to come and look at something on the TV. I had just gotten out of the shower and put on my comfy new/used dress, had braided my hair and plopped on a hat. I walked into the living room and Tara said “Sit down, ya crazy. You gotta see this.” and there was a woman, wearing my EXACT dress, only it was white (and not nearly as cute) as mine. The hosts were making fun of her and told her she looked like one of those ladies you see selling tortillas in the street. So Tara pronounced me wearing a “Tortilla dress” and the name stuck.

  I went to where Tara works a week or so ago. She works in a second hand store, of course, which is our natural habitat. I was walking around with her, just looking, when I spied a beautiful, black, flowy dress with embroidered flowers all over the front. “OH MY!” I exclaimed and held it up to me. Tara looked. “Good Lord, Mother… you do NOT need another Tortilla dress.”

  But I DID need another Tortilla Dress and I bought it and it looks SMASHING when I’m puttering out in the yard with a nice, broad brimmed hat.

  So, yesterday afternoon, after my sunshine, after my shower…I put on my old Tortilla Dress and went fishing, the hat shading my face from the sun. I caught two crappie, unhooking them and throwing them back in after admiring their scales and beautiful fins.

  I texted Tara, who is now married and lives in Fort Smith and not able to gaze daily upon the sight that is her chubby 41 year old mother in a ridiculous dress  and said “hey, guess what, I’m wearing that turquoise Tortilla Dress and a big hat. It looks as good as it  ever did!”

  Her response? “Good Lord.”

 I read that and smiled and thought “yes, He is. Most certainly, He is good. All the time.”

A Cut Above the Rest

 I was sick yesterday…just one of those achy yucky dizzy tummy things. I sat on the couch so much I left a dent and got so sick of watching TV that I finally just turned it off and sat in silence for a little while.

  Sickness for me is a funny thing. I never think I’m sick until I start feeling better. I always think I’m sad or depressed and it isn’t until I check my temp that I realize that I’m SICK. By the time I take to my bed and rest, it’s halfway over.

 I also have a weirdly high pain tolerance. It’s not that I’m tough or strong, I just sincerely do not feel pain like most people do. I had both my children natural, which is for the BIRDS and I highly recommend the use of drugs. I just never think to ask for them until it’s too late and by then, by golly, there’s a baby.

  I’ve had a few minor surgeries in my life and I have recovered from every one of them without the use of pain meds. Mostly because pain pills make me puke and be dizzy and faint-y. So, I’d rather hurt. I’ve gotten to where if I have surgery, I tell the doctor to not even write the prescription for the pain pills, I’m not going to fill it and if I fill it, I’m going to throw it away untouched in a year. I’d rather not even have them in the house, to be honest. In this neck of the woods, people will break into your house to steal pain medicine, even if you have known them their entire lives and loved them like family. They’ll break in, break your heart and break your trust and you will never look at them the same again. Don’t ask me how I know this, I’m not going to talk about it…but suffice it to say, I’d just rather not have the drugs here and tempt anyone lest they break in and Clint or I  have to shoot them. And…we know we would. We don’t want to do that. So, we don’t keep pain meds here and never will. God willing.  

   But today I feel better and I’ve been wanting to paint Clint’s shop bathroom and decoupage old ads of trucks and tractors all over the wall. He and I both love that kind of stuff, those old ads that say out dated, funny things…so wordy, they’re like reading an article. Of brands that no longer exist. Ads aimed for women for freezers and stoves, the women happily cooking in heels and pearls and dark red lipstick, perky and sweet…impossibly clean children running underfoot, her husband coming in the door in a suit, carrying a briefcase, wearing a smile, his hat in his hand.

  The ads make me think of the old “Dick and Jane” books, where they were forever playing with “Spot” and mom made cookies every day in a dress and dad wore green suits and drove sleek, finned cars. I read those books in 1976 in the first grade. My home life was nothing like that. Was anybody’s?

  No one got sick in the Dick and Jane books and they rarely got dirty or hurt. They apparently didn’t go to the bathroom, either as I never saw mention of one in the book. I surveyed the pictures of their homes, looking for the outdoor toilet. Nope.

  So I painted and thought about these things, what ad I would put where, how they would best fit on the wall.

  I walked outside to get my stepladder and when I came back in, I stubbed my pinky toe on my right foot on the chainsaw sitting on the concrete floor. I had Lasik when I was thirty, a wonderful operation ridding me of my thick, goofy glasses I had worn since I was 7. I recovered without pain meds and was shocked to be able to see very well within just a few hours of the surgery. One thing it did leave me with was that my eyes don’t adjust to light changes very well. If I walk from bright light into dimness, I’m completely blind for about 15 seconds until my eyes adjust. And that’s what I had done, walked into Clint’s shop trudging forward right onto the chainsaw. “ow ow ow” I muttered, catching myself on the pipe machine, nearly falling. I thought nothing else of it and started painting.

  I had on black, spongy flip flops and noticed my right one stuck to my foot. I thought I just had splattered some paint on it and painted away. I had to kick off my flip flop to climb up onto the toilet lid to reach the top of the wall. When I stepped down, I noted I had tracked blood all over the top of it. I sat on my step stool and pulled my foot up to check.

   Well, shoot. I thought. Had I noticed how badly my foot was cut, I probably would have applied pressure and…most assuredly…had to go get a few stitches. But, ignorance is bliss, and wearing spongy flip flops, covering it with latex paint,  and standing in one place for a long time did the trick. What’s weird is…even though it’s deep and I now have cleaned it and placed a large bandaid on it…it still doesn’t hurt.

  It made me think of another time I cut my foot, so long ago. I was 15 and a sweet lady named Cathy   from our church with 3 young daughters took Bobbie and I swimming with her and her girls. Everyone wanted to race into the water and paddle out as far as we could on our air mattresses. Bobbie and I took off, the little girls behind us cheering and clapping. I felt something sting on the bottom of my left foot. Ignored it. Swam out 100 feet from shore. Climbed up onto our air mattresses, giggling and breathing hard. Bobbie pointed to my left foot. I looked down and saw the dark trail of blood in the water. I hoisted my  left foot up onto my right thigh to look and saw the deep, glistening wound running partway down the length  of the bottom of my foot. . Later, I would find the jagged, dark brown broken beer bottle I had stepped on and pick them up to prevent Cathy’s daughters from getting hurt.    Blood shot over my shoulder. I pressed the edges back together. “Does it hurt?” asked Bobbie as she pulled me and my air mattress back to shore.  “no…it just feels…weird.” I limped up to Cathy. Her face went white and she started gathering stuff up. “What are you doing?” I asked. “I’m taking you to the ER!” she said. “No, no no! I’m fine! I’ll just sit her and hold pressure. It’ll stop bleeding before long.” She was adamant about taking me at first, but I didn’t want to ruin the trip. So, I sat on the shore, holding pressure and every 15 minutes or so, I’d take a quick peek and blood would SHOOT out. So I quit doing that.

  A couple of hours later, she took us home. I got out, still bleeding and limped into the house. I found gauze and ACE bandage wrap and for the next 5 days, I limped around changing the bandage and replacing the wrap. I should have had stitches, I know. Someone should have taken me, I know that too. But that’s not how it went down and that’s not the point of my story.

  I dug slivers of glass out of my foot for years, the last piece came out 10 years ago. I worked in surgery and noticed the bottom of my foot itching. I sat down in a chair in the OR in between cases, pulled off my shoe and looked. That’s when one of my favorite foot doctors came in to dictate the previous case. “Whatcha doin?” he asked and sat in the other chair. “oh, looking at my foot. I have glass in it. “ I told him the story and as I told it, he took my foot into his hands and looked and said “Good heavens. How many stitches?” I told him the story and he looked astonished. He offered to dig the rest of the glass out, but I said “nah, I’ll do it when I get home.” and I did…soaking my foot that night, using my fingers and tweezers to finally pull the last of that day on the lake out of my foot.

  I don’t have to dig glass out of my foot today, just some chain oil and paint and dirt. It still doesn’t hurt…it just feels….weird.

  I look at the bottom of my right foot. I can still faintly see the scar that begins just to the left of my big toe, trailing down a couple of inches. All the glass is gone now, so it no longer is red, raised and angry. It’s just a scar, a part of me…part of the garment that is me, the seams showing, where God…the tailor that He is…made a dart in me and stitched it up together in His will and His time.  

  I think of scars and lakes and summer and hateful, broken glass beer bottles and I paint, the weight of my body holding tightly shut  the slice on my foot, preventing it from bleeding, creating yet another seam, another dart that God made..the tailor that He is..making another dart in me, stitching it up in His will and in His time, before I even knew it was there.

Cool...clear...water.

My sweet friend Eliza spruced up my blog. I whined on facebook that I am elderly and decrepit and she worked on making it look nice without me even asking. She is a talented, beautiful, quiet 17 year old young lady. I’ve known her for years, met her at church when she showed up with her tiny, elegant mother and 3 sisters. Circumstances and life took them away from my church, but never my thoughts and prayers. If I had sat down and told Eliza what I wanted, it couldn’t have been any more perfect. How do people know you at times better than you know yourself?

    Funny how life moves people in and out of your life like the tide…people move in, and out and drift with you on your journey. I feel  Eliza, her mother and sisters are tethered to me as we drift where God takes us, bobbing with the waves, paddling like crazy when the water gets rough. Oh, and dear reader…don’t we all paddle? I went through rough waters once and found myself quoting that fish from “Finding Nemo”…just keep swimming, swimming, swimming. I’m glad I got to be in the water with Eliza and her sweet family, tethered together, swimming, swimming, swimming. You wouldn’t  have known we were paddling so frantically..we were ducks, smooth on the surface, paddling like crazy underneath. Oh, let our problems roll like rain off a duck’s back.

  Eliza is still water, deep and sure, cool and steady. She is beautiful and doesn’t know it. She speaks rarely, but when she does it is wise and sweet. She is refreshing, too, like cool water. She isn’t turbulent or filled with the flotsam and jetsam that floats.  She is still and cool and deep, rising and falling with the tide or the rain.

    Eliza is funny, too, a quick wit often said in a whisper. I miss her in my Sunday school class like the desert misses the rain. 

   I write this as the rain falls outside my window and I think of Eliza and how much I love her and her sweet family. How cool the rain, how it washes the windows of our soul.

  Eliza loves the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkle, her dogs, her sisters, and most especially, Jesus.

  I think of that as I type, the rain sounding like the tap tap tap of my keyboard. Jesus calmed the storms, the raging seas…He walked on the water after making it as still as glass.

  Eliza is water, cool and still, deep and sure. Her status on March 15^th is “often times the people we’ve known for a short amount of time have the biggest impact on our lives, even more than those we’ve known forever.”

  How true, Eliza. How true. Such a short time I’ve known you, but how much you and your family means to me. The tide has taken you further away, yes…but still, we are tethered together. I can see you, happily bobbing and swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming,swimming.

  God bless you, Eliza. Thank you for being a part of my tide. Someday, when the tide is low, let us wander and look for shells with your dear, strong, elegant mother.

To get a gal to smile, you must a tractor. :)

It’s supposed to come one of those rains today…a gully washer! a toad strangler! as the old folks around here say. So, I headed out to get my chickens done early. They are going out tomorrow, which means the poultry company comes and gets them for “processing”. Isn’t that a nice word for their future demise and consumption?

  As I drove to the chicken houses, I noted that Clint had left his tractor in the pasture. It has the front end loader on the front and hay forks on the back. Where he had left it often floods, so I thought I’d better move it. I climbed up onto it, starting it and listening to the  diesel engine. It’s an old tractor, a Ford. It may be close to my age. Tractors age well and are for the most part, dependable if unattractive, solid pieces of farmery. I raised the front bucket and then the back hay forks. I let off the clutch and turned it slowly, climbing up the little rise to the road. I plodded sturdily toward the chicken houses, feeling the wind in my face, feeling the tiny mist floating in it. Tis a fine thing, to be on a tractor in the cool air.  I parked it up on higher ground, carefully lowering the front bucket…assuredly lowering the back hay forks…preventing it from rolling away or a horse running up onto the hay fork, impaling itself in the chest, requiring stitches from the hurriedly called old veterinarian. Yes, we must prevent that. Again.

  I climbed down to walk back to the Kubota and thought of tractors. I think of the first tractor I saw, it was my Papaw Derald’s. He kept a huge garden, plowing it in the early spring with his old horse Buck, a vicious thing that had to be re-broke every time he hooked up the plow. Once, Papaw had to put hobbles on Buck’s feet, so that if he reared up or tried to run, Papaw could pull the reins and jerk him down onto his chest, pulling his feet out from under him. It was a terrible thing to see, and my aunt Muff shooed us kids into the house that beautiful day so we couldn’t watch. Buck finally settled down and not long after that, Papaw relied solely on a tractor. It was small and low to the ground, with no cover on it, the sun beating down on his big hat. Once, he got Bobbie and I to sit on the fenders so he could plow deeper. We weighed about a 100 pounds each, me being 5’2” and Bobbie being 5’10”. We sat on the fenders, singing old hymns over the noise of the tractor, Papaw chiming in, his off key baritone making Bobbie and I smile. We sang and plowed, raising dust on that hot Arkansas spring day, praising Jesus and singing “I’ll Fly Away”, Bobbie doing the alto, plowing away, sowing seeds for harvest.

  The next tractor I recall was my brother Ray’s yellow tractor. Ray was 3, the youngest at the time and the only boy. Daddy went with us to Walmart and when we walked past the display of toy pedal tractors, Ray stood in front of them transfixed. We really didn’t have the money, but daddy bought it anyway and Ray drove it proudly out of the store, both hands on the wheel, paddling as hard as he could across that parking lot. Daddy put it on the back of the flatbed and Ray stared worriedly out the back window the long drive home down those bumpy dirt roads. It made the trip home safely and Ray pedaled it all around the yard, tying our wagon to the back of it and pretending to haul hay.  Bobbie and I were too big to ride it and it was Ray’s alone, that yellow tractor. We have pictures of Ray sitting on it proudly, a big smile on his face, his hand possessively on the black steering wheel.

  I thought about tractors as I walked. I’m built like a tractor, I said to myself. I’m low and sturdy. I’ve got a powerful back end. I’m not lithe and long, like a ten speed bike…built for speed and quickness. I have torque and tread, traction in my walk. I am a farm girl, made for endurance, a solid chunk of corn fed-ness over the hunk of muscle in my legs and arms and belly from carrying chickens and buckets and children. I am not fat, I am not skinny. I am solid and I am soft. I am tough and I am tender.

  I thought about Ray, my brother, who lives in Wisconsin. He is a grown man now, the yellow pedal tractor long gone  and much like my husband, doesn’t have many words. I only talk to him when there is something going on. He’s not a “visitor” meaning he doesn’t call just to chat, but I know he loves me and never fails to kiss the top of my head when we see each other.

  

  Once, in the middle of a beautiful spring day, my phone rang. I saw with surprise it was Ray. I answered it. Ray asked how I was and I prattled on about the weather and the kids and the chickens and the new dog and OH, we built a new pond and OH we’ve got daffodils blooming. Ray would wait til I took a breath and ask another question. What did you make for lunch? Where do you go to church? What was it Granny used to say? I would answer and laugh and chat and interrupt myself, the thoughts come so fast sometimes, my mouth can’t keep up. I noticed that Ray sounded odd and echo-ey but didn’t think much about it. After 15 minutes or so he said “well, I better get back to work. just thought I’d check in on you.” “ok! good to hear from you! I love you! give Angella and the kids hugs! When y’all coming down? Can you come eat? maybe go to church? we’ll discuss it when y’all get here! love you!” I said and we hung up.

  A few minutes later, my phone rang again and I didn’t recognize the number. I answered it and heard laughter. “Lichea?” said a female voice. “you don’t know me, but I work with your brother. It’s yucky and cold and dreary up here in Wisconsin and we said somebody needed to bring us some sunshine. So Ray said I know JUST the person and he called you and put you on speaker phone. We can’t stop laughing at your accent, your bubbliness, just….the things you said and the WAY you said them. We’ve imitated you ever since we got off the phone with you.”

  I told her what a compliment I thought that was and we chatted for a few more minutes, again putting me on speaker phone so the other ladies in the office could listen and interject and ask questions. Everything I said brought more laughter and pretty soon, we were pretty near crying we had laughed so hard. After a little bit of that, they had to get back to work and I had to get back to mowing and we hung up. One of the girls sent me an email and friended me on facebook and we are friends to this day.

  I thought about Ray, about him needing yellow sunshine…his yellow tractor…about drinking yellow  lukewarm Mountain Dew, him sitting in the truck between Bobbie and I, passing the can between the three of us. Ray got a big gulp everytime it passed by him..I shouted HEY!! just as he took a big drink…You’re getting a drink EVERYTIME!! You’re getting MORE than us! and Ray carefully spitting back into the can what he just drank, to make it fair. The time Ray had on a yellow t shirt and mom went into the grocery store, leaving us kids in the car. Ray got nosebleeds if you even BUMPED his nose and we got to scuffling and Bobbie popped him and GUSH the blood came and I pulled Ray’s shirt off to staunch the flow, soaking that yellow shirt with blood, getting it stopped, putting the shirt back on him, Bobbie and I..our hands smeared with Ray’s blood, the doors and windows printed in it. Mom came carrying the groceries, getting in and seeing us kids smeared and specked with blood, Ray’s shirt soaked in it.

  “What happened??” asked mom and we played dumb. “nothing” said Bobbie. “yeah, um, Ray got a nosebleed but we took his shirt off and stopped it.” said I. “Ray? is that what happened?” asked mom. “yeah, that’s it. “ said Ray and smiled, the red stains on his yellow shirt, drying, turning yucky brown, the blood dried and specked under his nose.

  We headed home from the grocery store, where Ray got on his tractor and we played farm and pretended to haul hay, picking the yellow daffodils and putting them in the wagon tied behind tractor.

   We’re supposed to get a rain today. A gully washer! a toad strangler! and yet, all I see right now is yellow sunshine out my window, daffodils swaying in the wind, the  tractor sitting silently at the chicken houses, waiting for me.

Mother Teresa :)

Her signature is the only signature besides mine in the 1977 Bulldog Annual. “Teresa Claunts”, right under my name “Lichea Templeman”, a name that was mine for so long…but now looks so foreign to me.

  My bus ride was an hour from the mountains to the little town of Waldron, Arkansas. Mr. Willie Brigance was my busdriver, an elderly, sweet man that would let me sit on the heater beside him on cold mornings until the town kids got on. “Here come the town kids, little lady. Better scoot.” and I’d scoot into one of the front seats. I wanted desperately to sit in the back with my aunt Muff and uncle Skee and cousins Ricky, Jerry, Randy and Gayla. They laughed and talked and joshed around and it looked so fun. Sometimes one of them…for a brief, shining and wonderful moment…would sit by me and visit. Skee would ask me questions about what I was studying or what boy I thought was cute and I would redden and put my head down. But for the most part, I stared out the window and made stories up in my head or sang songs to myself.

  My first day of first grade, my aunt muff (who was 10 at the time) showed me to my class, then hurried off to her own, which was in a building across the street. I felt so lost and everything was so foreign. The only kids I had ever been around were my cousins. I stood there in my homemade dress, carrying my book satchel that my mom had carefully printed my name on, the other kids in wild t shirts and hip hugger jeans. It was 1976.

  I had begged mom all summer before school started to teach me how to read. She informed me that I needed to learn that in school. I had learned to pick out some words and sound them out..asking her once where Eggiepite” was. “Eggiepite?” My mom asked. “yes. Eggiepite”. She stared at me over the dish she was drying with an old towel. “What are you trying to read?” she asked. Then it occurred to her. “are you reading the Bible?” “Yes! The bible!” I shouted. “what’s Eggiepite?” She laughed at me for a second. “oh, honey. It’s EGYPT.” I repeated it to myself, running back to the big family bible, flipping through the pictures. I yelled EGYPT every time I saw it.

  Mom assured me they would teach me to read. I would stare at books, picking out the words I knew, bugging grownups to help me with the bigger words. That was my goal. I told my granny, my papaw, my cousins…”they’re gonna teach me to READ. Mom said so.” They’d smile and agree.

  So Muff led me to my class and I found my name on a table that seated 6, with 6 tables arranged in a U shape, the front of the class up front and center.  I sat down and waited to be taught how to read. All day, they taught us where the bathrooms were, how to open our milk, how to get to our bus, where to hang our coats.How to not get caught under the merry go round and get trampled to death.  All day I waited. No books. No reading.

  I fumed all the way home on the bus. When I got off the bus, I ran into the house, crying. Mom didn’t even get to ask me how my day was before I yelled at her “YOU SAID THEY’D TEACH ME HOW TO READ AND THEY DIDN’T. YOU LIED.”

   Mom laughed and said “honey! you don’t learn to read in one day. It takes a long time to learn to read and even longer to learn big words.”

  I sighed and went to find Bobbie and Ray to tell them all about my day. I enthralled them with the stories of the merry go round and the swings and the little boy named Kevin who wore a t shirt with a motorcycle on it, coming in loud and boastful.

  By the next morning, I had resigned myself to my fate and trod into my class room. I sat down at my seat. We were each given a letter. I was the letter E. We were supposed to come up when it was our turn in the alphabet. Some kids didn’t know the alphabet and often when  it was someone’s turn to go up, they wouldn’t know. I thought I would help the little boy sitting near me who didn’t seem to know and I nudged him. He did not appreciate this and yelled at me. I was getting so bored, as I knew the alphabet and we kept saying it OVER and OVER for each letter that went up. We finally got through it and moved on to coloring.

  That afternoon, a little girl sat by me on the bus. I had seen her at recess, with her dark hair, dark eyes, and sprinkling of freckles across her nose. I found her fascinating, as I only knew blonde, fair skinned people. She was shy and so was I, but before long we were visiting. We talked and laughed all the way to her house, which was just outside of town. It was too soon and I thought about how fun she was all the way home. I told Bobbie and Ray about my new friend, but didn’t know her name.

  The next day, she got on the bus and looked for me and sat down beside me. I saw on her notebook “Teresa Claunts”. I said “is your name Teresa Clounce?” mispronouncing it. “no, silly” she giggled. “Teresa CLAUNTS.” I repeated it to myself to not forget.

  We talked about her family and house. I asked her if her bathroom was inside or outside. She looked at me funny. “inside.” she finally said. “mine’s outside. It doesn’t have a door.” I said.  She found this hilarious so I told more stories about the pigs and cows and Bobbie falling in a sewer and Ray riding the cows. Everything I said made her laugh. She told me about her older siblings and cousins, funny stories that made me laugh too.

  One day she got on the bus with a tiny Bible, a New Testament. She turned it to John 3:16 and we read it together. She had it memorized. I didn’t, but soon I did and we  were saying it to each other that cold, winter day on that old rickety bus, sitting as near to the heater as we could. I don’t see that verse that I don’t think of her, her dark, smiling eyes and shy smile, repeating that verse with me.

  We weren’t in the same class. I was in Miss Lowry’s class, the most beautiful teacher in the world. She wore sparkling jewelry and makeup and smelled like flowers. She never yelled, was always beautiful and nice. I wanted to be her and paint my toenails to match my creamy polyester pantsuits. Teresa was in Mrs. Anderson’s class and had other friends beside me. She would run up to me at recess with a few friends in tow and grab my hand and we’d run to the swings. One glorious fall afternoon, she and I were swinging in tandem, together in the same rhythm. We tried to grab hands, but kept missing. We dared each other to jump, but chickened out. I remember thinking “Teresa is my best friend I’ll ever have.” I wanted to say it, but…how does a 6 year old say that? so I looked at her and said “I’ll never forget this.” She said “ummm…ok…wanna go to the merry go round?” We jumped off the swings and ran toward the merry go round, laughing and shrieking.

  Finally, they taught me to read and after that… I wanted to do nothing else. In my reading group, I read my whole book the first night. My teacher didn’t believe me at first, but asked me all the questions at the end of each story. I got them all right. That was the end of that reading group and I was put alone to read old reading books and answer questions on my own. Eventually, they ran out of books and I just had to sit with my original group, bored out of my skull.

  The year came and went, then summer..then second grade. Teresa and I still weren’t in the same class, but continued to sit by each other on the bus and play together at recess. 

  Then came the news from my mother we were moving. I would have to change schools…and leave the mountains…leave my aunts and uncles…my granny and papaw. My church, where my whole family went and I sang all the songs by heart at the top of my lungs.  Teresa.

  I told her on the bus the next day. She got very quiet and so did I. I felt my throat choke and I turned my head to the window. I squinted back tears. We rode in silence and I stayed to myself on the playground that day,  taking a book with me.

  We moved to Booneville, just a few miles away…but it might as well been a million miles. We had no phone and had made no plans to write. Once, we went to Waldron for something and we drove past Teresa’s house. It was a Saturday. Teresa and her brother were outside. I yelled “there she is!” mom pulled into the drive way. Teresa bounced over to the car. We hugged. Her parents came outside and invited us in. We immediately ran to play and held hands and giggled. Shortly, my mom came to get me and Teresa and I promised to try to see each other soon.

  That was the last time I saw her. We moved from Booneville…to Coalgate, Oklahoma…back to Booneville…Back to Oklahoma…I never forgot her. I would ask my aunt Muff if she saw her and she said “Sometimes..want me to tell her you said hi?” I thought of lots of things I wanted to tell her, (did she remember the bus? John 3:16? The wind in our hair, covering our laughing faces on the swings, the sun in our eyes?)  but just looked at Muff and nodded. “yeah…tell her hi.” I said.

  I never forgot her, her dark, thick hair and dark eyes. Her shy smile. Her funny way of saying things.  A few years ago, I searched for her on the internet, never finding her.

  Then came facebook. One of my dearest friends from high school, Charla, married a man from Waldron. On a hunch, I searched through her friend list for “Teresa”. I found one. “Teresa Singleton”. Dark hair. Dark, smiling eyes. Sweet, shy smile. I knew it was her.  I looked at her info and saw it. “Claunts”.

  I sent her a message and friend request. I told her who I was…she didn’t remember me. That’s ok. I did enough remembering for the both of us.

 

  Then the other day, she reposted my blog saying “one of my friend’s blogs, I enjoy reading very much, thought you may also!” I thanked her and told her one day I would tell my story of her. She said she would love to hear it, that her memory has gone kaput since she’s had kids. Oh, sigh. I understand. My brain is often mom mush, too.

  When researching a little bit for this story, I went to her facebook profile and looked at her info. She quotes one of my favorite bible verses, Ephesians 4:31. “Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”
  Then…right under that..in her bio, she has “I work hard at giving my children wonderful memories to look back on when they grow up.”

  Oh, dear Teresa. You didn’t know how early you started. Giving children wonderful memories goes way back for you. J

A Poultry Princess Poem :)

I’m a fan of sparkles

and a bit of a reader

I can fix broken water lines

and the occasional feeder

the last time I cried was at my nephew’s wedding

and often I worry about pounds I’m not shedding

I misplace my phone, my purse, and my keys

and often get made fun of for my delicate sneeze

I sing louder than I should… I hope you don’t care

and I KNOW I’m not fooling ANYONE with this color of hair

I once swung a stick at a man and chased him off my farm

and screamed IT’S A GOOD THING I KNOW JESUS OR I’D DO YOU SOME HARM

I love Nutella and Clint, just not in that order

and in about half a second, I could be a book hoarder

the Pledge of Allegiance can reduce me to tears

and I’m troubled at time by dark, unnamed fears

I miss my kids being home, the fun and the loud

but I love who they married and can’t help but be proud

I’m a protector of turtles, and snakes, and baby birds fallen from trees

and I spend hours outside and don’t put sunscreen on me

I check cows, I check chickens, I write checks to pay bills

and I ponder with fondness my childhood in the hills

I despise drama mama-s and sinister sisters

I’ll plant a garden and hoe it and raise nothing but blisters

I got God, I’ve got Clint, my kids, my church and  my friends

and stories to tell that never seem to end

I love to be comfy and friendly and laughing and hate tenseness

and this is all a big part of being a proud Poultry Princess

     How I end up working cattle wearing flip flops is often a mystery to me. I’ll be in the house, cleaning or cooking, walking around in flip flops. Clint will call and say “hey, I’m down here at the corral, can you come and help me for just a second?” I’ll say “do you need help working them? do I need to wear boots?” and he’ll say “nah, I just need you to stand there so the cows won’t run out into the pasture.”

  And that’s how I end up spending an hour or two climbing around on the corral fences, whacking at cows with sticks, trying to get them into the head chute. Or, I’ll run out in front of a cow and turn her and run completely OUT of my flip flops and end up barefoot for a moment on the damp ground, sending my germaphobic OCD into overdrive.

  I refuse to walk anywhere barefoot now, even in my own home. I have inside shoes and outside shoes and the twain shall never meet. I wash my flip flops obsessively by hand or in the washing machine. When I was a kid, we called flip flops “thongs” which brings great laughter to my children (and, me too, because at heart, I’m about 9).

  When I was a child, we never wore shoes. Not even to town. We’d climb out of that 48 GMC flat bed pickup, our feet fairly sizzling on the black, hot pavement. At the beginning of the summer, our feet would be tender and raw and we’d screech and run across the wal mart parking lot at top speed. By the end of the summer, our feet would be dyed a brown color from the black, hot tar melting and soft in places in the parking lot. We’d saunter slowly, trying to walk at a snail’s pace to prove how tough our feet were. I could tap on the bottom of my heel with a pencil and get a satisfying THWACK THWACK. The soles of my feet were tough and thick, like leather.

 Even when I first got married, Clint would marvel that I could walk down our rocky driveway barefoot without wincing or watching my step.

  Then one day…I’m not sure what happened…I found the thought of my bare feet on any surface made me cringe. I don’t mean like “oh, this is annoying” cringe, but “OH DEAR LORD I’M GETTING GERMS AND WORMS ON MY FEET” kind of cringe.

  What’s funny is we had an outdoor toilet as a child and if we had to go in the middle of the night, we just WENT. No flashlight. No shoes. Just me, five years old in the moonlight, traipsing along the dirt path, the damp grass, stepping up into the wooden outhouse, looking at the hole cut out in the wood…praying there were no spiders…not sliding around  because of the risk of splinters…looking out into the woods behind the house, hearing the wind and those vague walking noises you always seem to hear in the forest  when it’s dark…thinking it’s probably Big Foot, as that famous footage looked as though it was shot right behind my house…hurrying thru my business, then RUNNING at top speed, past the garden, past the back porch, leaping onto the front porch, yanking the screen door open, slamming it shut and jumping into bed…my feet still damp and dirty from my trip outside.

  Now I can’t even walk to my bathroom 10 feet from my own side of the bed barefoot, the thought of my bare feet on the floor.. then in my bed… something that would not let me sleep.

  Sometimes I can shut that part of myself off…if I have too. For instance, a few years ago I went to check the chickens. It was hot and we had just turned the fogger pumps on an hour earlier in the day. When fog is running, I check the chickens every hour or less. A fogger line can break inside the house and flood it in a matter of minutes. There is nothing worse than a flood inside a chicken house. It ruins all your hard work in one fell swoop.

  I had on a little zebra print sundress and cute little jeweled flip flops. I also had on a clip on fake ponytail, as I was trying to grow my own hair out and this was a quick, easy way to pull my hair back and just let it grow.

  Trevor and Mykka had come over and got into the pool and were floating around, relaxing. I hopped on the Kubota and headed out to check the chickens. House one and two were fine, and when I got to house three, I saw a feed truck and the driver was putting the feed from it into the feed bins. I said hello and hopped off and peeked into house three.

  The sound of the water hitting the floor in a great stream was the first thing I heard, and as my eyes adjusted to the dim, I saw a ten by ten stretch of just MUCK and YUCK. The only way to shut the water off is inside the house. I immediately screamed OH CRAP!!!. The truck driver looked up, startled. I yanked my ponytail off and threw it on the seat. I kicked  my cute, jeweled flip flops off and RAN into the  chicken house. I waded through the MUCK and YUCK, sinking in above my ankles.  I found the leak and drug the ladder over to the valve to shut it off, getting a face full of water and dirt as I did so. I climbed off the ladder and opened the door and walked back outside. That’s when I made eye contact with the truck driver, who was eyeing my fake ponytail lying on the Kubota seat. He looked down at my black, goo, poo covered feet. My hair hung limp and damp from the fog. My dress was filthy. My mascara slowly pooled under my eyes. My hands were wet and nasty. I stunk.  We just stared at each other for a minute. “you alright?” he asked. “yeah. had a fogger line blow. I fixed it.” I said. He stared at me for another second. “I’d have run in there for you and fixed that.” he said. “oh, it’s not your job! it’s my job. You’re doing your job!” I reminded him. “you sure must like those shoes…and…that hair.” he snorted a little, trying not to laugh. I started giggling and he joined in. I said “welp, you’ve got a story to tell about me now!” He said “boy, don’t I! I like to fell over when you pulled your hair off.”

  I got back on the Kubota and flew home as fast as I could. The closer I got to the house, the more dirty my feel felt. It looked as though I had black ankle boots on. It was starting to dry and fall off in chunks. I could see bits of feathers in the gunk.

  I don’t know at what point I started screaming, but Mykka and Trevor stood up in the pool and watched me pull over to the water hydrant. I screamed and shrieked and rinse my feet off but it wouldn’t get everything off. Trevor walked into the house and got the Dawn dishwashing liquid and I washed and scrubbed til my feet were sparkling. Then I went inside and took a long, hot shower, scrubbing my feet again til they were pink and raw.

  I thought of this yesterday…I had to go to town and had a sudden urge to treat myself to a pedicure. I love pedicures, but I only get them a couple times a year. I dislike sitting and being fussed over for very long. The young, sweet asian girl did a wonderful job and we visited about me being a chicken farmer. She tried to talk me into a manicure and I would have loved it… but with my job, it’s a waste of money. My hands are rough, calloused. I have tiny cuts on them from working on the cool cell pads. I have scars from the chicken’s claws.  I would ruin a manicure in one day. At one point, she was scrubbing the sides of my feet with a rough pumice stone. Then she suddenly went to the center of my foot and it tickled and I shrieked a little and laughed. She giggled too and warned me before she went to the other foot.

  When she was done, I paid her and slipped my clean, French manicured feet into my sparkly flip flops, admiring them and feeling very pampered.

 So today, under my nasty, poo covered chicken boots…are ten perfectly painted toenails. The chickens don’t know…the feed truck drivers don’t know…and they don’t care. But I know, and it makes me feel like the poultry princess I am, if even for just a few days.

  I’m thinking I might wear my pink sparkly tiara today as I clean my house. Every poultry princess has one…it’s state law, I do believe.

    Oh, the chickens I’ve killed. I kill them as humanely as possible, but they are still just as dead. I’ve learned one quick blow to the back of the head renders them immediately dead. I time this blow perfectly…most of the time. I try, I really do. I feel I must give my chickens as good as a life that a chicken can have that only lives 8 weeks and gives its life to feed us humans. I worry and I fret about the temperature in the house…the air quality… water quality...the condition of the floor. I would be shooting myself in the foot to abuse or neglect these creatures, as they are God’s and I feel compelled to be a good steward to them.

  I tell you that to tell you this. Sometimes I mess up. I do. I know you are shocked, dear reader. I shall now tell horrid stories about chicken deaths. Do not read further if you have squeamish tendencies, as farm life is gory and there is much carnage, both intentional and unintentional. Do not call PETA. I do the best I can given the circumstances I have. Carry on.

  Once, Clint and I were in the chicken houses one Saturday morning discussing how many I had just picked up and what fans he might need to spend the day fixing or cattle he might separate. The chickens were big and due to go out. It was late in spring, sandal and flip flop weather, time to bare our white legs to get some much needed sun. I was telling Clint that my good friend Carolyn and I were going to get manicures and MUCH (on my part) needed pedicures, as my feet were beginning to resemble chicken’s feet.

   Just as I was telling Clint all about my future girly forays, a limping, sickly, fuzzed up cull dragged himself past me.

  Quick as a wink with my trusty stick, I knocked him dead. Without missing a beat, I continued my conversation about nails and shopping and shoes. Clint found this amusing for some reason, as he finds many things I do amusing in that way that men do…when their women surprise them with a burst of strength or rage or laughter.

   Sometimes, I will aim my stick at a sick, bedraggled chicken and will hit a perfectly good, healthy chicken and kill it. This breaks my heart. I will tell Clint about it when he comes home. I feel bad about these “claw-lateral damage” or, “friendly fryer” episodes. Sometimes, I will be chasing a cull and will trip and fall and injure myself, the chicken getting away scot free to live another day. I imagine the chicken is quite proud of this, as I imagine I appear to them as Godzilla, weaving a path of destruction thru their home. How the mighty have fallen! I imagine they think. How the mighty have fallen and ripped a water line out of the ceiling! how the mighty have fallen and injured their knee on the feed line! I have learned NOT to chase them, just be patient and keep the water lines high so the culls can’t get a good drink. This makes them weak and slow and prevents further damage to the chickens and the water lines. I also have learned that when I do fall (and it does happen) to curl myself inward. The less I fight the fall, the better.

  Sometimes, I will kill a chicken in the most inadvertent way possible. Once, I was trying to get the drill that I use to raise the water and feed lines in the house into the little doohickey that the drill spins to do the raising part and the end of the drill slipped out, fell forward, knocked a big old healthy rooster right in the head, killing it instantly.

  More than once, I have opened a door to the houses just as a bunch of fans kicked on..pulling the door out of my hands and slamming it shut. In the two seconds the door is open, a curious rooster will stick his head out, getting his neck broken and causing instant death when the door closes with a BANG.

  I once accidentally let our dog, Champ (a large yellow lab that was, I believe, the worst dog in the world) into house 2 and when I walked back across, found him happily laying on a pile of 40 large chickens he had just happily chased down and killed one by one.

  I am astounded when people tell me “horror” stories about watching their grandmother wring a chicken’s neck and kill it for Sunday lunch. This makes me think that someday MY children will write some sort of “Mommy Dearest” novel, filled with stories of chicken killing of their own. Trevor and Tara became pretty good cull killers, although Trevor had a little bit more of a problem with it and would sometimes lose the heart for it and carry the chickens to Tara to kill. Tara had NO issue with it and dispatched them immediately. I smile to think of my blonde, beautiful children, whacking culls with a stick or wringing their necks on summer days, hurrying to get done to get to ball practice or relax by the pool.  

  This is on my mind because in the last few days, I have one house that seems to be riddled with culls. I hate it. I don’t relish killing anything, but I have no choice. The culls are sickly and would never survive anyway. You certainly wouldn’t want them in the food chain, so that leaves me nothing else to do. So, I whack away, trying not to trip, trying not to fall, trying not to miss, trying not to give myself carpal tunnel…just trying.

   So, there you have it, dear readers. Part of being a poultry princess is deciding who gets to live or die, to thin the herd, to give rise to the strong and remove the weak. Tis often a sad, nasty business on a farm, full of death and carnage and gore.  

  I do it, though…with very good intentions. I do it for the people who will eat my chicken..and to be honest, for my pocketbook. I can’t let the culls eat a bunch of feed and keep it from the healthy chickens. It’s part of survival of the fittest.

  Just a note…don’t limp or act sick in front of me. I may be in chicken house mode J

Cowgirl :)

Cows don’t have much to think about, I guess. I wonder sometimes…when I go careening by on the Kubota, singing at the top of my lungs, wearing an old cowboy hat and giant sunglasses, my braids flopping on my shoulders..I wonder…what do they think? They turn and stare, never stopping their chewing or swishing of tails.

  Our new neighbors across the road were building a driveway. Someone hauled in fill dirt to help level out the pad for the road. The cows found it and climbed on top of it, one by one. Some of the younger ones began playing a cow version of “King of the Mountain”, lowering their heads and butting the smaller ones back down to the bottom of the small hill. They lost interest quickly and moved on to graze, but for a day or so…it was like Disneyworld for cows.

   At our old house, there was an old barn that was just about falling down. It was old and creaky and scary. Clint decided to burn it to clean our place up. The next day, there stood the cows, on top of the still smoldering ashes, looking around like “where’d the barn go?” Do cows remember? Do they miss old barns?

   We had a new baby calf a few days ago…I had been watching mama cow carefully, never leaving the safety of my Kubota. I learned my lesson last summer. I noted mama cow was in early labor. She would breathe steadily, with her head low to the ground. Her back would arch up, and she wouldn’t take a step. Just breathe and focus. Then it would pass and she’d graze lightly…then again with the focusing and breathing. It’s amazing and primal.

  Clint checked her that morning, she is what I call a “panda cow”. She’s black (mostly) with a white face and dark circles around her eyes. Like a panda. Clint will say “check that white face cow for me.” and I’ll say “which one? solid white or panda cow?” and he’ll say “panda”. I know he probably laughs at me about this, but it’s the only way I can remember. He remembers them by the numbers on the tags on their ears. I remember them by defining characteristics. Panda cow. Brindle speckle face. Petey, a runt with red circles around his eyes, like the dog on “Little Rascals”. Little Dude, a calf I bottle fed to save his life.  Trouble’s mama.

  Trouble’s mama. Now there’s a story. Trouble’s mama is mostly black, with a white face with borders of cloudy gray. She had her calf a few years ago, in the middle of a cold rainy day. The calf died without even nursing once. She had a large, glorious Holstein “bag” (udder) full of nutritious milk. Clint called a man down the road who ran a dairy to see if he had any calves to sell. He did have one, a red one born very recently. We drove to get it and Clint picked the calf up and put it in the front seat of the truck with us. I wasn’t very happy about having a wild, kicking calf laying in Clint’s lap as I drove, but it was so cold and rainy…so on I drove, with Clint holding the calf.

  Suddenly the calf jumped and bucked. Clint held on tight and kept the calf from jumping all over us in the front seat of the truck. What he was unable to stop, though…was the steady stream of POOP that erupted from the tail end of that calf, covering the dash board and Clint. I groaned and drove, Clint laughing, covered in poo.

  We got him to the cow. She stood, grieving, over the body of her dead calf and paid no attention to the new baby. We put them in a pen together, coaxing the mama to the pen by placing the dead calf onto the four wheeler and the mama following it in. Still, she paid  no attention to the new red calf.

  Clint got the idea to cut the skin off the dead calf and tie it to the new calf, which would make the scent of the biological calf mingle with the new calf.  So, that’s what we did, me pulling the skin back away from the muscle of the calf as Clint cut it away. It was very much like working in surgery, I remarked more than once and Clint told me I was a good scrub.

  We tied the skin to the new calf…gave the mama some feed….waited and watched. Tentatively, the new red calf, now covered partly by black and white skin…began to suck and the mama took it and allowed it. We knew then the calf would be fine. And it was for a couple of days. 

  I went to check the calf on my way to the chicken houses. By now we had pulled the skin off and the mama was taking the calf as if it were hers.  The calf’s eyes looked sunken and he looked weak. I called Clint and he said he’d check him when he got home. By the time he got home, the calf was listless and wouldn’t suck.

  We gave him antibiotics and Clint milked the mama cow in the head chute, as she was wild and not a milk cow at all. We “gut fed” him, running a tube down his throat and into his stomach. He barely noticed the shots and didn’t fight us when we fed him. I cried and told Clint he was a goner. I suspected he had pneumonia, something that kills calves often. “That calf’s nothing but trouble.” I stated one day as I tried to get him to stand so I could bottle feed him some electrolytes I had made out of warm water, salt, and sugar and that became his name. Trouble.

  He mended and was soon big and strong. Mama cow bred back and had a calf that lived, but she is forever Trouble’s mama. I see her now, out in the pasture, grazing, her calf at her side. Does she remember Trouble? Does she know how hard we fought to keep him alive? Does she still grieve the calf she lost?

  I will check the cows for Clint and I’ll name off who was close to calving..who the bull was flirting with…what calves look like runty little knots and what calves look hale and hearty…and I’ll say “the stripey cow was fine….Tara’s cow looks good…that panda cow with the big splotches is ok, and the panda cow with the little splotches is in labor” He’ll ask about number 36 and I’ll be confused and ask what the cow LOOKS like, and he’ll say “it’s that lighter tan one, not the white one or the brown one” and then I’ll know.

  But the calf we had the other day…it’s mama is a delicate, ladylike panda cow with a sweet disposition. I drove out there. She had birthed it within moments of Clint checking on her that morning, right in the middle of all the other cows. She licked it, her afterbirth hanging out of her, signaling a brand new baby, barely an hour old. She knocked the other cows away that came over, curious. The new baby tried to stand, nearly flipping completely over. It finally stood, trembling and stumbling, instinct guiding it to the panda cow’s udder. The afterbirth came out in one great push, the act of the calf sucking causing a contraction just for that purpose. I could see it was a little bull…tiny, white head…rings around it’s eyes…pink, sweet nose. I edged a little closer and the calf looked at me. That’s when I noticed he had two dark patches under his eyes, looking very much like the dark swatches football players put under their eyes. I called Clint. “he’s got foot ball player marks under his eyes!” Clint laughed and asked me his name. “Tebow.” I said.

    Welcome to the world, little Tebow. May you be healthy and happy here on the Soggy Bottoms Farm. Welcome to our world.