Riding a motorcycle and other death defying feats

Jay bought a motorcycle.  Great!  How much fun is that?  Speeding along, the wind blowing through your hair, just you and the road, nothing separating you from the world around you.  What's not to like about that?  Of course, I've never been on a motorcycle in my life, so everything I know comes from watching TV and movies where people are flying through the streets at breakneck speeds and making it look so easy.  Or a pretty girl romantically perched behind her beloved, head resting against his firm shoulders, arms wrapped lovingly around his waist.  Ahhh, so perfect.  So, again, Jay bought a motorcycle and I hopped on the back for a ride.  Hmmm, first there was no laying of heads on anyone's shoulders.  The helmets kind of nixed that and if squeezing him until he gasped for air is comparative to lovingly wrapping my arms around his waist, well, okay then.  Not as easy as it looks.  The passenger has to cooperate and lean appropriately.  That took some practice.  Then, me being the worst case scenario kind of person I am, thought, "what would happen if we were riding and something happened and Jay couldn't drive it?  I would have to drive it and I don't really know how, I better learn."   Besides, how cool is it to be a 52 year old grandmother of 10 and learn to ride a motorcycle.  I would say that's one for the old bucket list.  Jay taught me some.  I could start (kind of ), stop (a little better), and drive in 2nd gear (not so great for driving around town.)  I forged forward and went to the DMV and took the written test and secured my temporary motorcycle endorsement.  It would be good for six months and then I would need to pass a skills test to get the permanent endorsement.  This was all well and good, but how do I become skillful if I don't have skills enough to make me feel safe just driving it around Iona?  Ahhh, a skills class, of course.  Why, if I take this awesome motorcycle training class I will be brave, confident, and comfortable whizzing around on Jay's motorcycle.  The initial classroom session left me even more apprehensive than before!  Riding a motorcycle was hard.  You had to balance, shift, brake, lean, countersteer, (that makes sense), look, scan, identify, predict, decide, and execute all in the space of 20 seconds.  Crap!  It takes me more than 20 seconds to remember what I'm supposed to do in those 20 seconds.  Why it's terrifying all the stuff you have to remember and at the same time.  Clutch, brake, throttle, signal on, signal off, lean.  The next morning came the first day of riding.  The program provided the bikes and all the gear.  Let me just say, there is no way I'm sticking a snug little motorcycle helmet on my head that has been on who knows how many other heads, so I took my own thank you very much.  As well as my own cool riding jacket complete with "retroreflective" markings (yes, that is essential to riding a motorcycle) and armor in all the right places.  I had on my long sleeve shirt and over the ankle boots as well.  I was ready.  Never mind it was 90 degrees outside.  So, here we go.  We were assigned bikes that would "fit" us.  I had a lovely little Suzuki number, cherry red, fuel injected, adorable.  We were carefully walked through the start up procedure over and over and over.  I should have appreciated the easy part.  Now in this class there just happened to be two "Janes".  And both of us were, what's the kind way to say this, elderly?  In spite of our handicap, we both jumped right in, or on as it would be and off we went.  The first exercise consisted of "walking" the bike without fully engaging the clutch to get a feel for a normal take off.  Simple enough....you would think.  I merely stalled the engine...repeadedly.  The other Jane managed to dump the bike on the ground on the 2nd turn.  Karma is a funny thing.  It will get you.  I sniggered just a little bit and thought to myself, "okay, so I'm not the worst student in the class."  Uh, huh, just wait a minute.  So, then we moved on to actually engaging the clutch and taking our feet off the ground.  Now, as I'm gloating just a bit because I'm not the worst student, several others had stalled their rides over and over, the other Jane had already dumped hers as had another younger girl, so as I'm enjoying my station as "not the worst student in class" I somehow manage, while negotiating a turn of all things, to accelerate when I meant to brake.  This is not a good thing to do as your body thinks you are stopping, but the motorcycle underneath your buttocks jumps forward.  So, the result is as follows:  bike jumps, Jane flies off the back, flips over, bike hits the ground, as does Jane, and flops and rolls across the range, Jane, not the bike. It was spectacular!  The bike had the decency to just fall over on it's side and lay there.  There are not enough Angry Birds bandaids in the world to bandage my poor, wounded pride.  I immediately jumped up, in spite of the screaming pain in my leg, knee, shoulder, wrists.....well you get it, and proceeded to lift that bike.  I had to call upon that thing that mothers' get to lift a car off their injured child to do it, but I was not about to let the instructor get to me and have to do it for me. No siree, I jumped right back on that mother and took off.  Had I been shaking on the outside as bad as I was shaking on the inside, the front wheel would have been doing the Macarena.  As the training proceeded, the other Jane managed to dump her bike three more times.  This Jane did it one more time, but the second fall lacked all the splendor of the first one and only managed to snap the end off the clutch handle.  (I told them I would pay for that.)  As we broke for lunch and we removed our helmets I was mortified to discover that my lovely, curly hair was dripping wet and plastered to my head.  Had we not been on dry land in the middle of the high school parking lot, you would have thought I was taking scuba diving lessons.  Worse yet, why was I the only one that looked like a drowned rat?  I am seriously starting to question why they don't make helmets with air conditioning in them.  I would have to spend my lunch break washing my hair for Heaven's sake!  Good thing home was only 5 minutes away.  At home, I took off my sweaty, dirty clothes figuring that I didn't need to sit in an enclosed classroom grossing everyone out and was delighted to find some major evidence of the great motorcycle crash.  A massive, angry bruise on the inside of my left knee, a big purple bump on my right knee.  More purple bruises up and down both legs.  If I'm gonna crash and then get back on that beast, I want some battle scars to prove it.  So, in that respect, I was extremely successful.  A quick shower, change of clothes, gobbled down an apple and a diet coke and then back to the school for a couple hours of class time.  After listening to the instructor talk about all the dangers that face motorcyclists I'm asking myself, "why would anyone...in their right mind...ever get on one of these contraptions and leave their driveway?"  Right now, if I thought this class was going to give me confidence and make me at ease with riding, I was grossly mistaken.  I am more terrified to get on that thing than I ever was before the class.  The instructor is threatening us that we will learn how to swerve tomorrow.  Are you kidding?  Can't I just carry some kind of laser gun that vaporizes anything that might get in my path?  It seems a whole lot safer to me.  Maybe if motorists realized they would be vaporized for violating a motorcyclist's safety cushion, they would be more careful.  Oh well, tomorrow is another day, and I did live to ride another day, so hopefully it will be better.

The Roosters Croweth no more.

Eight "pullets".  Ya, right.  In the end, three pullets and five roosters.  The last two roosters headed to the chopping block today.  Or, should I say, the head ripping off broom handle. Today, however, I had accomplices.  Some Grandmas invite their grandchildren to come and bake sugar cookies, or watch a movie, or eat little cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off.  But, remember who we're talking about here.  There will be no cucumber sandwich eating going on here.  No, I invite my grandchildren to come help me butcher chickens.  Mel wasn't sure about it at first.  Would they be traumatized?  Would they have nightmares?  Would they ever eat chicken nuggets again?  But, I convinced her it was a good idea for the kids to know where food came from, so she finally consented.  It's so hard to tell your crazy mother in law "no" sometimes.  I picked up Hannah, the 8 year old and the oldest,  in my Commander and we sped through town to my house.  She helped me set up the butchering table and get the plucking pot boiling on the stove.  Then the others arrived. We used Jay's, (sorry honey), big fishing net out of the boat and first Brie, the 7 year old, ventured into the chicken run.  Watching her chase the big rooster with a giant fishing net was way better than watching me run around in my  pink nightie and leopard print hair curlers.  Okay, maybe not, but it was pretty cute.  She dropped the big net over the squawking rooster's head first try and trapped him.  Enter Grandma to grab him by his feet and carry him to the butchering area.  Mel stood on the patio holding her breath as I put the big rooster's neck under my broom handle.  Paige stood quietly by the back door,  holding Sally, the nervous dachshund puppy in her arms.  Lincoln peered from behind Tater's big doghouse.  Hannah and Brie were right there next to me, waiting anxiously to see what happened.  Rooster neck in place, feet straddled the head, I grabbed hold  of the  big rooster talons and with a quick yank, the deed was done.  After it was all done, Mel admitted it wasn't as gruesome as she had imagined.  Everything was going according to routine.  With that line said, you all know things are quickly about to change.  My system of the bungee cord around the rooster feet and strapped to the side of my butchering table was somehow flawed this time around.  As soon as I hung the headless feathered beast upside down, it somehow managed to hop loose and proceeded to run, headless around the yard.  In a split second the girls were screaming like, well....., like little girls, and running away from the headless chicken that seemed to be chasing after them.  Mel was on the porch laughing, ummm, well I would say laughing her head off, but that just seems inappropriate.  She was laughing pretty hard.  Moose, the Lhasa Apso, was making a mad dash after the out of control chicken trying to pin it down so I could grab it.  It only took seconds, but I think it all happened in slow motion.  At last the situation was under control and we were ready for the 2nd rooster.  This time Hannah, who is quite the little warrior, face paint and all, took the big fish net and headed for the chicken pen.  She marched right in without hesitation and with determination she dropped the net right over that rooster's head before he even had time to jump.  Grandma snatched him up by the feet and with unexpected and a little disturbing glee, the girls skipped to the butchering site and prepared excitedly for the next rooster execution.  And, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, but the retention system for draining the headless birds failed once again and the whole headless chicken running around the yard with dogs barking and girls screaming repeated itself.  Oh what a tale these kids will have to tell!  Now when they hear someone say, "I've just been running around all day like a chicken with my head cut off", it will produce a very distinct image in their minds.  They took strange delight in dipping foghorn leghorn into the pot of boiling water and then stripping him of his feathers.  And, weirdest of all, Hannah delighted in examining the gooey parts that I pulled out of the inside.  Mel nearly lost her breakfast as the partially digested chicken food spilled from the gullet.  Hannah, on the other hand, was fascinated by the heart, lungs, liver and the pebbles and crap that were inside the gizzard.  She asked me to cut off it's foot so she could look at it.  I am quite certain if Mel would have allowed it, she would have taken that foot home as a keepsake of the day.  We plucked, gutted, cleaned, and cut up those two roosters.  Mel took Hannah and Lincoln home and Paige and Brie stayed for awhile to do normal things like play with Grandma's dollhouse and toys. (yes, I do have some normal things).  Then I strapped them in the back of the Commander with the bungee net (because that is completely normal), and drove them back home.  This shouldn't be a day they will forget any time soon.  I can't wait for Paige to go to Sunday School class on Sunday.  She will be more than happy to share all the glorious details of head ripping, wild headless roosters running around, and blood spurting, with her entire class.  If only I could see the horrified look on her teacher's face when she does.

How to make chicken soup

First, live in a town with a no rooster ordinance.  Second, buy sexed chickens from the feed store.  Third, realize that someone messed up and you have a rooster.  Fourth, have  your husband, who is home on vacation for a week and sick with a severe lung infection, get woken up for the third day at 5:30 a.m. by a stupid rooster that can't keep it's beak shut.  You all knew this day was coming.  I warned far in advance.  Well, today was the day.  Jay had had enough of the 5:30 a.m. wake up calls.  I'm pretty sure most of my neighbors have too, but have been too nice to say anything....yet.  I was waiting for this rooster to get big enough to eat, and Jay determined that today he was big enough to eat.  So, at 5:30 this morning.  I was running around the chicken pen trying to catch an anxious rooster who seemed to be able to tell that something was up.  In the slide show attached to this blog, there will be no pictures of that particular scene.  It's bad enough that I am in hair curlers and sweatpants, which are now splattered with blood.  The sweat pants, not the curlers, it wasn't that messy.  So, here goes the tale.  I caught Mr. Loud Beak and stuffed him in a large dog crate.  Jay and I then set to discussing how to do the deed.  At first, he had planned to just take his .22 out and pop him off, but then decided that might be traumatic to the neighborhood not to mention that discharging a weapon in city limits is quite illegal.  So, then we decided to take him to the foothills and pop him off.  But, that seemed like an awful lot of work.  I just knew there had to be an easier way to get him from dog crate to pot.  As I've always said, you can find anything on Google. So I googled, "how to kill a chicken" and found a really fun and lively little blog that described the best way to kill, pluck, and clean a chicken.  Now, mind you, I have performed this task before, but it was probably 20 years ago and my memory is not that long.  So, I read the blog and it instilled great courage in me.  (all you people who think your blogs don't matter....guess again)  I looked at Jay and stated that I was going to do this and he was going to document it.  And then, as if the Shaw's aren't weird enough, at 6:00 a.m. I set up my "work" table in the backyard.  Assembled my tools of mass chicken destruction.  I donned my favorite apron and sweatpants (which will now need a good washing in chlorine bleach), put on my farmer hat, (to cover my curlers....because cutting off a chicken's head and gutting it in my backyard while showing my hair curlers would certainly not be socially acceptable), and was ready to go.  I woke my sister and told her I was going to kill the rooster, did she want to watch.  After all, he has woken her up every morning since she's been here too.  Her response was an overwhelming, "NO! I most certainly do not want to watch!"  Hmmm, okay then.  So, out to the back yard where I snatched Mr. Loud Beak from the large dog kennel in the barn.  I held him upside down by his feet, because according to the blog I read, this makes him docile.  Hmmm, not so much. He squawked pretty loud.  I then employed the Amish method of chicken termination which entails placing the chicken's neck under a broom handle, standing on the handle with one foot on either side of his head and then yanking him quickly by his feet until his head is removed.  This method worked well, it was simple and kept the blood splatter to a minimum.  With the vocal chords now separated from the body I heard the entire neighborhood breath a collective sigh of relief.  Now I bungeed his feet together and hung him upside down from my table to let him bleed out while I cooked link sausage, raisin toast, and fried eggs for Jay's breakfast.  (Yes, I did wash my hands first).  At the same time, I set a large pot to boil on the stove.  After breakfast I carried my large pot of near boiling water to my work table and carefully dipped Mr. Rooster in and out of the hot water.  I was pleasantly surprised at how easily his feathers came right out and in just minutes he was plucked clean.  Then with a few swift cuts of my filet knife I opened him up, removed the gooey inedible parts, separated out the heart, gizzard and livers (because they are my favorite), cut him up into parts, scrubbed him clean and vacuum sealed him for the freezer.  Wham, bam....ya, you get it.  It's too hot today for that chicken soup, but the day will come when I will stew him up, throw in some of my homemade noodles with carrots and onions from my little garden and sit with satisfaction knowing that I am truly eating by the sweat of my own brow.

Slide show below.  Disclaimer....it's 6 a.m, I'm in my backyard, my neighbors have seen worse, and.....since when does Calamity Jane care what people think.

Shut the old lady up!

It’s an interesting observation as I get older to realize how many distinct personalities I can fit into one body and still manage to not be deemed a clinical schizophrenic.  Maybe they were always there and there was just too much noise going on outside of my head for me to hear them.  Maybe they have come to live gradually over time, who knows.  All I know is they are there.  One of my particular favorites is the stand up comedian.  She thinks there is no situation that cannot be made better by a joke.  She wears a perpetual grin and can find something funny to say about anything.  Now, not everyone around her thinks she is funny, but she thinks she is and that’s all that really matters.  I have discovered there is a scared little girl who skulks around in the shadows.  She is terrified of the wind and things that go bump in the night.  She still holds firm to the belief that if you pull the covers up to your chin and you don’t let your arms or legs hang out, then nothing can hurt you.  But, she sleeps with the lamp on…just in case.  There’s a mom type in there.  She’s the one who remains cool and calm at the sight of blood spurting from an open wound.  She actually has a sub personality as well.  While she stands there in any given situation looking calm, cool, and collected….never breaking a sweat…..there’s another woman inside of her screaming at the top of her lungs, “oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!  Crap, Crap Crap!   Somebody get in here and take care of this before my head explodes and you have to clean brain matter off the walls!”  We try NEVER to let that woman out.  There is the wife.  Thank Heaven for her or nothing would ever get done.  She is the responsible one who makes sure the bills are paid, the laundry gets done, the house isn’t declared unfit to inhabit, and there are some fruits and vegetables in the fridge.  She loves her husband and makes sure he knows he is the most important thing in her world.  She’s kind of boring, but I couldn’t survive without her.  And of course there is the polite, professional, business woman.  She knows how to schmooze the right people, say the right thing and she can hold her own with her peers.  Always firm, but never offensive…..unless she’s right, she’s knows it, and she can prove it.  Then you better stand back unless you plan to lose a limb.  (I kind of like her too).  Which brings to mind the gun totin’, duck shootin’, fish catchin’, hillbilly.  She doesn’t like makeup and never worries about her hair.  A hat and some good camoflauge is all that is required.  However, every woman has an inner princess as well, who…at times… doesn’t mind so much fixing her hair, putting on some make up, having her nails and toes painted and walking that hypothetical runway.  I don’t care who you are, the princess is always in there.  Sometimes she’s hidden deeper in some people than in others, but trust me, if I have an inner princess, every woman has one.  There’s the farmer who likes to wear a beat up cowboy hat, leather gloves and listen to her IPod at extremely loud volumes while she weeds her potatoes, hoes her corn, and picks the weeds out of the strawberry patch.  She doesn’t even care how ridiculous she looks while she mows her tiny front lawn with her giant tractor lawn mower and forgets that just because she can’t hear other people, doesn’t mean they can’t hear her when she sings out loud with the extremely loud IPod.  Oh, and don’t forget that this woman tends to the chickens and the dogs and the cat and the birds and carries 50 lb bags of animal feed around on her shoulder.  The woman I think I like the most is the eternal 17 year old.  She is no stranger to me.  She has always been there, but most of the time the other women keep her chained up somewhere….until lately.  Maybe it comes with age, I’m not sure, but as time goes by the 17 year old gets stronger and all the others seem to weaken a little.  In my mind the 17 year old is thin, with powerful, shapely legs, arms and firm buttocks.  She has long blonde hair that waves slightly in the breeze whether the wind is blowing or not.  She has no boundaries.  She has no fear.  She is the one responsible for the camping, hiking, exploring, muscle driving adventures.  She is the one who sits on the back of a motorcycle with the wind blowing in her face, hurtling down the highway looking at the back of Jay’s helmet, with nothing between her and the hard asphalt but the machine beneath her and the clothes covering her.  She is the one who rides through the streets of town in her ATV wearing a t shirt that says, “the police don’t think this is as funny as I do” on the back of it.  There are no restraints and there is that always present sense of danger that keeps the adrenaline pumping through her veins.  In the past we all tried to ignore her.  She was irrational, irresponsible, careless, crazy, unreliable.  But as the other women tend to age, she never does.  Now, to every ying there is a yang and there is one personality that rules all the others.  She is the old lady.  She is the hoarse, gravelly voice that screeches, “get off that motorcycle you idiot.  Are you trying to kill yourself?  You can’t ride a motorcycle.  You are too old.”  She loves to point out how my feet and knees hurt when I’m trying to hike.  She loves to tell me that I need to go to the bathroom in the middle of a good movie, and usually at the most critical place in the story.  She blurs my vision so I can’t read the small print and sets my nerves on edge when there are a lot of people around.  She gives me heartburn when I eat raw onions and laughs when I stumble and trip over a crack in the sidewalk.  She is an evil old hag who is the only one who seems to compete with the 17 year old. Sometimes people look at me and I seem to be staring off in to space, unaware of my surroundings.  The truth is, I have all these people inside of me, all talking at the same time and I am trying to figure out which one I should listen to.  At least I never get lonely.  I don't have a problem with them all being in there.  Sometimes it feels crowded and frustrating trying to figure out who I am, but..... I have a request of all the personalities inside of me.  I beg you all to get together and in one combined effort, please, please, please……SHUT THE OLD LADY UP!

I

Wanderlust

Wanderlust comes from the German Wandem and Lust, which literally translated means to love to hike.  To say we suffer from wanderlust is like saying the sky is blue.  People wonder why we would go off camping in the wilderness with the bare necessities.  We are Grandparents in our 50's for Heaven's sake.  What could we be thinking?  Jay and I have never seen life as a spectator sport.  Our time on this earth is so minuscule in the whole scheme of things, and we don't intend to waste a single minute or miss a single thing.  There is too much to see, and most of it can't be seen from the interstate.  So, our latest adventure begins.  We hopped in the Commander, our side by side ATV, one day and headed out West of Idaho Falls into the barren lava rock and sage brush desert to a place called Hell's Half acre. I get the Hell part, but not the half acre part since this area is 18 miles wide by 5 miles deep.  Four thousand years ago a vent opened up in what was then just a simple prairie and gushed forth liquid, molten lava.  This deadly hot liquid oozed like wicked pudding across the landscape destroying everything in its path.  Then it turned black, cooled and started to become solid.  As it cooled, the solid parts would sometimes break off the still cooling mass, leaving giant trenches and tears in the mountains of solid rock.  Sometimes an air bubble would be trapped inside the molten liquid and as the crust cooled, the bubble would burst leaving a deep pocket in the side of the rock mountain or cause the crust to fall in and leave a deep depression.  As we drove around the perimeter of this massive wasteland we could see these little caves and openings.  There is only one way to explore the unforgiving miles of lava flows and that is on foot.  So hatched our plan.  We would find the perfect spot to camp for the night.  Then we would come out here and explore and look for small game and more caves.  After two days of driving around the lava fields, we found the perfect location.  There was a cave in the side of the mountain on one of the many little spur roads.  You had to climb over a small lava rock rim into a bowl that was filled with frozen snow and water forming a small ice pond.  Across the ice pond we could climb up just a few feet into a small cave at the top of the lava hill.  We put the location in the GPS and headed home.  We made a list of essentials and what would fit in the back of the commander.  We gathered what we needed, packed it up and loaded up the commander.  About five miles from our camp site there is a place to park the truck and unload the ATV.  We easily found our special place again and proceeded to carry our provisions over the rim, into the bowl, up the rocks, and into our cave.  Jay spread a tarp over the soft, black volcanic sand that covered the floor of the cave and then placed our sleeping bags.  We found a good spot at the cave's opening edge for a fire where the smoke would be drawn outside the cave.  We found a flat rock for our one burner fuel stove and a suitable location across the ice pond for a latrine.  Now we were set.  Jay decided to climb to the top of our hill and cross the lavas looking for small game.  I decided to go on a walkabout.  I planted my feet on the rough rocks and with my .38 on my right hip and my .22 pistol on my left hip, I climbed to the top of the hill and looked across the flows.  I could see for miles.  The lavas are deceiving.  The rocks look smooth and rounded with rippling surfaces that seem like they are made of gooey pudding.  But they are anything but soft.  Every step must be carefully placed because the surface is rough, and craggy with loose stones that would turn an ankle or send a person falling onto rock that will tear human skin to shreds.  In the words of Owen Wilson's character in the movie Armageddon, it is about the worst environment known to man.  I carefully picked my way across the black rocks all the while keeping a landmark in view to show me where my cave was.  Once on top of the flows, without a compass or a visible landmark, you would find yourself lost in no time.  The lavas flow up and down in waves.  I crawled down into deep depressions and then climbed back up to the top of the rim only to discover another deep valley.  I found holes and caves and deep cracks all along my trail.  I constantly kept oriented to the landmark I had picked.  I crawled up and down and picked my way across the rocks for about 1/2 mile before I finally found a large rock at the top of a hill and sat down and gazed around me.  Here in what seemed to be the wildest, cruelest place I had ever seen was an amazing abundance of life.  The lava had once destroyed all the life that existed here, but it had found a way to return.  There was green, white, and red lichens covering the stones.  A grayish, spongy fungus covered everything giving the appearance of a soft mossy ground.  In the tiniest crack with barely a dusting of soil there grew craggy and crooked bushes that sprouted harsh red flowers, and vicious cactus with long, sharp spines.  The sagebrush sprouted seemingly from the rock itself and it's pungent aroma filled the breeze.  Squatty cedar trees with their rugged needles still brown from the harsh winter snows that had just recently melted grew in no more than a what seemed like a teaspoon of dirt in the depression of the rocks.  Prairie grass just turning green grows in the little patches of soil in the valleys between the rock hills.  The breeze was filled with the scents that reminded me of where I live.  I can see Jay walking across the lavas in the distance, his gun resting on his arm.  I'm hoping he will find a rabbit for dinner, but other than a few small birds, I think plants are the only living things in this rough terrain.  The air starts to chill as the sun moves toward the western horizon and I start my careful climb through the ragged landscape back to my cave.  Once there, I build a fire and as the flames lick the roof of the cave, our little camp warms up.  Soon Jay returns and confirms my fears that we will not be having rabbit for dinner.  So, I open my backup rations and heat up a nice roast beef and corn hash for a gourmet camping meal.  With our stomachs full, we decide to do some more exploring and we climb to the top of our hill once again.  This time we head off together toward the South where I thought I had heard a coyote bark earlier.  We carefully climbed up the steep hills and crawled down the rock faces into the depressions in the rocks.  We hopped over more than one deep rift in the rock and then headed back to the West toward the road.  After one final descent down  the face of a pitted lava rock hill, we reached the little trail around the lava flow and walked back to where we had parked the Commander.  In all, it was about a mile and a half hike up and down the rocks.  We knew we would feel it in the morning.  But for now, we climbed over the lava rim, across the ice pond, up the rock ledge and sat at the opening to our cave.  We watched the stars as they popped into the twilight sky with the crescent moon straight above us.  The only sounds were the crackling fire and the silence.  Soon the desert was bathed in blackness and our fire had burned to embers.  Jay lit the Coleman lantern and we settled into our sleeping bags for the night.  I felt a little claustrophobic as I stared at the huge boulders hanging suspended just a few feet above my head.  I wondered what could be holding them in place.  It was almost a relief when he turned off the lantern and I couldn't see them there above me any more.  But, the mouth of the cave was bathed in light and the night sky full of stars, the cedars, the sage brush and the lava mountains were framed there like a beautiful painting.  I pulled the sleeping bag over my head to keep out the cold and drifted off to sleep.  Morning came in what seemed like a moment and the sky was purple with the first light of morning.  I wriggled out of my sleeping bag and put on my boots so I could make my way across the ice pond to the latrine.  By the time I was back, Jay was up and I cooked a delicious breakfast of fried spam and scrambled eggs.  I washed the dishes and rolled up the sleeping bags while Jay carried our supplies down the rocks, across the ice pond, over the lava rim and packed them into the commander.  This adventure was over, but it was everything we had desired.  We had seen the landscape and breathed the aromas of the desert.  Now we will return home and rest, because we are of course, old.  We will sit in our recliners and watch the Discovery Channel and before we know it the wanderlust bug will bite again.

I've got crabs!

Ah!  Dinner at one of my favorite places.  Crabs on the beach.  That is the name of the restaurant, not a description of crustaceans in the sand. The hostess seated us at a nice table with a beautiful view of Casino Beach.  I carefully perused the menu, agonizing over which crab platter I should eat, finally deciding to have them all.  I ordered a delicious platter of ten blue crabs and a whole dungeoness crab.

Now, you must understand two things.  First, I am a crabaholic.  I love the stuff and could eat it all day.  Second, blue crabs come uncleaned.  They charge a fortune for them and then make you clean them yourself. It might bother some people, but I am not squeemish about it.  The waitress hesitantly asked me if I had ever had blue crab before, explaining with trepidation that they come uncleaned and can be quite a lot of work to eat, but they would show me how it was done.   No, I had not eaten blue crabs, but I had eaten red crab in Oregon and I figured they were pretty much the same thing.  Red, blue, they are all salmon after you cook them and they all look the same on the inside.  She donned her latex gloves to give me a demonstration on how to clean and eat these little delicacies.  I politely watched and let her finish her show.  She had no way of knowing that a little girl from Idaho knew very well how to eat these crabs.  Once she was done and had left the table shaking her head at all the crab that lay in front of me, I tackled the first crab.  It was a male. How you cleaned them depended on their sex if you can imagine. (I'm sure you can.)

Jay watched in horror as I deftly grabbed it's, you know, and ripped it from the shell.

Then I viciously, with an evil grin, tore the shell from it's lifeless body, ripped off it's lungs, and scraped out it's innards.  I tossed them wildly into the bucket sitting on the table for my scraps.  Jay was glad he was wearing his rain coat as he was splattered with crab juice and flying entrails.

I looked around at the other restaurant patrons sitting by us and they were all staring at me with that same opened mouthed awe and revulsion that Jay was.  I just sat there with crab juice and butter dripping from my chin and elbows, cracking shells and sucking the tender meat out of the legs and claws with my mouth.  It was incredible to watch, I don't care who you are.  

Eleven crabs later I was smacking my lips, Jay was wiping the flying pieces of crab and juice from his rain coat and handing me wet wipes.  I was wiping my face and squeezing lemons on my hands as the waitress gathered up the aftermath of crab shell carnage.  I walked out of the restaurant with my head held high.  I nodded and smiled at the man sitting behind me as he sat with his own platter of blue crabs.  He got his plate before me.  His wife had left the table and he was alone.  I swear I saw a gleam of respect in his eye as I passed by, but I can't prove it.  My husband is not grossed out by my behavior, although he probably should be, but this is why I married a Southern Redneck.  Tonight I will sleep well with dreams of crabs and melted butter floating in my head. 

Pelicans and Pin Fish

Another morning.  The sun barely up and we are off.  The days may start the same, Waffle House, bait shop, Ft. Pickens, but that is all that is routine.  We get here early enough that no one else has arrived.  Jay stakes out his spot on the Northwest corner of the pier and sets up his poles.  It isn't long before the others start to arrive.  The fishing pier is a community all its' own.  The people are a variety of young and old.  They come from all over and on the pier there is only one social class, the fisherman.  We meet people from Kentucky, Mississippi, Minnesota, Alabama and Tennessee. I sit quietly in my corner and listen to the old men swap stories of fish and ask each other what kind of bait they are using.  All day long there is a happy buzz of conversation and laughter.  I watch the newcomers as they admire the handsome Pelicans that hang around and seem to have no fear of the people.  I have been here a few days and I know these pelicans a little bit better.  I just grin to myself as they hold up their cameras and tell their companions to go stand next to that pelican so they can take a picture. I hope they will have their camera ready to snap that picture when their poor subject hears the loud CLACK! of that pelican's beak as he snaps at the person inching closer to him.  It is hard not to laugh out loud as the startled person jumps and runs away from that adorable little monster.  In my time here at the pier, I have become the resident pelican police.  These pelicans will snatch a man's fish while it is still on the line as he is reeling it in.  I saw a guy chase one down the pier that had his fish in it's beak and he had to literally pull his fish out of the pelican's gullet.  Another guy pulled a big mullet out of his cooler and set it on the table to cut it for bait and before he knew what was happening, that pelican jumped on the table and swallowed his fish and then walked up and down the pier for the next hour with that fish sitting sideways in his throat.  When Jay is cutting bait, casting his line, or reeling in a fish, it is my job to stand between him and the pelicans, waving a white terry cloth towel at the birds like a matador, shouting, "shoo you, go on, git outta here!"  while the pelicans back away, clacking their long pointed beaks at me.  Pretty soon all I have to do is get out of my chair with my white terry cloth towel in my hand and those pelicans would turn around and slink away, giving me dirty looks as they turn their heads around and look back.  Later in the afternoon a nice little family come on the pier.  There is a dad, mom and four very well behaved children.  The kids watch wide eyed, mouths open as Jay hauls in one blue striped pin fish after another.  One little girl inches closer to him on the rail and casts her line close to his, hoping the little fish will take her bait as well.  Jay finally hands her his pole when he  has a fish on and lets her reel it in.  She is so excited to pull in that little fish.  I, of course, am doing pelican patrol to make sure she doesn't have to fight the birds for it.  The other children watch with delight.  Jay generously hands his pole to another child each time he has a fish on until each one has had a turn to reel in a little fish.  The joy on their faces is priceless!  Another boy who has been fishing by us for about an hour starts to inch his way closer.  He watches what Jay does and tries to copy it.  He is so anxious to catch something.  He finally asks Jay what he is using for bait.  Jay tells him it is shrimp and the boy looks dejected as he informs Jay that he doesn't have any shrimp.  Jay then opens his tackle box and offers the boy his secret combination of hooks and weights and shows him how to rig his line with them.  Then he hands him some shrimp to bait it with.  The boy excitedly casts his line where Jay shows him to and before long he has a fish on.  He is bouncing up and down shouting, "I got one, I got one!"  while his dad tells him to reel it in.  Jay just sits in his corner and chuckles.  The boy's parents tell him it's time to go have dinner and he reluctantly leaves, vowing that he is coming back after dinner.  The sun starts to set and the people start to thin out.  One old man offers Jay his remaining bait as he packs up to go.  Each person says goodbye to the others still remaining as if they are old friends.  Soon everyone is gone.  The sun has set and the sky is dark.  Stars pop out in the sky and the yellow lights along the pier come on.  Lights from the buildings across the sound glisten on the black water.  The only sounds now are the quiet lapping of the waves against the shore and the occasional screech of the crane who has come to wait patiently for abandoned bait.  Another day is coming to an end.  Tonight we will sleep well, filled with fresh salty air and baked by the sun, then tomorrow we will go to the pier again and see what new adventures await us there.

Just a day at the beach.

I love the ocean.  It's always so alive and constantly moving and changing.  I can sit at the end of the pier that extends a half mile out into the blue green depths and watch the turquoise swales rise up, roll onto shore, and then crash into a white, frothy foam against the sugar sand of the gulf shore beaches.  It's like swaying gently in a hammock while sitting still on my bench.  Even with the roar of the waves all around, it's still serene and peaceful.  A gull screeches behind me.  A pelican inches his way towards my bag, convinced I'm hiding a juicy mackerel in there somewhere.  Just off the pier I hear the puff of air as two dolphins pop above the surf for a quick breath of air.  The wind is blowing hard, so hard it tears the hat from my head and into the open sea.  Two boys fishing for cobia run with their poles to my rescue and cast their large hooks at it in an attempt to rescue it for me.  Alas, the sea prevails and I am forced to walk the half mile back to the truck to fetch another one.  No worries though, the walk is pleasant and I breathe deep to take in the warm salty air.  Somehow at the ocean, having the wind whip my hair around my face is exciting and it exhilarates me.  Wearing just a light sweater is no problem because the winds here aren't cruel  like the winds at home.  The winds at home nip and bite and blast through many layers of clothes and laugh wickedly as you shiver and hurry to escape them.  Not so with the ocean winds.  They caress your skin and gently cool it without taking any heat from you body.  They giggle softly as they swirl about your ears and call, "come play with us.".  Now, in spite of the serenity and beauty, let's not forget that we are still the Shaws, and where the Shaws go, so goes weirdness.  Enter Cody, the most annoying fisherman on the planet.  Let me preface with, fishing is not really a spectator sport and does not require a running commentary.  In fact, long intervals of uninterrupted silence is generally the acceptable practice.  So, back to Cody.  We arrive at the Ft. Pickens pier to discover Cody, the gym shorts wearing, beer gut wielding "fisherman" and his camo clad newbie.  They have their equipment scattered from one end of the pier to the other.   There are empty cat litter buckets tied with ropes to the side of the pier.  (No, I do not know what for).  They have a variety of no less than 10 fishing poles lined up along the rails and secured with bungee cords so the killer whales I can only assume they thought they were going to catch, will not snatch their poles off the rail.  They have cast nets and drop nets and shark poles and shrimp poles, and Cody generously offered to let Jay use any of his equipment he wanted to.  All Jay really wanted was for Cody to shut up and leave him alone.  Cody happily chattered on about all his fishing experiences and stood next to Jay rattling off an endless barrage of questions.  I just sat back and watched carefully as Jay's trigger finger started to twitch.  The coupe de gras came when Jay got a tangle in his line and as he was working it out, Cody actually reached in and attempted to help him.  I jumped from my chair and braced myself to tackle Cody out of harm's way if I saw Jay go for his gun.  As it turned out, this was Cody's lucky day.  Jay just snapped, "I got it!", and in the first intelligent moment Cody had shown since we arrived, he backed away and said, "okay".  About that point, Jay decided it was in Cody's best interest that we go fish at the Navarre pier.  Once at the truck, I gave Jay a big kiss and told him he deserved a medal for his amazing self restraint, but the kiss would have to do.  Jay just has this salty old fisherman look about him that seems to attract people.  Even at the Navarre pier a young man fishing at the end of the pier came to chat with him at the rail.  A least this boy was an intelligent, respectful one who understood the unspoken rules of pier fishing and allowed the appropriate intervals of silence between his intelligent and relevant comments.  I have lived a lifetime in the beautiful mountains and forests of Idaho.  I have been inspired by the grandeur and beauty of a sunny mountain springtime and the glorious warm orange of fall, but I had never experienced paradise until I came to stay on the breathtaking beaches of the Florida panhandle.

Even Xena can't drive fast enough

Not that I didn't test her, but even Xena can't drive fast enough to outrun some things.  Three years today, and for the first time in those three years I woke up this morning and felt like I could take a deep breath without crumbling.  Paul died on January 26, but today is the day we buried him.  This day is the one that gives me the most trouble of all the bad days that come along.  The day he died was surreal, not solid, not tangible.  But that day we sat in the frigid cemetery and I saw that box next to that awful hole in the ground, that is the day that is seared on my mind like a brand.  The blister heals and the angry red turns to a faint pink, but the scar never goes away.  As they say, time does heal all wounds, but time seldom erases those scars.  I visited his grave and looked at his name carved on that granite marker and memories flashed through my mind.  Happy ones, sad ones, memories filled with regret, longing for those missed opportunities to be a better mother, a better friend during his too short life.  I want him to be happy wherever he is.  I want him to remember me and know that I love him the same way I swear to remember him always.  I will let a few tears fall, I really have no choice in that, but I also know that tomorrow I will dry my eyes and life will continue.  I will tuck those painful memories away and hold them for another year and I will try to drive as fast as I can to keep ahead of them, knowing that in about a year from now they will catch up with me again.

                                                                         PAUL J NIELSON

Adventures in Animal Husbandry (or wifery in this case)

It's 4:30 a.m. and the phone rings.  Unavailable number?  Who is calling me at 4:30 in the morning?  It could only be Jay, right?  So, of course, I answer.  It's the security company informing that they have had a non-emergency alarm on my system.  As I hang up the phone I hear the rain falling in buckets on the roof and I realize what has happened.  I get up, wander to the kitchen to inspect the security system keypad, and sure enough, all the little lights are black.  It has no power.  Just a side note here, just because it is not lit up and has no power, does not mean it's not armed.  I open the garage door and the alarm unexpectedly and loudly screams in my ear.  I fumble like a blind person to find the right code to turn it off.  Now, not only am I fully awake, but I also need clean underwear.  I unplug the power cord going out to the chicken house, and then pitter patter in my little bare feet around the cars to the far side of the garage and reset the GFCI receptacle, and just like that, power is restored to the alarm system.  Now, I have to restore power to the chicken house so they don't get cold, but I have to discern why the power cord is tripping the GFCI.  Come to think about it, if the power is tripping off, I hope my little feathered friends have not been electrocuted.  I slip Jay's green rubber rain coat over my nightgown and then top off the ensemble by pulling on my knee high, black rubber farm boots.  I am stunning.  I slosh into the backyard where the rain is coming down in torrents.  I live in Idaho, it's a desert, it never rains like this, let alone in January. As I hop the fence to the chicken run I see the problem.  I just can't imagine why the power would trip off when the cord connection is only sitting in six inches of water.  This situation would require a bit more of a solution than just putting duct tape around the connection.  I head back in the house and now Frankie is awake and wanting to go outside.  He has not yet realized it is raining and I know him, he will not go to the bathroom if he's getting rained on.  So now I am in the backyard, in my nightgown, green rubber rain coat, and knee high black rubber farm boots, following an 8 in long, 2 in high spud around the yard holding an umbrella over his head so he will poop.  And I wonder why the neighbors are afraid of me.  Frankie, being the good boy that he is, did his business quickly and ran for the house.  Now, one problem solved, on to the next.  I determined I would probably need a slightly less casual attire, so I traded the nightgown for a sweatshirt and some jeans and added a baseball cap to hide the scary hair.  I realized that there was another receptacle I could use on the back of the house that if tripped, would not effect my security system.  But, it would require a longer extension cord.  Now, remember it is only 5 a.m.    I would have to figure something out.  There was a longer extension cord being used to plug our trailer in over at Kate's house.  The trailer didn't need a long extension cord because the receptacle was close, so I would be doing some cord swapping.  I sloshed back out into the backyard and wound up the existing cord and hopped in the truck and drove the 1/4 mile to Kate's house.  There I wound up the much longer cord attached to our trailer and replaced it with the sort of long cord from the chicken house.  Yes, it is still raining buckets.  Now, back to my house to string the new cord from the new receptacle out to the chicken house.  It still wasn't long enough to reach completely inside the chicken house and the connection would still be exposed to the weather.  As I stood in water up to my calves and pondered my dilemma, I realized that the redneck fence of wooden pallets I had around the run to keep the dogs out was perfect!  I strung the two cords through the pallets and made the connection a good three feet off the ground.  I then was able to cover it with a tarp that was in place already to, once again, keep the dogs from seeing a tiny opening in the redneck pallet fence.  This would keep the rain off the connection.  I finished my creation and connected the two cords and, hurray!, my babies had heat once again.  I know, I know, the animal farm was my choice.  Without them, I would have been sleeping peacefully at 4:30 in the morning instead of tromping around in the yard like some kind of swamp monster, scaring the neighbors.  But, sleep is for the weak, and sanity is overrated.  So I'll just smile at my temporary success against the elements while my rubber boots and raincoat are drying in the garage, and sit in front of the fireplace eating my scrambled eggs made from the freshest eggs from my own little pets.  For now, all is right on the Shaw Family Farm.

Halibut fishing….A metaphor for life

A couple of years ago Jay and I decided while on our annual vacation to Newport, Oregon that we would fish for Halibut.  Usually, we stuck pretty much to the shore, taking 4 hour trips to fish for Rock fish and Ling Cod.  Of course, Gilligan’s crew was only supposed to go on a 3 hour tour, and we all know what happened to them.  Okay, maybe if you’re over 30 you know what happened to them, but now I’m just meandering aimlessly about.  So, back to my story.  So, just to be different, we decided to take the 8 hour halibut trip.  It’s not that it takes longer to catch the Halibut, heck it takes less time, because you can only catch one, but it takes about 3 hours just to get out to the really deep waters where the Halibut like to lay on the bottom of the ocean.  Thus, the 8 hour trip.  We got up the morning of our Halibut day and the weather looked a bit ominous.  Cloudy, windy, really not that unusual for the Oregon coast, but not the best for toodling about in the ocean.  But, we headed to the fishing charter office anyway.  Once we arrived, we were informed that we would be fishing with Captain Steve, one of their finest fishing boat captains.  And at this point, I remind you all that Forest Gump was also a fishing boat captain.  Just sayin’.  Anyway, the 15 of us loaded ourselves on the boat, listened to the safety speech from the 1st mate, and situated ourselves for the long ride out.  As we passed under the Newport Bay bridge and out of the harbor into the open ocean, the sea looked a little rougher than we were used to.  The waves were rolling up pretty high and I looked at Jay with a little bit of a crease in my brow.  About that time, Captain Steve, who resembled Seamus from Family Guy (google him), casually announced that, “all the other charters for today had cancelled because the ocean was too rough.  But, he thought we could get out, get our halibut, and get back before we got killed.”  I can quite honestly say, I was not reassured.  We soon found that, in rough water, the cabin was not the best place to be.  Jay stood up for just a second and the wild waves tossed him into the overhanging roof and cut his forehead open.  Without the fresh air slapping you in the face, your stomach would start to rumble and roll.  I had no intention of throwing up on this trip, so we ventured out of the cabin and sat outside on the gear storage bin.  It was cold, and the waves crashed over the side of the boat and drenched us, but for some reason being outside kept the nausea at bay, so we stayed put.  After about 3 ½ hours of being tossed back and forth, breathing deep to keep the bile down, and chowing down on ginger snaps (because I read that ginger helps with sea sickness), we finally reached our fishing destination.  Those who could still stand or who weren’t busy vomiting over the side of the rail, dropped their lines and waited for the halibut.  It was an interesting situation as I stood there with one arm looped through the railing to keep me from being thrown over the side, and the other arm gripping the gigantic fishing pole.  Soon I had a fish on my line.  I cranked the line….and cranked, and cranked.  It was like trying to pull a 4 X 8 sheet of plywood up off the bottom of the ocean floor.  It was exhausting clinging to the rail, trying to keep my balance as the 15 foot swales rolled under the boat lifting it high in the air and then dropping it back down.  It was like riding a roller coaster, standing up, with nothing holding you in your seat, while you tried not to spill your big gulp.  Everyone was in the same boat as me, no pun intended, but true to his word, Captain Steve managed to get a halibut on board for every paying fisherman, puking or not, and we headed back for the shore.  Jay and I stayed outside on the storage bin, regardless of the fact that we were soaking wet and freezing.  The waves continued to pound and I continued to mumble, “please, God, let us make it back to shore before these waves decide to capsize this boat.”  It seemed like an eternity before we could see the distant shoreline.  I can’t tell you the relief that washed over me, along with the freezing seawater.  I knew, at least this close, they would be able to find our bodies.  Once on shore, and with our halibut filleted and packaged, we headed back to our nice, warm travel trailer to change in to dry clothes and rest and relax.  Once in the truck and on our way, we looked at each other and said, “well, that was….interesting, but we don’t ever want to do that again.”  

Now, for the metaphor.  Life is often like this fishing trip.  It is often filled with unexpected storms and crashing waves.  Once you’re headed out in life, you often can’t avoid these storms, but instead you just have to ride it through.  I remember a few years ago when the economy took a nose dive.  Prices were high, jobs started to disappear, and Jay’s was one of them.  It took him a year of unemployment before he could find another job.  During that year we found ourselves everyday just clinging to the rail, riding out the perfect storm and trying not to throw up. Praying every day that we would make it back to shore before our boat capsized and we were drowned.  It was a great experience because we kind of learned what we were made of.  We didn’t hide in the cabin.  We walked right outside and held our heads up and let the waves crash over us.  We rode out the storm and watched for the welcoming shoreline.  It was an experience worth going through.  Sometimes in life you just have to get wet.  You just have to hang on and try to enjoy the ride.   However, that being said, just like Halibut fishing, it’s not an experience I ever want to go through again.  I’m not sure knowing what it was going to be like, if I would be nearly as courageous again.  So, when you see trouble coming and you are afraid, or when you just don’t have the words to describe something difficult you might be experiencing…just say, “I don’t think I want to go Halibut fishing.”  And then hold on, breathe deep, know you’re gonna get wet, and watch for the shoreline.