Someone's History

The new ranch, nestled in the Porcupine Hills.

When I was seventeen, my Dad sold the Stringam Ranch in Milk River.

And bought another ranch in the shadow of the Porcupine Hills near Fort Macleod, Alberta.

New land to explore.

New worlds to discover.

A lot of riding to do.

Dad immediately got the animals organized.

The main herd was pushed into the southeast quarter.

Where the *gasp* trees were.

The yearling herd went straight east.

Easy access to the main ranch buildings.

They were my first assignment.

Every day, it was my duty to ride through, checking for abnormalities.

Animals in distress.

Animals in trouble.

Animals donning gang colours and getting ready to cause some trouble and distress.

It was a relaxing, wonderful way to spend every morning.

Our east pasture bordered on the neighbour’s west pasture.

Together, they formed a broad sweep of prairie, unbroken and untreed.

I was able to look over the gate in the far east fence and across the neighbour’s property - almost to the highway, seven miles distant.

Not far away, I could see the roof of a building. A large, abandoned building.

A barn, I thought.

It demanded . . . more exploration.

I knew the neighbor wouldn’t mind.

I opened the gate and, closing it carefully behind me, started out.

A short time later, I stopped my horse beside what turned out to be, not a barn, but a two-storey, formerly beautiful house.

Abandoned for some years, I judged by the windowless, shingleless, paintless, doorless condition.

Perfect.

I tethered my horse and went in through what had once been the front entrance.

I was immediately in a large open room.

Trash and debris were littered about, including a huge, old, wood-burning kitchen stove.

I moved nearer.

It had been a beautiful piece. Probably top of the line.

Nickel-plated and fancy.

Someone had used it for target practice.

Large holes had been blown through the doors and walls.

Shotgun, I believe.

I sighed and moved on.

In one of the bedrooms, the shelves were filled with . . . stuff.

I pulled out an old shoebox filled with letters written eighty years before, from a girl who had moved east, to her parents still on the family farm.

Fascinating reading.

I stuffed the shoe box back on the shelf and continued exploring.

A set of stairs beckoned.

I climbed to the second story.

Which proved to be one large room.

The windows at either end were, like those on the first floor, gone.

A layer of bird droppings about six inches thick covered everything here.

Clothing and other personal belongings were discernible.

Barely.

There were some boxes against one end.

I pulled them nearer the window and scooped away the decades of bird manure.

The boxes were filled with old ‘Life’ magazines.

The kind you pay mega bucks for at the antique stores.

Some of them dated back to 1903.

For a moment, I pictured stuffing my saddlebags full and riding away with a small fortune.

If only I had saddlebags.

Then, the smell hit me.

Oh, dear.

I dug down through the pile and pulled out a magazine from near the bottom.

Then moved closer to the window and held it to my nose.

Ugh.

Did you know that decades of bird poop really smells?

Well, it does.

And, over the years, it had trickled down through the pile of magazines to those at the very bottom.

Sigh.

Visions of wealth and riches disappeared.

Who is going to buy a magazine soaked in bird manure?

I put the magazine back and returned to my horse.

For a moment, I looked up at the house.

It had been a beautiful building.

Someone had constructed it.

Moved in.

Lived.

Then they had abandoned it.

I don’t know why.

But doesn’t it make your imagination soar?

Of Tables, Wind and Making an Ash of Oneself

Grant build our family a picnic table.

Cedar.

Nice.

It was the scene of many, many family meals and celebrations.

And occasionally the scene of . . . adventures.

Let me explain.

First, a little background.

Grant built a little home for us.

Okay. Originally, it was built as a dog kennel.

Then converted to a chicken coop.

Then we cleaned it up, insulated and panelled the interior.

Put down new flooring.

And we moved in.

Snug and cozy.

It was heated with a wood stove.

That is an important point.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

When I was expecting our fourth child, we decided that we needed more than 300 square feet to live in.

Grant built a basement and we moved our little house onto it.

Wow! Double the space!

We could now have such luxuries as . . . bedrooms!

A bathroom!

Luxury indeed.

But still heated with a wood stove.

Now comes the part where the picnic table and the wood stove come together.

It was winter.

Not much call for meals outdoors on our picnic table.

It had been shoved close to the house.

One day, just as we were preparing to head into town, Grant decided to clean out the little stove.

He carefully collected the ashes into a paper sack and carried them outside to put in the ash can.

Yes, we really had an ash can.

Don't ask.

Moving on . . .

One of the kids had a minor emergency just as my husby reached the front door.

He set his bag of 'mostly dead' ashes on the picnic table and scrambled to take care of the problem.

Done.

Then we packed up and left.

The bag of ashes sat, forgotten, in the centre of the picnic table.

I should explain, here, that the wind always blows in Southern Alberta.

This is important.

We were gone for some hours.

The wind blew on the little paper sack full of ashes.

And finally, ignited some of them.

They consumed the bag.

Then started on the nearest combustible object.

You guessed it.

Our picnic table.

Pushed up tight against the house.

When we returned from town, my husby stopped the car and turned it off,

Then hollered something unintelligible and ran for the house.

I was busy unbuckling children and pulling the baby out of her car seat.

I turned around just as Grant appeared with a bucket of water.

Which he threw on the picnic table.

It was then that I noticed the plume of smoke.

And heard the hissing of unhappy flames meeting . . . something extinguishing.

I moved closer.

Grant stood, surveying our picnic table.

Or, through the smoke, what was left of our picnic table.

An expression of relief and chagrin on his face.

“What on earth happened?” Me.

“I think I must have left the bag of ashes on the table.” He.

“Huh.” Me.

I herded the kids into the house while Grant poured more water on the picnic table.

Later, we took stock.

The table, miraculously, was mostly intact.

The bag of ashes had burned a large (12”) hole in the very centre.

The rest of it was still usable.

The miraculous part was the fact that the fire had confined itself to the centre of the table.

With the brisk wind, it could easily have burned the entire thing.

Not to mention our house.

Miracles, indeed.

There is a codicil.

My brother, Jerry, and his family were over to our little house for dinner.

As they were leaving, Jerry spotted the hole in the middle of our picnic table.

He laughed, sat down and said, “This porridge is too hot! said Papa Bear.”

Miracles aside, it was pretty funny.

Mary (a short story) Part Three

As our visits continued, we quickly came to discover the positive, independent attitude and irrepressible sense of humor that marked our new friend.

"Mary?"

A scream, then sounds of a struggle. Then . . . gurgling.

"Mary are you all right?"

A rather breathless, "Come in! Come in! I'm here in the kitchen!"

I set my newest addition to her plant collection on the floor and the two of us quickly made our way through the inner door.

There we found our friend collapsed in a chair, head on the table, obviously convulsed with . . . emotion.

Her large, grey cat was sitting on the table beside her, poking at her hair with a soft paw.

I hurried to her side and put a hand on one shaking shoulder.

"Mary, are you all right?"

A blackened face appeared, with two bright blue eyes looking out of it.

She scrubbed at some clear, wet streaks on her cheeks.

"Oh, Mary, Frank, you're just in time!" she gasped out.

"Mary, what's wrong?"

"Whoop! Nothing - that a person with a stronger stomach than I - can't take care of!" she chuckled.

I realized that her shoulders had been shaking, not with tears as I had first imagined, but with laughter.

I stood back. "What happened? What can we do?"

Still chuckling, she scrubbed at her face, smearing the wet, teary streaks. "Well, I guess for one thing, you can get me that coal scuttle over there." Mary waved a hand, indicating the ancient metal bucket beside the stove.

Frank hurried to bring it over.

"Oh, and the broom and dustpan." Mary glanced down and, for the first time, I realized that we were standing in a light carpet of ashes.

I stepped to one side, feeling the slight crunch as my foot came down on still more debris.

"Ick," I said.

"Good word!" Mary said, "and totally appropriate."

"But Mary, what happened?"

"Well, I was working on my quilt when I heard the most awful scrabbling sound here in the kitchen."

"Scrabbling sound?" Frank said.

"I don't know how else to describe it," Mary said. "I hurried in here and realized that the sound was coming from the chimney."

"Oh, dear," I said. "A bird?"

"Yes. The screen around the chimney must have blown loose or something and a bird got in there. Poor thing. I didn't have a fire going as I had been planning on cleaning out the ashes later today, but there must have been some residual smoke or something because, as I was trying to figure out how to help it, it quit struggling and I heard it fall to the bottom of the chimney."

"Oh, the poor thing!" I said. "So did you reach into the stove to help it?"

"Well, I tried. But when I opened the door, there was no bird in sight. So I decided that maybe it was just buried in the ashes. I brought the coal scuttle and a candle and peered into the stove. I discovered that there are a series of bars across the bottom of the chimney, where it joins the stove."

She shook her head. "I put the light further in and could see . . . something lying against those bars. I reached in . . ." again her shoulder began to shake with laughter.

"Mary, what happened?"

"I grabbed what I thought was the bird's foot, thinking I'd just pull it out. But what I got was the bird's beak."

She laughed again.

"I don't know why, but it seemed so much more . . . personal . . . than a foot. I screamed and pulled my hand back, then lost my balance and landed, face-first in the ashes." Her eyes twinkled from their sooty frame. "Then all I could do was laugh. That's when you two came in."

We stared at her.

What would this marvelous, independent woman think up next?

She got to her feet. "I'd better get this cleaned up."

"Please let us do that for you!" I said.

She sat back down. "You know what? I'm going to let you," she said.

Frank and I swept the normally spotless floorboards clean, dumping the ashes into the coal scuttle and setting it back beside the stove.

The Frank grabbed a small shovel and broom from hooks on the wall and proceeded to sweep the rest of the ashes and soot from the stove, adding them to what we had collected from the floor.

Mary got up again and moved over to the counter. She picked up a small mirror and peered into it.

"Oh, my!" She traced one sooty finger across her equally sooty face, then looked up at us.

"You have to admit, this is an improvement!" she said, her eyes twinkling.

She dipped steaming water out of the reservoir attached to the side of the stove and, pouring it into a little pan in the sink, quickly washed the ashes and soot from her face, hands and arms.

Finally, looking a bit more like Mary, she dried herself on a towel.

"There. That feels better!" She turned and looked at Frank, who was just finishing with the stove.

"Oh, thank you, dear boy," she said. "You are so kind!"

Frank set the coal scuttle beside the stove and walked over to the sink to clean his hands.

Then Mary grabbed some pieces of wood from a stack beside the cupboard and quickly laid and lit a fire.

Closing the stove door, she turned and looked at me. "Well this was hardly the way to welcome my friends into my home!" she said, smiling.

"Maybe, but at least we'll never forget it," I said.

She laughed. "Let's have tea!"

"First, where can I put those ashes," Frank said.

"Oh, just leave them there. I'll tote them out later."

"No, I like to finish my chores once I start," Frank said.

Mary smiled. "Well. all right."

She moved to the doorway of one of the bedrooms and pointed. "There's a door to the outside behind that curtain," she said. "You'll find a pit for the ashes not far from the back of the house."

Frank lifted the scuttle and disappeared through the door.

"Now, you set yourself right there at the table and I'll get the tea together, dear," she said to me.

Obediently, I settled into the chair she had just vacated. We chatted while she bustled around.

By the time Frank came back through the door, carrying the now-empty bucket, she had laid everything out on a tray and was dipping water out of the reservoir into her little teapot.

"Everything's just about ready, my boy," she said. "Now you two go out into the front room and I'll follow."

The tea tasted especially good. Maybe because it contained even more love than usual.

We were sitting quietly during the drive home, each of us busy with our own thoughts.

"Do you know that Mary doesn't have a bathroom?" Frank said suddenly.

"What?"

"Bathroom. Mary doesn't have a bathroom."

"I rather guessed," I said. "I didn't see one on our initial tour and none have sprung up since then." I looked at him. "But did you just discover this? You've been all over that house, tinkering."

"Well, I just never thought about it. I never went into her bedroom, and I just sort of assumed that there must be a little one in there. You know, joined up to the kitchen or something. With a little pump . . ."

I looked at him. No plumbing in the kitchen and you thought she would have it in a bathroom?"

"I know. Silly, right? Anyways, she has an outhouse, probably built when the rest of the house was built, out behind."

"Really?"

"Yeah. It's stone, like the house and really is quite nice."

"But it's still an outhouse," I said.

"Well . . . yeah."

"Not very pleasant in the winter."

"Definitely not." He looked at me. "And another thing. She has a big washtub hung against the back wall. And a scrub board."

"I didn't know you knew what a scrub board was."

Frank made a face at me. "Of course I know what a scrub board is. I've seen them played as instruments."

"Oh, that would explain everything!"

He laughed. "Anyways, I think that Mary scrubs her own clothes and takes a bath in that washtub."

"Medieval!"

"My thinking exactly!" He frowned. "The thing is, I can't help but think of what her life must have been like, living in the city with its obvious amenities. And then, when she is in the winter of her life, moving back here, were there really aren't any comforts at all."

"Well, she does appear to love it," I said, doubtfully.

"No phone. No plumbing. Fireplace and stove for heat. The only modern convenience she has is electricity, which she hardly uses." He looked at me again. "My point is - how can we help her?"

Summer in a Quonset Part Four

Coldest summer on record - and no heat!

In the summer of 1968, my parents sold our home ranch out on the south fork of the Milk River, and bought another place nearer to town.

There were myriad challenges.

But the most important was that it was bare land.

Absolutely everything needed to be built.

Construction was immediately started on a new home, and at the same time, on several barns, corrals and outbuildings.

The ranch buildings arose much more quickly than the house.

And that left us in a further dilemma.

Where to live.

The people who had purchased the ranch were justifiably anxious to take possession and our new house was far from completion.

My parents decided to move us into the newly-completed, steel-ribbed quonset.

It was an adventure.

And it's told here by my mother, Enes, from her journals.

(If you missed part one, you can find it here. Part two. Part three.)

Mornings were always very chilly - as was the whole summer!

With the exception of about two hot days, who could have foreseen the coldest summer in history?

Well, maybe Grey Eagle Child who forecast the coldest summer or fiercest winter every year. Sooner or later, he's right!

We never lingered over dressing in the morning, for with a Swish! Swish! on would go our clothes, socks, sweater, snow boots and usually jacket.

I would shiver my way over to the stove and turn the oven and all four burners on at once, even if I only needed two.

They must have given psychological heat because any heat calories were certainly lost in the voluminous stratosphere of the shed.

All plates and bowls would go into the oven while I prepared the meals and in order to conserve every calorie of heat.

And every one would be seated at the table and the blessing asked before the plates and food were brought out.

Then, if we hurried, the first mouthful of food would be too hot and the last one would be too cold!

Most of the time, we could see our breath. Our youngsters had great fun huffing and puffing about.

Every day brought a whole new series of unusual experiences.

Friends dropped in regularly for a momentary cheerful exchange and we enjoyed their ribbing.

"When's the auction?" one asked as he came through the one huge sliding door.

"Should get a blueprint of this," said another. "House, barn, shop and garage, all in one!"

Meanwhile, our new house was slowly taking shape.

Our amiable carpenter was trying to keep a dozen people happy by spreading his services around so thinly that he managed to put three nails in our house each week - and I believe sometimes he only managed two.

It was most frustrating and when the rain poured down along with the temperature, my temperature rose.

"Oh, what I would like to do to that carpenter," I fumed.

However, there were other days.

We were constantly amused by the sudden flood of traffic past our 'summer' home.

Necks would crane and eyes would stare.

One gal drove clear off the road!

Usually we made an effort to give them value for their effort.

I would come out with a bin full of garbage or we would scoot one of the youngsters out to the outdoor privy.

It was most interesting to watch the children on the school bus.

When it stopped, there would be a sudden surge of eager youngsters to the 'viewing side' and the bus would lurch dangerously over the roadside ditch.

I would dispatch our youngsters with a cheerful smile and a kiss and a tiny prayer in my heart that they would not be ostracized from humanity.