Remember

I wanted to post this layout I did of my grandfather. I just posted it on my other blog and thought I would share it here too. If any of my cousins or family members want the full resolution copy to print, send me an email and I'll get it to you. It is 12 x 12 but you can resize to 8 x 8 or 6 x 6 if you want. My email is lori@loaner.net. I thought it turned out good. I have always loved this photo of him and it was fun to change it to sepia and scrap it for my book.

Unfortunately he passed away at a young age, so many of my cousins probably don't have a lot of memories of him. Fortunately, I am the oldest cousin and I got the chance with my brother Brett to go stay with them for a few weeks every summer and help out with the ranch. It seems like they were at a different ranch house often so it was always a new adventure. I had two favorite places. The first was when they were "down the river" working on a ranch toward Rangely. The house they were in was a log home and it seems like they were there quite a few years. The yard was huge (at least it seemed like it to me but I was little, so maybe it wasn't) and it had huge shade trees and a big window in the front. My sister Heidi was afraid of the dogs, so she would just sit inside in front of that window most of the time. I loved riding the motorcycle with him to go irrigate and love the pictures I have of me and him on the motorcycle. Maybe I'll have to scrap them next! They had tons of little hills around them and we (me and the boys) would go chase and catch lizards for hours on end. They also had a little camp trailer that I don't think belonged to them, but we were allowed to play in it. It was stocked with dishes and blankets and had cute (probably mustard yellow or olive green or burnt orange) curtains in the windows (yeah probably not so cute, but it was the 70s so it was okay). So it was our "house" and I loved being the mom even back then. I also had my first experience helping herd cows when they lived here. We rode I think it was either 5 miles or 15 miles, but it seemed like 500 to my poor behind side. It seems like I couldn't walk for a month after that.

I also remember spending hours listening to my mom and aunts old records on the record player there and dancing around the room. I'm sure some of you are clueless as to what a record is so I'll explain. It is what we listened to music on. They are made of black vinyl and are like a 12" flat disk with a hole in the middle. It was placed on a turntable and an arm with a small needle at the end was placed on it and music came out! So, sort of like a CD if you haven't got the full picture by now. You will laugh, but my favorite records were "The Singing Nun" and Petula Clark who sang a song called "Down Town". And my all time favorite was a song called "Go Little Honda" by the Hondelles. Too funny! I still have the Hondelle song on my I-Tunes playlist.

My other favorite place they lived was when they lived in the trailer at Don Ward's ranch. I remember getting bucked off a horse for my first time there (it was okay because Grant caught me and I never hit the ground), branding calves and getting to ride them as they were letting them up from branding (oh the abuse to those poor baby calves). I also remember catching horny toads and my favorite part was grandma fixing lunch and lemonade and me and Brett getting to trek across the field to take it to papa and eating lunch with him. They had a little dog named Ginger at this time and we used to feed her PopRocks and watch her go crazy as they crackled on her tongue. They also had a potato cellar and it was fun and scary to go in there to get vegetables. Don Ward had a big rectangle trampoline that he would let us jump on also. That was my first trampoline experience and I actually got pretty good.

Okay, last memory for today. Papa always called any meat he was eating "skunk meat". It seems like he would always eat after us because he was always out doing chores. So,we would eat roast and potatoes, or chicken and potatoes, or meatloaf and potatoes, or steak and potatoes, you get the idea., it was always meat and potaoes, never anything like spaghetti, or tacos. But it was okay, I am a meat and potatoes kind of gal. Anyway, we would eat and then I would sit by him as he ate and he would always compliment grandma on the Skunk Meat. I would look at his plate and think, wow that looks just like the meatloaf or chicken or whatever we had, is grandma feeding us skunk meat at every meal? Too funny!