Critters

Most people have now or did have some type of pet involved in their life. Puppies and kittens, hamsters and the whatnot; they get to be a part of your life. But when yer from the country like me you tend to call em all critters!

Now me, I adore critters of all kinds, I think they are just sweet and wonderful to have around, even if it is just a squirrel in a tree that you watch out your window. If you life in the country you’ll toss some corn out and from then on that squirrel is your critter and you will proudly tell everyone ya have a sit down with all about your squirrel you took in.

I was the child always brining home stray dogs and cats among other critters. Basically if I found an animal outside and it wasn’t fast enough to get away from me, it became one of my critters. Don’t get me wrong we had a huge variety of domestic animals too.

When my Dad worked for the sheriff’s office he was constantly pack’n home critters he would find or have given to him when he was at someone’s house on a run. One time it was Siamese kittens, and damn were they mean! Those things would lay and wait till you weren’t expecting it and then attack. I got more bites and scratches out of those kittens because I was so persistent in try’n to tame them down!

Then t here was another time, it was a snowy April morning, Dad came home from work (he worked a lot of midnights) and he told my brother there was something out in the cruiser for him. Said it was in the back floorboard on the passenger’s side. Well, the surprise was a little Norwegian Elkhound puppy! She was a beauty too and just as sweet as could be. So my brother named her, Satan, I have no idea why, but it stuck and we had our Satan! Smartest dog ever she was too. But I will give her a full blog of her own when I get the chance to get out some pictures.

One other time he brought home a lamb for me, I named her Fluffy. She was a good lamb, and very easy to housebreak so she got to stay in the house for a while. It was always funny how she loved take’n a bath in the bathtub. She soon got too big though and we had to give her to someone with more space for her.

My other brother was responsible for bring’n home a few critters of his own too. Flying squirrels are just as cute as can be! But one time they got out at night and swooped on Mom as she was going to the bathroom. So it was time for the fly’n squirrels to hit the outdoors and be set free. You see that was the catch, we had tons of critters, but the wild ones, always got set free when they were grown and ready to go.

Most were always ready to take off back to the woods, but then there was Rascal. My brother brought rascal to us when it was a baby. We even fed her with a baby bottle at first because she was so young. Now if you ever get the chance to own one, raccoon’s make great pets! Such a precious thing, with their little hands and fingers constantly working with them to touch everything they run across. Curious and playful to no end, always up for a game of anything you wanted to play, there was no holding them back. Rascal eventually outgrew the indoors and had to move outdoors. For a while at night she would use those little hands and unlock the door and come back inside. But eventually she liked being outside more and more. Even Satan liked her; they would wrestle and play for hours. But the call of the wild eventually won out and she went to the woods and stayed. Another time we had found baby raccoons by t he road, Dad let me catch them and pack them home but they were already way wild and in no mood to play with me so we turned them loose too. They went lickety split to the hills and stayed, they wanted no part of people handle’n them at all.

There were more baby bunnies, squirrels, groundhogs and birds packed in by me than I can even remember. Even Dad’s best rabbit dog, a beagle named Shorty got in on it with me. If he was track’n a rabbit and run across a nest, he’d dig em up and pack em home to me. Then I’d have to follow him and find the nest to save the rest of em since he obviously had torn a nest out.

And there were even the poor little snakes, just wanting to be left alone. But nooooo….. I couldn’t have that now could I? For one my Mom was always afraid of snakes so just for reaction alone there was nothing like pack’n in a little green snake, garden snake, or a ring neck black snake. I still seem to have to pick up snakes when I see them. A few years ago when I was moving some wood for Bobby, I found a little ring neck black snake in the stack and I caught it and took it in the house to show Bob and the kids. Well much to my surprise, every single one of them freaked out on me! Seems they never did have anyone catch a snake for em before and they just weren’t ready for it either haha! My love for animals was another thing Bob was totally dumbfounded by, he’d never had anyone in his life that was so into critters.

What other critters can I name off, let’s see, well there was a mustang pony my Aunt won in a contest at the local Ford dealership. We named him Thunder, oh what a fabulous little paint she was too. My dreams come true, I always wanted to ride horses and have my own. They failed to inform us though that she was a wild pony so rides were limited and they got rid of her one time cause my brother got behind her and she was try’n to kick him, no one cared that it was his own fault he made her mad, but that led to her having to go to another home.

From the barnyard basics of chickens to the wild world of critters such as hoot owls, we’ve had our share of them in my homes. I guess that’s something that will never change; I’ve got my two dogs for now, HoniDee and Pearl. Both are as sweet as can be, but now I have Damian to consider, so hopefully I’ll be back in the situation where I can start letting him pack in critters for Memaw to take care of for him. :o)

Thanksgiving Memories

Well another Thanksgiving has come and gone. We feasted on the usual, baked turkey with dressing, homemade egg noodles, mac and cheese, mashed taters, green beans and a multitude of desserts and snacks. All in all everyone left very satisfied and content with their meal.

As usual I watched the Macy’s parade with Mom; I still love seeing those balloons come’n down the street. One day I hope to go see it live! Wouldn’t that just be super exciting? But then again that would mean spending the holiday away from the family.

Before everyone started rolling in me and Mom reminisced about holidays gone by. She laughed about one Thanksgiving when my aunt’s husband and father in law were here. You see Thanksgiving morning used to consist of a rabbit hunt. The “men folk” would all get up early and go out rabbit hunting together. But one year, we’re not really clear on how it happened but my Uncle Allard’s dad shot him full of buckshot in the backside. No real damage done, but it is a rather amusing memory for Mom to think back on them digging buck shot out of Allard’s behind. It doesn’t take much to amuse country folks as you can tell.

Then my sister was here remembering a time when we were all down at my Grandma Riddlebarger’s house for Thanksgiving. We all loved going to Grandma’s too. She made the very best chocolate pie! The kind where the pudding formed that thick layer of chocolate on the top, boy howdy do I miss those pies, and of course I miss my Grandma, haha everyone says I was always her favorite! Grandma didn’t make egg noodles though; she made the most delicious dumpling! Then Uncle June he always made the mashed potatoes, nothing like good lumpy fresh made mashed potatoes! Oh well, enough drooling over food memories, back to the story! We were at the dinner table and my Dad was eating rolls and he scooped up a big spoon of cranberry sauce and lathered up his bread and took a big bite only to find out someone left the jello on the table instead of the cranberry sauce. Of course Dad in all his grace is like I’ve always liked my jello on bread, he was just too cool to let anything bother him, so he just ate his jello covered roll like he’d been doing it forever.

Grandma and Dad are no longer with us, but the wonderful times they shared with us will always be passed along on the holidays. So the new members of the family will always get to hear the tales of the good old days gone by while creating their own memories.

This year was a difficult one for me, putting on a smile and facing everyone like everything was wonderful in the world. My Thanksgiving memories aren’t all the best, two years ago my husband and I were flat broke, he was taking chemo for his colon cancer and nothing was going very well. But a dear friend went to the food line and brought us dinners so that we too had something for the holiday. Even though it was difficult we realized we still were thankful we had each other. Then last year, well this is when he suffered his breakdown and we weren’t even able to be together at all. And this year is my first holiday season since his passing. Not easy to handle everything that’s happened but I am very thankful that I have my daughter and grandson to keep my mind busy and they give me so much love and comfort it’s just hard to put to words what it means to me. But still I do miss Bobby Gene, more than anyone realizes.

So another November is behind us, and two more holidays to survive. I still have two more holidays to get through and with the help of my daughter, grandson and a multitude of online friends I’m sure things will go ok. Seasons change, just as life so for now I just have to await those changes and say lots of prayers for the future and keep the good memories in the forefront of my mind.

My Vocabulary and Grammar

Well I guess it’s time to explain some of my vocabulary. When I first started chatting back in the late 90’s when AOL chat was so hot, I found Excite chat, aka Virtual Places or VP chat, I was totally thrilled at the chance to meet and talk to so many people from all around the world! And there was no voice chat at that time so you kinda had to just wonder what people sounded like. Well I had figured out this way to type like I talk. Basically giving phonetics a chance to show through in my text, so if you are reading through my blogs and find words you don’t quite get, just sound it out it’s not all that hard to do.

For example, if you hear me say the word your, it sounds more like yer and then forget often comes out ferget. See very simple right? I thought so too cause well I am after all just a simple holler gal. And believe it or not I actually got an A in college English courses. I just prefer to type it so it at least sounds like something I would say. 

Now where this was all actually brought to my attention was when voice chat began. My online friends were all using it and just die’n to hear me talk. I had friends from all over the world and half dozen different states in the USA too.  Being from Ohio they were all totally shocked the first time they heard me talk, even had one call me on the phone just to double check I really did talk that way lol. You see even though I was born and raised in a so called “yankee” state, I sound like I should have grown up on a plantation down south somewhere.  I don’t know why I have such a heavy southern accent, it’s just one of those things that happened. The rest of the family isn’t like mine, granted they have a country twang, but not that southern drawl.

So when I’m type’n and explain’n things yea I type just like I talk. Don’t think I’m some backwoods redneck that doesn’t know what the dictionary or spell check is for, because trust me I may be almost a redneck, but I can carry on a conversation with even the snooty folks around town.  I’m not here to teach grammer (and yea I do know its spelled grammar), just here to be myself so like it or leave it, it’s that simple. I hope ya like it and find some humor along the way cause that’s all its intended for. To entertain and let people get to know me a little bit more.

So with that being said, I hope y’all keep come’n back and pull ya up a seat sit back and enjoy and drop me a line from time to time.  Face it even Miriam-Webster now lists the word “ain’t” in it so who knows some of my werds might make it there too one day!

Humor and Rhoid Rage

I’ve always been told my sense of humor is one of my best qualities. Even growing up my Dad told me I didn’t have sense enough to not smile, that’s just how I am I guess. Is laughter the best medicine? Well I guess that depends on several factors, mainly if you have stitches laughter is NOT the best medicine for you.  But laughter can lift your spirits even at the worst of times. Strange how that works, but none the less, it is true.

Just last night me and an old friend, that has known me since I was 5 years old, opinion was that the smile makes people wonder what I’m up to. I have to agree, over the years I’ve had quite a few people just look at me and ask “what are you up to?” I find it rather amusing, even my husband would ask me that same question or he would say “what do you want?” and if I would ask why he was asking his response would always be the same, “then what are you smiling about?”

My husband passed away April 11, 2009, I miss him dearly and that is definitely nothing to smile about. He had a wonderful sense of humor and was always making me laugh. One of our funniest memories was our third date. He invited me to go watch his son’s little league baseball game as a way to introduce me publicly as his girlfriend. Old fashioned you may think, but actually it was because his ex-wife would be there with her family and he wanted to “show me off” to them (and no I’m not claiming to be a raving beauty, but in his eyes I was). Anyways to get back to the story, it was a hot day, but he had ask that I leave my hair down (my hair is very long). We sat down at a picnic table to watch the game and it was rather windy that day, well I noticed him moving out of the corner of my eye and noticed he was just rubbing his nose (yes rubbing not picking).  The next thing I knew my head was jerked towards him rather quickly! The wind had blown a single strand of my hair across his face, and Bobby Gene thought it was one really long nose hair and grabbed it trying his best to not be noticed and, yes you guessed it, yanked quickly as hard as he could pulling my hair and tugging my head over towards him.  When I looked at him and ask him what the crap was that for he literally burst out laughing and he thought it was his nose hair! God love his heart I had to laugh with him, it was just so funny. Needless to say the people there watching the ballgame were all looking to see why we were sitting there laughing till we were both crying, including his ex and her family.  I only wish now that I had written down all of his humorous activities during the 7 years we were together, because he was the funniest person that I have ever known.

Even the first time he was slightly upset with me and he called me a bitch, he was so shocked that I simply looked at him and smiled and said “thanks for noticing” then I called him a brat. He had to laugh and tell me I was one of a kind.  Well I believe I’ve drifted off my original intentions in this blog. But that’s a good thing about blogs; you can rattle on and not worry about it.

Back to my humorous side, I’ve had a lot of health problems over the years. I have to say that pain really isn’t something to laugh about, but it does help with your recovery, at least that’s my opinion. And the past couple of weeks, laughter really is what has helped me the most (excluding the pain pills). One subject very few people will laugh about is hemorrhoids. And I can’t say that I blame them, they truly are very painful and strike you down without warning! If you’re lucky simple medicine treatments will clear them up for you, but if you’re luck is like mine they will grow and grow and grow till you honestly cannot take it no more. Then you have internal and external both at the same time and both bleeding and making you miserable.  So you call up your doctor and tell them you need seen and go for a doctor’s visit.

Well let me say this is really one of the most embarrassing situations to need a doctor for especially that examination. I mean you’re bent over an elevated table while your doctor stands behind you with a light on his head so he can see under the sheet and the next thing you hear is “Oh my Lord”. Well once again I had to laugh, he instantly apologized and I told him it was ok, I had said that multiple times myself when the flare up hit. So next he tells me I have to surgery as soon as possible that it was an emergency situation.

So Friday, I literally had a pain in my ass removed, thus leaving another type of pain in my ass, one that was worse than the original but supposedly will help out in the long run. So now I have to humor myself while at the same time I cannot stand to even sit on the couch. The nurses had all advised me that I want to steer away from any type of foods that would “constipate” me considering the part that was getting cut on. Then they tell you take a laxative nightly and stool softeners to help.  The nurses also warned me that because of the pain pills and often hidden fears of what it would be like to have that first bowel movement (which I will now refer to as a BM) after surgery I still have to go “potty”.

Well let me say this, there was no way on earth any words could prepare me for that first BM. I can’t even begin to put to words what that first BM was like. I’ve considered many different descriptions, such as giving birth through the wrong hole, crapping a baseball, but so far my best way of describing it is having a blow torch fired up and shoved up your own behind flame and all. I know most people have eaten something with hot peppers in it and thought their behind was on fire, but even that doesn’t come close to how bad that first and following BM’s have hurt. It is an entirely new type of pain and one that I pray I don’t have to go through ever again.  And since I’ve been staying with my elderly mother during the recovery time, I was not able to scream out obscenities to help sooth my own mind, I’ve simply had to grin and bear it so to speak.  And because I’m on pain medicine I can’t even use my Jose Cuervo to lighten the mood either, I’ve given it thought to trying that instead of the pain pills also.  And if you’re wondering what type of pain meds its Toradol every 6 hours for 5 days and Vicodin every 4 hours as needed, and boy howdy is it needed!

In closing I have to say that I now have to come up with a new term for people and things that I consider a pain in the ass, because I know now exactly what a pain in the ass is like and there is no one or nothing that so far in my 47 years comes close to this past week and have’n the rhoids removed. But I do believe I’ve found a completely new “rhoid rage” that would cause people to get violent! Never upset anyone recovering from a hemorrhoidectomy, cause trust in me, after that surgery no one has the patience to put up with anything remotely belligerent.

So as a great musical group, The Monkeys, once sang “Every face that I see is all wrapped up in frowns and unfortunately, it kind of gets me down. Laugh, at the things that are wrong. Then laugh.”

The Holler

Well I actually have a request for another story of growing up in the country. I do feel rather fortunate that I grew up learning about nature and all of its wonderful glory. There are a lot of benefits to living up a dead end road where everyone knows each other. And back then there weren’t that many people in the holler and half were related in one way or the other. Not to me mind you, but it was just a few family names covered everyone.

The name of the road for instance was then Hankins Hollow, for the ones that first moved into it. Then down the road was Millers Hill, cause at the top of the hill were several houses where the Miller families lived. There were also the Skaggs, the Ackerman family, the Clarks, and the Clines further down the road. We lived just above the “circle” so named because the road at the foot of our driveway made a circle around a pile of briars and black berry bushes.

I grew up literally roaming the hillsides and creek banks, it was so fun, and no one worried about what would happen when I roamed off, cause everyone looked out for each other.  My parents even had to develop a horn tooting pattern so I knew it was them calling me home, because I tended to ignore regular attempts saying I wasn’t sure who it was honking.

Behind our house is a fairly good sized cave, we always were digging for arrow heads and the like. There have been many of those found on this acre of ground Mom and Dad bought. To this day there is one huge rock sitting in the middle of the cave that no one broke up or dug under, I still wonder just what lies beneath it. Maybe one day I’ll get someone to break it up and look under it! For now it’s just fun wondering as all of us have done.

Then there is this small valley that goes around to where the old spring used to be. That was some good water too, not as good as Grandma’s well water, but always cold and a good spot for a drink on a hot day after hike’n around the hills.

And below the house and across the cow pasture, where the persimmon tree was, and at the edge of the bottom field was the creek. I can’t count how many times I’ve been in that creek. I fished in that creek; often times just taking some line and a hook I would sneak off with and just tie it to a branch when I got to the creek. And of course it was just so easy to just dig up some worms right there so you had no need to pack a can of worms with you. Mostly just caught suckers and rock bass but it was so much fun!

Nice little swimming holes there too, it seemed no matter how many times I was told keep out of that creek, I always seemed to wind up soaked before I got home. Even our dog, Satan, (she will be a blog of her own one day) she always would go swimming with me. She loved hanging out and followed me everywhere no matter what my plans were you can bet she was tagging along looking for a ground hog or some other critter to chase.  The name of the creek is Sugar Creek, it’s just south of Possum Holler. And yes those are the real names, so let’s see that means I was raised up Hankins Holler where you had to cross the bridge that ran across Sugar Creek, and both are just south of Possum Holler.  And just over the hills behind the house you could cut over to Hog Run Road. What a great geography lesson!

Today, the holler has changed in many ways; it’s now filled with rental properties and people that just don’t appreciate how things used to be. You type in the address and can find out there is a convicted child molester in one house, then another has more traffic come’n through it than McDonalds drive through window, these things just are sad to me. But there is still some of the original Hankins family here, of course my Mom’s place and my brother actually bought that hillside behind our house that cuts over to Hog Run Road. And there are some of the Skaggs family and the Clines live’n in the holler. And even Ackerman’s still own their land too even if it’s not been lived in for years and years.

All in all, the holler is still here, a few of the names have changed and you can no longer let your dogs roam free to chase ground hogs or let your children roam the hills and creek banks alone. But I will always have those memories of how simple things used to be in my holler.