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June 2008  Yuma, Colorado

It’s been a calm week here on the plains. Well, not exactly calm but calmer than last week. We’ve had a couple of rainy days and a fair amount of wind but nothing to complain about and especially nothing to complain about when we watch the devastation that Mother Nature is piling on in other states. The official reports are in and it sounds like we got two inches of rain out of the twin hailstorms and the tornado that blew through here last week. That’s an interesting thought…do they measure the hail separately from the rain? Seems to me that any device that could accurately measure hail depth would have been smashed to smithereens during that hail. The guy at the Ford dealership says that every single vehicle on their lot was damaged and three of them lost windshields. Powerful, Pounding Hail!

When we first pulled our RV into this spot our front yard was acres and acres of winter wheat. It was only weeks away from harvest and was lush and green. In one dark afternoon the farmer must have lost most of what he invested in this crop for the fields have gone a pale yellow and when you get up close you can see that the grain has been stripped and most of the stalks are bent and broken. We’ve never been farmers but we can appreciate the terrible loss of all his hard work in these fields. We can imagine what this must mean to his family.

It hasn’t taken long to feel at home here. We enjoy living in our little home on wheels so it usually doesn’t matter where we are parked but it is a joy to find ourselves in a small community of friendly people again. Jim chats with all the people at the hospital and I have a running joke with a familiar grocery clerk. I’ve walked my way through a lot of town and know the most scenic route to the library. We’ve even learned how the cemetery directory works. It was gray and gloomy the first time we visited the cemetery and I was excited to see that there was a directory. The names were neatly typed on a row of upright drums behind a sheet of glass. I didn’t see a problem till I realized that the writing wrapped around the drums and the names I was searching for were not visible on the front. The Electrician said, “These boxes must be motion sensors” and waved his hands in front of each one. Nothing happened.

You have to know that the genealogist in me loves cemeteries and I love the history and the mystery of the lives of those who have gone on before us. You also have to know that we were visiting this cemetery under a darkening sky and there was a cool mist raising goose bumps on my arms. I said, “Well, why in the world would they set the directory up this way if you can’t even read all the names?” I stepped close to try to decipher around the curve and BZZZZZ the drums started a slow roll. Scared the socks off me! Jim thought it was pretty funny. I guess maybe the motion detectors aren’t set up to see a waving hand but need to get a shot of a chubby body up close, up REAL close.

I’ve seen ducks and geese and a pile of sunbathing turtles on my walks around the lake. I’ve even met a three legged cat. The meadowlarks and the doves keep up a constant soundtrack outside my windows and I can hear crickets tonight. A sweet, speckle breasted baby robin peep-peeped outside my kitchen window for ten minutes this afternoon until her Mom came back to fetch her. Early in the week I thought I heard the gobble of a turkey. After the first time I paid more attention and realized that it didn’t really sound like a turkey at all. It was actually closer to the sound of a loose wire rubbing against a wooden post and since there is a barbed wire fence around the field I guessed the sound came from there. One night at dinner I pointed out the sound to Jim and we both looked up in time to catch a quick glimpse of a pheasant in the hail-ruined field. Last night a mousy female got bold and stepped out of the field soon followed by her beautiful ring-necked husband. She pecked around at the edge of the wheat while he followed nervously and sang his little loose fence wire song. She didn’t seem impressed.

We celebrated 35 years of marriage this week. We spent the week talking about where we were and what we were doing “35 years ago today”. We laughed at the memories of two kids off on the first adventure of our lives together, a long road trip till we found a town where we could be married without our parent’s permission. We laughed at the memory that Jim had to wear a borrowed shirt that day because his suit was hanging in the closet in his parent’s home. And then we laughed about all the other memories of that hot day almost 700 miles from home. A year ago we spent two weeks with a Habitat team and when we were all packing up to come home one of the ladies asked how long we had been married. She fell backwards in shock when we told her and said, “All this time I had you pegged for newlyweds!! I heard you talk about kids and grandkids but after watching you for two weeks I just assumed this was a second marriage and you two were honeymooning.”  My best friend and I get along pretty good and I’m hoping that we’ll still be fooling people in our next 35 years.

Gotta run, the fence wire is squawking again and I want to catch another look at that pheasant. He’s a beauty!