Mom's First Memories

First Memories
-riding tricycles on Grandma's sidewalk, we didn't have a sidewalk on my side.
-Telling a Lady down the street my name is Inga Binga Bunga (Linda Bolingbroke)
-Writing letters to Grandma Thomas when I was at her house. It was scribbles but I loved her telling me I was a good writer(probably four years old)
-Using a pint jar with neighbors as we would catch bees on dandelions and got stung a lot.
-Played “Kick the Can,” “Hide and Seek”, “Auntie I over” with neighbor children -Kathleen, Tim, Thomas, Lynette, Julie Parey and their cousins and of course my brothers and sisters. We would play unitl it was getting dark and adults said it was dark in the house.

The Littlest Superhero and His Blanky

Little Andy was a special superhero. He loved to run around the grass in just a diaper with his favorite blanky. He would suck his thumb and hold the corner of the material with the blanky draped over one shoulder flowing like a cape behind him. The ends of the blanky would become so tattered that every so often Mom would cut off another row of the quilt and sew the edge back up, over time it was reduced down to only a 3 foot square. When Andy was about four John(12), Ed(10) and Chuck (6) tried to talk Andy into getting rid of the blanky. There was a pregnant rabbit that was sheding her special maternal fur to build a nest but she didn't seem to have enough of the fur. With much coaxing little Andy finally agreed to donate his favorite blanky to the moma rabbit. With mixed feelings Andy helped his brothers rip the blanket into small pieces and place it next to the rabbit. A few days later was a special day, little Andy visited the rabbit hutch nine times that day with a big smile and booming with pride for helping little newborn bunnies have a comfortable soft home.
This is a picture of little Andy holding onto the blanket even as it was hanging out to dry on the clothes line at Grandma Udy's home in Burley, Idaho.

Thanks Andy

Thanks Andy, for adding me to the blog.

A Homestead in Saratoga Too

I am going to expand the meaning of Hale Ranch to not only mean the San Martin ranch but also our homestead in Saratoga, California. On our suburban residence we raised quite a few animals. Morris was a Cocker Spaniel mix who wasn't just a pretty little dog, he was a noisy watchdog too. We raised rabbits for years and had so many litters of bunnies. I think Ed and I learned about the birds and the bees from Dad's lessons in animal husbandry with those rabbits. We put our heads together and realized we had raised over 400 rabbits over the years. Every season we started with 24 chicks and we quickly learned how cruel chickens can be. The chickens would attack the weakest chick, pecking its head, neck and body for two or three weeks until it finally died. The chickens would then pick the second weakest one and peck at it until it too died. The cycle would continue until there was only about 15 or 16 left at the end of the season to turn into frozen chicken dinners. To this day I still have a hard time eating a whole chicken and picking the meat off the bones.