"My Dad knows how to do everything"

“My Dad knows how to do everything,” I declared to my sixth grade class. My Dad would help out anyone that came over to the house with something that was broken and he could figure out how to fix it. At the Saratoga House Dad had a metal shop, carpentry shop and a hot rod shop all squeezed tightly into the large garage. He would saw, screw and weld to manufacture just the right widget to fix the problem. When I was little I had a little game, I would ask Dad questions to see if he really knew how to do everything. “Dad, do you know how to fix a toilet?” “Yep” “Do you know how to ride a horse?” “Yep.” “Do you know how drive a Tractor Trailer.” “Yep”
Finally I asked the question about something he didn't know. “Dad, Do you know how to fly a helicopter? Not really, I did sit in the co-pilot seat and I got to work the controls, but I have never flown one by myself.
Dad has always been very good at involving us boys at learning how to do things, whether it was doing carpentry, rebuilding an engine, raising chickens or growing a garden. He wanted to make sure we knew how to do lots of things. An early photo shows me as a toddler helping my Dad sand the Jeep and prepare it for a new paint job.
Thanks Dad, For All You Do and Happy Father's Day

Strawberry Fields Forever

The sweet smell of bright red strawberries to this day, remind me of the Hale Ranch. Over twenty acres of fresh strawberries ripe for the picking would fill the air and we would go over the fence and pick a basket everyday if we wanted.
The Mexican workers would see dad with his cowboy hat, dark hair and tan red neck and try to speak Spanish to him. "Agua, agua, por favor." Dad would have one of the boys fill their jug up with water.
On the other side of the neighbor's field was peppers with thick green leaves, the cows would want to get through the fence to eat it up. One mean old cow pushed the calf through the fence, the calf would bellow as he would get a good jolt from the electric wire than ran across the top of the barbwire fence. The fence would be knocked over from the calf's body and the mean old cow could escape to eat pepper leaves. After she ate the pepper leaves she would get sick from the picante hot pepper plants.

Memories and ramblings on of the Ranch in Saratoga

John mentioned a few of his memories of our home in Saratoga. Some things that definitely stick out in my mind is sitting in the old tire swing under the balcony with a washcloth on my head waiting for Dad to get home from work so he could take me to Kaiser for stitches in my forehead. I was preparing to dive in to the pool when Mat decided to give me a little assistance by pushing me in. Somehow I managed to hit my head on the ladder and split it open enough to require 5 or 6 stitches to put me back together again.
Speaking of the pool who remembers Andy standing on the picnic table trying to get a better look at the fish we planted in the pool the year the pump quit working. Anyways he got a nice scar from his belly button to his rib cage, I do believe, from falling over the chain link fence.
It seems like we had a rough childhood 'cause I also remember John or Ed getting some scrs on their heads from rocks being dropped on their heads from high above the fence.
Speaking of the fence, just how many times did we have to cut back the ivy and replace broken fence slats and rotten fence posts?

Even to this day the smell of welding burning steel and welding rod reminds me of Dad welding on the saw mill in the back yard. I remember when "they" came to get the mill and loading it up on trucks and trailers to haul it up to the camp to set it up. I can still remember, years later, going on a hike at Camp Lehi with the scouts and seeing the saw mill my Dad built in our backyard.

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.