Golden School Days
“It is woman who is to come in at this emergency and meet the demand, woman, whom experience and testing has shown the best guardian and teacher of childhood.”
Catherine Beecher, excerpt from ‘The Duty of American Women to their Country’, 1845
A one room, log school house in Barry County, Missouri
Though it seems an obvious fit now, women weren’t always the first choice as school master. In fact, until the beginning of the Civil War in the 1860’s, most teaching positions were held by men. Furthermore, despite all-girl schools in the eastern portion of the United States, most education was centrally focused on boys only. Thus, a male-dominated teaching field made sense.
However, as the Civil War ended and westward expansion became the apple of the nation’s eye, the country suffered a shortage of male teachers, as tradition dictated. Opinions on the western frontier were ever changing, and as families ventured farther and farther from accustomed culture and its benefits, the job of educating children was falling to the wives and mothers who’d once been deemed as “unnecessary to educate”.
This opened the playing field not only for female students, but as the enticing proposition of better paying jobs and greater opportunities out west in the gold and silver fields took the male teachers, the female students were left to take up the task of teaching school. As new communities formed overnight in a vast and unsettled territory, pioneer women were concerned with the demands of homesteading, which left very little time for schooling children- if they had any education to do so.
Communities consisted of little to no buildings, and what few were there, weren’t much more than primitive at the start. So, as the demand for education grew, it fell to families to recruit and house teachers. It wasn’t uncommon for educators to be hired from eastern states, brought out west, then boarded in the home of one of the school families.
Log schoolhouse in Allen County, Indiana. The building was established in 1840. Shown here are students of this little school at a reunion in 1900. Photo credit ‘Women Teachers on the Frontier’ by Polly Kaufman.
In Perspective- At the end of the Civil War, teachers were a scarcity. As young women completed school through the 8th grade, they were in high demand to become schoolmarms in the expanding west. Imagine being just a tender 14 or 15 years old, graduating, then taking a job as a teacher to children your own age and size. We’ve all seen Little House on the Prairie- when Laura takes her first teaching job and has difficulties with the older boys in the class. It would have been hard to take the teacher seriously as a young man in the school room. However, most boys quit school before the 8th grade to work at home on the family homestead where they were needed for the hard work of sustaining life.
Public, tax paid schools were still in the future at the end of the 19th century, so like modern homeschooling, all teacher’s wages, school buildings, and supplies were provided by the families. In a homesteading lifestyle, families were often cash-poor for the majority of the year.
Most young teachers were well chaperoned and lived with a host family for the duration of the school year. Those young educators who were lucky enough to land a job with a schoolhouse and “teacherage” were often greeted with the full-time task of chopping wood and hauling water. Their housing was usually a room in the back of the schoolhouse with little to no heat. It was the responsibility of the educator to start the fire every morning at five, maintain the building, and provide the lessons.
A sod schoolhouse in Kansas. Note the young age of the teacher holding the bell. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.
In Perspective- Common Terms of 19th Century Schooling-
Blab School- a school where many of the lessons were read and recited out loud as a class.
By Subscription- a means of paying for school- the family paid a subscription as tuition
Common School- open to the public
Normal School- secondary schools, like junior college in today’s age, where students were trained to be teachers.
Horn or Crib Book- used like a clipboard. The lesson was printed on a hard substance when desks were not available.
Slate- a small, hand-held chalkboard
Primer- 1st standardized schoolbook
Cyphering- basic math skills
The school term wasn’t the same as it is now. In fact, life didn’t revolve around the start, and eventually, the completion of the school year. Instead, school was fitted in around the farm and ranching schedule. Many brave teachers spent three months teaching in the fall after harvest, then school let out for the harshest of the winter months. In the spring, school started back up before the start of field preparations, then after planting was finished. They often went through portions of the summer months when travel was easier on the students.
A woman, pioneer teacher was paid $25 a month for her work. For a single woman, those were good wages. Except, the work wasn’t year-round. For most, that meant living very meagerly in the off months with the wages they did make.
One-room schoolhouse in Virginia City, MT. The students pictured were taught in the small log building in the lower left of the photograph. Photo from Library of Congress.
In Perspective- Young women at the end of the 19th Century in the teaching profession were expected to follow some strict rules.
Marriage- Legally, female teachers had to remain single. Once married, all contracts were immediately void.
No dating or male company was allowed. Women teachers couldn’t be seen riding in carriages with men who were not immediate family.
Teachers had to be within the confines of their homes- either where they were boarding or in the teacherage- between 8 pm and 6 am. They had to have wood hauled and chores completed by that time.
There was no loitering in ice cream parlors, or establishments that served alcohol.
To leave town required permission from the school board.
No make-up of any kind, and no curling of the hair or dying of hair color.
For many women teachers, coming west was very difficult. For those accustomed to the fine schoolhouses in the east, the transition to working without books and materials was difficult. The only literature most families had was either the Bible, or the Sears and Roebuck Catalogue, which students brought to school to read in place of Primers. Ads were torn from the catalogue to decorate the humble walls of the schoolhouse.
“Another day of trials. The wind would not permit us to keep the door shut at school, and I was obliged to station a lad there to hold it. I never felt wind push so as it does here. I have often experienced today’s troubles.” - Excerpt from Arozina Perkin’s diary. Fairfield, Iowa 1851
The dangers of being a lady alone on the prairie was great- the travels west were less than comfortable.
“For the entire 14 miles, at least one wheel never touched the ground because of the rocks of all sizes and kinds.” - The 1880 Diary of Angeline Mitchell
Many lady teachers arrived at western outposts and found the conditions less than satisfactory- for instance, a schoolhouse constructed of stacked sagebrush. For some of the teachers, they stayed the contract of two year’s teaching and then returned home to the east. Many stayed and married out of the profession. This decision wasn’t always looked upon happily by fellow educators.
“It is not impossible that more than one of us may think it is best to make permanent homes for ourselves in the west. But I hope that no more will think it best until they have been here at least one year.” - Mary Washburn, teacher
Despite the disapproved nature of considering marriage, two-thirds of the teachers that ventured west did make the frontier their permanent home. One-third retreated back to the sanctuary of eastern schools, and most of that remaining third, married and had families of their own, though prejudice in their early years of teaching found such a notion unfathomable.
One thing is for certain, without the bravery of these heroic women and the efforts they put into the lives of their students, the west would not have been able to rise to what it is today. Whether young or old, veteran or celebrating the recently earned teaching certificate, these women left careers in long standing establishments to bring culture and skills to those settling the frontier. It was not an easy choice, but one that impacted the school system of today. These were brave women, bringing with them the only weapon they had- knowledge.
Coming Up Next-
Granada- Legendary
December 15, 2026
Ready for a teaser of what I’m currently working on? Chapters of Granada-Legendary, or G3 as I call it, will be released by email through website to all subscribed readers!
Life on the Frontier
June 10, 1881- After driving sixteen miles, we were overtaken by James Rhea at Willow Island, who was bringing word that Frank passed away. It was a very sad mother and father who had their baby, their most treasured possession, taken away from them. The child’s baby prattle was sorely missed. There were many mounds at the side of the road, giving mute evidence of suffering and sorrow.
- Emily Towell diary excerpt, Covered Wagon Women Volume 10, compiled by Kenneth L. Holmes
They came in droves, driven by the desire for land- a place to call home, a place to sustain them, to nurture growing families and to prosper future generations. But at what cost? Life on the trail was difficult, but life on the prairie was very hard. They traveled for months, sometimes getting caught in the plight of fall months and the cusp of an early winter. They forged rivers and choked down dust as they struggled across the salt flats on the trail to California. These pioneer women and the men they walked beside weren’t only heroic for westward expansion, but they carried with them, and sometimes growing within them, the promise of the future. Western expansion was, to me, one of the greatest times in our nation’s history. It was here the quiet and lowly who sought a better life- to see what was beyond the next ridge- really became the unsung heroes of the American West.
Wenzel and Susanna Turmes, German immigrants. Wenzel was born in 1840, his bride in 1841.
Many of those who crossed the plains were immigrants from other countries. Unfamiliar with America at best, and completely unprepared at worst, these families set out for the west with no home to return to in the East if homesteading didn’t work out for them. It was thrive or fail. One such family that has always held a certain fascination for me was the Wenzel and Susanna Turmes family. Wenzel and Susanna were both from Germany. He was a member of the German military, and while stationed in Paris, France, he sent for Susanna, and they were married in Paris. The Turmes started their family with Lucien and Margaret within a few years.
In 1870, once discharged from his military service, Wenzel left his family in France and traveled to New York to visit his sister. There, his intentions were to look around and see if this vast new country might serve as a better home for his growing family. It must have suited his taste, for he sent for Susanna and their two children. Susanna, alone with two young ones, crossed the ocean to reach New York and reunite with Wenzel.
Putting it into Perspective- While this isn’t the steamer Susanna and the children took, it is one of the ships that left Le Havre, France. I don’t know which port for sure she and the children sailed from- though Le Havre to New York was a VERY common route- but I do know it was more than likely on a steamer like the one above. Wenzel might have been able to provide passage in a private cabin, or, they made the voyage in steerage, which is in the bottom of the iron-clad beast. They would have bunked in a huge room with dozens of other travelers, shared bathrooms and meals, and found little privacy. The trip on a steamer from Le Havre to New York would have been between 12 and 14 days. With two small children. Without Wenzel. Into an unknown land. And I thought a trip to the grocery store with littles was challenging. Susanna was a woman of courage.
Once reunited in New York, they didn’t stay long. The family moved west to Minnesota, where they added to their growing family. Elizabeth was born, but unfortunately, did not survive past toddlerhood. What little information provided states she died in an accident. They decided to press on further west, settling in Yankton, South Dakota. Wenzel took up farming in Yankton, and while there, John, Mary Agnes, and Rosella were born.
The family of Wenzel Turmes decided to leave Yankton after grasshoppers and drought plagued the farm. Oregon was the goal- to good land ripe for farming, and a future to grow a family in. For 90 days they continued west with a team of oxen in hopes of Oregon. Unfortunately, their oxen gave out in Idaho Territory about 25 miles east of what is now Boise, on Indian Creek. It was the fall of 1879, and with cold weather approaching, they wintered at Indian Creek with the help of friends.
Wenzel sought employment during the temporary layover. After finding work and housing as a ranch hand at the Dorsey Ranch, which is now the JR Simplot Company in Grand View, Idaho, son Joseph was added to the family. The original Dorsey Ranch was one of the first cattle outfits in the Idaho Territory. It was there that Wenzel heard of a little valley, the Shu-Fly Valley, or Shoo Fly as it was often spelled, some forty miles southwest of Dorsey’s.
So, one Sunday, his only day off, Wenzel saddled a horse and made the forty-mile ride to see the available homestead parcel. It had been filed originally by two men, Scott and Hanks in or around 1873. All that was left to show for their efforts was a single, one-room log cabin.
Wenzel was smitten.
Though there was little out there besides the cabin, there was something beyond measure- water. Through the homestead claim, Shu Fly Creek wound. Fed from springs in the mountains above the homestead, in particular Big Springs, water ran all year long, providing for crop irrigation, livestock, and household use.
Wenzel filed a claim on the available homestead, and in late August of 1880, the Turmes family moved to the Shu Fly Valley and the newly filed homestead claim.
Putting it into Perspective- This is the cabin that greeted pioneering wife, Susanna, and now, her six children, one a newborn infant. How different from Germany! There was little else but the cabin and water, and Susanna had very small children to care for. There were, at the time, no neighbors, and the nearest settlement was barely in existence and a day’s wagon ride away. How lonely this little spot must have seemed upon first glance! Like she’d come to ends of the earth and decided to tame it. No matter her first thoughts on seeing her new home, she must have squared her shoulders and made the most of the moment. Despite being humble, it still stands, 156 years after being built.
Wenzel wasted no time. He and the older boys began to carve out sandstone rock and carefully placed them together like brick and built a bigger house to go along with their log cabin. Then, seeing a need for a way station, he set his sights on that. Being a full day’s journey by wagon from the nearest settlement, Bruneau, Idaho, they carved enough sandstone to erect a way station indeed, complete with four rooms- three for overnight guests, and one room a kitchen to feed visitors.
Putting it into Perspective- A testimony to frontier life, each stone in the “long house” was cut by hand in a quarry two miles from the homestead. Wenzel and Susanna built a way station for weary travelers to stop and eat, then rest the night. Many a traveler looked forward to Susanna’s homemade bread and hand-churned butter. Which to my way of thinking, meant she was milking a cow, or at least overseeing the chore done by one of the children. Two more boys were born to the Turmes couple after arriving at Shu Fly. Can you imagine a home birth, probably only Wenzel for assistance, in one of the available houses? All total, Susanna was raising 8 children, building a life out of the sage and greasewood, and teaching kids. And to top it off, there was always a cow that needed milked, laundry done by hand, gardening, and preserving fruit from the orchards and vegetables from the garden. In her time, preserving meant slicing and drying, as canning wasn’t yet a wide-spread availability. Not to mention expensive to get into.
Wenzel and the boys built the farm, turning soil for grain fields, digging irrigation ditches and a main pond complete with a headgate which fed all the ditches and fields. Together, Wenzel and Susanna planted orchards and tended them. While Wenzel and the boys garnered a beef cow herd, Susanna and the girls fed the guests. Two more children were born to the Turmes.
The kids attended school in the east room of the guest house, taught by a teacher employed by the Turmes and surrounding neighbors. Mr. John McVann, a nearby homesteader himself, instructed for several years before moving on to improve his own property.
Putting it into Perspective- This was once a grain field- the edge cut with irrigation ditches to water the precious crop. Far to the right, beyond the picture’s view, was the orchards lovingly tended by the Turmes family. They are gone now but once thrived beautifully. It would have taken lots of oats to supply the animals needed to plant, harvest, and tend the fields. Not only did the animals- heavy work horses- have to help provide for the family, they provided for themselves, also. There would have been hay grown, cut, dried and stacked for the winter months. And, don’t forget- saddle horses to get beef cattle gathered off the range, and milk cows who provided precious milk for many of the items the family needed- cheese, cream, soap, and butter.
The Turmes were gracious, always opening their home to travelers and those seeking aid. For several years Susanna looked after Captain Johnny White, an aged sea captain, who never could shake his love of the waters. He settled on a farm along the Snake River, near the mouth of the Bruneau River and fished. He’d salt his salmon catch in fifty-gallon barrels and sell them in Silver City to the miners. At the end of his life, he fell ill, and Susanna cared for him for several years. When Captain White passed, he was buried in the family cemetery overlooking the Shu-Fly valley.
Putting it into Perspective- Captain Johnny White, a sea captain from Ireland, was a permanent guest with the Turmes family for several years. When he took ill and passed away, he was buried in the family cemetery overlooking the little homestead. How Susanna must’ve understood the plight of the aging from far away homelands! She herself had family across the world, of whom I don’t know if she heard from. Surely, there must have been a beloved sister, friend or mother who she longed to hear from- to show the fruits of the work of her hands and the children of whom she was so proud.
So why then, with thriving orchards and cultivated land, is the Shu-Fly valley once again dominated by the sage and grease wood brush? The reservoir and the head gate that once rushed with water remain jobless. Across the meadows ditches still cut the land. Yet, the family of Turmes is gone.
The land is always changing. In 1916, historical records offer an explanation: earthquake.
It triggered great change for the area. Big Springs, high above, which was once a river flowing out of the earth, was reduced by half. The Big Springs ranch struggled to keep their meadows watered. Without Big Springs gushing as it had, the little winding Shu-Fly Creek dwindled. The Turmes family didn’t have enough water to keep their fields growing and stock watered. But the homestead remained.
First to go was Wenzel himself, passing in 1904 at 64 years old. Susanna, Granny Turmes to neighbors and friends, passed in 1931, 15 years after the earthquake decimated spring water in the area. The family hauled water for survival, and to their enormous credit, several of Susanna’s sons stayed on at Shu-Fly for years until Susanna passed so that she might remain where her heart was. The children of Wenzel and Susanna, losing their roots in a vast country, scattered, one son going far to California. Susanna was buried in the family cemetery next to Wenzel, and the remaining members scattered from Bruneau to Boise once she was gone, though the cemetery holds in peaceful sleep several of the Turmes sons along with their parents.
As time changes, so does man’s answers to common problems such as water. It begs to wonder how Wenzel would feel to know that just a few miles down-stream, farming along the banks of dry Shu-Fly Creek is thriving, thanks to irrigation wells. The Turmes’s meadows are still clear, the greasewood and sage brush slowly taking over. Unbelievably, the little log cabin that welcomed Susanna and the little Turmes children the fall of 1879 remains. The clover huller waits where they left it in 1931 after Susanna’s passing.
Putting it into Perspective- Then and now- this clover huller has sat in the same place since the Turmes family left Shu-Fly Creek- a testimony to the prosperity they enjoyed through farming. How many people Susanna had the opportunity to meet through the way station- to feed and offer respite to the exhausted and hungry. She’d faced loss and heartache and watched as the farm she and Wenzel carved out of the dry earth slowly wasted away and returned to the way it was before they settled there. Susanna had her children and grandchildren, but the wait to see Wenzel again must have grown long. She stayed close with the land that provided so richly for her growing family, and when it was time, that land cradles her in death as she sleeps.
However, though the Turmes family is gone, their laughter and voices no longer echoing across the meadows they once tended carefully, new voices carry on the wind. The Turmes family is a long way from forgotten, and their little homestead is still, after a fashion, a way station. Many travelers stop along the way and wander through the long house built with manpower by Wenzel and his sons. The log cabin still waits for another family to move in.
A young family owns the property now, caring for the remaining buildings in a way that would make Susanna proud. The love of family was deeply embedded in the walls of the houses, strengthening and fortifying them against time. Even though they are gone, Turmes’ true legacy of love and family lives on.
What do you think? What did it take for the pioneers to sail the ocean and travel the expanse of the continent in search of a better life? What kind of faith in God would it take to leave everything you know and start over in a new world? Does your family tree have a branch of courageous immigrants or pioneers? I’d sure love to hear about them. Share with me their story at-www.authorlynmiller@gmail.com.
Until next month- God Bless-
Lyn
“I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.”
~ Philippians 4:13
September History Blog- BACK TO SCHOOL- School days on the frontier. Long before public school, neighboring families united to fund the education of their children. Teachers were crucial, and the expectations for both teachers and students were immense. Join me next month as we dive into frontier education in honor of a new school year in modern times!
Winter and AI
As winter approaches, I’ve decided to tackle a few projects, including properly placed inflections.
Ugh. I’d forgotten what it was like. I’m not sorry I had a hiatus, either. And while I realize learning is a part of life, I do a pretty darn good job avoiding the new skills that will really bend me out of shape in order to complete them. Truthfully, I’d been getting prompted to do exactly what I’m doing right now, I just absolutely avoided it. You know how God is. Once He’s got a good idea, He’ll beat you with it until suddenly you’ve convinced yourself it was your idea from the start.
I’m a journalist. I’ve made my meager means with words and lines accompanied by photos of photos. I’ve gotten good at it. Thanks to a few desperate editors who let me learn on the end of a tether line so they could jerk me sideways, or over backwards if necessary, until I could be trusted to turn in worthy pieces. Each day I see it, so do you, the impending threat that soon AI will take over my position as word smith and story teller. Now, I’m not here to lay my thoughts on the subject- you get enough mind manipulation just trying to check the weather each morning. But I can say one thing; nobody said old school was gonna be easy.
I keep writing my own thoughts, opinions and stories. I’m not too sure I trust AI to effectively tell the story of the human experience just yet. Or, personally, not sure I ever will, I don’t care what Chat GPT tells you of itself when you ask. I can’t even trust a phone to put together a decent slide show of pictures for a year in review. Amongst happy pictures of family events and vacations it decided to sprinkle in a few pictures of dead cattle at the feedlot. Nothing says Happy New Year like dead cattle.
So what is it I’m learning? My endeavors have forced me to attempt the world of Audible. Nothing gets you into trouble quite like a supportive group of friends who like your reading voice. I don’t possess a real large tool box, and my skillset does revolve around words, writing, and most importantly, reading. To the extent I’ve promised myself if I ever go blind I’ll pick up the torch and learn to read braille. Rosie, my daughter, thinks I should make a preemptive strike and learn it now. I put it on the to-do list right behind Audible.
With Kindle formatting what it is now, thanks to AI- a quick pause to offer a sarcastic wink ‘n nod to our artificial counterpart- it is entirely possible to write, edit, publish, and then, launch an Audible book from one site. So, with my recent release of Wild Lament, I thought I’d just go ahead and give the Audible thing a try… And yes, it was crisp and clear. Not a single back ground noise to find. Not a single lip lickin’, dog barkin’, kid hollerin’ sound to be found. No clicks or pops to mar the flat, inflection-less master piece I’d written for the trash can. Upon further inspection, I found you can edit inflection. I was ten pages in over the course of three weeks and hadn’t done anything but try to pick from forty voice options, then had a cyber punch- fight over inflections and pauses.
I hadn’t even gotten to the good stuff in the story yet.
As a comical side note, I did have a rather good laugh multiple times at the thought of my colleagues out there trying to put a good ol’ fashioned romancer on Audible with AI. I think I’ve got problems trying to make AI sound authentic; all I could think of was R2D2 sliding his metal hand up someone’s thigh…
With that image making you seriously consider abandoning this blog, I’ll continue in another direction. During this cyber battle for inflection dominance, I just happened to take my turn reading scripture in church one Sunday. A friend in the audience approached me afterwards and asked if I’d ever thought of recording my own novels. It was one of those well-placed comments that made me stop and think. I had considered it. Many times, in fact.
Somehow now, though, I was putting the idea into serious consideration.
I read a post by Matt Walsh on the dangers of AI. I won’t terrify you with the details, but it was a call to arms to defend our artistic spaces from the coming onslaught of artificial everything. I’d already come this conclusion as it is my own niche that is going to be the first to capitulate to ChatGPT. Why pay staff writers when Chat does it for free? While I realize doing everything myself will take a ridiculous amount of work on my behalf, at least my readers can be assured they’ll get the solid sound of a dog or hoot owl in my recordings. That might really be worth something in twenty years.
In fact, after the initial fanaticism fades from the ease of use AI generates, I’ll guarantee you Kindle Create will be offering actual sound options you can paste into your AI Audible recordings so your listener can be lured into thinking the recording is real. For in truth, I think the human soul will crave something real. Or, perhaps, we’ll progress into a new kind of entertainment that involves buying tickets to hear me read my novels in auditoriums in real time. A “News of the World” kind of thing.
While I have no idea where this thing is heading, I guess I’m just not too worried about it. Man is a clever beast, and as ChatGPT takes my niche, I’ll just find a new one. While Audible cranks out hundreds of new books a month through AI generated voices, I’m converting the camper compartment of my living quarters horse trailer to a sound booth. It won’t be as easy as clicking a button and letting a computer with a shoddy Australian accent narrate one of my American western novels, trucking it out to my trailer in the early morning bitter cold all winter will, in the end, be a more rewarding experience for both myself and my treasured listeners.
And for pity sake- I’m at least intelligent enough to know where the darn inflections belong as I read.
Lyn
Glimpsing Summer- May 2025
I picked these beauties from my “flower yard” outside our one room school house. We have four dogs, a shifting number of cats, and free-range chickens, when the foxes aren’t forcing them into the coop protection program. As you can imagine, this causes a fair amount of stress on flowers, because, who knew, cats LOVE to sleep in rose bushes. A few years ago I got fed up with the dogs digging into the flower beds looking for who-knows-what, and my sons helped me put up a makeshift fence around the front of the school house.
I picked these beauties from my “flower yard” outside our one room school house. We have four dogs, a shifting number of cats, and free-range chickens, when the foxes aren’t forcing them into the coop protection program. As you can imagine, this causes a fair amount of stress on flowers, because, who knew, cats LOVE to sleep in rose bushes. A few years ago I got fed up with the dogs digging into the flower beds looking for who-knows-what, and my sons helped me put up a makeshift fence around the front of the school house.
It worked. Mostly…
I’ve yet to find anything that keeps the chickens and cats out. Even thorns on the rose bushes.
Each year I add to the madness. Another rosebush, bulbs, randomly scattered flower seeds. If personality trait testing were based on flower garden arrangement, I think my pattern of planting and sowing would put me somewhere in the deranged shade of the test. But to me, that’s the beauty of it. All those flowers, grass, and dwarf lilac bushes just growing like wild, the smell of blooms enticing me to sit in the shade of the big maple towering above and rest peacefully for a minute.
At least until the chickens find me.
Another important task of the flower yard is to attract the hummingbirds. I love to entice them to our yard, the huge maples, the flowers, and on a good year, they’ll nest in the trees. One year I had so many, they hardly let me take down the feeders to refill them. They’d follow along beside me to the door into the house, then hover close until I returned. I wait all winter and spring to hear the thrumming hum of their wings announcing their return.
I see glimpses of coming summer- the weather is nice and mild, slowly shifting into hot. By the end of the week it will be close to 100 degrees around these parts, and I’m quickly recalling all of my usual summer schedules. Soon, it will be too hot for me to write in the morning. I will instead rise before 5 so horses are fed and ready to saddle at 6. We’ll eat breakfast before we head out. We’ll ride as many as we can, then bring them back over the hill from our arena for baths and turnout. If there’s time before lunch, I’ll mow or work in the garden.
In the afternoon, I’ll work outside until it gets too hot, then I’ll head in and work on writing stuff. Actual writing, book keeping, ordering, blogging, shipping, you name it. Recently, the feedlot we provided yardage for closed. It left me adrift for a while. Perhaps I still am to a certain extent. We still have our cow/calf pairs, but it seems odd not to plan a portion of my day around riding pens. Oh, not that I can’t find other things to keep me occupied. I can without even looking around. It just feels different when something that dictates so much of your day is suddenly…well…gone.
I do suppose that God narrowed my channel of focus on purpose. I don’t guess my entire reason for existing was to sort fats out of feedlot pens. Now, I focus on the writing. It’s a bit of a scary feeling knowing that my pen is now my bread and butter. But I often think to myself- what if I could? What if I made this my mainstay? I feel this summer is poised on the cusp of something. Something grand, something scary. Let’s label it a new beginning.
As I welcome summer and her strenuous commitments of schedules, heat, and constant weed whacking, I try not to force it gone too quickly. My oldest is seventeen, and each summer that fades into memory is one more I can’t get back. I’m one of those moms who mistakenly thought when he was an infant he’d take at least thirty years to advance into toddlerhood, and depressingly find it took but a moment for all that and subsequent years to pass. I long for the days when I sat beside the pool during swimming lessons and wondered if they’d ever float by themselves. Now, as teenagers, the kids are so busy I wonder if its worth setting up our backyard pool each summer.
Perhaps that’s why I enjoy the hummingbirds so much. Each year they return. Eventually we’ll probably build a garage over the pool pad. Another piece of childhood will be gone, and the afternoon hours of diving for pennies in the pool with Rosie will be as well. But the hummingbirds will return each year.
So, tomorrow, as I head out to plant another rosebush and my tomatoes and peppers, I’ll be thinking ahead- to when those lovely veggies are ready for picking. My favorite feeling is coming in at lunch on a hot day to decide what I’ll make for the noon meal and rummaging in the garden for anything ripe and ready to eat. I’ll turn on my little boom box and listen to the soundtrack to A River Runs Through It, composed by Mark Isham, and dream of the mountains.
You should try it sometime. That album kept me company as I wrote Unconquered Horses. The music made the Big Horns come alive. Remind me- I’ll blog about the Big Horns sometime. Oh, there’s a story there, of me, the Big Horns, and, you guessed it- summer time.
God bless-
Lyn
Squeaky Sneakers
Peace, goals and heroes.
Lord, help me look at my life today and discern what it is I’m looking for.
- Amy Welborn
Another year has slipped through my fingers. With it, a host of precious memories I hope I remember forty years from now. Activities my kids were involved in, time spent with my husband, conversations I had with close friends. Little bits of time I don’t want to lose sight of. Yet, at the same time, January is one of my favorite times of the year. A new beginning, a fresh start, a line in the sand beyond which can be absolutely anything.My kids are involved, quite heavily, in theater. I know this sounds odd, ranch kids driving almost an hour multiple times a week to participate in a theater troupe. While that seems a weird fit, I can’t deny what it has given to them; memorization, goal setting, and friends they had no way of getting to know before the theater came along. Again, precious memories. With a list as long as my arm containing the benefits of such participation, I also learned the lesson of sacrifice. My own time. Since April of last year, I’ve spend a goodly amount of time on the road for the rehearsals and performances of several different shows. After months of it, I formed a new way of life and method of doing things. Or, rather, not doing things. My house hasn’t been clean, I mean really clean, since last April. As part of my new year goals- not resolutions because those are easy to forget, lose sight of, and become unnecessary- I decided to make a cleaning schedule to get a handle on some of the tasks I’ve lost control of. Nothing major, a couple rooms a day, and by the end of the week my house has been gone through twice. Luckily, I don’t have a huge home, so it’s doable for me. You know what? I feel better about myself. I’m not worried one of the neighbors will stop by as I rush kids out the door. In fact, I hope they do. A few days after Christmas I was going through the pictures on my phone looking for screenshots of quotes I found to write down. I like to keep journals- lots of them. I like to write uplifting quotes I find, a log of activities my family is involved in, things the kids say, funny stories a friend told. I even go so far as to write Bible verses down and a prayer associated with them. I do feel an enormous amount of pity for the soul who has to go through my desk and office cabinet once I die. The task of sorting all those journals and notebooks will be taxing. In doing so, I stumbled on a photograph I took at our fall branding. In the photo was my daughter, Rosie, a close friend and photographer, Nicole Poyo Brennan, and dear friend and fellow ranch wife, Holly Black. The three of them were sitting horseback in a row, waiting for their turn in the branding trap to rope. They were focused on the action, all smiles and perhaps some laughter. Looking at that photograph, I realized I’d captured something special. Not in quotes, but in actual footage. Instead of words by Lou Holtz or Earl Nightingale, I could see my new year goal in action. All I hoped to become or display. These are women with a strong faith in God. A firm understanding of who they are, and what they are in pursuit of. They fully embrace the skills bestowed on them by God, and they work daily to become better at those gifts. It made me think of all the women in my life who are working and struggling to grow in faith and themselves. All of them going for whatever it is God has put in their soul to be. No hesitations. Just action. So, I’ve decided to go at this new year goal thing differently. I’m going to get up and go to work. I’ve got to stop waiting for chances to come to me, expecting to grow in my faith without any works, and stop living in a messy home. Instead of dreaming of being a good roper, I’ve actively been roping the dummy, because dang it, someday Rosie, Nicole, and Holly are gonna form a ranch rodeo team and I want to be on it! I don’t want there to be any pictures of it on my phone because I’ll be too busy roping to take any. But don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll write all about it in one of many plethora of journals. Already I can feel a change taking over me. In accepting my part in changing what needs changed in myself, I’ve let God have a chance to make His adjustments within me. I know, each time I swing a rope off my favorite mare, Donna, God is already squelching much of my apprehensions. A year ago I’d have been too worried to do it. Now I see a confident mare ready to assist me in whatever pursuit I choose that day.The best part? You know that sound rubber makes on linoleum? That crunching, scrunching noise? The one that requires clean linoleum to make with rubber soled sneakers? Yeah, you can finally hear that in my house again. My love and prayers to you all. And may God have a hand in your new year goals as well.Lyn Maude’s Promise
They’d been my husband Jake’s dream since I can’t remember when. Jake had been my dream, so somewhere along the way they became my dream, too. When he finally found them, a Belgian team of draft mares, we spent an afternoon as a family watching them harnessed, the kids and I laughing joyfully as Maude and Minnie drug my man around behind them. I felt a part of him come alive. I understood that part, for I’d known it within myself.
We had no harness of our own, no collars, and no sled to pull hay across frozen ground. It was something, however, to witness neighbors come forward and offer bits and pieces, like a commissary wagon belonging to someone’s grandfather, a collar here or there. “Though I doubt it will fit Minnie, she’s such a big girl, but try it, Jake.”
Slowly, it evolved. As the necessaries came together, I felt the excitement of friends and family as a man grasped at the straws offered him. Conversations during brandings, while shipping calves, and between two beat-up ranch pickups was always brimming with the urgency of the very frequently asked question: have you hitched your team yet?
Passersby drove along the highway slower, rolling down the window in the biting cold just to admire them, a certain satisfaction coming from the sight of such massive creatures, though neither mare ever did much by way of acrobatics meant to impress. All they had to do was be alive, to breathe, to exist. The importance of such an action was not lost on anyone who knew Jake, anyone who saw the flash of smile, the brilliance of excitement in his eye each time he spoke of them.
It can’t be likened to a first pickup. No, for as any farm or ranch kids knows, those are necessary tools, and they help the general good. It isn’t like roping off your first custom made saddle, for those who’ve dreamt of one knows they soon wear and weary. This was something found in the spark of the soul. It looks different for everyone, the one thing, essential, you might say, to the fulfillment of a particular life. A calling known only to those who hear it.
A stone-boat was purchased from noticing an advertisement. The saddle barn was slowly over-taken and commandeered by harness, and now saddles took roost in trailers and on the floor of the family room. Bridles hung from the hat rack in the house. All a wife could do was laugh, smell the barn within the house, and think of that flash of smile.
Winter faded and spring came. Jake struggled to find harrowing equipment, a draw bar and harrows that weren’t more than his girls could handle. Now, a fine, bright red fore-cart sported a draw bar ready for work, and Maude, the older of the pair, sported her own surprise for the world to see. She was going to be a mama, though not for the first time. There was no disappointment there, for who could resist the expansion of their dream?
Minnie chose not to contribute to the workforce a little one of her own, though no one knew why. She’d been exposed, but for reasons of her own, she chose not to take. So, she pranced jovially, completely un-hindered by the weight and heaviness of promise, of a future within her. Maudie, however, lacked that jovial prance, but she carried a twinkle in her eye that could out-shine the sun. Breathless we all waited; the swather passing the pasture always had an observant operator, or a stock-truck driver ready to carry the happy news to the wife at home.
I noticed a change one afternoon when I’d stopped to check water. It wasn’t at all what I’d expected, and having once expected myself, I thought I could expect what was coming. Maude was her beautiful self, so patient, so gentle despite her view from so high above me. She waited like a mother would, ever mindful of where I was, where I would be, and where she would place herself. But Minnie, it would seem, had no control of her right-front shoulder. I rubbed her shoulder, no rookie to equine injury, but I found no obvious culprit. I made a mental note to keep Minnie closer in my rounds, make more check-ins. The kids did, too.
I always have found hope in the dawn, so many of my troubles solved before the day truly begun, so I hoped she’d be better with the sun. Minnie looked it. Her eye was bright her body strong. However, as she stepped forward, I found what grasped at her body had only tightened its grip. Now, her right hip was refusing to answer the command given by her brain. Minnie, though, was undisturbed. She grazed, she stood happily to have her itches scratched. I broached the subject with Jake, and he immediately made calls. The vet determined as long as Minnie could stand, she’d weather whatever storm she battled. The sun set, and my last glimpse of her as the light faded was a happy Minnie, grazing peacefully beside Maude.
Jake had to haul cattle early the next morning, off and going before the sun. The place and all that was on it was left to me and our three kids, ranging in age from 9 to 14. We fed the saddle horses, chickens, and entertained the dogs with both. Then we headed to check Minnie.
No panic can seize the heart the way seeing a failing soul can. To see the worst, to acknowledge it has come to exist before you, cannot be expressed in the form of adequate words. Minnie spoke to me in a way only a soul can, and I knew. She had, sometime during the night, gone down. For now, she was her bright and wonderful self. I, and my trio, tried to coax her to rise. We prayed, brought her grain, and bathed her with buckets of cool water. Minnie had to hang on, just so Jake could see her one last time, so he could let her go in his own way.
All day, the neighbors stopped, offering words of hope and help. By late afternoon, the sun was hot, and Minnie was tired of the struggle. Jake went out into the field alone to see her one last time and help her find peace. As he stood trying to accept the end of a dream, Maude interjected her own thoughts on the subject.
Maude presented him on his wobbling legs, slowly coaxing him along. So much turmoil had marred the day of his birth he’d come into the world quietly, unnoticed. He then stood after unknown attempts and worked to his mother’s side and warmth. As Jake gazed over what had passed, he held in his sight the future, what Maude promised of a new and better day. Maybe it’s not for us to ask why, just to trust in something better ahead.
The Velvet Couch
Ah, the comfort zone. My personal hangout. The place where I kick my shoes off and lounge in my jammie pants. A place in my mind where I used to drink a glass of red wine and dream of the days when I wouldn’t drink red wine anymore because I’d be too busy living out my dreams in style. Oh, yes, a place of plush carpet and velvet couches….
I recently submitted Unconquered Horses to a nationally recognized writing contest for inspirational fiction. Now, before you get excited and think this blog is about my sweeping the contest and clasping without effort the win in my category, just stop right there. You’ve entered my comfort zone and you’re lounging on my velvet couch beside me. No, that’s not where this is going. The winners for the contest aren’t announced until sometime in June or July. I don’t lose sleep wondering if I’ll place well, or at all, and in fact, I don’t give it a thought.
Why? Well, that’s simple. I didn’t have to watch the competition roll in and unload their submissions. I didn’t have to see them open the door to their thirty-some-odd foot living quarters horse trailer and unload the machine they intent to use to bludgeon me with. Nope. No idea if they used a Mac or an HP to type it on. No clue if they’re self-published or backed by a world-renowned publishing house. Heck, I don’t even know if they submitted into my category or if they’re all dog-piling into the murder/mystery/WWII genre with eighteen sequels attached. The submissions might even be- horrors of horrors- ghost written. Isn’t that what everyone loves to read- sequels penned by broke college students over spring break?
Where was I before my silly rant… ah, yes. My velvet couch with my imaginary glass of red wine. Occasionally I rise from my plush protective cover and venture into the unknown. I get used to doing things my way with no gauge as to my effectiveness. So, I like to load my submissions, or horses, as the case may be, and trek into the world and see how I stack up. Usually, I end up crying and longing for my velvet couch once more. But this time, I decided I’d take the beating like a real woman and learn from it. I attended a clinic for young barrel horses. Literally, I got to watch everyone unload their machines that someday, they intended to bludgeon me with. And fine machines they were, all bred to do exactly that; bludgeon the competition.
My poor ranch horses had never traveled through Salt Lake traffic before, slept few nights away from their happy sagebrush home, never spent an exorbitant amount of time in a box stall. They arrived at the clinic location in the dark in a re-enactment of Noah’s flood, Ma Nature having lapsed in her psychiatric prescriptions again. Us being made of entirely sugar, we nearly melted. Unaccustomed to not having visual on each other, both horses were pretty sure I’d separated them for life. Once my little mare figured out the gelding was just on the other side of the wall, she quit fussing.
We survived the night.
The next morning we saddled up and made runs for the trainer serving as clinician. Now, we all know when we run we’re being watched. But, in the case of clinic scenarios, we are paying a professional to watch us run and tell us where we lack. While our dream is to immediately be excused from the class and reimbursed our fee because the clinician just can’t seem to come up with a single thing to correct us on, I’ve yet to have that happen. They are there to make students better. I personally find no matter how much yoga and stretching I’ve done in preparation for class, it’s never enough. Perhaps that’s got something to do with the fact I out aged the rest of the participants by a good ten years or more.
As my youngest son always says, “You’re not old, Mom. Just really crinkly.”
Note his easing the blow by using crinkly in place of wrinkly. Funny, the mirror in my comfort zone doesn’t show crinkly skin…
One thing these crinkles have given me is a pretty good perspective on encouragement. Many is a time I have felt as low as any scabby-kneed dipshit might, and like as not, somebody came along and said just one thing that helped me climb out of my self-induced pit. Being at the crinkle stage, I can see just when someone needs those same ladder rungs. Especially that little gal riding a hot-head fire dragon who just wants her horse to make a circle without spooking. Yeah, this too shall pass. And what an incredible ride that horse’ll be. That gal who wants to run against the big dogs but doesn’t feel like she’s the right caliber. Guess what? Those NFR runners get bucked down, too, sometimes. Just enter one big one. No matter what, you’ll learn something important you can use later.
So, what did I learn at this clinic? That velvet couch and that imaginary glass of wine aren’t making me into who I want to be. If I intend to do something, I better do it like I want it to be successful. The horse I’m riding is always handier and more athletic than I give them credit for, and I can help people feel good about themselves. The only time I’ve ever truly lost at something, was when I said the word can’t to myself and meant it. I can ride horses that granddaddies would’ve frowned at back in their younger years. By golly, I can make a horse, and I’m good at it. I just need a little polishing.
What’s holding you back? That cushy couch that shapes around your backside real nice? A past crash n’ burn that just won’t let you breathe easy? Fear that tells you you’re gonna fail? Or, perhaps, you need a rung on your ladder to climb out of the pit of despair. Whatever it is, don’t be afraid to get it. Don’t be afraid to let somebody with know-how watch you and help you. And more than anything, don’t be afraid to lift somebody up as you go.
And I promise I’ll let you know how the writing contest plays out.
God bless.
Lyn
Leaving Ordinary
Waikiki 2023
Truthfully, I don’t even know how to describe it. I’ve been asked again and again in the last few weeks to impart what I saw, what it was like, and I find the words shift character each day. My mind digests a little more of the experience with time, and with each processing my opinion alters just a bit.
In August, my husband, Jake, and I celebrated our twentieth anniversary. At the time, despite the milestone, we didn’t do much to mark the occasion. Life is hectic in August. Sweet corn was ready to pick and sell, we had our fall-calving mama cows in Nevada getting closer to the start of calving season. I was preparing for a new school year. There were just so many good reasons to not to bother with celebrating at the time.
However, being a man of details, Jake took to heart a comment I made once about having a wish to see the sunset on the beaches of Hawaii. So, he made plans. When he told me I thought he was crazy. I’d meant it as a thing we would do when we were older. Our lives more steady and predictable. Of course, he commented he wasn’t sure what decade in life that happened, and I agreed it was an unrealistic ideal I’d been keeping since young motherhood. Surely there is a time for Hawaii and vacations. When the cows are settled and the house in order. I’d be a millionaire capable of paying someone for full-care of the horses and dogs.
But then I realized something important. Someday, my kids would be settled, too. No, not in the next grade or a freshly painted bedroom. I mean in their own life’s path. In their own purpose. Maybe even with babies of their own. Certainly with a schedule as wierd as mine. So, when Jake asked if we’d celebrate in Hawaii just the two of us, I said no. One thing I do know, is the years will come when the house is quiet and the laundry is strangely done. The chaos of kids and mini-Aussies trekking nonstop across the living room will fade. It’ll just be me waiting for Jake to get home from the farm.
The silence will be deafening.
Going to Hawaii I had just two things I wanted to do. Watch the sunrise, then later watch it set, over the ocean. It didn’t disappoint. At first it was hard to adjust to a life and schedule that was so drastically different from what I know. I think we all felt it. And, crazy as I am, one of the first delights I took on the island of Oahu was simply listening to the free-roaming roosters crow with the sunrise. Watching them scurry across the grass lawns below our hotel balcony.
Then, with awe, I got to watch my kids interact with an ocean for the very first time. I say interact, which seems different, but truly, it was an interaction. Like they met a life-long friend for the very first time. Without thought or reservation, they ran open-armed into the sea like they live next to a massive body of water instead of an ocean of sagebrush. No hesitation, no reservation. Just the complete appreciation of enjoying a once-in-a-lifetime chance, open-armed and ready.
I guess, maybe, when people ask what I thought about Hawaii, perhaps it isn’t that I can’t convey the magnitude of island life and pace. Maybe it isn’t even that I can’t express emotion for the beauty of the tropical ocean and terrain. Maybe, truly, it’s that I can’t express accurately what it felt like to sit on a glorious beach in the golden light of God and sunset, and watch my children in a time and moment that will never come again. To hold my husband’s hand and appreciate the enormity of creation, and our life.
So, when people ask me about Hawaii, I simply say, everyone deserves to see Hawaii. Just once.
Life Lessons Horseback
Life Lessons Horseback
Horses have always kept me out of trouble. If anything has ever made me walk down the straight and narrow, it’s a horse. They’ve taught me some valuable life lessons, not the least of which is to know your posse. Know who you’re riding with. You can’t lie to someone who knows the shadows and scars of your heart. And perhaps above all, just when you think you’ve got your secrets covered and guarded, that’s just when they’re the most obvious.
The times when I’ve battled fear, uncertainty, negativity, and self-consciousness, I’ve gone to the horse to look deeper at myself. I read once that a horse is the reflection of the human soul. If you want to know who you are, bond with a horse. Just like a mirror, they will project back at you your truest self, good or bad. It is true. When I’ve accepted what I see in my horses and used it to better myself, I watched as the horses also got better.
If you love and trust someone, don’t give up on them over one bad day. Be willing to try and start over. Jesus taught this. Forgive your brother seven times seventy. I don’t know how many times I’ve wrecked the proverbial cart with a horse, come back the next day determined to do better as a horseman, and found them ready and willing to make amends. The number of times I’ve been forgiven on my journey to better my own skills is a mystery to me.
Don’t be something you’re not. If you’re thirteen hands and twelve-hundred pounds, don’t bother trying to fit in at the steeple chase. God made us to be something specific. If you’re passionate about toting kids around at the junior rodeo, don’t let anyone convince you to try for the NFR. When we find our purpose, no amount of earthly accolades will replace that feeling you get when you do what you’re created for.
I’ve been miles from home before and fallen off. For one reason or another, I’ve lost my seat and hit the dirt. You’ll know who your friends are when that happens. They’ll be the ones still standing there while you get up and dust yourself off. Sure, they might have a little twinkle in their eye you’ll swear is amusement, but they’ll wait for you to get back on again.
Most importantly, I think, is gratitude. If you want to accomplish anything, you better be grateful to those who help you get there. I want to be a better horseman. I have lots of horses that help me get closer to that goal daily. Oh, the mistakes they put up with. The iniquities they overlook. I know these things about myself, and I always do my best to offer the horse gratitude. They know where I need work and it’ll be miserable bringing up baby to get me there. But they do it anyway because they know that’s where I want to go.
Just like my loved ones. My husband, my kids. Especially God. I’m not perfect, but thankfully, they support me in saddling up each day and trying anyway.
Saddle up, friend. Keep going even though I know it’s a struggle. I’m struggling, too. You’re in good company.
Lyn