There was a spell of mild and dry weather during this time, it seems. We were doing a lot of fence work at Dead Horse Ranch to pay for pasture we were using there. The previous week my Christmas phonograph arrived at the trading stamp store/office in Prescott and was soon picked up and brought home. While it was just a basic and simple unit, not stereo and no auto features, it did play 33, 45 and 78 speed disks and was a source of much enjoyment for all of us. While it did not get played every evening, I did use it a lot the first several months and added to my LP library as much as I could. I still had quite a few of those old records and transferred them to CDs to lighten the load as I began to move more the past fifteen years or so. I kept about a dozen sentimental favorites and do not play them but just 'have' them. I use the copied CDs instead.
Jan 23, 1965 Sat
It is hard to get up in the morning lately but I do. Did the chores, ate muffins and packed the plunder. Charlie Mike went up for mail. I got letters from Tee and Shirl with a bunch of photos back. We left at about 9:30 and went over to June’s. We went down and built fence until about 12:30. I hiked up in the field to check the stock. Even Patsy and Bunny looked pretty good. We loaded some hay and headed home. Had a flat and had to leave the pickup on the Tuzigoot curve and go home for Big Green and a spare. So we were awfully late getting done. Luckily Mom had done the noon chores. We ate a late lunch and rested briefly before starting on the evening chores. We had and fed out a lot of chaff in the pickup and loaded the rest of the trash wood. Tomorrow we have to ride and get our wood in better shape. This evening Dad trimmed my hair so I call tonight my clean up night and I’m going to bathe and fix my nails before bed. I hoped I’d have a letter from Dusty but no such luck. He has been “with” me all day though. Guess I’ll hear from him some time next week, at least I hope so. You won’t desert me, will you, Dusty Darlin’? I didn’t play a single record this evening. I must work on my article more right away before I lose track of it. Well so long ‘til tomorrow.
I stil wrote several girls though I had dropped all my former male penpals so Dusty was the only guy I wrote to now. Tee and Shril were two that I stayed with for quite awhile. "Tee" as the nickname of a girl my age named Kathleen Addotto who lived in Chalmette, LA and her family had Quarter horses. She spoke often of a blind sallion they had that she called Ray Moore. I forget what his formal name was but he sounded like quite a horse. Shirl was Shirley Coulter. She lived in Rifle, CO with her folks and they did visit once and she and I rode on a pair of mules, Annie and Tirxie if I remember right. She had a horse or two for a long time, then finally got married and lived in Grand Junction with her hubby for many years. We still traded greeting cards now and then or a short note on line. She was having some major health issues last I heard and I fear she may have passed away. I lost track of Tee many years ago
We had a lot of flat tires, it seems. I know we often ran on used or retread tires that were the most eceonomical but not always reliable. They were mostly on the pickup as it was unsafe to use weak tires on the bigger truck, "Old Green ", an F700 Ford flatbed onto which Dad built a strong rack and which often carried large loads of hay, livestock, wood and other stuff. Charlie Mike and I pumped many strokes with the old hand tire pumps to fill and refill low tires. An air compressor would have been quite a boon but was never acquired. Another case when "slave labor" worked perfectly well according to "The Boss." Same for a wheelbarrow, hose or pipe to take water down to the corrals in the canyon etc.etc. At least in Dad's judgment there were much more important things to spend money on than such 'conveniences.' Charlie and I both grouse about that even now. We did So. Much. Work. and always the hard way, it seemed.
Any feed was too valuable to waste. When hauling a load of hay, some litter invariably ends up in the truck bed after the bales are stored. "Chaff" might not be the most descripitive term for it but that was what we meant. So generally we'd get a cardboard box and fill it with the residue and then dump it in this feedbox or that to be used.
I never realy liked to get my hair cut--especially at home although it was not usually too badly done. I liked it long and felt it was more feminine and flattering but every now and then it was decreed that it needed to be chopped back as maybe hazardous or distracting and out came the sheers. Once I was away from home, I let it get very long for quite awhile. That was a style there in the mid sixties, the long, straight 'hippie girl' hair.
Bunny and Patsy were both well along to foaling later that spring so it was good to have them eat some decent grass and put on a bit more weight before those colts arrived. They were Little Dusty and Twinkles. Tina was mostly home--at the pasture--and was due to foal too. Her baby came on my birthday but that's for another post!
Phiotos? Well, flat tires and loads of hay were not anything I documented so there are not many choices. I doubt I ever took one of my record player either. I may have pix of Tee and Shirl somewhere so I will look and of course Patsy and Bunny, though I am sure I have shared them before. Okay, first Bunny (buckskin) and Patsy (light gray) on pasture. Next, Tee Addotto with a horse she showed, not the stallion but her mare. And then Shirl with a mare she had about that time.
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