Memoir Monday, Nov 27, 1965

The coming week was catastrophic or very nearly so.  In retrospect, it could actually have ended much worse, like a very final and unequivocal end but it did not. How close things actually came to that  I will never know. Again I have to say thank you to my guardian angel who was surely guiding me every second of this treacherous passage.   
I'm not sure how much to cover all that happened from November 30 until the next Saturday which was December 4. It could fill several pages...so I will just mention the first catalyst here to complete the unfinished phrase at the end of the journal entry. Then I will skim the interim as I cover the next weekend. 

Nov 27, 1965 Sat (Includes Nov 28 also)

Got up about the usual hour both mornings and rode to the pasture with Charlie Mike. Sat we worked on the big feed box and some on the colts’. Saturday we finished the home corrals mostly mucking out the little ponies’ pen. It was awful. Sat evening I wrote letters: Kathy, Linda and Dusty. and took a bath. The folks went to the Mental Health Clinic. Sunday we talked from noon to 2:30 and then I led Chief and the colts and delivered Dusty’s letter pinned to his screen door with a bobby pin. It is perfumed; wonder if he will notice? Both evenings I rode out alone and did the pasture chores. Sunday evening I sewed, patched Levi's and repaired other things, washed my hair and fixed my nails and then read the paper. Now it’s a late bedtime. If Dusty isn’t back,  he should be in a matter of a few hours. Charlie Mike is getting ready to blow the scene with me. I am fed up to the ears. I’ve got to collect my stuff better in a few days and then really lay down the law. The Boss says we kids are doing fine (tee hee!) but what he doesn’t know…

As I have alluded in the last few weeks stuff was almost in an avalanche of "shit happens" and I was barely keeping my nose above the smothering point. Charlie Mike and I were hanging in there as best we could. The idea of I or even we two actually going to California was starting to gain momentum. 

It had been raining quite a lot and the corrals were a mess, both at home and at the pasture. We knew it was bad for the animals at home to be standing in mucky mud but cleaning was almost an impossible job. Five gallons buckets filled and dragged out to dump, refilled with semi-dry dirt and carried in. And meanwhile trying to keep most of the hay out of the mire since there was not much to spare. Often try was the operative word since success was  two inches short of impossible. And there was nothing close to "good enough." 

By this time Mom had gone to the family counselling  at least two or three times and I think I had once. This time Dad went and he was shall we say not impressed?  The harangue and 'talk' afterwards was best forgotten. Otherwise I went on with 'business as usual' to the extent it was possible which of course included writing to Dusty since I was not sure at all that I would see him soon. There were few opportunities to get out, day or night. And no phone, regular or cell, no internet...

Now for the proximate cause of the coming bad week. I will say right off that I felt very bad about it, deep guilt and sorrow,  and I accepted most of the blame because I had not noticed a worsening injury. "No excuse" but lots of extenuating or mitigating matters, at least in my feeling. We had already endured too many losses and much sadness over donkeys being chained. This time if was Jackifur, the first colt of the jenny Sam Steiger had given Dad who in turn gave her to Charlie Mike several years previous. She was pregnant with this one when she came maybe 1958 or so, so by now he was mature and several years old. 

At times he was in a corral but with moving animals around a lot, the space was not always adequate so he wound up chained to a mesquite near the corrals. Sometimes I know he had a halter but at this point there just as a chain around his neck. It was smooth linked and should not have been too dangerous but for some reason it cut into the back of his neck. Charlie Mike and I discover it that day. It was a deep and ugly wound. I put a one foot hobble on him and attached the chain to it but the damage was done. At first we though maybe it had hurt his spine but we soon realized he had tetanus. I suppose we all got shots if we were not up to date but I do not remember. 

The next day we had to tell Dad about it and the excrement hit the oscillator big time. This bad situation rapidly grew into a huge 'snowball' rolling out of control. Maybe it was just a final straw.  I would have chosen to put the poor burro down right away but Dad insisted we had to suffer the object lesson of watching him die, me especially, because my carelessness was totally responsible. And that was just the start of my punishment.

Photos--none ugly; safe to view.  The first is Jackifur. He was a husky, stout jack burro but marked exactly like his mother. Next is Charlie Mike about 8 or 9 when we first got Jennyfur.  He was not all that thrilled to be told she was his! And last shot, a year or so later for the view down Bitter Creek which more properly belongs with the next installment. It was rough and rocky and the bridge about 100 yards up from the river.