Little Bo Peep

OK, Maybe I've come down a bit from my high and lofty subjects, but I wanted to try out the new technique of putting pictures on my blog and this is the only other picture I could find on my desktop. It's a favorite of mine though Wally G., my husband, didn't like it. He thought I looked like Mother Goose.

I have another name for it, but first let me give you a little background to the story. The year was 1975, month of January. Wally G. and I were headed to a new chapter in our lives, U-Hauling all our belongings from our home in Laguna Beach to a 60 acre ranch in southern Oregon. "Forest Gate Ranch" it was called. The country life we'd promised ourselves on our honeymoon, the "Someday we'll do that" sort of thing, was coming true.

We were going to be sustenance farmers. Live off the land. Raise our own critters, get a dog, adopt the barn cat, keep the setting hens, live in a house sitting on field rocks foundation and take advantage of a water system that would not fail, a spring feeding water from the hillside into our little ranch home.

I let my hair down, started wearing long dresses before they'd become fashionable, and learned how to live without automatic dishwasher, automatic washer and dryer, automatic heating system, and automatic anything. I did manage to buy a new Maytag washer like the one my mother had. It had an agitator, rollers to feed the sudsy clothes into a rinse tub and then another and then into a basket to be hauled out to the clothes lines in our backyard. I have another favorite picture of me hanging up clothes on a windy day but haven't the faintest idea where to find it now. If I find it, I'll add it to this blog.

Back to my story. We made new friends at church. One of them told me, "I was talking about you to my friend," she said, "but she didn't know you by name and I tried to describe you. She wasn't getting it until I said, 'Would you know who I'm talking about if I said Little Bo Peep?' Her eyes lit up and she said, 'Yes!'"

I think this picture may bear me out. A middle-aged Bo Peep, but still recognizable. I found the picture in the store room when I moved back to California in 1986 after Wally G. had left for the Hereafter. It reminds me of our country life. Eight years milking a cow, gathering eggs, watching little lambs frolic in the barnyard, little calves grow up, grubbing in a huge garden, canning, sewing, washing clothes and dishes the old way, and sitting with Wally G. on the porch gazing at the beautiful Siskiyou foothills surrounding us. It was not an easy chapter in our lives but one filled with pleasures too, too many to mention. I'd not have missed it for anything. By the way, up the Upper Applegate Road a couple of miles a dam was built. Afterwards the land beneath the new Applegate Lake was gone forever. How many dreams were lost there I don't know. One of the landowners was Steve McQueen. I wondered if we'd ever see him but we never did. The dam kept the river flowing in dry seasons for us but now we've been gone 30+ years I have only memories and a few pictures to show for the eight years we spent as farmers.

My Little Bo Peep days are gone too, but I rescued the picture of her and she's made me write this blog and send it to you. Now that I'm practicing this new tech stuff you'll be getting more. Maybe.