SimplyLife

This weekend we remember the men and women who have given the ultimate sacrifice for this country by laying down their lives for freedom, for the defense of the United States of America.  Those lofty ideals upon which this country was founded are under massive attack today as they have been in every generation. Religious freedom, individual responsibility, freedom of speech are in mortal danger as we look across the political landscape that promotes government intervention and control over every aspect of our lives. Abraham Lincoln's famous Gettysburg address is more relevant today than ever as Americans fight against each other, making ideology more important than doing what is right. I can picture our 16th president, lanky, gaunt, incredibly sad, but still determined as he stepped to a podium to deliver this two minute speech on November 19, 1863.Our country was suffering great loss--beyond imagination and the president carried the burden of death, conflict, an...

It's almost here. It's on the horizon, even closer than that. It's been a dream and now it's a reality. For those of you that know me, you've guessed already.  The "it" is a book. One with my name on it, officially published, and you can download it to your Kindle or buy it in softcover. I've been writing since I was a kid. One of my earliest attempts was publishing a neighborhood paper for East Koy--that little intersection where there are more cows than people. I handcopied about five one-page editions and sold them for a couple of pennies each. I can't remember what news was worth printing at the time, but it was East Koy, so it might have been about the cows that got out or Mrs. McGowan baking a special pie. Then there was high school as editor of the literary magazine for two or three years. There have been lots of stories started and stopped over the years, most have gone in the round file.  The dream dissipated during the real life drama o...

It's hard to believe, but I've been a mother for almost 32 years.  It's the job you never retire from and you really can't resign either, although there were a few days it crossed my mind.  My own mother has had the title for over 50 years and she'll tell you that although the job description changes some over time, it's a job you have for life.  So would I change anything?  Not a chance. This weekend I enjoyed being a mom and grandmother.  Our youngest daughter set her wedding date and we talked about music, her dress, the reception, and all those exciting things that go into putting the biggest event of your life into place.  Today I talked with our oldest daughter and grandsons.  I'm grateful to be past raising small children, but exceptionally thankful for grandchildren.  As the saying goes, they're the reward for not killing your children.  Now it was never that bad, but there's nothing like grandchildren. They are a great ...

Much of the beauty in Cochise County is linked to its mountains, which are part of the sky island region.  Haven't heard of sky islands before?  These are mountains that are forested and surrounded by  " seas" of desert and grasslands.  This area provides a unique habitat for wildlife of all sorts. There are stories of jaguars in our area, along with sightings of many rare birds. The sky islands represented by the Huachuca Mountains are quite near our home and we take advantage of hiking the trails throughout the region every chance we get.  The Huachucas are where the Sonoran and Chihuahan deserts converge which creates a unique biological environment. Probably our favorite sky island area is Ramsey Canyon, which is part of the Nature Conservancy.  In many ways it reminds me of Letchworth State Park because of its beauty and the peacefulness that is felt the moment you step from your car.  If you need a place away fro...

Here's another tale of the Old West for this week's post.  I've chosen Cochise County Sheriff John Slaughter. Our county has a long and checkered history of lawmen who danced precariously with law and disorder. For the western history buff, you know many of them by name. The Earps, John Behan, Burt Alvord, Harry Wheeler. John Slaughter was the exception.  Born in Louisiana on October 2, 1841, his family moved to Texas where he grew up in the cattle ranching industry.  He married, had two children and entered law enforcement as a Texas Ranger.  His nickname wasTexas John. When his first wife died of smallpox, he was left to raise two children on his own.  He met his second wife, Viola in 1879 when she was only 16 years old.  After a speedy courtship, Viola's family finally agreed to the marriage.  He was after all a good prospect as a successful rancher in Douglas and a famous lawman. John was 38 years old at the time....

Once upon a time there were three theres.  They were the Homonym family. Their names all sounded alike, but they're very different.  The first was the big Papa There.  He was an adverb and you could find him in sentences about places, moments, and particular matters.  He was all about action. The Papa was busy going here, there , and everywhere.  Then along came the Mama.  She was all about relationships and was a pronoun.  This was confusing for some people who often misspelled her name.  (I can relate to that.)  The Mama Their loved people.  She could be found in gatherings of all kinds.  Their weddings, their parties, their vacations, and much more.  The Mama was very popular. Now the Baby They're was a combination of his parents. He was a contraction.  He was both a pronoun and a verb.  He went everywhere with his parents the Papa There and the Mama Their. They're a very happy famil...

We enjoy the birdlife around our house--most of the time. We have feeders just outside the courtyard and every morning my husband fills them and tosses a generous amount of cracked corn on the ground.  He even makes "Dave's Special Birdseed Mix" for our feathered friends.  The bagged mixes aren't good enough for our birds.  My job is to keep the hummingbird feeder filled.  Finches, sparrows, wrens, flycatchers, silver cardinals, ladderback woodpeckers, doves, quail, and several different varieties of hummers all frequent the yard.  A vermilion flycatcher has been spotted and in April several pairs of Bullock's orioles will nest in the mesquites.We also have a pair of roadrunners, Prairie falcons, and Great Horned owls that claim Casa Wallace as part of their hunting territory. With so many birds converging on us, there are a few stories to share about our bird adventures.  I'll share the latest. Since this is nesting season, w...

This week was a crazy, busy week. You wouldn't think that would happen with a part time day job and afternoons at home. But, the part time job spilled over into the afternoons and there were a myriad of errands and tasks at home. The few hours left to me were reserved for polishing the novel that is almost ready for the publisher.  My husband's schedule was full of travel, meetings, and rehearsals. Our daughters were experiencing the same busyness. Our youngest was moving to a new house, helping her fiance get ready for a long deployment, along with treating cancer patients. Our oldest was on the run, juggling motherhood, a demanding sales job, and marriage. I suspect that your week may have been similar. It seems our days are crammed with activity, which in the end isn't great for our health or quality of life.  Symptoms of overload include: irritabililty, forgetfulness, inability to focus on a task, headaches, and the knot in the back of your neck. We weren't...

One of my fondest childhood memories is of my mother baking bread. The whole house smelled wonderful and if I timed it right, I could get her to cut off a heel of hot bread and then slather it with butter. A simple, but absolutely wonderful treat. Better than chocolate cake even. James Beard, that very famous chef said, " Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts.” Bread has been called "the staff of life" and it's basic to every culture, in every part of the world. Look at the wonderful variety, whether its made with yeast or not---lovely loaves of whole wheat, rye, dark pumpernickel, banana, scones, zucchini, biscuits, honey oat, baguette, warm fresh tortillas. It seems any kind of bread is always best right out of the oven, warm and comforting in our hands. Yesterday, I went on bit of a baking binge. It was a windy day, so working outside wouldn't be fun. I baked bread instea...

We lived in the same house for 25 years just outside of our small hometown of Castile. It was a good little neighborhood and was mostly quiet except for the traffic on Route 39. When the signs of spring arrived, it was also time to pile up tree branches, and clean out the garage or the shed of burnable miscellany. Each year there seemed to be a contest between my husband and the next door neighbor to assemble a burn pile of enormous proportions.  Day after day I watched their piles grow until tepee-shaped woodpiles were just right to be torched. There was an art to the arrangement so that it would be totally consumed in a short amount of time. It was sort of like a bonfire on steroids. Now the neighbor enjoyed the element of surprise on the neighborhood and waited for quiet Saturday afternoons to begin his incendiary activity. KABOOM! You would have thought we were under attack by enemy forces. Then there was a rush of wind and the crackling of the k...

While men in mess dress and women in evening gowns made their way to assigned tables, the smell of jet fuel filled the hangar.  The largest presence in the room was the lethal F-16. We were there to honor 13 men of the Mad Mallard Squadron who had just successfully completed their real Top Gun training in this ferociously fast jet. The day before we were privileged to participate in the Blue Carpet activities which began with breakfast provided by the Lady Ducks (wives and significant others of the squadron). We were proud to see our future son-in-law, 1st Lt. Chris Morse accept an award for best strafer at the morning's "briefing." Then it was off for a tour of the air traffic control tower where the team of highly trained, dedicated men and women guide these high flying men on and off the runway. I was deeply impressed with their concern for each pilot and their families as well. After lunch we headed out for a rollicking time in the "Sim" (flight simulato...

The thud was loud and came while I was turning left onto Foothills Drive on Thursday. I continued on to the grocery store hoping that another vehicle hadn't kicked up a stone or thrown something at my Jeep.  No damage was found when I got into the parking lot, so the noise remained a mystery until I headed home. The rush of fresh air surprised me as I slowed for a traffic light. I looked over my shoulder to see the rear passenger window sliding down without benefit of the little control switch. Rats!  I saw dollar signs float out the disabled window. I notified my trusty husband of the problem, and he inspected the window upon arrival at home. He proceeded to the computer to research spontaneous sliding windows in Jeeps. Apparently it was one of those "known" issues with the Jeep Liberty. Sigh! The bill to fix it at the dealership was a whopping $400. This would not do. It would not do at all. After getting the necessary part from the dealer on Friday, he...

Labradors have to be about the goofiest dogs out there. The AKC breed description says a Lab should be "a strongly built, shortly coupled, very active dog. The hallmark of the breed is the "otter tail." The ideal disposition is one of a kindly, outgoing, tractable nature; eager to please and non-aggressive towards man or animal." No wonder they're America's favorite dog and have been for many years. They're personable, eat just about anything, and have low maintenance coats. However, their tails are dangerous.  They also have a tendency to steal food and hearts. Labs have been in our home for over 20 years. We've had mostly black Labs and one yellow. Our first was a rescue dog we named Sophie. She was an all around family dog. Our girls could do just about anything with her and Sophie was also an outstanding hunter. From woodchucks to muskrats, the  remains of sundry unfortunate critters showed up on our lawn on a regular basis. She faithfully waite...

For those of you who like a good story, especially if it involves the West, I sure have a humdinger this week.  It all happened about 30 minutes from from Casa Wallace in the little border town of Naco, Arizona along with its counterpart, Naco, Sonora on the other side of the line.  The year was 1929. It was before the big crash in October, but things weren't so great in Mexico in the spring of that year. The people were fed up with heavy taxation, corruption, and the government in general. Hmmm...has a familiar ring to it already. Well, some rebel forces organized and began giving the Mexican army a hard time. Naco, Sonora was a pretty rough place with lots of saloons and gambling establishments, so more government intervention in their way of life wasn't welcome. The rebels and the army dug in around Naco, Sonora and began to have daily skirmishes. Since there wasn't much  happening in Naco, Arizona, which is still true to this day, residents brought out chairs...

Last night David and I went to "The Gathering." Now, before you think we've joined a cult, I'll let you know it was the Sierra Vista Cowboy Poetry & Music Gathering. It's affectionally called "The Gathering." For those who live back East, you've probably never heard of an event that's peculiar to the Western states. The crowd of over 1,200 was a sea of cowboy hats, leather fringes, big belt buckles, and fancy embroidered jackets. The performers came from all over. Some were locals from Cochise County and others came from as far away as Texas, New Mexico, California, and even Nashville, TN. The folks sitting next to us were ranchers that live about 10 miles from our home. They were talking about the premature calf that had been born a few nights before at barely 20 pounds.  The little one was doing all right, but had been brought up to the safety of the corral with her mother. They were also talking about the price of a bale of hay which is ...

It's pure liquid gold--sticky,sweet, and  tastes really good on the muffin I'm eating. Of course I'm talking about honey. As a longtime honey lover, buckwheat honey has always been a favorite, but now that distance precludes that treat, mesquite blossom has become the flavor of choice. The vendors at the weekly farmers' market have the best choice here with a variety of flavors. The Killer Bee Guy from Bisbee has a good selection of honey mustards too, that range from chipotle to roasted garlic.  Bees in Arizona are all pretty much Africanized which means they're killer bees. However, the bees in our yard are desert honey bees and not killers. At least we don't think so. You should however respect these industrious insects and not irritate them. The results could be painful and sometimes downright dangerous. Bees are highly organized and the division of labor within a hive is clear. The queen is in charge. The drones keep the queen happy so she can keep the n...

The wild West is alive and well where we live. Tombstone is an easy drive for an afternoon of strolling the boardwalks, getting some BBQ, and chatting with cowboys, gunslingers, and "soiled doves." Every self-respecting American knows about the gunfight at the OK Corral. We've romanticized it in film for decades. Personally I enjoy the 1993 version with Val Kilmer and Kurt Russell. There are quite few tales of violence and western justice in our area that are not as well known as the OK Corral incident. Bisbee, which snatched the designation of county seat in Cochise County after the Tombstone silver ran out has some tales of its own. Since winter is upon us and a story is always good by the fire, sit a spell while I tell you the about the Bisbee Massacre. On a cold December night in 1883, five outlaws rode into Bisbee and commenced robbing the largest mercantile in town with the goal of snagging the Copper Queen Mine's payroll of $7,000. The Phelps Dodge...

Hidden treasures---maps---encrypted clues to decode.  Remember those childhood games of buried treasure, secret codes, great games of pretend when we were pirates and spies? I got that flashback  when we mobilized for our first geocaching hunt. With a handheld GPS, a list of decoded clues, and coordinates from a geocaching website, we headed out to see if we could actually find these caches of trinkets. What fun to find out that trails we'd hiked previously were full of these caches! After a false start on the first search, the hiking trip up an abandoned railroad bed and into a nearby canyon yielded four finds. Each was different. One was a metal box full of odds and ends--a nickel, key chain, etc. The next merely a geocache pin which we walked around for a few minutes before identifying it. It looked like a bottle cap at first glance. Then a Navy ammo tin tucked under a huge boulder and some smaller rocks. I signed the log book and continued up the...

I've begun another decluttering tour this week. After the holidays it seems like paper, assorted magazines, and just plain junk have taken over counters, tables, nooks, crannies, etc. There are all those little instruction pamplets for new coffee makers, toys, GPS devices. Then there are magazines that have been saved throughout the year for one or two recipes and sometimes a decorating idea. The Christmas cards and letters...they're too pretty to throw out...right? The closets are bursting at the seams, the garage is a mess. It's an overwhelming task if you take it on all at once, so I've developed a system over the years to take a few minutes a day and eliminate one area of clutter at a time. Since clutter equals chaos and order equals tranquility for me, it's a task necessary for mental health, along with a sense of order. You know--a place for everything and everything in its place. Sometimes the place is the garbage. First, why do it? It's only going to g...

I love a new year.  A mental list of projects begins to bubble, just like yeast and warm water happily work together. I get excited about tossing out the accumulation of "stuff" in closets, in the garage--everywhere. The seed catalogs begin to arrive and gardening plans bloom exponentially. Everything seems possible in the new year moment. My husband gets that "deer in the headlights" look as I attempt to include him in all of the reorganization and project lists. Then there are those fresh blank calendars to write in birthdays and anniversaries, holidays, and meetings for work. (The fresh inky paper even smells good.) I'll bet there are quite a few of you that enjoy the calendar thing. Those nice little squares begin to fill with activities that are planned, orderly, and mostly happy. In my very Type "A" way, I  write them onto the paper, enter them into my electronic calendar, and set reminders to pop up at the right time on the computer screen. Th...