The First House: The Beginning

Note: This is 90% fact, 10% fiction because, of course, I cannot remember all of the details now. This was first published to Gather.com in 2007. Pat

Image courtesy morguefile,com

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I was the oldest of eight kids, growing up on a ranch in Wyoming. In those long ago days, we carried water to bathe in and wash with and to drink, and we hauled wood and coal and burned trash in a barrel and used an outhouse. We lived in log houses, picked wild greens, ate deer meat and played with frogs.. simple, every day things for kids growing up at that time.

I decided to write a few stories about how it was. This is the first one.

In the Beginning

We were scared to death. We'd taken a small picnic lunch down to the footbridge behind the house, probably to get out of Mom's hair more than anything. We had spread our cloth on the boards of the footbridge and neatly laid out the sandwiches, Jim and Bev and I, and we poured iced tea from a jar. We were getting ready to eat and take a look at our new home.

And then they came. Big, monstrous things, with snorting noses and feet that sucked with every step at the muddy stream that wandered along under the footbridge. I said we were scared, but we were terrified.

We'd never seen a real live horse before, much less the nose of one poked over a pole handrail, wiggling and sniffing at us and our food. Would he step up onto the bridge? Did he want our lunch? Would he bite? What should we do?

We did what all smart kids do when they don't know what else to do. We yelled for Mom. No, we screamed. The horse threw up his head and snorted and, spinning around, he jumped two great heaving paces, splattering us and our lunch with cold, muddy water. Then he calmly trotted off, twitching his heavy black tail as if to say, "I really don't care, you know... "

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That was our introduction to horses, and the freedom, the fun and the pain, of living, growing up and learning on a ranch in Wyoming well over a half century ago.

We were the oldest of what would eventually be eight kids and we had moved into a four room log house on the Lewis Ranch outside of Laramie Wyoming. Daddy had become a "ranch hand," and we had become the newest members of a community that was made up of people who had been there since the beginning of time. We were the "new folks," and were always the "new folks," for all the years we lived there. 
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