Snow Horse on the Mountain

    On a green-meadow day, when the sun is an orange marigold in a blue, silk, Utah sky, and onion tops are whiskers on Earth’s black velvet face, Grandfather pulls me up to his John Deere tractor, and we sit cozy, looking far away into the crevice of an unnamed mountain peak high in the Wasatch Mountains to the east.    

    “There she is,” Grandpa says, his voice soft and whispery like an early summer breeze.  “Can you see her up there, Pea Pod?”  Grandpa’s brown eyes twinkle as he calls me his pet name.

    “Looks like a snow goat,” I giggle.  It’s an old joke between the two of us, and I know exactly what my grandfather’s next words are going to be.

    “No, it’s a bob-tailed draft horse—a Percheron, just like the one my daddy had before we  got this tractor.”

    Grandpa’s eyes get shiny.  He pats the John Deere’s dented sides, as if the big, three-wheeled machine were a dear, old friend.   It’s no coincidence that our family’s antique tractor bears the old draft horse’s name. 

    “Good, old Nellie Belle,” my granddad says, his voice getting husky.  “I used to ride her bareback in the fields.”

    I know by heart where this conversation will go.   Grandpa likes to tell me how the ghostly, horse-shaped figure shows up every year on the mountain ridge that runs down Webb Canyon.

    We both know the Snow Horse is just a patch of un-melted, winter snow, a massive white mural painted there by strokes of sunshine and shadow.

    But I love hearing Grandpa remember how early settlers began using the Snow Horse as a planting gauge soon after Mormon pioneers began farming Davis County in the 1850’s, 

    The Snow Horse usually appears around the first of June, and the old farmers warn, “You shouldn’t plant your tender crops until you see the Snow Horse prancing on the mountainside.” 

   Tomato seedlings and corn shoots might freeze on days cold enough to keep the mountain snow from melting into the familiar draft horse shape.

    If you spot her early, say in the middle of May, that’s bad news.   People say that means the winter’s snowpack was shallow, and everybody worries about water shortages or what Grandpa calls a drought. 

    Once the Snow Horse becomes visible, farmers hope she’ll stay awhile.   When she lasts until the Fourth of July, farmers know they’ll have plenty of moisture for their crops to grow.

    “So what do you think, Pea Pod?”  Grandpa asks each year after he’s rehearsed the local Snow Horse lore, though he knows exactly what I’ll say.

    I crane my neck and look at the majestic Snow Horse standing there with her long, long legs and short, bobbed tail. 

    “Still looks like a snow goat,” I giggle. 

     Grandpa tugs my braids and laughs, “Snow Horse in June--good harvest moon.” His voice is all silver ripples—like soft, summer rain. 

    For a moment, a faraway look shadows Grandpa’s face, and I know that he’s remembering every snow horse he’s ever seen prancing on that mountainside on a sunny day in June.

    And he’s right about the harvest moon.  Come autumn, on a wheat-gold day, when the sun is a bushel basket in a blue-linen, Utah sky, and wheat stalks are stubble on Earth’s brown, leather face, Grandpa and I will once again sit cozy on old Nellie Belle, the tractor. 

    By then, the Snow Horse will be just a memory on a burnished, gold ridge.  

    But when the sweet, acrid scent of newly dug onions spills into the crisp, harvest air, and ripe tomatoes hang like red jewels on tough, green vines,  the corn cribs will be full , and we’ll remember how this year’s Snow Horse had lingered well past June’s long green-meadow days into July.

Gift Buying for Picky Wife is Tricky Business

 My husband was browsing in the appliance department of a large downtown store when he ran into his friend Walt Stokums.  Walt was gazing bleary-eyed at a row of steam irons.

"Howdy, Walt!"  Dave slapped him on the back.  "Where's Connie?"

"Oh, she stayed home with the kids, so I could shop for her birthday present," Walt confided, offering Dave a clammy handshake.  

"Gonna' surprise the little woman with a new iron?"  Dave asked.

"Well, I don't know," Walt's voice trembled.  "Connie is so fussy.  She always returns whatever I pick out.  And if I get her anything useful, she thinks I'm making a statement about her housekeeping."

"You could get her something frivolous--like a new negligee," Dave winked.

"I tried that last year, but she exchanged it for a carpet sweeper."

"What about books?"

"Afraid not.  I'd have to bribe someone from Harlequin to smuggle a new potboiler off the press before the ink was dry.  Otherwise, she'd already have it."

"Doesn't she ever read anything else?'

"Only self-help books on home and time management.  But I know better than to give her one of those.  She already has a schedule on the bathroom mirror--five minutes is all I get to shower, dry my hair, and shave.  And if I leave lather in the sink, I lose thirty-five seconds of my breakfast time."

"Why don't you just take her out to dinner?"  Dave got practical.

"No way!  Connie has been on a diet since she was born.  Two years ago, I thought I had it made when I gave her a digital bathroom scale, but that really backfired.  For the next six months, we had nothing but green salad and Diet Coke for supper every night."

Walt's eyes were beginning to look like marbles, and he began to hyperventilate."

"Maybe you'd better come over here and sit down for a minute."   With the help of an eavesdropping clerk, Dave settled the distraught man in a straight-backed chair.

"Poor devil," my husband said to the clerk,  there's got to be some way we can help."  

In reply, the clerk leaned over and whispered something.

"I've got it!" Dave shouted, amazed that what seemed to be the perfect solution could be presented in just three words.  "A gift certificate, Walt.  You can give Connie a gift certificate.  Then she can get herself something she really wants!"

Walt sadly shook his head.  "That's exactly why I'm here.  I gave her a gift certificate this morning,  and she sent me back with it.  She wants me to use it on something to surprise her."

COUNTRY SERENITY CAN DRIVE YOU NUTS

 

“LAKESIDE REVIEW”

Around 1982

 

And so we moved—picked up our pots and pans, carted off our clothes and canned goods, bundled up our bedding, and trucked away the trappings of our suburban lifestyle, to settle far out in the country.

 

My husband was exuberant over the change.  “Ah, this is the life,” he jubilated with a gesture that encompassed a meadow-like expanse of unfenced green behind our newly built home.

 

I was not totally convinced.  “We’ll certainly have to be more organized down here,” I said, wondering if the grocery checkers at the now far-away market would miss my daily patronage.

 

“But, we’ll grow a bumper garden crop,” my optimistic spouse replied.  Picking up a brown clod, he let the fine warm sand trickle between his fingers.  “And it’s so peaceful here.”

 

“Way down here, we’ll have to budget more for gasoline,” I had to interject.

 

“We’ll go for walks in country air,” came his response.  He took a luxuriant breath and continued, “Just listen to the calm…”

 

I listened.  Two begoggled flies played Kamikaze pilot with my nose.  “We’ll have to buy a dozen No-Pest Strips.”

 

“But for such peace and quiet!  It’s a trade-off for tranquility.”

 

“There’ll be no more doorstep mail delivery,” I sighed.

 

“No more door-to-door salesmen,” he countered.

 

“No next-door neighbors,” I cried.

 

“No freeway noise, no airplane flight patterns, no recess bells at noon,” he rejoined in rapid fire.

 

I had the next part memorized.  I’d heard the words so many times before:  “Serenity.  We’ll sleep like babies, awakening refreshed.”

 

That evening we tried it out.  Turning off the bedroom light, I slipped between fresh sheets crisped by country air.  Cool shadows merged to inky black, and I marveled at the soothing absence of people-perpetuated noise.  Only a courting insect whispered chirrups to his mate.

 

But before I drifted off in awe of the almost perfect stillness of night, I opened one eye.  The moon had moved to a spot directly above our partially opened window, and I could see my tired husband where he sat bolt upright on the edge of the bed.  Dark circles of fatigue made purple splotches underneath his bleary eyes.

 

“That blasted cricket,” David groaned, “is driving me berserk!”

AEROBIC DANCING: '3s' TRYING TO BE '10s'

From "The Lakeside Review," a subsidiary of the "Standard Examiner" 

Anyone remember Bo Derek?  Good! I've been trying to forget her ever since my husband promised to watch the kids while I went to my aerobic dancing class.  Handing him a can of Similac and a pack of Pampers diapers,  I grabbed my gym bag and left the house, hoping to return looking just like that iconic star of the movie 10.

My friend Susan followed me through the gym's dressing room door.  Sitting on narrow plank benches between rows of pink lockers, we stowed our Mom jeans with our loose-fitting tunics.  Then, slipping on spandex leotards and tights, we both began to laugh.  Sue laughed at me because I curve in all the wrong places, and I laughed at her, because she doesn't curve at all.

Self consciously, we put our shirts back on and slunk out onto the dance floor to meet our instructor, the drop-dead gorgeous Miss Lindsay.

"She's gotta' be allergic to eating," I said, searching for a word to describe the kind of body proportions no one ever calls thin or skinny.

Just as we "dancers" lined up and dropped to our knees for the preliminary floor exercises, I got a Charlie horse and had to sit out all during the sit-ups.  

But I was proud to be back in the line-up for "berry pickers."

"This is easy," I said, my hands flat on the floor.

"You're not supposed to bend your knees," Miss Lindsay demurred.

After that, we were instructed to check our heart rate, but since I couldn't find mine, our mentor showed me how to slide two fingers "along your jawline to the appropriate spot for pulse counting."  Only when my knuckles kept getting detoured by my double chin, did I take Susan's advice.  "Just pick a number between one and a hundred," she suggested.

Suddenly, the room began to rock with the introductory fanfare of "The Star Wars Strut."  Mesmerized, I watched a series of breathtaking moves with names like the "C3PO Side Step" and the "R2D2 Robot Roundoff."  Soon I was huffing and puffing like Darth Vader, himself.  Beads of sweat soaked my body, while cool, svelte Miss Lindsay floated along looking like an advertisement for "Ice Blue Secret Deodorant."

An hour later, I stood in front of the locker room mirror, assessing the results of my recent workout.

"Well, what do you think?  Do I look like Bo Derek?"

Sue chose her words carefully,  "I think you need some corn rows in your hair."

Work Magic; Makes Kids Disappear

 From THE LAKESIDE REVIEW, a subsidiary of the STANDARD EXAMINER

Harry Houdini, were he still alive, wouldn't have anything on my kids when it comes to disappearing acts.

Ever since I first got the notion that strong, able-bodied elementary school-aged youngsters ought to be able to help load the dishwasher after dinner, my littles have perfected a vanishing act that would be difficult for the best illusionist to match.

No Hocus pocus, no Abracadabra, not even the most sincere A la peanut butter sandwich could work the magic of the words Clean-up Time!

Usually, I don't even have to say the words.  From the exact moment I set my supper fork down to the precise second when the last crumbs have been wiped from the kitchen table, and all the greasy plates, platters, and cooking pots have been nestled  in the Kitchen Aid by me, an unearthly quiet envelops my kitchen.

Not even a runny-nosed sniffle remains behind to break the spell.  Visitors to my home during the after-dinner hour don't even believe I have children.

Other incantations likely to produce the same results as the nightly call for KP duty, include please, clean your room, rinse out the sink after you brush your teeth,  and how about dusting the piano?  Practice the piano also rates high on the list of expressions guaranteed to make kids hide.

Sometimes, my missing children are gone so long I start to worry about alien abductions.   Then and only then do I mouth the magic words I've learned will bring them back quicker than the front door can slam six times.

Open Sesame, is all I have to say with my hand on the cookie jar lid.  Then the kids come back, but the cookies disappear.

This vintage Hull cookie jar that my own mom bought for her mother seems the perfect illustration for a newspaper column about kids who disappear when there's a job to be done.

LIZARD FOOD GIVES MOM CRAWLIES

 DESERET NEWS:  November 16, 1994

The day my 12-year-old daughter brought home two lizards, I thought we had finally acquired the perfect pets.

Lizards don't bark, chirp, or run around in an exercise wheel all night.  They never bite, scratch, or drool.  They don't beg to go out ten times a day, walk on the kitchen table, shed fur or feathers, chew up brand new shoes, or drink out of the toilet.

They don't even stink, as long as you clean their terrarium every so often.  That's probably their biggest selling point.  So what if those belly-dragging, dry-skinned cousins to a snake are less than cuddly?  They're practically maintenance free.  Just turn on the heating stone, fill their water bowl, and dump in a dollar's worth of crickets once a week.

Those crickets, however, are somewhat of a problem.  First of all, people give you weird looks when you walk out of a pet store with a transparent bag full of six-legged crawlies.

"Ya see that dame over there with the sack of cockroaches?  She must be carrying one heck of a grudge.  Probably gonna sabotage some fast-food joint, or maybe the whole mall."

Second, because Bill and Trudy, as our two reptilian friends prefer to be called, do not clean their plates at mealtime, there are always leftovers--survivors might be a better word.  These surviving crickets, members of a strange breed not normally found outdoors in the bushes, hide under rocks or burrow into the sand of the cage where they play dead until the middle of the night, 2 a.m. being their designated wake-up-and-prepare-for-the-concert time.  After an initial tune-up session, they rub their squeaky violin string legs together for at least six hours straight.  The fact that they only know one note is enough to make the awakened sleeper beg for Chinese water torture.

Third, if the lizards don't eat Jimmy Cricket and his pals in a very short time, those crickets begin to eat each other, which means I have to run to the mall in the middle of the week to get another dozen bugs.

Add that up--a dollar's worth of crickets twice a week for fifty-two weeks!  One hundred four bucks a year for lizard food seems a mighty hefty sum when you consider the lack of gratitude Bill and Trudy show.  They don't even wag their tails.

Fourth, in some unknown way, some of the crickets always escape.  How those bugs get out, I can't begin to imagine.  The fact is, they do.  I know this for a fact, because I occasionally find them hunkered down in places I don't care to think about, including my underwear drawer and  the slippers I slide my bare feet into every morning.

"I keep worrying that the escapees will decide to start a family and overrun my house," I say to the pet supply owner who sells them.

"No chance of that," the man tries to set me straigt.  “They can't reproduce because they're all the same sex."

This little bit of knowledge not only reassures me, it sparks my curiosity.  "So are they girls or boys?"

"Quite frankly, I don't know," he drawls.  "Girls one week.  Maybe boys the next!"

If the lizards don’t eat Jiminy Cricket and his pals in a short time, those crickets begin to eat each other!

Home for Sale...But Memories Linger

"Lakeside Review," May 19, 1982

Our house is for sale.  People come through it and admire the vaulted ceilings.  Some are impressed by the intercom; others take a fancy to the sprinkler system.   Occasionally someone even comments on the kitchen sink.  Yes, it does have a garbage disposer for gobbling up leftover peas and chicken bones.

They notice other things too--the gouge in the bathroom linoleum by the tub; the patched screen on the back storm door.

But where is the prospective buyer who can step over the squeaky board in the entry and into the flow of memories that have made this house a home?  Where is the would-be owner who can look past the fingerprints on the hallway mirror and see reflections of contented living, instead?

As I guide so many browsing strangers through each room, my thoughts hold an open house that cries out for telepathic powers.

"This is the living room," I tell a man who looks as though he'd like to yawn.  (Living as in lived here for six special years.  This is where we've said our Happy Birthdays at least 28 times and vacuumed up the crumbs from each decorated cake.  We scrubbed blood from the carpet there when Jennifer broke her nose, and here we knelt in prayer for Stacee, when she was struck by a car.)

"This next room would be the dining room.  As you see, we haven't got that kind of furniture." (But listen:  you can hear the songs we've sung around the piano.  The kids all have their favorites; Matthew always asks for Come from Alabama with a Band-Aid on my Knee.)

I resist the urge to ask my daughter to play a piece or two, and we move on into the kitchen.

"These countertops are new," I tell the lady who pops her gum and opens a cupboard door.  (Can't you feel the warmth that emanates from this homely, chrome table where we share our meals and talk about our joys and sorrows?  Can't you smell the dozens of cookies that we've baked in this oven?  That dent on the wall near the highchair is where each of the six babies has banged his cup and spoon.)

"The next room, a bedroom, is where two of our daughters dream."  (Pink gingham and giggles...bedtime stories and goodnight kisses.  Yes, the light's burned out again.  They don't like me to turn it off at night.")

"Down the hall, on your right," is the bathroom."  (There never was room for a potty chair in there, but, somehow, we managed...)

We move along to the master bedroom.  (I saved my coupon refunds to buy that wallpaper.  Heavily flocked, it slithered off the walls the first time I tried hanging it.  Finally, someone told me about de-glossing and sizing the old enamel paint.  Yes, there is room for a baby's cradle on one side of the bed.  Our first son, Michael, was almost born in the room.  The paramedics came and took me to the hospital, but somehow, it always seemed different in here after that.)

"Last of all we have the family room."  (Luckily for us, it was made so large.  See how neatly Mike and Matt's bunkbeds fit in the corner here.  Each of our children has at one time slept in that crib there.  And we still have room for the couch, TV,  recliner, my writing desk, and a bookcase.  Yes, the fireplace has a gas log, but we can still burn wood.  And if you look behind the grate, you'll probably find popcorn kernels and wrinkled scraps of Monopoly money.) 

There's an exterior door on that wall.  (But before you open it and step outside to inspect the yard, listen--listen very carefully, for there's laughter in the rafters and a heartbeat in this house.)