Move to Gore, OK and The Boys's Ranch

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Rainbow over our RV camp at The Boys' Ranch

Rainbow over The Crossings Building/kitchen

 

We finished the project in Tahlequah on Thursday afternoon and moved ourselves 30 miles south to Gore, OK on Friday morning. Temperatures in the 70s and 80s yesterday, beautiful blue skies. Early this morning, a storm rolled over us and seemed to forget to move off. It rained on and off the entire day. While Bill went to try his hand at fly fishing on the Illinois River, I hung around the RV doing laundry in the building next to where we are parked and sewing down a quilt binding. The quilt is getting finished just in time – temperature right now is 52. Quilt will feel nice while I welcome fall.

Fall also brings other changes to our lives. My mom is not doing too well right now. Most people do not make it to age 97 and it's been amazing how well she has done over the past few years but time and infirmities seem to have finally caught up with her. Not long before we left for Tahlequah, Bill and I went down to Gulf Breeze to see Staci and our granddaughters (Eric was overseas) and also to see mom. The first day I went to see her, she had been up all night and all morning so was asleep when I got there. I sat with her a while and she woke up some when I chatted about her great-granddaughters but I worried about getting her up for fear of her falling. The next day, she was awake but not moving very much. She had become so unstable on her feet that she had fallen a number of times so the staff was keeping her in a chair. Funny, though, she kept trying to get up and showed the spirit I remembered my mom always having. The little lady in that chair was my mom and I loved her but she had moved off to a place I could not follow.

So here I am in OK getting ready for three weeks of working at a boys' home. I am bound and determined to do something worthwhile that I know she would be proud of me doing.

It finally quit raining late this afternoon and I happened to look out the window to see one of the prettiest rainbows I have ever seen. It was a complete arch that reached from one side of the sky to the other side and was so bright. I grabbed our camera and tried taking some pictures through the window. The van was smack damb in the way so I decided to run outside, even though it was still misting rain at the time. Eventually, I took some really good pictures, one of which I will try to add to this message.

Friday – October 11, 2013

Oh, the joys of playing on a computer. I just erased half of the above message, couldn't get it back, couldn't remember what I wrote, so I ad-libed the best I could. Gerrrrrrr!!!

Today the guys went fishing and the ladies went into the metropolis of Gore (population – 900) to have lunch in a cute tea room and stop in the few decent gift shops. Then we wandered down to the quilt shop. For a town this size, it was not a bad shop. Fairly decent selection of fabric with good prices. I found a pattern for a small purse that takes fat quarters then a cute fish fabric grabbed me so now I have the stuff to make it. Too bad I left the sewing machine at home. Lunch was good – had a piece of quiche and salad. I'm not hungry anymore.

We finished our first week of work here. Amazingly, I started the week without a paint brush in my hand! Next weekend is the 50^th Anniversary Rodeo at the Boys' Ranch so we areD spending most of our time helping get ready for it. I helped take some old splintery boards off the bleachers and add some 2x4s to other seats to add support to them. I was all ready to help put the new boards up on Tuesday when (1) the boards had not been delivered, and (2) my edging expertise was needed in one of the houses. Soooo, back the paint brush went into my hand, and back to up the ladder, paint, down the ladder, move the ladder, up the ladder, etc., etc., etc. I'm getting so good at this, I may just repaint our bathroom when we get home.

Oh, on Thursday, Elizabeth, Phyllis, and I were asked to paint the 24' bleacher boards. Easier to paint before they are bolted to the bleacher frames. We decided to paint them in the morning before it got too hot. Need boards needed priming so we did that then started with the dark green paint. That first coat of green paint looked awful. Of course, we had to put a second coat on. Stupid boards took us all day to do! And we ended up in the afternoon sun afterall.

The bleachers are down this gravel road right next to the rodeo ring. There are a number of pole barns and closed in barns where the ring is. At the end closest to where our RVs are parked is a swinging gate with a cattle crossing in the ground. There are well over 20 horses at the ranch and people are always donating unwanted horses. Two painted horses were dropped off a few weeks ago – one brown spotted and one black spotted. Larry, our main contact, told us that they weren't sure how the other horses were going to take to these two new ones, so they left them roaming around on their own around the ring and barns and all up and down the road. Elizabeth started calling them Frick and Frack and decided the brown one is the leader. Wherever brown-Frick goes, usually you will see black-Frack following. Sometimes they are in the tractor barn, sometimes around the bleachers, and then other times you see them up the gravel road by the gate. When we were painting yesterday, Frack started over towards us. We've been told they are gentle but curious. Great! The closer Frack got to Elizabeth, the more she moved down the boards towards the other side. I just wanted him to be curious on her side of the boards, not mine. Just like me, she likes horses, as long as they are on the other side of the fence. These two act like two lost puppy dogs, except BIGGER.

I'll have to take some pictures of them and post them next time.

And speaking of lost puppies, the team has adopted this poor lost dog. The guys are working up on the hill top (they call it a mountain here, but it's an awfully low “mountain” in comparison to NC mtns.) on a cabin. Yesterday this young dog wandered onto the site during lunch time. What did the guys do? Feed it, of course. When they left at the end of the work day, they noticed the dog running behind the truck. They stopped, opened the door, and the dog jumped in and made itself comfortable in the back seat. Next thing we know, she has made herself part of our group. Question is – who's going to take it home? She is so friendly but so pitifully skinny with ribs showing and hip bones protruding. But she has clear blue ice eyes and wags her tail at everyone. Larry thinks she's mostly Australian terrier but she looks just like a dingo. Phyllis has a friend in Texas who would like to have her so now she's trying to convince one of our other team members to take her to Texas when they leave here.

The poor-lost-puppy-dog – to be continued.

Nice thing about this project is all the cooking that's going on in the kitchen to get ready for the rodeo. One non-NOMADS couple has been coming to the ranch for 20 years to do the cooking. Donna is this dynamo of a little Oklahoma woman who can cook anything. She and two of our lady team members have made tons of cookies and dozens of cobblers, some of which they ask us to sample and critique. And, of course, there are always cookies that fall apart that need to be eaten. Makes for yummy break times.

Ok, enough said. Bent your ears long enough. Now to try to get this whole message from the word processing program to the Internet blog site and download a picture. Patience, Patience, Patience.

More to follow later . . .