Laura's Life

Halloween Horror

When we were kids, one of the biggest events of the year was Halloween. The excitement would start to build months in advance as we planned our costumes and coordinated with our friends. The big event was the neighborhood parade. Our neighborhood streets were a series of figure eights and the parade would proceed around the perimeter.

We hurried with our dinner then scrambled to get dressed and meet up with friends. We dashed down the street to catch up with the parade. Of course, if you wanted to walk with your friends, you’d leave your parents in the dust. Some sacrifices had to be made after all. We made the big loop around the neighborhood, then end up at the firehouse close to the street that formed the boundary of our neighborhood. The best part of the parade was gathering at the firehouse, because the firemen were ready with cider and donuts.

Entering the bright light of the firehouse was a jolt because now we could see our costumes in all their gory glory. There were the cool kids who could do no wrong. They made sloppy look good. Then there were the rest of us. We’d made up costumes from bits of cast off clothing, sheets, ribbons and black shirts. We topped it all off with a plastic mask of gruesome detail designed to scare the living hell out of anyone who got in the way. Some people (especially parents) opted for only the mask. (No they weren’t naked.) It looked creepy because their breath came out through that little hole in the mask like a geyser in the frigid air. We couldn’t tell who was lurking around the edges of the crowd. Parents were a possibility. If you talked to them, someone would say you consorted with a dweeb.

But that wasn’t all the fun to be had. On Halloween weekend my parents went to a costume party down the street. My sister and I babysat and were watching TV in the living room with a small TV set on a coffee table in front of the big picture window. It was warm outside so we had the windows open and could see over the TV to the pitch black night beyond. All of a sudden, a face appeared in the window and growled through the screen. He made noises like a pirate. Arrrrrgh! My sister and I screamed and ran from the room. What to do? What to do? My heart was thumping and I was panicking.

“I’ll get a knife,” I said as I dashed towards the kitchen. Lisa hid behind the front door with a broom. Both of us were now quiet, waiting for the inevitable. Then the doorknob turned and the front door slowly opened.

But before any damage could be done, we heard a voice yelling, “Laurie, Lisa, it’s me. It’s dad.” Oh my gosh! You can’t imagine our relief. We were really mad at my Dad and on the verge of tears. I think we all aged ten years that night.

Happy Halloween!

Home Building Horrors, Hope and Happiness

We’re building a new house. People warned us. They said it would ruin our marriage, cost more than the builder’s original estimate, and take much longer than expected. Well, they were mostly right. I’m happy to say our relationship remains intact!

But the whole process has been an eye-opener. We’re now five months into it but nowhere near as far along as we’d hoped. Why the delays? Well, first there was the rain. We had the rainiest summer in years.

Once the foundation trench was dug, it promptly filled with water. We called it “The Moat.” Geese would land and frolic in the Lollar wetlands. And once my hard working husband bailed gallons of water, it would rain and fill the trench right up again. He must have bailed water on at least 5-10 occasions along with putting a pump into action.

Once the rain abated, there was the matter of setting the drainage pipes around the foundation. But the contractor we had didn’t believe in quality work. When we tried to encourage him to up his game, he got porky and quit.

So my hard working hubby took the reins and tackled the job himself. He worked every day and into the night. There were a few times he was working in the dark until past midnight. I was a construction widow.

Doug Takes the Reins

The process wasn’t easy. Doug had to widen the trenches the contractor had dug, then lay down lengths of fabric that spanned the bottom and up the sides of the trench. After that he had to shovel in crushed rock and place the drainage pipe on top of the rock. Hauling the rock was laborious since he had to scoop it out of the bed of the truck and place it into buckets to lower down into the trench. He worked his way all around the footprint of the house and garage — about 320 feet.

Once the pipe was laid down he had to haul more crushed rock to cover it up, then wrapped the fabric like a burrito around the rock and pipe. On top of that went the dirt. It took him weeks of working in the hot sun to get this job done. And now we have more rain, which is going to delay the back-fill process and placing of the concrete basement floor and garage pad.

I have newfound admiration for my wonderful husband. He wanted the job done right and was willing to put his back into it. He wore through ten pairs of gloves and shoveled 10 1/2 tons of stone. He grew muscles in places he’d never had them before.

He had also constructed the septic system. You remember the story about the septic tank, right? That project took months of work. Then, after he had put in the chambers and pipe leading out to the leach field, we had a terrible hail storm, which drilled numerous holes in each pipe. So his choice was either to dig out and replace the pipes, which would have cost over $1000 or do a patch job. He opted for the patch job. There are three pipelines and each one has taken days of back breaking work to patch each hole.

A Major Project

Building this house has become more of a project than either one of us imagined it would be. In the meantime we’ve picked out kitchen cabinets, windows and doors. That process had quite a few iterations. Early on we spent days drawing up plans for the architect to then formalize. And we spent more days to select a lender for the loan. It’s been a huge investment in time and we’re far from being done.

After I lost my house in the wildfire, I remember all the decisions that had to be made to get the new house built. But I didn’t have to do any of the foundation or septic work. I was blissfully ignorant of what went on below ground.

Still, I’m excited about the new house. I’ve been in our present house almost ten years now. And Doug, being an engineer, has wanted to build something with better design features and a little more room. When I drew up the plans for this home, I hadn’t yet met Doug, so the walk-in closet wasn’t designed for more than one person. Surprise! I met the love of my life!

The new house is projected to be done in May/June 2024. So we’ll have a very busy Spring. I’ll keep you posted as the building process proceeds. Wish us luck!

I Got the Gardening Bug

We can safely say winter is over now – finally! So again I think the same thing as last year, “I’m only going to buy a few plants to put in containers on the deck.” Sure I will. Why am I skeptical? Because I get into the plant store and I can’t help myself. I buy up loads of color knowing most of them won’t survive from the hail storms, gophers, deer and grasshoppers.

But this year I’m committed to spreading beauty all around our property. Before I head out to the store, I do my research and pray for divine intervention. I’m determined the deer won’t get the best of me this year. But deer resistant plants don’t mean deer-proof. The graceful critters are beautiful to watch but they munch their way through my garden like Godzilla beating a path across town.

I’ve got to give the plants credit, however. After the wildfire, spunky survivor daylilies wrangled their way through the toasted ground to blossom despite the destruction. Their glorious orange blossoms burst forth like a busty woman breaking out of her bodice. Every year they were marvelous to look at swaying gently with the breeze. (The lilies, not the busty women.)

But horrors! As I walked out to the deck to gaze upon my beautiful lilies, I was met with the sight of naked stalks. Every blossom was gone, sheared off at the top with only a pair of petals helplessly strewn on the ground. The deer. It had to be the deer! The rabbits couldn’t reach that far up. Or could they?

Then there’s the grasshoppers. They march in formation, little machete mouths chomping through the poor defenseless plants I prayed would live to be grownups. A few even found their way onto the deck and attacked the potted flowers, carving lacy holes in leaves that ended up looking like fishnet stockings.

Every year I have hope this will be the season my flowers have a fighting chance. Surely they deserve to survive and give pleasure to all who visit. They tip their heads up at me with beautiful sunny smiles, but I choke back tears knowing they are doomed. Won’t I ever learn?

Digging in the dirt is an inherited addiction. Descended from a farming family, there was always something growing around our house (in addition to six towheaded kids). My Mom has a green thumb and unparalleled talent at rooting overgrown plants. They thrive under her care and consider it the best gig in town. My dad grew up picking bugs off the cauliflower plants and tying up the leaves to protect them from the sun. My brother grows gigantic plants and can’t bear to part with them when he runs out of room. His siblings are tired of babysitting.

While I’m not inclined to pick bugs off plants, there are weeds I do battle with. Not the skimpy, weak little root systems that give up without a fight. These are the dastardly growths with roots a foot long. They hang on with a concrete grip. They taunt me with every tug until the leaves give way and leave behind foot long roots that will grow back another day. I imagine them slowly reappearing, creeping along the ground and spreading across my manicured flower bed at night. Straight from the movie, Little Shop of Horrors, they wind their way up and crawl towards our bedroom window whining “Feed me, Seymour!”

Pray for me. I can’t help myself. Soon I’ll be back at the store for another load of flowers — and a couple bottles of deer spray.

The Great Veggie Caper and Serious Subterfuge

In the early years, I took a lot of pride for feeding my kids nutritious meals. We had vegetables, a starch and some meat because I wanted them to be well balanced. I think I did okay on that front. Nobody can accuse my kids of being unbalanced. (Me? That’s a story for another day.)

They gobbled up what I set in front of them. Or at least I thought they did. Unbeknownst to me, there was subterfuge going on in those angelic little heads. My kids could display the most innocent looks possible — they made me feel like such a good mom. I thought I was just a little bit this side of June Cleaver. You know, she’s the one with the pearls.

Then one day I was cleaning up the dining area and just by chance I opened the slim drawer on one side of the green metal table. And what to my wondering eyes did appear but a bunch of wadded up napkins. Oh but they weren’t just any napkins. No sir. Each bundle contained a half-chewed mouthful of peas, lima beans and brussel sprouts.

There were lots of them. Solid as a rock like something out of the Flintstones. Dried up chunks of veggie regurgitation. I could see my kids now, covering their little mouths with napkins and trying to look so mannerly while all the time there was devilish behavior happening right under my nose. The little gremlins — no wonder they were giggling!

Now I was curious. I looked under the table and my eyes scanned the floor for anymore debris. All clear. But then I spotted a big hole in the fir floor. We lived in a 1925 Victorian home. It was a stately house, situated right next to the funeral home owned by Mr. and Mrs. Dye. (You think I’m kidding?)

Anyway, the kitchen had linoleum flooring that covered up a layer of masonite which was right on top of the knotty fir floors. We had taken the linoleum up years earlier. Then we tore up the masonite and burned it in the big, black coal furnace during the ice storm, hoping the heat would rise to the third floor. (That’s also a story for another day.)

That big knothole under the table went straight through to the basement. My motherly antennae shot up like a jack-in-the-box.

I hated going down to that basement. The floor was dirt. There were spiderwebs. And mice. Who knows what else was lurking in the dark corners.

I looked up to the hole in the ceiling, then looked down at the ground. Then I saw it, right in front of the furnace. It was a tidy little pile of half-chewed veggies wrapped in paper, like fortune cookies.

I love these memories. And now that my kids are grown and have children of their own, I should roll out this story just to give the little ones a few new ideas. I’d like to prove my mom right when she says, “The apple won’t fall far from the tree!”

Creepy Crawly Kiddie Critters

My middle son was a soft-spoken little guy who never made a fuss. He loved to go outside and walk around on our back deck looking through the fence, up at the trees and down at the yard. He pointed to birds. He talked to squirrels. He didn’t miss a thing.

I kept an eye on him out on the deck. With a baby in my arms, I looked out the window and saw he was pointing towards the house — his little mouth forming words.

“Bug Mom, bug” he said as I opened the window. “Bug, mom, bug.” He was so calm that at first I didn’t think much of it. But he wouldn’t stop. His husky voice got more excited and compelled me to hurry out to where he stood, right up against the house.

“What have you got there, honey?”

“BIG bug Mom!”

“No! No! Get away!” I said as he reached up towards a huge, hairy tarantula, about the size of my hand. It inched it’s way towards my little angel. Panicked, I pulled him away, fearing the thing would jump.

Now I know that tarantulas aren’t poisonous. But don’t go stroking their little tummies and then rub your eyes. The hairs on their stomach can make soft tissue swell up. “They” say tarantulas are one of the least dangerous spiders and their bite is only like a bee sting. Yep, I can see its little mouth pincers now, clamping onto the end of a tiny finger.

Rescue him I did. The monster crawled away back up the side of the house. I’m sure my son doesn’t remember it. Trauma has a way of erasing itself from our memories. I know that’s not what I wrote in this article.

I still replay this scene in my head, thankful I got out there before my son grabbed the thing. He liked to play with critters but hopefully never another tarantula.

Ants in the Pants

That episode ended without incident, unlike the next. The kids were out playing in the yard, scrambling up the hill, then rolling back down till they got dizzy. I was around the front of the house when I heard screams. Huge gobs of adrenaline kicked in, so I bounded like a deer around the corner of the house. There was my little guy with swarms of red ants crawling all over him — his pants, shoes and sweatshirt.

What to do? What to do? Not wasting time, I struggled to pull the sweatshirt up over his head. Then to my horror it got stuck on his head. (He had a big head.) So my screaming child, who couldn’t see and probably now couldn’t breathe, danced around trying to escape the bites. He lost his footing on the hill and down he went. I finally got the sweatshirt off. Then I tackled his pants. It took a hose to wash off the rest of the ants still crawling over his little body.

Talk about trauma! My poor child! It was like he’d had a bad nightmare — shaking, sobbing, not wanting me to let him go. It took hours to calm him down. Another trauma I prayed he’d forget. I certainly didn’t.

The Mouth Breather

At two years old, I found this same little sweetheart sitting on the couch with toys strewn around him. I heard him from way across the room, making a noise like the Snuffleupagus on Sesame Street. He looked up at me with those big blue eyes and an expression that said, “Help me!”

“What’s the matter?

“Snuffle, snuffle.”

He kept trying to breathe, then pointed to his nose so I looked. I saw a big grey thing stuck up in one of his nostrils. (No, it wasn’t what you think.) I tried to pull it out but it wouldn’t budge and I didn’t want to push it in even further.

He snuffled like someone with a bad cold. He was holding one of his favorite toys, the Hulk. The Hulk was missing a head. You guessed it! He had ripped the head off and shoved it up his nose. Then the toy took over, swelling up from the moisture in his nose.

You remember the Hulk, don’t you? Bruce Banner was a scientist on the run from the U.S. Government. He turned into a monster whenever he got angry. Then he swelled up and went on a rampage.

But in the hands of a toddler, he didn’t stand a chance. A quick trip to the doctor’s office and we had my little sweetie breathing freely again, even without Navage, the world’s only nose cleaner!

Being a mom to three young ‘uns has been a wild ride! But it’s nothing compared what my folks went through with five under the age of five at one point. By the time number six came along, we kids had a few adventures under our belts. Stay tuned!

Choosing Recovery: A Wildfire Remembrance

It’s been a decade since the Black Forest Wildfire swept through our community, destroying over 14,000 pine covered acres, burning over 500 homes (including ours, see below), structures and killing countless pets and most tragically, two of our neighbors.

Edith Wolford’s cabin, before the fire:

After the fire: an all-too familiar scene

Tragedy manifests itself in different ways. For some, they can’t get past the lifetime of possessions they lost, as well as homes where some raised generations of family members. It may still haunt their dreams. For others, they’ve been able to move past the events of that day and the struggles we all faced to rebuild lives and homes.

We describe life by this one major milestone: “before the fire” and “after the fire” define segments of our lives. Weddings, memorable trips, when we got the new car, etc. are measured against the date of June 11, 2013.

Like chapters in a book, the wildfire is a dog-eared favorite we return to so we can make sense of it all and how the experience changed us. If not for the fire, (as the insurance adjusters often said) how would our lives be different now? What would we not have learned?

The “new normal” wasn’t normal at all. If you rebuilt, you were on familiar land but lived in unfamiliar settings. It was eerie; like living in an episode of the Twilight Zone. We got used to our new surroundings and memories of the old walls began to fade. Now, when we flip through old photos, it’s like looking back at another lifetime.

For some, tragedy struck twice with a new house fire, a serious health problem, an injury or death of someone dear. The fire was just another traumatic event on top of what folks were already trying to cope with. For others, the experience of rebuilding was filled with insurance and new construction complications that added significant stress to the recovery process. It compounded the experience and doubled the work.

The fire impacted people no matter what their loss, evacuation experience or whether they returned to the Forest or moved elsewhere.

Their reactions now, ten years later?

We’ve moved on and just tried to get over it.
You don’t get any do-overs in life, so there’s no use in stewing about it.
We don’t want to be reminded, so we don’t discuss it.
The Waldo Canyon fire took our first home and the Black Forest Wildfire took our second home a year later. We’ve moved back to town for good.
It helped me learn that people are what’s most important, not the “stuff” we fill our lives with.
We learned you can get through tough times if you take it one step at a time.
My neighbor is still struggling with the losses. I try to be there for them.
Our home is much nicer now. We miss our old place, but this is a great improvement.

That should be our goal. To aim for improvement, physically, mentally and emotionally in whatever way works best. Few of us have followed the same recovery path.

“We have a choice to make every day,” says Joshua Becker, the author of the Becoming Minimalist blog and numerous books.

I would ask, do we choose to move on and create a new life, or do we choose to carry negative experiences around our neck like an emotional boulder?

We always have a choice. Thankfully, the Black Forest community has chosen recovery!

Doug’s Manly New House Project

Never in my life would I have imagined I’d be taking pictures of a septic tank. But here we are! Doug decided to take his do-it-yourselfer skills to the next level by installing a septic system for our new house. Estimated date of house completion is December 2023.

Boy it’s been quite the journey!

At first there were the measurements. I never knew you’d need to be so specific when dealing with, well, you know. But it does. You need precise locations to get the right flow (again, too much information) and location of trenches.

He used his BMS (“big measuring stick” in Laura language) to get the right elevations so we knew where the tank and pipes should go. We trudged to and fro across that property to get the locations just right. I helped by carrying the BMS, moving from spot to spot so he could take shots. No, there was no drinking involved, although if you watched me from a distance you’d think I was tipping a few. I staggered around the property for hours.

It was important to be accurate.

Doug: Ok, go stand right next to that clump of wood.

Me: Which clump?

Doug: The one I just showed you.

Me: Okay, I found it.

Doug: Now turn the rod (not stick) so the numbers are facing me. Move it to the right just a little bit.

Me: Is this better?

Doug: I mean lean it to the right. After that, walk in a straight line over to the next spot where I dug an X in the dirt.

Me: Where? There’s more than one “X” down here. (I could hear the sigh from yards away.)

Doug: Walk two yards to your right, then stop at that big log. Next you’re going to move west to the orange stake, then two feet south…

And so it went. He was very sweet to tell me how much he appreciated my help and how he couldn’t have done it without me.

But the next day he bought a laser level that would send a green light from the transmitter on a tripod to the receiver attached to the BMS. I was out of a job.

Back at the house, little baggies of soil appeared all over the kitchen, deck and dining room table. He weighed lumps of dirt for weeks.

Then he sifted. Did you know there are specially designed sieves to filter dirt? Yep, bigger lumps would remain on the larger sized screen, then the rest would fall to the next smaller size and so on. It was like watching a baker create a cake but without the frosting. In the meantime he measured the percentage of big stones and fine dirt to get a mix that met the standards. This would thrill the county inspectors, so accuracy was important.

You can imagine our dinner conversations.

Earlier he had removed the old septic tank. By hand! It was a big concrete box about the size of an elephant. He dug around it ’til he could get the tractor bucket underneath to lift it out and then hauled it away in pieces. (Yes, the tank was empty, in case you were wondering.)

After the hole for the new tank was dug, we drove up to Denver to get it. It looked like a big black plastic caterpillar 15’ long x 5’ wide and x 5’ high. I gave my husband a lot of credit for rigging a lift to move that tank to and from the trailer.

There was this one little mishap when he asked me to move the truck forward S L O W L Y so he could nudge the swinging tank into place. But I had missed that last part. The truck lurched (on its own, of course) and the thing swung around and almost knocked my long-suffering husband off the trailer — “head over tea kettle” as my gramma would say. (Oops, so sorry honey!) Then he repeated the whole process to drop the tank in the ground at the site. This time he kept me a safe distance away. For him and for me.

But the work wasn’t done yet.

While I was snuggled up at home in front of the fire (like the lazy girl I am), he was out ’til the late hours digging and laying pipe. But he said he liked it. Yes, really! He loved getting dressed up in his quilted overalls, heavy coat and beanie to go play in the dirt. I couldn’t talk him out of it.

“Honey, are you sure you want to go over there in the dark with these freezing temperatures? Can’t it wait until morning?”

“Nope. I’ll be fine. It’s really not that cold once I get working.”

He grunted, beat his chest, then lumbered out of the house towards the tractor and shouted “Hi-Yo Silver!” as he drove away.

All the men in my family were eager to help Doug dig. That’s what they said anyway. Secretly they wanted to run the excavator. You could almost hear them in their manliest moments growling like Tim “The Tool Man.”

Then it was finished. The time had finally come to extend an invitation for the County to come out and inspect. And they loved it! Well, maybe I’m being too generous. They probably grunted, checked our names off a list and drove away saying “We’ll catch ya next time!”

Grocery Shopping Pet Peeves

I’m not crazy about shopping. Especially when it comes to grocery shopping; my goal is to get in and out as quickly as possible. It’s an exhausting process to make all those decisions, so I try to be efficient. I make a list and ALWAYS try to eat something beforehand. Otherwise, you know what they say, you’ll grab anything in the store that looks like it would taste yummy. For me, that would be everything in the bakery department and the ice cream aisle!

Coupons have never been my thing, and I also don’t believe in driving around to a number of different stores to scoop up the specials. The wear and tear on my psyche navigating traffic and crazy drivers, along with the extra time it takes, is just not worth it. Unless we’re talking about wild salmon that arrives in the summer. I’d make a trip to the moon for wild salmon!

I have a system once I get to the store. I start at the back, work my way through all the aisles that feature our favorite items. Once in a while I have to circle back to find something I’d passed by without noticing. But it doesn’t happen very often. I hate retracing my steps.

So you can just imagine how frustrating it is when I get to the store and find they’ve reorganized all the shelves!

Good grief, why do they do that? You get used to a certain configuration and then they go and mix everything up. Is it because they want you to stay in the store longer, make more trips up and down the aisles and “discover” tempting new items? Or is it because some market research company figured out a better way to display foodstuffs so we vulnerable, unsuspecting consumers would spend more money?

It’s one of my biggest pet peeves.

But here’s another one: the 2 liter soda bottles they put on the top shelf, organized in some kind of rack that makes it IMPOSSIBLE for a short little person like me to wrestle them free. I struggle with it for a few minutes and then (horrors!) I stand on the bottom shelf. I know, I know, that’s a big risk because if I break the shelf, all those items will crash to the floor. And what if grocery clerks hiding behind those cameras in the ceiling look down and see what I’m doing? I just know they’d send out some kind of security person who would issue a shopping citation. “Code blue on aisle four!”

You can only get so many of those warnings before they ban you from the store and you have to find somewhere else to go. Then, you guessed it, you have to adjust to another new configuration. Until you do, it’s like wandering in the desert looking for the promised land!

So, I’m very cautious about standing on that bottom shelf. Ultimately, I look around and eyeball the tall people to find anyone who looks like they’d be willing to help me. Most people take pity on me as they watch me jumping up and down to dislodge some out-of-reach item.

Another pet peeve is when I buy ice cream and end up behind a person in the checkout line who takes FOREVER. I stand there watching the container slowly soften, then after the checkout, I race to unload it into the trunk of my hot car. A smarter person would bring an ice chest with them, wouldn’t they? But I like to live on the edge and am not about to change my ways at this ripe old age.

You know what else dives me crazy? The person who stops in the middle of the aisle to check their grocery list. Then they give you a dirty look when you politely say, “excuse me” and try to wiggle your cart past them. I do give a lot of slack to elderly folks and parents with a passel of kids hanging off their cart. But some people are just clueless. You know how you can sense if someone is standing behind you? Well, these people were either born without that chip or they just don’t care.

It occurs to me with all my whining that I ought to be thankful to have so much variety to choose from. I should appreciate the ability to find food on the shelves in great quantities. We have so much plenty in this country compared to other places in the world. I shouldn’t be such a complainer.

So I’ll stop. But before I go, one last thing. Am I the only one who ends up with the cart that likes to veer to the left or right, has one wheel that goes “thump, thump, thump” and slows to a skid when you least expect it?

I thought so. I’ll pray for us both.