an end to old ways? 

    as we leave the year 2012 , and head into 2013, we leave  behind some terrible events as we look forward to a  way to prevent them from happening again, and to mend ourselves from the shock of how man  himself can be his biggest enemy. guns made by our own hands and used against our own. where will it end and when is man ever going to learn to get along with himself? some things we can not change and others we can. we can learn from our past and should always look back when we need answers to life's problems. old time remedies are an answer that is becoming more prevalent in today's societies as we constantly search for alternative medicines and natural remedies to today's complex medicines designed to specifically treat one disease . a chance to look out side the box  was afforded to me by my grandma when talking one day. 

    grandma had discussed at length to me what living at her home place in monroe county just outside of graysville,ohio was like for her as a child during the depression. it seemed as if even for the children their life involved a lot of work to just make ends meet. wood had to be cut, ashes to be hauled out , wash day meant dragging the clothes to the creek and heating water in a tub to stir in some lye soap , and wash the clothes on a laundry board . hang them to dry and in the end fold and take back to the house and put away. the garden needed hoed and although grandma knew how to read and write quite proficiently , never heard talk much of going to school when she was a kid,  leaving me to believe that she was more needed at home. 

     from what grandma had told me i believe that school was something you attended when all the chores were done. during the depression in grandmas house i would say that was hardly ever as grandma and her sisters were to watch her mom as she had spells as they called them and you never knew when it was going to happen. these spells were actually epileptic seizures, but i doubt if they were was a lot known about them in those days. 

      they never knew when the seizures were going to happen but my great grandfather, insisted that the kids never leave her alone. that someone always be at her side. my great grandma wasn't helpless but she was frail and she would keep the girls busy doing normal household chores. one chore that required her to be outside was gardening and grandma a young girl of maybe 9 was helping her mom and sisters in the garden on the steep slopes of monroe county when one of these attacks occurred. apparently her mom went down in a heap on the ground and rolled to the bottom of the hill by the door to the house before she stopped rolling. this startled the helpless girls as they watched her rolling uncontrolled while in the throes of a fit. grandma and her sisters helped their mom into the house and grabbed cold wet rags to apply to her face in an attempt to clean her up. one child was sent to the neighbors house where the doctor had just been visiting as they still did in those days. he hurried back to their house to see what he could do to help. 

     he checked her out and at that time there was really no treatment one could expect for epilepsy , except to prevent the patient from swallowing her tongue. but the doctor offered up a rather peculiar treatment but refused to describe what it was until after he administered it. he asked the daughters for permission as it was experimental and their dad was not there to approve. they said yes even before hearing what it was he planned to do. they trusted the doctor and knew he had only the best intentions. he went on to tell them he tried this once before but almost lost the patient and again he asked permission and again the girls agreed. they only wanted for their mom to be free of these episodes if possible. the doctor again went on to say that the guy he treated never had an episode after that with the fits. this only prompted the girls to encourage him to move on with the treatment. he warned them that she may become violent and it will almost kill her but she will get better. again the girls egged him on. 

      out of his bag , he produced a vial of white powder and with a needle head he administered just a drop under her tongue and immediately her body went stiff. she arched back and forth and writhed on the floor at times frothing at the mouth . and eventually she relaxed and went into a deep slumber as it appeared. occasionally she would writhe in pain then slip into what appeared to be conscious and then back into unconscious moments where she was incoherent. she vomited at times and lost bodily functions but within an hour she was resting quietly , and while the doctor stayed at her side during that time he went on to finish his story. he said that he read that epilepsy was a wiring problem in the brain. lately we have learned that the left side and the right side of the brain short circuits and this causes the convulsions associated with the epileptic attacks.

      he went on to say that if strychnine a poison was administered at the proper moment , that  moment being immediately close to the end of an attack it creates pathways for those nerves to be aligned as the poison would attack the central nervous system creating a need for  the bodies fight or flight mechanisms to take over and make the body respond to the poison as it should. although the amount of poison wasn't enough to kill it was enough to stir the bodies defenses up. he stayed with her until he was sure she was ok and left her care to the daughters. grandma said to me she never had another epileptic attack after that. she did have other problems , but as far as the him administering the poison to help her , it seemed to have done what it was supposed to do. 

       the doctor later told the family that he would never do that again to another patient as both times he tried it he was in fear of losing both patients. i did some studying of strychnine after starting this blog to see just exactly what i was writing about . i found that strychnine poisoning can be overcome in the human body in short time . in as little as 10 hours the harmful affects of strychnine can be eliminated from the body. also that strychnine affects the neurotransmitters of the brain effectively blocking neural pathways causing normal simple functions to spasm with groups of muscles convulsing , and what usually happens in strychnine death is a shutdown of the respiratory system suffocating the victim. small doses are lethal with no known amount being safe as there are no studies. 

       to me there seems be some validity to using strychnine as treatment for epilepsy. current treatment for repeated episodes actually involves surgery as they split the two lobes of the brain surgically. other minor treatment includes medicating the brain . studies have been attempted at determining if light or other factors bring on seizures with no real definitive conclusion. 

      do not by any means attempt this procedure as it can kill you. this is only being wrote for entertainment purposes and should not be used as a basis for anything except for entertainment purposes to show how far we have come in modern science , yet at the same time old cures and procedures may still have merit in today's modern science. this was told to me by my grandma and is retold to the best of my recollection. this is an example of  stories my grandma would relay to me as we would sit and talk and reminisce about old times.  

hoarding -part 5

      grandma was one that left little to waste and  this could be evidenced by what she threw away. it was nothing that anyone could use. peelings at best and very little apple pulp left . chicken bones that looked as if something had meticulously cleaned every scrap of meat off of them. even the wing tips were devastated as grandma would pick and chew at every little morsel of meat , undoubtedly remembering the depression years  when eating a dinner. the thud of a spoon beating on the bottom of a bowl , clattering long after any suitable morsel of food was gone ,pounding the bottom and sides and scraping and cajoling , as if to congregate the moisture or essence of food into just one more spoonful of nourishment to sustain her aging body. at times i felt it was more her obsessiveness with saving that she needed to nourish as undoubtedly it  took time and effort to be so patient in getting the last worth out of everything you touch. this was grandma . the ultimate saver for me that would send shivers up my spine and still grates my nerves to touch today , and that is butter wrappers. the slimy butter or oleo wrapper  as grandma called it, needed to be scraped and eventually licked to release all the greasy nutrients one could possibly muster out of a wrapper. just touching them to this day sends chills up my spine. then she would neatly stack them in a pile as if to use them for something else. i shudder to think what that purpose was.  but at the same time everything was kept clean and neat as it had been most times while visiting grandma. my only mention of this peculiarities is to show the extent of what we faced when it came to her saving abilities and it was fast approaching a time when we as a family needed to intervene for her safety. 

       my aunt and myself had discussed to some extent that grandma was facing when it came to the overcrowding of her stuff. i will use stuff as the term for those possessions grandma held dearly. it was stuffed everywhere and she was now walking on papers as she let me in the living room to talk one day. i had informed my aunt fran that grandma wanted me to put her a space heater in her living room so that she could work in that room longer to sort through her stuff. i refused to install the heater. it required 4 feet  of clearance of non combustibles around it, an open space , grandma didn't have and it concerned me. i offered to move the stuff for her and she refused to let me again. saying she didn't know where to put it and that she needed to sort it out first. i told her there is no way  was going to install the heater. until she had the clear space required. in an effort to come to a compromise i offered to build her a building and would put a locking garage door on it and she could have the key. she owned a 165 ac. farm and one more garage wouldn't make much difference  this seemed to appeal to her somewhat  and told me to figure out a price. i figured we could at least clean out the downstairs and get things better for her with the family's help. grandma was approaching 90 years old and didn't need to be tripping and falling on stuff. we all worried that the authorities would have a fit with us if they had to come in. on the other hand a person should be allowed to live in their own house as long as they can take care of them self and be of sound mind. grandma up until this point had ruled the roost when it came to her welfare, but we were strained to allow it to continue longer. i had asked for one more attempt to let grandma stay in her house from aunt fran by offering to build the garage and moving her stuff into it. i couldn't see my grandma in a rest home . 

       a few days passed since i refused to install the heater and offered to build the garage  and i had some figures and a plan for the garage with approximate cost. i was going over the figures and grandma stopped me at one point and asked me if she could have a bathroom and a bed in the new garage. i was flabbergasted and knew at that point she had no concern for her own safety choosing instead to choose her possessions over safety and security. she needed help as she was slipping . i wrestled with the thoughts of her being in a rest home but felt it was better than her ever living in a garage at 90 years old. what kind of a person would allow this. i told grandma there was no way i was going to build the garage so she could live in it. she was mad at me a few days and then one morning i checked on her and later my aunt checked on her and she had fallen in between that time. she wasn't hurt to bad except for her dignity . she only suffered a few bruises but was kept in the hospital. then  was transferred to a rest home where she slipped away more quickly as alzheimer's and dementia set in with a fervor . but she was kept clean and comfortable till she died at the age of 94. never again returning to her home. 

         we had done all that we could for grandma and we were still faced with the task of going through the house and sorting out all she had left. we are each left with mementos of grandma , and her presence in all that she left still exists in all we do today. she is hardly ever out of my thoughts and only hope she is in peace now as she worked real hard all her life to achieve a life without worry. this story is wrote out of an effort to idolize one woman who has had a profound impact on all our lives in our family. she affectionately lived up to her nickname the worrywart as she was always worried we never would be able to keep what we have. and maybe in the end this is  my way of keeping her memory alive. 28 dumptruck loads of stuff went to the landfill a along with a trailer full of stuff sold at auction .and were still dealing with some of her stuff. this was grandma. 

hoarding part 4. 

      this is a family photo taken at thanksgiving in what year i dont know , but it was a while ago no doubt as a lot has changed since that day. mom , dad, and grandma occupy the front row. sisters sherry,  charly  (belinda), and brother  mike who has also passed is in second row. third row includes myself, jr ( denzil malott jr.),jim and faw davis . the only one missing was my sister jeanie. this is as close to a family portrait as i believe we have ever came to. as it seems as if someone was always missing. we used to rent the sandyville town hall to accommodate the whole family at the time. grandpa had passed quite a few years ago at this time. 

      as i had mentioned earlier that grandma had began to become more reclusive as she became older . i had moved back to her farm and was living in the trailer beside her house. i would see her often during those times and talk to her , and see if she needed anything. as well my aunt fran would visit daily bringing her food and clean clothes as grandma had found  it hard to wash clothes at this point. 

      at this point the inner sanctum was off limits to all but aunt fran as she was not to keen to let you see what went on beyond the living room doors. but a look at her once pristine living room was a good indication of what was going on behind closed doors. out of room for any more of her stuff , it had now overflowed into the living room , first filling up one corner then the next until it spilled off the coffee table and eventually all that was left was a path from the kitchen to an orange chair she would invite you to sit in while she sat on a stool , because everything else was piled up. a small 4 foot by 4 foot area with encroaching papers looking as if to bury you at any time would surround you as you sat there watching grandma in her frailty climb over magazines that had shifted into her path to negotiate sitting on a stool. 

     i would ask her how she had been and always got a 'not a bit good.' but she had been not a bit good for over 60 years of her life at that time . it was her typical response leading into a rant about the depression coming and how we need to prepare as she read it in the papers. hard times were a coming, and sadly grandma had parted this earth always prepared for the hard times a coming but never did she have it nearly as hard as when she was a kid. she would dab at the corners of her mouth and go on about something or other she had read in the paper and we would eventually get around to talking about how hard she had it with all the papers and stuff around her. 

    one day i suggested to her to do something about it and she came back with this idea of moving an old school bus that dad and mom had bought and was at the other farm down to her farm and attach it to the front of her house . as she need more space. i asked her why she needed more space , and then i began to see that the stuff she was saving was more important to her than her own health and welfare. she had to much stuff and not enough places to put it. everything was piled full and she needed more piling space. the idea of attaching this monstrosity of a bus to the side of the house abhorred me. she was taking a perfectly good house and slumming it for a chance to store more stuff. this bus wasn't so pretty when it was used as an rv. let alone stuck to the front of the house.it was also in disrepair and i knew it so i told her it couldn't be fixed and that it would cost her more money to move it down there than it would to build her a building to put her stuff in.  she didn't believe me. so off we went to the other farm to see for herself the sad state the bus was in. i was trying to persuade her to deal with the stuff she had rather than accommodate more.

     her thinking was she had bought and paid for this rv-bus and that if there was anyway she could  do it, she would move the bus down there and attach it to the front room of the house and make a way to use it as part of her house. she couldn't see that the simple solution was to get rid of a lot of stuff , papers mail ,this and that that cluttered her life. instead she wanted to complicate it more. she wasn't about to part with anything she had accumulated for whatever reason. this bus was one of those possessions she couldn't part with and never forgot. so to call her bluff off we went to the other farm . her frail body needing helped into my pickup for a visit to the other farm to check on the bus in its dilapidated condition. she had been very few places , refusing to attend family functions and this and that and rarely visiting the doctor , but me telling her there was no way this was going to work fired her up as she knew better. wild horses couldn't have kept her from seeing that bus that day. 

        at that time i had not been to this farm for awhile as my brother jr was living there. and mom and dad were in new mexico still , but i had heard that the bus roof was leaking and that it was just used as storage. well when we arrived at the farm grandma saw for herself a dilapidated old school bus with a rv body sitting on it and it was i was told . the roof was falling down and it had pipes and other stuff strewn across the floor and smelled musty as it had been closed for awhile trapping all the rot inside.grandma who rarely attempted to climb anything and determined to see for herself climbed right up into the bus and looked in dismay as she knew finally i was right about this not being fit to live in . let alone the fact it still had to be moved to the other place. a tow bill of another 1000 could be expected plus materials to fix the roof. she finally realized it was hopeless and we returned to the farm . i proposed a couple of more ideas at this time to help- solve her problems. i really didn't want my grandma to be living this way and the rest of the family also realized that this wasn't safe for her any longer as her house was quickly becoming a fire trap. she listened to very little at this point regarding getting rid of anything and instead knew she was right in all she did . i think maybe that if she rid herself of those possessions she was losing a bit of herself and refused to hear of it. 

       depressed as she was ,  i let her stew about the bus thing for a few days till it was no longer an issue. at this point she moved on to my next suggestion. although brevity in describing my grandma s obsession with her things is something i desire the story has taken longer than i originally thought to fully describe and hope that you will bear with me for one maybe 2 more days as i finally tell all i need to say about this story. 

hoarding-part 3

     the above pic is dad (actually my step dad) , and my grandma at some sort of a mob function. not really sure it is a mob function but undoubtedly from another fashion era. dad kinda looked like frank sinatra a little in this pic as he wore his turtleneck sweater under a blazer. a look in the background is someone i don't know with a dark shirt white tie, and sunglasses, and it looks like my cousin joe with the neck brace on . the ascot hat i believe was popular then. i see another guy with one on also. my guess would be sometime in the early 80's. grandma was alone so it had to be after grandpas death as i could hardly remember a picture taken they were both not in. 

      grandma had worked most of her life , spending the majority of it working right here in our area at the sparta ceramic tile corp. in east sparta. she worked there for 28 years , and she also worked at a couple of other places including the hercules corporation during world war 2 as a rosie the riveter type person only pushing a hand truck instead running rivets through sheet metal . at the time her and grandpa both worked there with grandpa drilling and tapping heads for submarine engines .  they had bought this farm i am living on in 1942 and both were working hard to pay off debts as that was one thing grandma could not stand and that was owing anyone anything. always scraping to get by but at the same time trying to maintain an air of respectability. her and grandpa were never dressed at less than their best when it came to church on sunday morning or any family events. 

       grandma would forbid grandpa his chew for the day. having gave up cigarettes for chewing tobacco grandpa could hardly ever be found with out a wad of tobacco  stuck in his cheek . but come sunday morning grandpa would spit it out and don a cigar for church services. grandma and grandpa were always dressed respectably and were always respected by all who come to know them . after church grandpa would loosen up and on the way home from church , slip in a well deserved chew and begin the next week. i only tell all of this as to let you know that sometimes as i am sure you have seen in your family also that there are always 2 sides to a person . the public and the private side. 

       before grandpa had died relations between the church and my grandparents had withered after an event in the church which left a distaste among my grandparents for this church in particular. after grandpas death they reached out to grandma but the damage had been done and grandma had no longer associated with the church. secretly i feel grandma missed this interaction as she loved the pomp and circumstance of church as well as the regimentation of knowing what sunday morning was for. she rarely visited any church after the run in with the last one. we missed it to as it always grandma and grandpa that would take us and then all of a sudden it wasn't there. we had questions why but it wasn't ours to know what had happened. it was only later in years that i had found out it was my grandpa and warren bowman who had started the church and began to bring in the visiting preachers of the first church of christ , just north of east sparta. it was one of those travelling preachers that sought to remove mr.bowman and grandpa as deacons of the church in a power struggle that left grandpa and mr.bowman alienated from congregation at the time. they had started the church and suddenly they were not fit to be in charge or maybe to old . it forever changed grandpa and grandma's life. so grandma turned to her family now more than ever for her company in her later years. 

     we all like to think how important our lives are at given points in time. in a fleeting moment we pass off a chance to visit a loved one such as a mother or grandmother who is alone after seeing their spouse die or it could be a father or grandpa for the same instance. after all we had spent what seemed like an eternity to us when we were kids waiting to be old enough to get the hell out of the house. so to spend very little time blowing off a visit to the older ones , only seemed like a casual nod to the fact you should visit but knew you were not. and suddenly when you do visit you notice how much older and slower in movements they have become while you were absent. time is something you can not take back , what is gone is gone and all you have left is memories . i spent a lot of time talking to her and yet it never seems enough to fully understand where she was coming from. 

      there is a time when grandma entered a dark time where she was fully capable of taking care of herself and at times it seemed as if she resented the fact you were not there. that somewhere along the way you also got a life , and you could not visit as often. she replaced me with a wood cutter who would come and schmooze her for a hunk of land to sell his firewood on. then there was also the hunters who would come and  again schmooze grandma for a chance to hunt on her farmland. free firewood and gifts of penny candy were the fares to ply her acceptance in allowing you to do whatever. another farmer offered to farm her land and soon she was in awe of his ability to do what we no longer could do. a little here and a little there other folks came to know grandma . she soon found another life and it made her independent and all the more easier to understand why she was like she was at the time. she had replaced her family for the most part with a family of strangers. she quit going to the doctors and made sure she took her vitamins daily. she became more aloof and weeks would go by at times without seeing anyone in the family directly. she took to scavenging for things around the farm resisting the urge to go buy new things . left over garage sale clothes replaced store bought items , including to big denim overalls as she called them found in a pile of yardsale items . this she would tie with a a piece of baler twine . a to big shirt with a noticeable paisley print that looked awful familiar to me. this shirt later on would seem all to familiar to me as it was a shirt i had wore when i was kid of 16 and had my picture taken in it. it apparently had ended up in the garage sale stuff mom had left in barn and grandma had scavenged it and was now wearing it in front of me at times. covered up by an old denim coat ragged and torn . this was the new grandma , who needed no one ,  was on a thrift binge , and was gradually setting herself up for an unwanted intervention from the family. it was at this time her saving had become worse than ever . her house was about full to the limit and grandma didn't know what to do with the stuff she was accumulating anymore. more next time. 

 hoarding -part-2 

         well it seems as if this condition not only affects our family but has affected others also and it is nice to see on occasion someone who is far worse than we ever thought we could be. this is on a state route outside of salineville . and yet  i dont believe they are relation but may possibly be. but when looking through my picture archives i came across this photo to show the extremes of hoarding. there wasn't a piece of earth at this place that wasn't subject to being trampled on, oiled , or trashed up so no living thing could possibly think about continuing here. this is hoarding at its extreme.
       grandma was never like that. in fact she was fastidious about saving. although she saved everything and threw away little she kept everything in piles or boxes or in neat rows . grandma saved everything from the plastic strips that came off gallon milk jugs when you peeled the safety seal off. these were tied to a string and were in the basement as that was probably where she had opened the milk in the first place. a whole string of useless plastic strips all tied neat and proper. empty boxes upon boxes , stored within each other awaiting mementos of grandmas life that would never come as she soon forgot where the empty boxes were.
      magazines and newspapers , some of which we still have stored in barrels in the barn and also just stacked in the house from the second world war on dating to 1942 as far back as i could tell. these were being stored at our farm up north here till we moved in in 1962, then they were placed in barrels and stored in the barn. after 1962 all papers  were stored in the house along with magazines , creating huge piles . these were kept out of our sight when we were young as grandma would move these piles relentlessly to different corners of the house. eventually even she found it fruitless to continue moving her stash of saved objects opting instead for closing off a room of the house or forbidding us to venture into certain areas of her stash kingdom.
     grandpa seemed powerless to stem the tide of growing stashdom and he himself  was relinquished to having an area around him. here he would  have his own stash of empty tobacco juice spit cans which would pile up and eventually be knocked over by a grandkid. thus releasing their foul stench.  paths were hewn out of the house and room after room became unavailable to anyone except grandma. at fist the piles in the remotest spots of the house were as tall as she  could stack. stuff that one might need for a rainy day like a good depression might bring on.eventually the stacks became smaller as her shoulders would hurt from lifting to high.  it became an obsession to her to save everything she could.convinced we would need it later in life. grandpa not so convinced ,but would allow her to continue unabated in her quest to squeeze them out of their house.
     she always kept the front room of the house spotless though as that was where the facade of living normally began. she carefully placed items that had significance to the family and kept her plastic covers on the new furniture ,as if  forbidding the possibility of anyone spoiling her one perfect room to accept company.  or diminishing her dream of being perfect if only for a moment.
     this continued as long as grandpa was alive , and when he died , i must say things became worse. little things grandpa would not  let her save were now accumulating, as she went into overdrive convinced that now more than ever her things were that much more important to her. room after room fell into non use as they began to be transformed into time capsules of grandmas life. christmas presents with the original christmas paper and ribbon were placed into these rooms and silently forgotten unused and in new condition as grandma would choose to use up whatever she was using till it trash. by then she was forgetting where she had left things in the house. this is a large house and contained at least 10 rooms and a full basement and required a lot of memory to just find the everyday things she used.
     outside the house was always neat. she would have her baskets of wormy apples she would pick up and cut and peel into tiny pieces to make apple sauce with. she tended a garden as long as she could . the yard was always mowed , and things gave the appearance of being normal but once inside , it was a different story altogether. she began turning off lights to save money and this led to her cutting off this appliance and another till she was left with hardly anything running in the house. her refrigerator quit and she refused to get a repairmen out to fix it as she had to clean up a spot to get him in. she had a refrigerator in the basement as well as a stove and would trudge up and down the basement stairs to use these appliances while her other appliances sat unused and broken in her kitchen. she refuse to let anyone do anything for her including cleaning or fixing broken appliances or whatever till later on in her life. years went by and even i as close to grandma as i was had no idea of how hard she had made it on herself. refusing to allow anyone into her inner sanctum behind the living room doors. i firmly believe the monster of her own making which was this house full of junk was an embarrassment that no one but her could understand why it was the way it was and she choose to not let any of our family see the real mess she was in. but somewhere along the way she got old and it was time again for family to help and little by little she let us in. she knew she was up against it and that she needed the help. more next time.

hoarding - inherited or learned trait

      above is a picture of my grandpa ad grandma , ines and cecil yockey. grandma was a classic hoarder from the depression era. having been born in 1913 and was 14 when the depression hit monroe county , ohio as well as the USA in general. people were jumping out of high rises for losing their fortunes and yet in monroe county there were no high rises just 2 story farmhouse at best. chances are you would have lived , and only bruised your ego at best. still they had to trudge on as work was slack at best when it could be found . money was hardly seen and bartering was the rule of the day to obtain anything. 

       little things meant a lot . a scrap of paper , a penny was prized as it was pennies that made nickels and nickels make dimes , and dimes make dollars, as she would tell me repeatedly. grandma and i had a pretty close relationship when i was a kid. grandpa and i shared a lot of time but after grandpas death it was grandmas turn to tell stories and share with me accounts of how things was. scraps of paper , pieces of tin foil were prized items during the depression as she shared her household with 2 older sisters and a brother , as well as her mom and dad. a piece of string , and a button were items to be saved, clothes were wore out to nothing but rags hanging on skinny bones from working all day just to feed the family. hoping tomorrow would be better. 

        so through this experience grandma would tell stories about her dad at christmas trading some stuff for some money for groceries at christmas and then buying an orange at christmas to take home to each kid. grandma had always said what a gift that was for christmas as orange in monroe county were far and few between and especially during the depression. a single orange was all that each kid had received for christmas and yet they were all simply happy in that it was such a wonderful gift. after hearing this story , i rarely look at an orange the same way and hardly ever take them for granted. 

        still it is the life you are dealt with that sometimes influences your behavior and i doubt it is inherited as much as we would like to think. to find blame in some trait or other would be so much easier to explain our selves too. grandma was subject to hard times and developed skills to cope with what they had and if anything she passed those skills on to mom and myself inline through observation , and learning. not all bad to be a hoarder on occasion , and yet i am still in my infancy in hoarding compared to other greats in my family , i can still find a kitchen sink somewhere. it is on top of the hill in the scrap pile. that  scrap pile only waiting for a rainy day to move itself. 

      grandma once told a storythat i had found it hard to believe this tall tale, but one day grandpa had wanted grandma to take a load of garbage to the local dump. at the time the dump  was usually just an empty strip pit devoid of life except some rats and garbage to attract them. but apparently grandma had found a treasure trove. broom handles perfectly good, as well as old blinds, and this and that so that soon grandma had a load of this same perfectly good stuff people were throwing away that she had filled the same truck she  had came to empty. she told me grandpa was so mad he never did  let her go to dump alone again. why i had such a hard time imagining this story, was because grandma hardly ever threw anything away. to think she had a pickup load to go to a dump was hardly believable in itself , but i could imagine grandma going crazy scavenging for things.

      now it is only with reverence and respect i say anything at all about grandma . she was a woman who had earned my respect very early in life. allowing me to drive her new 62 ford falcon for the first time through the flower beds and nearly hitting the house before she slammed her foot over top of mine and stalled the car out before impending doom. it was her that helped feed my brothers and sisters when we ourselves were having hard times . it was well known grandpa and grandma both helped feed and do things for others in the family. she deserves respect and is getting it now. i have nothing bad to say about her. but only look to her as an answer as to why i am like i am. 

       in the first picture you need to look beyond the frogs and notice the clutter that is our garage. boards and what not occupy the space and currently i will have my truck in there as i will attempt to fix the clutch. all the space is occupied as well as most covered spaces on the farm. rarely is a building built before soon it is full sometimes even before it is even finished. such just happened with my greenhouse as temporarily it holds some of the gardening items i will need as i move forward with the greenhouse project. the trouble is it is nearly a quarter full of pots and related items taking up valuable floor space. this all needs to be moved again by February. i ask myself how did this happen as i just finished building it. well i will have to answer tomorrow as i continue with this story line for awhile. when it comes to hording i have a lot to tell. 

warm thoughts for a cold day

      well it appears the mayan predictions were wrong and everyone can now wish me a happy birthday on my birthday, since i now know i will be around and the same for much of you i hope. today is the first day of the winter solstice when the earth begins to right itself to summer and the days will get longer in about a month. soon we will be planting flowers and trying to forget the last couple of weeks. it has been horrific watching the news. 

      i can remember as a kid travelling to the akron- canton airport and visiting the concourse area and the waiting room where you could watch passengers leave the terminal on foot and walk to the plane, then climb a ramp and board a plane for a tour of the cockpit and a hello from the pilot and quick explanation of the controls were afforded to all who was present. walking freely around the airport and out on the tarmac in undoubtedly a more tranquil time in our life. if i were to retrace those same steps today would result in me being hauled off to a small room somewhere and having my life probed as deeply  as my body. sadly i think something went wrong some where,  and now i want it back. 

        sometimes i think the only way to get what i want is to get further away from the company i seek. when wandering around the farm you tend to lose touch with all that is going on around you. it is just you and nature and possibly my cell phone and camera as i am still a tech junky , with about as much knowledge  as to make me only  slightly dangerous in most areas. yet  i disconnect from it all and find myself alone to my thoughts.but once i return to tech heaven i find the most disconcerting news at times.  

        at a time when the NRA should be taking the lead in reform , instead they choose to do the opposite. the NRA in their infinite wisdom of knowing what is best for the american people wants to now arm the schools to prevent another newtown tragedy. well i am sure now NRA stands for national retard association . this logic of arming the nation to prevent crime is killing our babies and isnt working. we have listened to the NRA to long and now need to wean our politicians away from teat of opportunity that supporting NRA members offer as carrot to obtain more gun freedoms and increase the number of weapons and crime associated  with them. because of guns and terrorism  we now need to be patted down and , x-rayed , and who knows what else to just walk through an airport . our schools were already beefing up security after the columbine shootings and have limited access and metal detectors , and are subject to bomb sniffing and drug sniffing dogs we never saw once as kid in public school. 

       then what is next the shopping mall a foot\ball game and surely the walk in the park and soon we need guns for every where we go. gee sounds like russia to me.not much difference between us and communism. we are afraid to speak our peace as someone will shoot you because he feels something different or we are afraid someone will just go off no good reason at all. and just when being a kid use to be fun we now have to carry barbie bulletproof backpacks. wake up citizens of the greatest country on earth and live up to your human expectations of perpetuating ourselves into the future as it will take us all to figure out how we can work around this problem with out more guns. 

       and now the nra wants us to arm our teachers  and to post guards at our academic prisons(schools),  as they are to protect our kids. always making us more dependant on guns seems to be their motto. the thing is the nra may get a few members to stand outside schools to keep their 223 bushmaster rifle , but eventually they will want to be paid . just as the TSA does at 8.1 billion dollars  per year to molest you  legally. and the tax payers pay for it as well. as millions and billions more to protect us from evil. evil is the video game , evil is the overkill philosophy of arming a nation , are we preparing our self for a revolution? evil is caring more about guns than babies  evil is looking at a stranger on a street and not knowing if he is out to kill you. ask john lennon as he stood on the street signing autographs. evil is everywhere and yet we may never be able to stop it all. but we can reduce the causes. eliminating guns such as rifles and handguns is a start.

        we register our cars and tax them by requiring license plates . the same should be done for all other guns. better  gun safety should also be an issue to address. in all honesty i would hope they come up with an ingenious way to deal with our problem of guns in the wrong hands. i am not the person who should say what is right \and what is wrong. i am against any and all killing but at times understand it is necessary. 

       fear sells guns and makes chaos and this creates opportunities for people to profit from . i feel we are at a crossroads in public opinion a sort of a winter  solstice so to speak as the days will get longer , i feel the future looks brighter to eventually return to a simpler time with out fear. you and i just need to speak out for what you think is right and to choose those politicians who you feel best serve your interests on this issue and others. use your computer and the web and let your voice be heard. our generation once stood for peace and  we shut down a wrong war by protesting , lets do it again and leave this issue a legacy for our kids to admire at how we dealt with it. . peace be with our young. i have never seen enough.

gun control

   hate to use the lives of twenty school age kids , let alone the six adults whose lives were lost that day in newton , conn. as a means of expressing myself. but i am tired of the in your face mindless rhetoric being spewed forth by the gun activists. i intend to divert myself for a short time and become political on my stance against gun control. 

     things are not as they used to be. our schools are prisons . sandy valley high school where i attended , and graduated from is not as it used to be. it has been replaced by a newer more modern efficient asbestos free building that closely resembles a prison minus the razor wire. all new schools are being designed in the same way as  it makes security a lot easier.as a kid we  didnt have air conditioning in our school and in the summer the doors and windows in our classrooms  as well as the doors to the schools were flung wide open to let the breezes sail through the halls to fight off the sweltering heat.

     because of security concerns,  no longer do we have open doors but instead have students caged up in windowless boxes so that they can devote their full attention to the task at hand supposedly. 

      but still with all the security it wasn't enough to stop a gunman from entering a school in and killing 20 innocent lives as well as 6 others who probably had done nothing to this man.in referring to him as a man i  refuse to call him a boy as he was an adult by all standards. no doubt a man with a problem what ever it might have been . mentally insufficient , although considered bright by his peers , still crazy enough to steal his mothers guns and shoot her in the face , and go to a school and see how much of a head count he could muster up in a short time before killing himself . a cowardly way out of avoiding grief. this man who was undoubtedly immature in mental capacity but mature enough to do the deed, caused so much grief on all levels and makes me question why are guns even necessary anymore. 

      i hope this pisses off a lot of my gun loving friends as anyone who knows me really well would surely understand i never really cared for them or violence of any kind in the first place. a while back when i was being harassed by hunters wanting to hunt on my grandmas land i developed this preference for non hunting and became more opposed to guns then ever before as back as then i sensed hunting was not the same as it used to be. i witnessed hunters becoming irate over where to park there car when they hunted our lands. wanting to park in our drive to impede our ability to enter and exit as we wished. carrying guns over their shoulders to ask permission to hunt from my 89 year old grandma. threatening me personally over their ability to hunt . and even forcing government agencies like the muskingum watershed conservancy district to issue me a warning letter telling me to cease and desist , when telling hunters they had no permission to hunt or park on our own property. the last action on behalf of the governmental agency paved the way for new parking on the governments land and stopping the hunters from parking on ours. 

     now i am only one person and have my beliefs and yet prize the Constitution for all its merits when it was written. changes have been made rather reluctantly to the original constitution to keep pace with society as it evolves. two amendments have been fought over with increasing frustration over the years . the right to freedom of speech and the right to bear arms. the right to freedom of speech allows me to say my peace here today and i feel just as fervently about it as gun owners feel about their right to bear arms. but words and pictures never killed a kid . they might have inspired him , derided him , made him feel small , inflated his ego , or brought him down but never have they ever killed a kid. now our schools have become prisons and we are selling six million guns per year to new people to use for self defense. against who? ourselves. we are at war with our selves with 34 people per day being killed by guns. not shotguns but handguns and assault rifles for the most part. shotguns are to messy as they tend to obliterate. and lord forbid the shooter has one taken from him and used on himself. by far the preference in shooting a human is a handgun. great for short distances and usually features a bullet that fragments upon impact causing more lethal damage if within a close proximity. for longer ranges then use a an assault type weapon.  the manufacturers tout these facts in selling their handguns. neither are good for hunting and have limited use. 

      when the constitution was written we had neither the handgun in the 17 bullet clip automatic or semiautomatic models we have today or the 223 caliber assault rifle with an expanded clip or the oozie , of which i am not aware of the correct spelling , as well as other types of automatic and semiautomatic  rifles we have today.  what we had was single shot flintlock muzzle loaders. almost every family needed one to stave off bear or indian attacks , and to fight in the revolution against england . well we haven't been at war with england for quite awhile and indian attacks have been frequent and far between . so the only other use we have for weapons in our society now is for hunting of animals much like it was in the 1700's . weapons had been used as a means of self defense but was rather discouraged over the years . any attempt at legislating guns per se has been met with violent opposition by the manufacturers of these weapons over the years. lobbying congress persons to stop any anti gun movement before it became law. the nra has served as of lately as the vehicle for opposition to any anti gun legislation. 

      the frequency of lately the gun attacks have been coming, is forcing us to look once again at limiting the use of guns. and again the gun owners are fighting back. i look at at a teacher leading kids out of a school with their hands clasped together and their eyes shut to avoid the horror of possibly seeing a friend or brother or sister shot and think to myself is this what society has become. were the mayans right in their prediction that all hell is breaking loose? is this the best that we as humans can achieve in a society? is gun ownership more important than human lives? especially when they are our own kids . i would gladly give up my rights to gun ownership if it would bring back one of those lives lost. 

      the gun owners answer would be to arm everyone. well i am kind of a barney fife in that respect would probably shoot myself in the foot if i had a gun. and when i was hunting with my dad i always had a tendency to close my eyes when pulling the trigger. not always a good thing to do. and could imagine a populace full of guns wanting to wait for that opportunity to finally be able to defend themselves . if everyone had a gun those kids would still be defenseless as well i am sure you would never be able to arm a country one hundred percent as people like myself would defend our right to not want guns in our life. there would just be more of the same if everyone is armed . the shootings would become more frequent and higher and higher head counts would prevail . 

    so what is the answer? we will always have people with mental health issues trying crazy things like this shooting. husbands will break up with cheating wives or vice versa, and disputes will be settled one way or another but eliminating or making it harder to kill someone with a handgun or an assault rifle still seems like the best option to me. automatic shotguns should also be eliminated as well . muzzle loaders and single shot shotguns should stay as they do offer those hunters a chance to still participate in the sport of hunting. bow hunters are not offered more than one arrow and seem to be proficient in hunting game. 

      also we need to change our laws . one strike you are out. use a handgun in a felony and you go to prison for life. throw the druggies out of prison and make room for the robbers and anyone who uses a weapon in any way , whether their is loss of life or not to a permanent vacation in one of our premier prisons. if you use a weapon to rob a store or bank you go to prison for life. no exceptions. even if it is a vengeful killing. say for instance somebody killed a family member and then you killed them. you would still go to prison for life. we need legislation that works. banning handguns and assault rifles as well as legislation on using handguns in a felony is just a start. 

     next we have to work on mental health as it relates to events like these. but we can not lock up someone because they are crazy and have done nothing wrong. we need to help not hurt those in need. 

        art is born of a free soul and mind , this you cannot manufacture

      recently a friend commissioned me to do a sculpture . i really don't do commissions for anyone as i like to do what i want. this is a hobby , and not a job. my body not being what it used to be has a hard time meeting other peoples expectations of me , and sometimes it has a hard time just meeting mine.only to let down the both of us. 

      also when some one tells you what they want and what color it has to be , as well as what size , and the wood it is to carved from , they tend to expect what they are supposed to get. this can be tough at times with the inner me. as it want to tell them where to go. not wise by any standard but something most artists grapple with. he even went so far as to tell me how to hold the chainsaw and what cuts to make. usually i have a deal for people like this . they can rent my chainsaws and equipment and i might throw in some safety chaps i never use but should, and this neat little face shield i hardly ever use also, to carve his own figurine just like he wants it. it is much cheaper this way as he can find his own piece of wood and wrestle it into a proper carving position as they are usually quite large at this point . sometimes requiring a tractor to place them in position. anyhow with all the equipment i have he could have easily got exactly what he wanted, minus my help. 

    hey but guess what , he hasn't an ounce of talent and doesn't know the first thing about how to carve. so he has me do it . a trade was the carrot he needed to sway me to accept his offer. more work just what i needed. a log cabin to rebuild. the cabin will fit in well with my greenhouse and over all plan here at the farm and i look forward to the labor of rebuilding it and salvaging the old wood. 

    ahhh , but the problems are not over as i have a pair of figurines he conveniently provided to me to use as models for the final sculpture. not only is he telling me how to sculpt , now he wants me to do the greatest no -no of the art world and copy someone else s work. oh joy. i am thrilled.

     inspired my the mona lisa one time i did a pencil sketch i still have all wrinkled and sad looking in appearance but is very reminiscent of the mona lisa. my only attempt at copying a real artist. so  a couple of cheap frog art figurines from wal mart . shouldn't be such a big deal. well i love a challenge and so i took it on.

    well as usual , and with hesitancy i reminded him as i have did others that each artist has their own special take on what he perceives, and that i would try my best to achieve the poses and the overall appearance of the original piece , but in the end i would have to consider what mother nature saw fit to leave me in the wood. i cut what i thought were 2 large enough pieces to do both frog figurines and started cutting. the progress shown is what i have completed as of yesterday. today being a nice day and the next 4 not so nice , i have decided to work on this some more today. but still. mother nature will not allow the feet to dangle in these large pieces of wood forcing me to find an alternative pose that will accommodate my friends wishes. 

      with reluctance i have approached this project but still yearn to be free to do what i want. guess it may have to do with resisting authority i guess, a rebel with cause and no where to go. but left to my own demise and resisting the temptation to strike it rich in the cute bear cutting category , i have produced some unique carvings of note and of which i will display above. soon i will take no orders but instead produce as i may. 

a line of trees

     yesterday i was reminded as a friend inquired into what type of log i was carving.  i remarked ,that is was a ponderosa pine with a story attached.

     at this point i need to add a disclaimer.  normally in the amish every day duties i forbid myself to directly take pictures of them in public , out of respect for their religion as i know that this is something they frown upon for the most part. but as in this picture i was at a public event where they made every effort to put themselves in the public spot light so in actuality i was just taking a photo of that neat red truck in the background, and the amish family selling ice cream made on a horse powered treadmill, were simply in my road as the sun gleaming down provided the right light. you must capture these moments when you can.

      as you can see the amish guy with the sunglasses  was not to impressed with my artistic endeavors , and in some way reminded me of the amish mafia i had heard so much about. with his you touch a my a horse i break-a-you-a face expression. again i digress. so most of my amish pics are from a distance and usually are limited to empty carriages. 

      the story about the ponderosa pine and the amish goes back to a tale of tradition as amish would plant a row of trees behind the house after they built it to signify each member of the family. first the mother and the father , and then one for each child born until it would form a line of trees.  and as they would depart from the earth a tree would be cut down from that line. this would allow the passerby on the road in front of the house to immediately realize a member of the family had passed. likewise if one was born into the family a tree was planted in honor of the occasion. although not as important as an older tree still significant in the eyes of the amish. 

      as the trees shall grow, and  the winds shall blow , so shall the lives bend, and at times shall end.-k.davis 

      i am not a big fan of cutting trees down to create carvings and have been asked to carve live trees, of which i will also have no part in. there are plenty of salvageable logs to create carvings in .  as long as a tree is growing then i say let it grow. if you are taking the tree down and was going to cut the log into firewood. i will gladly carve it , if i am able. so this ponderosa pine with a story was exactly that. a tree they were going to take down anyway and the last in a row of trees with the family having sold the property to developers, and moving elsewhere. where the times were simpler and land not so pricey.  yet so goes some of the long forgotten traditions to somewhere else, but to where the tree came from, it is just memories. 

     this is my neice's son and his name would be gunner.