Golden West Ranch

© 2011 Virginia N. Hinkle with Patricia N. Richards. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/12/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4670-5287-0 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4670-5288-7 (sc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011918318

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Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

EPILOG

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Virginia, Jack and Patty

David

Gram and Gramps Bennett

I would like to dedicate this work,

GOLDEN WEST RANCH,

to my brother, David.

Love ya Little Brother,

Patty

Patricia N. Richards

Prices were high, weather was bad, jobs were scarce, and anyway we had always wanted a ranch.

I was a widow, alone in the world, if you can call living with my three children and a girl friend living alone. I had a good job as bookkeeper with a freight hauling company in our west coast city; but I wanted to be with my family all the time as a mother should be. My children were getting out of control and secretive.

Jack, my curly haired blond, with blue eyes, dimples and a loving smile is eleven, a little overweight with no physical outlet for his energy, which he needs badly. His father had been raised on an Iowa farm, and always loved growing things when he was alive. I feel Jack has the same energy.

Pat, at ten years, seems to be an unhappy child who needs her mother to guide her interests along the domestic line. She loves to try her hand at cooking, baking and sewing, but needs instructions in these things. Patty has an inborn love of dogs and horses. She has light brown hair with dark brown eyes, a lot of people say…she looks like her mother, only I have dark hair and brown eyes.

David, the baby, is lovable, beautiful, and a spoiled child of two and a half years of age. Although we have no sure way of knowing what his ideas would be on the subject, we took it for granted that he would be as horsey-minded, as we called it, as the rest of us.

Jeanne is my blond curly haired girl friend, both to me and my children, as her age is between Patty’s and mine. She graduated from high school and has not found employment to her satisfaction. She makes her home with us in the small suburb near the city where I work, and babysits David. She practically worships Davey, and would give her life for him, I believe, if the occasion were to arise. Jeanne’s greatest desire is to live on a ranch and be near livestock and the good earth. It was from her that we learned to love western music and attire. This is one of the things that we all have in common. I enter into this western motif with all the pent up energy I have left after my job each day. Believe me, our record collection is something to hear!

As I have said, the weather is bad. In fact, two feet of snow has held up bus travel and has kept me from my job, since we have no car. For a week we’ve played cards and listened to our records and the radio. Toward the end of the week, I said jokingly, We ought to get us a ranch and really go western.

The reception that this remark received was overwhelming. I had really lit a fuse which would later set off a loud repercussion.

Where?

How?

When?

Really?

Oh, I wish we could.

Well, why couldn’t we? I replied, after I realized what a snowball I had set rolling.

We are renting a house and we have our own furniture, which is all in good shape and should be for a long time yet. Besides, we don’t have any real ties here, no debts, since my dear husband had left us with a good life insurance policy.

Still, how could we do it alone? Jeanne wanted to know. Not that I am not ready and game to try it. But, where would we buy a ranch in the first place? Not in this wet, God forsaken part of the country, I hope, she grinned.

No, I decided. I was thinking that east of the mountains near where my folks live now would be much better. There we would have longer summers, and it just seems more suitable somehow.

Oh, yes! Let’s go over by Gram and Gramps, chimed in Patty. Maybe…

That’s exactly what I had in mind, Pat, I interrupted her rudely at this point to say, Gram and Gramps have always wanted a little acreage, but were afraid they couldn’t handle it alone. I think they can be convinced, and with Dad’s experience, and our brawn, and my business background, we can do it. We have just as good a chance as anyone else, and we haven’t much to lose.

I think that they will be glad to do it, too, Jack put in, if we are all there. They are always saying they get lonesome for us.

Wouldn’t it be great if we only could do it? Jeanne always felt a part of our family and sounded so wistful that one could see how happy it would make her.

Oh, Mom, don’t say we can do it if you don’t mean it. I’ve never wanted anything so much in all my life.

Jack, I promise to do my best to convince your Grandmother and Grandfather of this adventure. The final decision rests with them. I don’t think we could have a chance of successfully running a ranch without them.

Can we have a dog and a horse? Patty’s first love was uppermost.

Darling, we will have both just as soon as we can.

Mommy, doggie? Davey’s eyes lit up. He hadn’t missed any of our conversation.

Yes, Mommy’s sweetheart will have a doggie, too.

Doggie, doggie, doggie, he sang over and over.

We talked of nothing else far into the night, and the topic predominated most of our conversation from that time forward.

I knew that my parents would be making us a visit soon from their home on the eastern side of the Cascade Mountain range, which divides our state into two scenic and climatic contrasts. On the western slope and to the Pacific Coast, the climate was damp and never severe as to either extreme. Except for the cities and farming areas, much of the land is abundant with fir growth, with their fragrance sifting through our lives pleasantly, making the fog and rain durable. No one would believe that a range of mountains could form a border line such as ours does, for on the eastern side are miles and miles of rolling hills, then more miles of land full of sage brush. Here and there large oasis-like valleys were made livable through mighty irrigation projects. There are hundreds of thousands of acres yet to come under such a program. The government is developing it slowly but surely, planning to make more Edens for more people.

There is a place called Lookout Point overlooking the valley in which nestles in my Dad’s home town, where a person is made to feel his unimportance keenly. Just going up there and taking a good long look has dwarfed my troubles more than once. One can see for miles from this spot; the checkerboard of tilled fields bordered by orchards with many large ranch houses and red barns dotting the pattern like chessmen. Irrigation canals pass unevenly through the scene like white streamers of ribbon, adding a touch of gaiety to the picture.

At the southern end of this valley grows potatoes, sugar beets, and above all, grain. This arid section extends to the border of the next state and beyond, while the northern part of this half of the state is again covered by great forest growths, and is less inhabited.

The Cascade Mountain Range, which divides this contrast, is of a long chain which passes out of the state, both south to Oregon and north into Canada. It seems to play along, building up to the great eruption of Mt. St. Helens many years ago, and on to one of the most majestic sights in our country…our Mount Rainier.

Truly our state is one of which we are proud.

Just as we had hoped, Mom and Dad fell in with our plans with great enthusiasm, when they came for their visit the following week. We all spent several days and evenings discussing all the possible angles and deciding upon just what we would want as necessities. The main ones being land to raise some cattle and horses, a house with electricity and water, and a sufficient number of bedrooms for everyone. They were to begin the search as soon as they returned home.

After about six weeks of discouragement, we received a telephone call one night.

We found it! Were Mother’s first words. Forty acres…twenty in hops and the rest cleared. There is a house that has four bedrooms all on one floor, with a large unfinished attic where we could even fix up for a bedroom or two if needed, a good barn and chicken coup, and some other buildings. Even more desirable is, it’s in an easy price range for all of us.

We’ll all be over to see it this coming week-end. And oh, thanks, Mom! I was so excited that I could scarcely speak.

That night we did a regular Indian War Dance.

The bus took such a long time getting there the following Saturday morning, that we all wished we had taken a plane. On arriving, we found Mom and Dad waiting anxiously at the depot. We all rushed out in Dad’s van to see the ranch, which was approximately eighteen miles in distance.

There was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, as I looked at the building…the house. Of course, I saw the broken windows and sagging doors first. Weeds were waist high about the place, since no one had lived there for at least two years or more. Upon entering the house, we found good solid floors of hardwood and underneath the foundation was as solid as rock, but then, what can you expect from cement?

Yes, there were possibilities, after we got under the layers of dust with which everything was covered. What fun it would be fixing it up to suit Mom and Pat, whose house keeping responsibility it would be.

We left them in the house making plans and picturing how our combined furniture would make it look, while Dad, Jeanne, Jack and I made a tour of the land and outbuildings with the real estate agent, who had made an appearance by then.

The hop fields had been well cared for by a neighbor who had leased the land, but the other twenty acres would need some work. The barn was large with twenty stanchions and a feed room. The outside paint was red and still in fair shape. The chicken house was a thing to be proud of. There was room for about six hundred chickens, with a fenced in run of about a half acre.

There was a pig sty, which didn’t interest any of us except Dad, who loved his ham, bacon and pork chops…of course we had to admit we do too. The tool shed was a long building open on one side and divided into four sections; one for fuel, one equipped with a forge, and the other two loaded with junk that the former tenants hadn’t deemed worthy of taking with them. These would do fine to use for the station wagon and tractor, which we could purchase with the place.

There were also two little buildings that could be removed or maybe even used as storage, and two larger ones that could easily be made comfortable as hop pickers bunk houses. I must say that the barn and chicken house showed more loving care than did the main house. With Mom’s ingenuity for home making, Patty’s love to learn more of the chore (to me), and with our help, it would soon be a home. There was not the worry of water, electricity and telephone, as they were already in or available.

It didn’t take us long to decide, that no matter how far we looked, we would never find a place more suitable to our needs. Already it seemed that God was with us.

Dad and I began to talk terms with the realtor on the spot, and by a little dickering, we really felt we received a good deal. Hopefully, in five yearly installments, it would be ours.

I went back to my job with an elation that I hadn’t felt for many months. I was sure that the loneliness I had experienced for such a long time would have a much better chance to pass now. I put in my two weeks resignation as bookkeeper, with somewhat feelings of sadness, since I had been working there several years. I had always enjoyed working with the people in the company. They were all very kind and sort of understood how I felt about becoming a rancher. Some teased me, a few thought I was out of my mind. But, they gave me a going away party and a gift of a huge shovel with a bright red bow tied to it to help clean the barns, they said.

The transition from city to country life presented it’s problems, but we enjoyed every minute of it. Although my folks and Jeanne had been settled on our ranch since shortly after the transaction was made, I didn’t move my brood until school was out a month later. At that, the good it did was questionable, because the straining at the leashes took all the energy that should have been devoted to my children’s studies.

I shall leave the details of moving five rooms of furniture the distance of two hundred miles across the mountains to anyone who cares to imagine them. That is the one part I shall always try to forget. However, the moving in and settling part was a riot.

Jeanne and Dad had found ample time to plant the house garden and do much cultivating in the fields, as well as getting started in cleaning up the barn and chicken house and various other outside duties. This left Mother, just as I supposed, with the worry of the house on her hands. Although she had made quite a showing with the cleaning part, she had waited for my help in decorating. This we plunged into without hesitation.

Mother wanted to lay linoleum on the entire floor space of the house,