Myspace Layouts at Pimp-My-Profile.com / Red plaid
I was born in the Chicago northshore region, but spent my youth shuttling between there and the Arkansas Ozarks. 'Twas a youth of recurring culture shock brought on by a biting one-step-ahead-of-the-law reality. Well, you know, I wasn't running from the law, but my late father usually was.Speaking of the law, that 'Yellville, Arkansas' picture in my 'Silly Me' photo album is the last time --circa 1971-- that my family was in close enough proximity to gather in front of a camera. I'm the one in the blue dress. Months after that photo Dad pulled a Jed Clampitt and loaded up the truck and headed to Californie. Actually, he called it a big adventure: we were going to get back to the land!
So, Dad abandoned my eldest sister in Yellville, Arkansas and we settled in Pecwan, the largest village in the Yurok extension of the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation. (pics in albums section) Soon my second eldest sibling ditched us and ran away to Chicago. Things were not working out in our little hunting-gathering experiment on the reservation. Within a year, Dad's marriage fell apart and he abandoned me in the leaky, drafty, no electricity, no running water cabin.
I wrote a novel about growing up white on a remote Indian reservation. Most of what happens in that saga actually happened to me. Most of it.
So anyway, I went on to open a weaving studio. I sold bolts of fabric to one-of-a-kind clothing designers. I was so successful at garnering press coverage that soon artist buds were asking me to help spin their tales. We used radio, newspaper and TV media to our best advantage, believe me. One thing led to another and before long I found myself a partner in a full-fledged television communications firm.
Another thing led to another thing and I wound up no longer a partner in either the firm or the marriage that spawned the firm.
But once a storyteller always a storyteller and here I am writing stories about strong-willed women who are either abandoned or abused and who struggle through the maze of their life until they reach freedom and healing.
Wherever do I get this stuff?
Listen, you can suck on a lemon until your eyes squint or you can add a little sugar and water and share the happy results with your friends. Lemonade, anyone?
Fast forward to now:
I love to cook and often look at a picture accompanying a recipe and just go off that rather than the recipe. I make my own hot sauce, jams, syrups, stir fry sauce. I sun-dry my own tomatoes and hot peppers and stock my freezer with homemade zucchini bread and home grown veggies. I make my own chili, jerky, pie and pizza. In fact, I pretty much make all my own food from scratch yet rarely is my lunch more than a yogurt or a handful of baby lettuce. (I can cook for an army, but cooking for myself is too much trouble, see.)
My husband and I live on mostly wild acreage that is home to myriad cottontails, red foxes, red squirrels, an ever-growing mule deer herd, wandering elk, and the occasional puma, bobcat, bear and skunk. The property rests on one of the many smaller hogbacks forming the famed Dakota Hogback that runs the east side of the Rocky Mountains between Wyoming and New Mexico. Our little bit of hogback heaven sports grapes, pears, apples, wild plums, wild onions and cactus. We added corn, pumpkins and squash outside and all sorts of stuff in the greenhouse.
Additionally we keep chickens. So if you visit this page, you'll get a dose of back-to-the-land musings, up-to-the-minute wildlife sightings and healthy recipes, because that's what I know best.