Website(s) of the day: Southwest Ghost Hunter's Association. Absolutely the most informative and interesting website I have seen ~ complete with detailed info on how to hunt those pesky ghosts. Check out the photos from the abandoned sanitarium in New Mexico.
Today was a pretty good day ~ and an 'oddity' happened! Whoo ~ hoo ~ except for what I did to the rake but actually, that's part of the oddity.
I went back over to rake more hay ~ we got to work until about 3 pm or so when we got rained out. I got to drive both tractors (No, smartass, not at once.) ~ the Ford while my dad worked on the John Deere (why do I keep typing it as 'Jophn'? I must really like that silent 'p'.) and then the Deere while he rolled the hay. I had a bit of a boo-boo when I temporarily forgot which tractor I was on and crashed into the rake as I was trying to get through a gate.
You see, the John Deere has a hand clutch on the right side of the tractor while the Ford has the usual foot clutch on the left. I barely engaged the clutch on the Deere to slowly back the rake when I realized that things weren't going as they should ~ the rake did it's thing and started turning toward the left. Here's where I forgot and started mashing the left 'clutch'...in reality the left brake. That threw me all off and I somehow got the clutch completely engaged...CRASH!!!!!!!!!! CLANG!!!!!!!!...and suddenly the rake wasn't as vertical as it had been. It had a distinct tilt to it ~ somewhat like it was doubled over in pain.
The 'oddity' was this (bare with me ~ I'll have to explain a bit.) When I was on the Ford, right off I had something go a bit wrong. I lost my 'brake lock reacher' (whoever designed the brake lock mechanism on that thing must have been one sadistic SOB. There is no way for anyone to engage the thing without going through some god awful contortions. My 'reacher' ~ really a clothes hanger that I had straightened out a bit ~ stopped that altogether so HA! Take that, Mr. Designer!) It fell off the tractor and I must have raked it into the row but I couldn't find it.
While I was looking for my 'reacher', I found two turkey feathers. In several Native tribes, the turkey is second only to the Bald Eagle in sacredness. In fact, some even call it 'Night Eagle'. At least one tribe (Is it the Navajo? Or Hopi, perhaps? I'll have to check because I don't remember.) use turkey feathers to bless a new mecate (grinding stone), simply by placing the feather on it. I decided that if it was good enough for them, then it was good enough for me ~ one went on the tractor and one went into my hair.
While those feathers were in place, not one thing went wrong. It was a first ~ up until then, something usually happened. When I finished the field and we broke for lunch, I took the feathers off...and forgot to put them on the other tractor when I switched...then I couldn't figure out the trick of how to get through a narrow gate ~ one side and the other would be over just an inch or two too much. I hit a hole and thought I was a goner (o.k., it was quite that bad of a hole but I'm just not used to riding a tractor over rough ground.) and I 'killed' the rake. Thank goodness it could be fixed.
Granted, like my mom's experience, it may be explanable. It could simply be that things went extraordinarily well at first because it was a relatively smooth field, with no major rock outcroppings and such while the second field had several rough holes in it. I don't know ~ but it was odd.
My dad also showed me an old cemetary that I didn't know about after the rain stopped. I knew about two graves that had long ago lost their tombstones but this was an entire cemetary. He said that he had someone to come out to map and survey it ~ there could be anywhere from 15 to 30 graves there. Most of the markers have been worn down or moved, mostly by cattle. We took our cameras with us ~ it was an impromptu ghost hunt. There was absolutely nothing scientific or methodical about it. We simply walked around and snapped a few photos. I'd like to be a recon of it sometime ~ and be a little more precise about it. I didn't even have a notebook with me. We'll see if anything comes out ~ but with only 14 photos, chances are slim. Only reason I stopped was because it was starting to get a little too dark for the film I was using.
It was a bit weird ~ I had ridden horses through that spot where the cemetary is several times. It's a bit gruesome to think that I may have gone over bodies...hope that 1.) the folks they belonged to once weren't too attached to them anymore and 2.) they're pretty forgiving, especially since I didn't know. Another weird thing about today ~ the field where I killed the rake used to be our yard, up until I was 4 when a tornado hit our trailer (if you're interested, it was April 3, 1974 ~ a day that 133 tornadoes tore through Alabama; Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio.) Today was the first time in...I guess it was the first time I had been in 'the yard' since that time. It was weird but in a detached way ~ I guess I was too young when we left over there. There just wasn't much emotional attachment at all.
I really hope that something comes out on those photos ~ that would be so utterly cool!
Page Copyright 2001 D. Firewolf
