Poppy is Pleased to Announce

JOE BOOTS

Entered into

SCREENCRAFT Cinematic Short Story Writing Competition 

RED LIST (Drama)  #13

 

The Most Trying Time of My Life

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The Most Trying Time of My Life

It was a beautiful day to take a hike in the country. I found a rock to sit on so I could take in nature.  The mountains were green, and the birds were singing.  I noticed a few wildflowers intertwining themselves with the rocks and a red-tailed hawk flying above. I sat quietly and meditated. 

After the death of my husband, it was the most trying time of my life.  All the support I received from many people and places helped me immensely I thank them.  I am moving forward into new territory. I feel like a butterfly coming out of a cocoon. My thoughts are clearer and I am feeling stronger.

I can stand up for myself and say "NO" when something does not feel right for me.  

I have been writing and entering many contests.  I am almost done with my short story “Joe Boots.”  It will be entered into the Cinematic Short Story Contest.  I am also writing a western series “POLONA." I received an accolade when I entered it into the ScreenCraft Virtual Pitch contest with about 1200 other entries.

I am enjoying this time of my life.  Things are falling into place and I feel blessed with my family that surrounds me.  We help each other and love each other unconditionally.  They are my love and light. 

 

Let me leave you with this note  – May you grow stronger each day.  Reflect, Stay Safe, and be well during this global human pandemic.

 

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Friday’s Quote – Understanding Vulnerability

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Understanding Vulnerability

In a world that seeks connection, we oddly avoid eye contact, we time our text responses in order to protect ourselves from seeming too eager or too interested, and we hold our feelings back because we don't want to see overly emotional or unreasonable.

We silence our instincts, and at the end of the day instead a feeling good about ourselves, we feel alone, we feel misunderstood.

Remember it is okay to be emotional, to seek help, to confidently tell someone you enjoy being around that you are infatuated with them. 

There is nothing wrong with vulnerability, with being human, for that is what creates depth within our relationships, and that is what ultimately unifies us.    

 

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Our Camping Trip – Diamond Lake, Oregon

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This Sunday Poppy has the sniffles. 

Our Camping Trip – Diamond Lake, Oregon

Growing up my father was an outdoorsman.  He taught me how to drive a tractor, ride a minibike, fish, clean and gut the fish, make a fire, and set up a tent.  He also taught me to bottle feed calves, feed chickens, pigs, and ducks. My mother was a lady. She taught me how to crochet, sew, needlepoint, cross stitch, iron, cook, grow a garden, clean and most of all be a lady. I guess I got the best of both worlds.  

Every year for vacation we went on a camping trip. My parents received a camping brochure from Mel Cotton’s Sporting Goods store in San Jose, CA, their motto was “where successful adventures begin.” This year my parents settled on Diamond Lake in Oregon. Mom called Mel Cotton’s and reserved a few cots for us. Dad picked up the cots and purchased supplies for the trip. He liked to fish. Mom took us girls to the secondhand store to buy pants and t-shirts to wear on our trip.   

My big brother Ricky could not come because he was President of the Senior class and had responsibilities, so his friend Jim offered to come.  Jim was a character and was part of our family.  He was always around the house while growing up and I remember my big brother, mom and Jim watching the Smothers Brothers Comedy and the Laugh-In show.

The day before our vacation dad connected the boat to the International Travelall and checked the brake lights. It was a summer day as we all ran around gathering items for our vacation.  After packing we had dinner and went to bed early because we were excited. We woke up at the crack of dawn and jumped into the truck with our pillows and pajamas on.  We slept while our parents navigated the roads. The first stop was a truck stop.  We ran into the bathroom to change our clothes, wash our faces and brush our teeth.  We ate breakfast and jumped back on the road.  My sister Jessie kept asking my parents “are we almost there?” she finally fell asleep and I overheard my parents saying, “we were making good timing.” As we passed the Oregon stateline we started climbing into higher elevation and it started to snow.  My mother said, this is unbelievable. We had to pull over, Jim and dad tied a tarp over the boat to cover some of his fishing gear.  Everyone became quiet as we slowly drove down the highway.

We checked into our camping spot and dad and Jim immediately set up the tent and used the tarp to block the wind from entering the campsite. Our tent was an army tent like the one used in the tv sitcom M*A*S*H.  Mom organized the cots and made it cozy in the tent.  Jim started the fire and mom put the coffee pot on.  Us girls asked if we could go for a hike.  Mom said, yes, but not too far.  We happily started down a trail until a few birds started to dive-bomb us because we were too close to their nest. My little sister cried, and I grabbed her hand and told her she would be Ok.  We then hightailed it out of there as quick as we could.  We came back to the campsite and sat around the fire listening to music while mom cooked dinner.  The sunset was beautiful that night.  The moon was bright and was glistening on the lake. We ate dinner and afterwards talked

a little near the fire then called it a night.  Jim said he wanted to stay up, so my parents made him the night watchman.  He was funny. 

Daylight broke and the sun came out.  My sisters wanted to go hiking but in the opposite direction.  Mom said, “stay on the trail and be careful,” I was in charge, since I was the oldest.  We thought we could make it around the lake, but it was too long of a hike, so we decided to hike up a hill.  We raced up the hill and when we reached the top the view was amazing, so we sat for a while and talked. A lady came up the hill and we all stared at her.  She was older and she looked at me and my sisters and said.  You girls are very pretty.  We said, “thank you.”  We asked her if she was alone.  She said, “yes: we then heard our mom yelling for us.  We said, it was nice meeting you but we have to go. When we arrived at the campsite, my dad had taken the boys out in the boat to fish, so we decided to take a nap. My mother was sitting at the table writing and drinking coffee.  When we woke up, we looked over at our neighbor and he caught an abundance of rainbow trout.  He had the fish line hanging from tree to tree.  As we turned, my dad and brothers were coming back in the boat. Gary and Dennis had big smiles.  It looked like dad and Jim did not catch anything.  Mom said, I guess we will eat something else tonight.  Just when mom said that, the neighbor came over and introduced himself and gave mom 5 rainbow trout.  The man was older and was happy to give us the fish.  Mom invited him to stay and eat with us and he accepted. He was interesting.  He served in the Army during the Korean and Vietnam war and now lived in Humboldt County. The man stayed for dinner and my dad and our new friend taught me how to filet and clean the trout. We sat around the fire making up a story.

One person would start, then another would add to it, then so on.  Our new friend even added to the story.  He thought it was quite amusing.  We had a wonderful night with our new friend. 

The following days we hiked, biked, and went swimming.  We had lots of fun.  When it was time to leave, we loaded our belongs into the SUV and headed back home.  It was a nice family vacation.  On our way home, we all fell asleep as mom and dad navigated the SUV back home. 

Let me leave you with this quote – To be in your children’s memories tomorrow, you must be in their lives today.

 

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Friday's Quote - Home

Welcome to Poppy’s Blog

HOME

Find the people and places that make you feel at home.  Find the ones who take care of your soul and make you feel like you can be completely yourself around them. Find the ones who light you up from the inside out and encourage you to be yourself. Find the places where you feel at peace, the places that you could spend forever wandering and exploring.

Find the places that make you want to see even more of the world and the ones that make you happy to be alive. And whenever you find one of these people or places, hold onto them. Tell those people you love them often.

Visit those people or places as much as you can.  Never let go of those people or places because when you find peace, love, and joy in this world, it is worth more than gold. It is where you are meant to be.

 - Nikki Banas

Home is not a place, but a feeling.

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One Spring Day

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Today I will be reading a story I wrote on Thursday - One Spring Day 

It was a beautiful spring day on the ranch.  I woke up, made a cup of coffee, and went outside to check on the sprinklers and turned on a few water lines. I noticed some sprinkler heads were clogged, so I turned off the line and took off the sprinkler heads and blew on them to try and get the earwigs out or used my pocketknife. I turned the sprinklers back on and headed down the hill.  I let Leo, Zach, and Charlie out of their pin for their daily run down the road. When we returned to the ranch, the dogs went into the run except for Charlie, he liked to lay on the porch while I worked in my office.  I went over to the chicken coop and counted them and let them out. 

Last night I was missing Gayle and the red head and this morning they are a no show.  I was a bit worried, but I had to get into the office and work. As, I walked up the hill, I turned around and could see the chickens sprinting across the pasture to the pine trees that lined the westside of the property. My two ducks were in an argument because the mallard male was hiding behind the water trough.

I came back up the hill and poured myself another cup of coffee and went into the office. I was terribly busy working on a contract to sell a large parcel to a Southern California development company and I had to make sure I dotted my i’s and crossed my t’s. I was on the telephone for a while before I realized I had not turned off the water lines. I walked out of the kitchen back door down to the deck and noticed all my sprinklers were just spitting water. There was no water pressure. I walked back into the house and turned on the kitchen faucet and found the same issue.  I turned off the water lines and sprinklers and ran down the hill to see if my water tank was empty. It was not, but no water was making it up the hill. I came back up the hill and called the well people. I met the guy at the main gate around 1pm.  I asked him to do whatever he needed to do to get the water up the hill and went back to work. As I walked up the hill, I still did not see Gayle my bantam or red head hens that were missing.

I decided to take my lunch. Halfway through my lunch there was a knock at the door.  It was the well guy.  He said, he had bad news. I said, OK.  As I took a sip of my water, he said, your bladder is blown. I looked at him dumbfounded and said, can you repeat that, again. I said, ma’am, your bladder is blown. He then said, follow me and I will show you. As we walked down the hill, he explained the bladder function. The well pressure tank uses compressed air to push pressurized water out of the tank and up the hill into your home. Pressure tanks have a diaphragm, also called a bladder, that separates a chamber of air from the water. As the tank fills with water, it compresses the air chamber. As we approached the tank, he knocked on the tank and it was (full) and it was waterlogged. He said, the tank should sound hollow above the bladder.  I said, I am learning something new every day.  I asked if he could take care of it today. He said, yes ma’am, I need to go back and pick up a tank. I said, great and I let him out of the main gate. Just when I went to close the gate, I saw my red head hen coming down the hill with 7 baby chicks walking behind her. Then I noticed the Gayle the bantam in the pasture with 4 baby chicks. My neighbor yelled over and said, oh my, you are a grandmother. I smiled, waved, and laughed. 

The well guy came back and finished the job. I paid him and he was on his way. It was getting dark and I went and opened the chicken coop. All the chickens came in except for the Gayle the bantam hen. I saw the baby chicks near a tree, and I looked up and noticed Gayle the bantam hen was perched on a tree limb. I told Gayle to come down and tend to your children. She did not. I sat there for about 15 minutes waiting. Still nothing. I walked over to the chicken coop and grabbed my new jersey giant and another red head hen and dropped them near the chicks. Within a few minutes, my mature hens said, cluck, cluck and opened their wings and became the stepmothers of the baby chicks. Meanwhile, Gayle the bantam hen was still in the tree. I closed the chicken coop and looked over at Gayle the bantam hen. She was acting like she did not see me. I came in the house and called it a night.

The following morning, I went down to open my dog kennel and Gayle the bantam hen was still in the tree but making weird noises. I decided when I get back from my run with the dogs, I will catch her with my net and put her into the coop by herself. We had a nice run and returned to the ranch.

I grabbed my ladder and the net.  I caught her on my first try.  Gayle was agitated and fought as I talked with her. I think she was crying. As I sat in the coop with her, I believe she had a condition called “postpartum psychosis.”  I heard some women go crazy, become depressed, anxiety, etc. after giving birth.  I guess chickens deal with this too? Gayle sure had the signs. I fluffed a nice bed for her in the corner of the coop.  I must have sat with her for about an hour.  Gayle just stared at me and made these weird noises.  I had to go back up and open my office.  So, I left Gayle in the coop.

That evening I went down to open the coop I found Gayle the bantam hen dead.  I think her little heart just gave out.  I picked her up and buried her in the garden.  I thanked her for the babies and promised they would grow up healthy and happy.  That night I sat quietly drinking a beer and watched the stars from my deck.

Let me leave you with this quote – in any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or to step back into safety.

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Friday's Quote - Living Life

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LIVING LIFE

Right now, she is living a blessed life.  She is focused on herself.  She is falling in love with who she is.  She is excited about where she is headed, and what is next.  She has so many goals, so many dreams, so much ambition and she is constantly finding new passions. She is spontaneous. 

She is learning to take risks and constantly stepping out of her comfort zone.  You see – right now, she is chasing the things that make her happy. She is chasing the things that feed her soul.  And to be honest with you – she could care less about what everyone else is doing and thinking. 

Because right now, her life is filled with so much peace, so much light, so much growth, so much faith and so much hope. Right now, she is living a blessed life.  There is absolutely nothing, or no one that can get in the way. 

-   RS 

Poppy

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