Ashley's Memory ~2012

Milo and the Fossilized Oranges

Brittany has always loved animals, a little different than others but love nonetheless. One year right before Christmas, Brittany got a little orange tabby cat. She decided the only name he could have was Milo. Brittany was crazy about Milo and to our surprise Milo was crazy about her.

It was a cold and dark Christmas Eve but the snow made everything seem lighter outside. A few of us older children were in the kitchen. There were some fossilized mandarin oranges on the counter and we were discussing mom’s creative way of preserving food.

Dan decided we could probably part with the oranges and decided to throw them out in the yard. When he threw the first orange the cats ran and pounced on the spot where it landed in the snow. Dan called us to the door to show us his new little trick. “Watch this guys!” He threw the next rock-hard orange as hard as he could in the general direction of the cats. Just as Dan threw his orange Milo stepped right into the line of fire. To our horror the orange made contact with the Milo’s head. The poor little kitten never saw it coming. It threw him into the air and he fell limp to the ground. 

I ran out to him. It didn’t look good for poor Milo; his eyes were glazed over, his mouth hung open and he was as limp as a rag doll. As I carried him into the house, his drool ran down my arm. Dan had the deer in the headlights look as I walked through the door. “He’s going to be fine guys.” Dan said half-heartedly. “Here, stand him up.” I tried to stand him up on the counter but his legs were like noodles. “He’s paralyzed!” I wailed.

We knew it wouldn’t be long before Brittany would discover her precious little pet in his pitiful condition and her Christmas would be ruined. We decided the best thing to do was to put Milo in Tiffany’s room behind her bed wrapped in a warm blanket and hope for the best. Brittany, Tyler, and Emily were giddy with Christmas Spirit. They were running around the house getting ready for Santa to come. Everyone else was pretty glum, trying to decide how and when to break the bad news to them.

Throughout the night we checked on Milo and he didn’t seem to be getting better. Things were not looking good. Milo was either permanently brain damaged and destined to be a vegetable, or on the brink of death. We decided to check on him one last time before we decided what to do. But to our surprise Milo wasn’t where we left him. Now we really knew we were in trouble. The poor cat wandered off somewhere to die. Now we would have to not only break the bad news to Brittany, but also explain to mom why the house smelt like a dead cat.

As we decided what the best plan of action would be, Brittany ran into Tiffany’s room to get something. She came running out holding Milo in her classic tight, gritted teeth hold, and saying excitedly, “Someone brought Milo into the house!”  Our hearts sunk. But to our surprise, Milo was looking like his old chipper self; bright eyed and alert. It was a Christmas miracle!

We all learned several things that night: Dan can throw a fossilized orange real hard, and with perfect accuracy. And that maybe Brittany’s rough kind of love was just the cure Milo needed. 

Mike's Memory ~ 2012

When Tiffany graduated her family came out for the weekend to visit and celebrate with her. Tyler, Emily, Brittany, Patsy, and Ralph all came. I remember I was all done with finals and everything so I could goof off and have fun hanging out with the Young clan. I think it was the day of the graduation we were at the Castagnos (I think that's their name?) home having breakfast and we all made plans for some fun activities for the day before Tiff graduates. I think Ralph and Patsy decided to go to the temple with Tiff after she took an anatomy test while me, Brittany, Tyler, and Em would go canoeing down snake river and go bridge jumping when we're done. So Leo trusted me with driving his truck with the trailer full of canoes on back - I was way nervous doing that by the way because my truck is an old and slow one and he had a nice one with a lot of power and I've never driven with a trailer in back. So we got there and unloaded the trailer and all got into the river.

I think the Castagno girl had a lil crush on Tyler so she wanted to be in the same canoe with him and I think Brittany had a lil crush on me so she wanted to be with me in my canoe ;). And Em was with the other boys. So it was a warm day and the water was nice and cool. I loved canoeing in boy scouts but usually I get nervous to tip them over because the times I've gone canoeing if you tip it over it meant DEATH haha it meant all your gears wet and you're miles away from shore in cold water so I did NOT want to tip over our boats. That and I didn't want to damage a boat that wasn't mine. But leave it to Brittany to splash me and lose our balance to tip us over and lose my favorite shirt that was sitting at the bottom of the canoe. I think we capsized like 4 times throughout the whole trip. It was a LOT of fun chasing everyone down and trying to tip each others' boats over because the river was shallow enough you can walk the boat to shore. Everyone has tipped over but Em's boat because they were the fast lil buggers. So Brittany got out and let the boys handle this. And Tyler got into my boat while we chased em down. We were seriously going like 25 mph in a canoe chasing these kids down. We saw the truck and it was the last stretch and we were so close to be able to grab them before they get to shore. We paddled and paddled and then with our last chance Tyler stood up and jumped out of the boat to grab Em's boat. Man he flew! He was like perfectly horizontal! It was like that cat in that sail video on youtube. He missed by an inch! It was soooooo close. and splash he's gone. And Emily didn't get wet that day.

We then loaded up the trailer..The Castagno girl was checking out Tyler lifting the canoes up onto the trailer. Then we went to a bridge and jumped off into the river. It was fun. I just chilled with Em at the bridge while everyone jumped in because we didn't want to get wet after we had all dried off...and the water looked pretty shallow. But leave it to Brittany to be a daredevil to go kamikaze and do front flips off the bridge to the point of getting a nose bleed. haha I love that girl. I jumped in once for her so she'd feel better that I wasn't scared of heights or nothin. But I sunk to the bottom and stayed there for a while to scare her a little. Then we showered and went to Tiff's graduation and ate a bunch of pizza at pizzapie cafe afterwards. Awesome day with the Young clan.

Amanda's Memory ~ 2012

The Chip Box

I remember Mom and Dad kept an old wooden chip box on the back porch. Chips are small pieces of wood or bark that work as kindling for a fire. We didn't have a furnace in the house at Birch Creek until about 2000, so all of our heat in the wintertime came from the wood stove in the family room.

When you started a fire in the wood stove, you began with paper. Usually it was newspaper or old school papers from Friday folders. You crumpled the paper up and laid it in the middle of the stove’s belly. Then you built a small tepee out of chips. You lit the paper with a match, and once the chips caught fire, you gradually added larger and larger pieces of wood. You continued this process until you had a roaring blaze pushing heat out of the stove vents.

The fire in the stove often grew so hot the water-filled teapot on top whistled and shot out steam like a steam engine. The stove sat in the “stove room,” our smaller family room, which warmed up quickly and became unbearable on several occasions. I remember lying on the floor with my brother and sisters during scripture study to escape some of the heat. We scooted the lower halves of our bodies out into the cooler hallway, keeping only our heads in the room.

The chip box stood as high as my shoulder and as far across as my arms could reach, but it must have been smaller than I remember. The outside was gray and worn—probably from sitting out in the weather. The box had a heavy hinged wooden lid that closed unevenly over the top. It sat on the porch butted up against rough gray bricks on the outside of the chimney.

One of the most loathed jobs of my childhood involved filling that chip box. Dan and I normally went with the wheelbarrow to the back of the house and behind the wash house to the old wood pile. Dad usually split logs and stacked wood there, so it was a good place to find chips. If there were no chips behind the wash house, we ventured out past the shop or up toward the row of trees that bordered the upper fields.

We procrastinated filling the chip box until the very last slivers of wood were left in the bottom corners of the box. Then Dad got after us and sent us out – day or night – to get the job done. I remember it always seemed to be snowing and blowing icy wind every time we filled the box. We thought we might freeze to death picking around for those dumb chips of wood.

We filled the wheelbarrow twice or three times before the chip box was full. As we picked up chips, I tried to imagine Laura Ingalls Wilder on the prairie gathering dried buffalo chips and convinced myself that my lot wasn't so bad.

Often for Christmas Grandma Young would make little fire-starters out of old egg cartons, dryer lint, and wax and give them to Mom and Dad (Grandma’s gifts were always practical). They burned for a long time, and with one of Grandma’s fire-starters, only a few chips were needed to get a good blaze going. That meant the chip box stayed full longer, and we went out to pick chips less often.

The Wash House

The wash house was situated directly behind our house, a few steps on the sidewalk away from the back porch. It was painted white with a green tin roof, like our house. Mom planted tall blue flowers along the front of the wash house, and grass filled the area between it and the house.

Out the side of the wash house there was a pipe (perpendicular to the outside wall) about two feet long. It jutted through the wall of the wash house and drained water from the washing machine.  Water ran out of the pipe when Mom did her laundry, and the suds built up into mountains of bubbly foam behind the peony bush. I remember Mom always telling the babies to keep out of the bubbles.

Dan played Annie Over with me over the wash house. I never got the ball completely over the roof, but Dan always handed it to me, ran to the back of the wash house and waited patiently until I called him for help. Then he ran back around, took the ball, and showed me how to hurl it over the roof. Next he ran back to his side and threw the ball over again so I could try once more.

Inside the wash house was the well. It was big and black and tube-shaped. On the front was a small gauge (I’m not sure what for) and a thick pipe that ran down through the concrete floor and into the ground. Shelves lined the walls alongside the well and held odds and ends. Mom’s trunk of dolls was there – the ones she played with as a little girl. Dad’s plastic flamenco-dancing doll he brought back from his mission in Spain was there too.

On the opposite side of the well was the freezer and washing machine. The dryer sat against the wall a few steps away from the washer. With seven children, Mom spent a lot of time doing laundry. She taught Ashley and me how to sort, spot clean, and wash clothes standing next to the well in the wash house. 

It was common for our pipes to freeze in the wintertime, keeping water from entering the well or the house. When this happened, Dad or one of our uncles would try and defrost the frozen pipes using various (occasionally hazardous) methods. In the fall of 1997, just before Thanksgiving, the pipes froze again.

To thaw the pipes, Dad and my uncles used heat from a blow torch. They crawled under the wash house and went to work. Soon enough, we had water and went about our day. Then suddenly someone realized the wash house was ablaze. Mom ran to the bathroom and filled a 5-gallon bucket with water. Then she grabbed the garden hose to try and douse the flames. It was too late. The pump inside the burning building failed and the water stopped.

I felt desperate. I asked Dad why he didn't try to save anything inside the wash house. He said it was too dangerous to go near the flames. The fire department from Austin came long after the fire started. They didn't help any. The hoses on their truck failed. The volunteer firemen from Kingston put the fire out, but it was too late. The wash house was gone, along with Mom’s dolls, our washer and dryer, our freezer, and our Thanksgiving turkey.

A few days later a woman named Vicky who owned a motel and restaurant in Austin came to the house with bags and bags of food, saying she heard that our Thanksgiving dinner had burned up, and she wanted to replace it. Mom cried. 

The well’s pump still worked, so Dad built a small cover for it. Now, from the big remodeled kitchen window, you can see past where the wash house used to stand for miles and miles, all the way to the mountains.