Author Archives: chivarnado

QUAIL MUTTERINGS #14. The Tale of Broken Tail (March 9, 2012)

Posted on by

QUAIL MUTTERINGS #14.  The Tale of Broken Tail

(March 9, 2012)

 

The writing and publishing process for my children’s book was quite different than for the memoir, A CANYON TRILOGY: Life Before, During and After the Cedar Fire. For one, I had the privilege of working with a wonderful local artist, Dorothy Mushet. She owns the Banner Queen Art Gallery inJulian,California. After I wrote the manuscript and formatted the text around the descriptions of the future illustrations, along with my own poorly executed attempts at sketching them, Dorothy painted the pictures.

 

The Tale of Broken Tail is actually a true story. My mother, “Gramaset,” accidentally dug up a nest of three baby ground squirrels and then took responsibility for their care, sharing the experience with my daughter, Kali. They raised them until they were ready to live on their own. I felt the story needed to be told.

 

While writing this book I had numerous encounters with squirrels, usually just outside my bedroom window. One day, a scraggly old one looked through the glass at me, less than three feet away, barfed into the dirt, and then lay down on top of the rock wall for a couple hours. I don’t think he felt very well. Another day, one came down the boulder and looked in at me, dug a hole, relieved himself and then buried it. Many, many times I’ve watched them staring in at me for prolonged periods of time. “What?” I’ve asked them. It happens so often it’s become the norm.

 

When I asked Dorothy if she would be interested in illustrating this book she told me that my mom had asked her for two paintings: one of a wolf and the other a ground squirrel. Unfortunately, Mom had passed away shortly thereafter and Dorothy felt a little guilty.

 

“Really?” I asked. “Maybe I can play on that guilt a little.” This seemed to provide a little incentive.

 

I gathered various photos of Mom, Kali, our dogs… but still needed some images of ground squirrels. I had one morning left before I would take the pictures and manuscript to the artist so I went outside with my camera. Almost immediately a ground squirrel appeared on a rock. Lacking much faith in the likelihood of getting this little guy to cooperate I decided to ask his permission, just in case. I told him that he could be a star in my children’s book about squirrels. Well, I kid you not, this little ham let me follow him around for a good half-hour stopping here and there to pose for me. He sat on a stump, lay in the grass, stood on a rock…

 

I delivered my photos and read the story to Dorothy and her ten-year-old grandson. She watched his expressions while I read and noticed how interested he was. She also began to realize what a big project this was going to be. Her relatives were coming to visit soon and she would have to get things ready for them so she wouldn’t be able to start right away.

 

Dorothy called the next morning. “I’m going to start today!”

 

“Wow. That’s terrific. I thought you were too busy right now,” I said.

 

Evidently, providence was at work. When she was arranging the bedroom for her company two sketch pads fell out of the bookcase in front of her. Picking them up she realized that they were just the right sizes for the book illustrations and decided that my mom was trying to tell her something. Both of us got goose bumps.

 

For the next six months she sketched and painted. When she needed more photographs of ground squirrels one appeared outside her kitchen window and willingly obliged. She got her twin grandsons to pose for her so she could paint her pictures more accurately to scale. These photos are funny. How she managed to get ten-year-old boys to cooperate is testament to her being a good grandmother. They would ask her, “Which one am I, Kali or Gramaset?”

 

This whole process has been an interesting adventure. Now that I’m a grandma too, I hope that I can carry the legacy with honor. There are so many stories to tell with no shortage on fodder for the imagination. Our family has lived in this rural canyon for five generations and the Native Americans before that. If only the boulders and trees could talk.

 

 

Chi Varnado is a contributing writer for The San Diego Reader. Her children’s book, The Tale of Broken Tail, and her memoir, A CANYON TRILOGY: Life Before, During and After the Cedar Fire, are available on www.amazon.com. Chi directs The Dance Centre of Ramona. Her collection of essays, Quail Mutterings, can be found on www.chivarnado.com.   

QUAIL MUTTERINGS #13: Three Walks (January 21, 2012)

Posted on by

QUAIL MUTTERINGS #13.  Three Walks (January 21, 2012)

 

            We’re already three weeks into the new year! Can you believe it? 2011 seemed to have disappeared in record time leaving me feeling a little at a loss. Sure, we all tend to agree that each year appears to fly by quicker than the previous one, but it’s one thing to just talk about it and quite another to allow yourself to feel it. It can be a bit unsettling. The only remedy I know of, even if only temporary at best, is to go out for a walk. Not a power walk or a run, but more of a stroll. So that’s what I did. Three times this week. I sandwiched these jaunts between work, tax preparations and a variety of other time consuming, stress producing activities.

On Tuesday morning, after my morning exercises but before teaching the afternoon ballet classes, I wandered across the dry creek and the green sloping field across the dirt road and headed Northish. I stepped over an old, dead tree trunk that had fallen down the week before. I’d been throwing out hay for the horses and goats at the time and heard the crash of the branches breaking, but didn’t know exactly where it had come from.

When I got over to the upper field the green grass carpet sparkled. Each blade of grass was tipped with a dewdrop. Yes indeed, I thought, the fairies have been here. I remembered the lines from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, when I’d played the part of the fairy at Coronado Playhouse.

“…And I serve the Fairy Queen

To dew her orbs upon the green.

The cowslips tall her pensioners be.

In their gold coats spots you see;

Those be rubies, fairy favours;

In those freckles live their savours.

I must go seek some dewdrops here,

And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear…”

I lingered by the old Model-A truck frame, enchanted by the beautiful sea of diamonds, catching the early morning’s rays of sunlight before the wash of warmth coming over the ridge would alter their form. It felt magical for the moment.

On Wednesday morning I decided not to go for a run, but to take a walk instead. This time my dog, Job, and I headed back into the canyon. Brrr was it cold! Jack Frost had come to visit that night and turned the whole creekbed into a winter wonderland. Everything was coated white. The bushes, the grass, the sticks lying on the ground… All was frozen. It was a dazzling display of a winter’s kiss.

Further up the dirt road I passed another old Model-A. Icicles hung from the back bumper like stalactites. Far more perfect and appealing to my eyes than the strands of icicle lights hung everywhere during the Christmas season. They’re nice too, but really, there’s no competition.

Job followed his nose as we started up the mountain. He stays with me pretty well, but he likes a little freedom too. We walked through The Pretty Place, a small meadow with a creek running through it that sprouts thousands of delicate wildflowers in the spring. We’ve called it that since I was a kid. Just up from there I noticed the wild violets coming up. It’s only January and I don’t recall them so early before. The lilacs are even starting to bloom.

Once up top, at The Saddle, I was finally in the sun. It felt wonderful after being in the shade of the mountain all the way up. I looked across at the lovely blue-colored Cuyamacas in the distance and heard the water running, far below, in the Kimball Valley Creek. This water often comes fromLakeSoutherland on its way to San Vicente Lake.

I turned around to head back down the hill and paused to let the sun’s warmth sink into my back. This is nature’s therapy at work. I didn’t want to leave. After a few minutes, I nodded to my dog and we began our descent. With each step I noticed the muted crackle of the half-frozen twigs breaking beneath my feet. It was a familiar, somehow comforting sound of being in the moment, in the countryside, enjoying being alone on top of the mountain.

My third walk of the week was on Thursday with my oldest daughter, Jessie, who’s visiting fromChinawhere she teaches English at a university inLianyungang. It’s terrific that the Chinese New Year is almost two months long! At least her vacation is. She’s spending a couple days here with us, every so often, to get her dose of country air. She says the pollution there in the big cities is just awful. We walked briskly down the dirt road and then up a hill. This increased heart rates and forced us to breathe deeply and enjoy the views.

As I write this our son, Chance, is taking the Greyhound Bus back up to ChicoStateafter a long break between semesters. Soon, I’ll need to start picking out music and choreographing for the studio’s spring production of Rapunzel. Somehow the magic of this week’s walks: the ‘fairies’ dewdrops and Jack Frost’s visit, have helped inspire my readiness for the creative tasks that lay waiting for me in this new year. I now hope to ponder and wonder more, and watch, without trying to plan so much. It sounds worthwhile, anyway. Doesn’t it?

Quail Mutterings #11: New Phase of Life (September 24, 2011)

Posted on by

QUAIL MUTTERINGS # 11.  New Phase of Life – September 24, 2011

            About a month ago we got back home from taking our son, Chance, toChicoStateUniversityfor his freshman fall semester. Feeling tired and a bit empty, without him around, I was pleasantly surprised to see two vultures hunched together on the cross arm of the power pole up on the ridge. Alas, at least the raptors are still inhabiting the canyon with us. This bottom end ofMussey Grade Roadused to be known as Buzzard Gulch.

My husband and I have now joined countless others ahead of us in the “empty nest syndrome.” Having the youngest of three fly the coup, so to speak, launches us parents into the next phase of life. It feels like old age. Without serious effort one could easily believe that you are just careening toward your own demise. I had an inkling that it might be like this so I warned Kent how important I thought it was that we make a monumental effort to do far more often than usual “dates” with each other. These “dates” don’t have to be money spending adventures. For us, they could just as easily be picnics at the park, hikes up the mountain or even doing work around the place or making dinner together. Anything to make sure we stay connected with each other and not go solo down our own paths for too long at a time.

We take turns bolstering each other when we sense the other sliding. If we’re both slipping at the same time we find that attempting to detach from our own feelings long enough to joke around about it helps us over the hump. But sometimes, I end up just dwelling in it. Our social lives have picked up as a conscious effort to stay afloat and move through this phase. But there are also good things about it.

We still have a daughter and three-year-old grandson living on the property. They helpKentand me stay connected with the younger generations and hopefully keep us from getting old and stuck in our ways, too quickly. Trying to see through the eyes of a pre-schooler helps to keep things in perspective. The simplest things can often bring the most pleasure. Among them are spontaneous hugs, fascination with a lizard’s pushups on a rock, and a warm little body climbing up on my lap for a snuggle.

The morning after we got back fromChico, Kent and I were out running in the canyon. One of our young Red-tail Hawk friends swooped down and called out, seemingly to us. Life is good. It warmed my heart knowing that they were still around and doing well.

Last week I rode my horse out to a County preserve where I volunteer as a park ranger. It had been quite a while since I’d been out there and was happy to see that a fallen tree across the dirt road had been hauled away. Last time I had to dismount off of Molasses and bush-whack through dense brush to get around it. That was last spring and I found a few ticks on my clothes. This can be a down side to the job. On my way back there was a deer on the ridge picking its way through the rocks and chaparral. On this trek the only animal I saw besides the birds, rabbits and squirrels was a medium-sized garter snake beside the trail. I steered my horse around as it scurried through the grass.

On Monday, I joined a friend for an early morning hike out at the Ramona Grasslands. It’s beautiful there: open range land and cattle trails; huge, old oak trees and abundant wildlife. A coyote took note of us before loping over the hill. He looked healthy and in good shape. I always love hearing them in the canyon at night. Their songs are comforting to me.

Yesterday, on my morning run, the dog barked and headed up the hill. I called him back and watched three deer bound through the brush. I stopped to make sure Job stayed with me and enjoyed seeing our hoofed friends enjoying the foggy morning. About ten minutes laterKentsaid he saw a deer further down the dirt road. I think I had come across that same one last week. On my way back from a walk I’d seen him run up the hill and then stop. This young adolescent stared at me for several minutes while I talked to him saying how beautiful he was and telling him that he might want to spend more time further up the canyon where people wouldn’t bother him. When he’d had enough of me he turned and meandered up the mountain.

So, our life in the canyon goes on shared by numerous winged, hoofed and pawed neighbors. They didn’t seem to notice when the power went off a couple weeks ago. I, actually, kind of liked it. After gathering various candles I lit up the house and Kent and I enjoyed a quiet, flickering light dinner. We made do with not much fuss being careful not to open the refrigerator more than two or three times during the entire blackout, and only for brief moments. We didn’t want our food to spoil.

It might not be such a bad thing to do this once a week or so. What if families could regularly take a night and not turn on any electric thing? No light, television, computer, phone, game box… Wouldn’t that be a nice alternative? Just to be together and enjoy each other’s company? It sounds good to me.

Chi Varnado is a contributing writer for The San Diego Reader. Her memoir, A CANYON TRILOGY: Life Before, During and After the Cedar Fire, is available on www.amazon.com. The Tale of Broken Tail, her children’s book, should be coming out this spring and she is currently working on a novel set in her father’s Mississippi homeland. Chi directs The Dance Centre of Ramona. Her collection of essays, Quail Mutterings, will appear on Ramonapatch.com every month or so. Please visit www.thedancecentreoframona.com & www.chivarnado.com.