Crickets.  Do you hear them?  That’s because I’m not at The Ranch.  I headed back to my hometown of Chickasha, Oklahoma for a 30 year class reunion.  A lot of times people head back to their childhood homes and think everything seems small.  That was not the case for me this week.

You remember playing in the sprinker, don’t you?  The 100 degree temperatures were trying to dry out the grass on the sod farm.  I guess it just wasn’t going to happen today.  I had to drive out to the motor and get a closer look at this.  I think the neighborhood kids could be quite happy after lunch once this got turned on.

Wind mills were never a rare sight in Oklahoma, but since I’ve been away, several wind turbines have moved into my home state along Highway 81.  The famous Oklahoma wind is going to be harnessed by these incredibly large “windmills” and turned into usable energy.  These turbines are growing in popularity and come in a variety of sizes.  The blades alone are about 116 feet long and are placed on top of a 212 foot tower.  The three blades cover about an acre of air space as they turn.  These two wind turbines in the photo to the left make the trees in the same photo look like shrubs.

Also in Minco located at the southwest corner of the stop light sits the Coffee Cup cafe.  That location has been some kind of restaurant since I can remember.  I stopped in to have a cup of coffee and a little breakfast one morning after checking out the wind farm.  I ordered just one pancake and some bacon.  When I spun around on the stool to face my plate, I was amazed! The pancake just barely fit on the plate, and I didn’t know how to start.  I had to cut it into sections and pile it on top of itself.  I was only able to eat about fifty cents worth, but I can assure you it was delicious.  You should have seen my husband’s omelette!

Back in Chickasha, my friends were waiting on a delivery.  Friends from Chickasha Industrial had been busy building a couple of fire pits for us to use at our party on Friday night.  Again, I was shocked to find out that the fire pit had been built from a discarded end of a propane tank.  Oh, there was much more to it than that, but I’m not going to be able to explain it.  Just know that it took several large logs to fill it up, and that if I had needed a really good hiding place, I could have crawled inside it with at least one of my closest friends.

Speaking of closest friends, if I HAD to crawl into a fire pit with someone, I would hope it would be Judy (pictured with the horse) and that there would not be burning logs in it at the time.  Judy is a horse woman from way back and was one of several travelers who went with me to visit Cordero Farms.  We were interested in seeing sheep (which we did) but got sidetracked by this beautiful creature.  I mean, golly, look at that horse!  It looks like the full-scale model the Greeks used for the infamous Trojan Horse to me.

There was big fun going on in my small town this weekend.  The Chickasha High School class of 1981 found out that our state is growing in many small ways.  I for one was happy to find what I expected to remain unchanged: big smiles and big hearts.

[julie]

Comments

comments