“Those sons-of-guns. They are at it, again, Michelle.”
Standing in his bib overalls and rubber boots in the mudroom, I can still hear my late father say those exact words to my late mother.
My father had a love–hate relationship with rockchucks. For those of you not from Central Oregon, rockchucks are yellow-bellied marmots and the largest of the squirrel family. Starting in September, they hibernate for about eight months of the year. Then in April, they came out to eat grass, plants and flowers.
While my father didn’t hate many things, he really did despite those darn rockchucks. One of his hobbies was shooting them. Or to describe it more accurately, he was shooting at them. His aim wasn’t all that great.
I hadn’t thought of rockchucks in a very long time - until I received a family group text over the weekend that shared a photo of my childhood farm under water.
And, if you know anything about central Oregon, it lacks moisture. They receive 12 inches of precipitation annually. It’s a high desert.
Those large rodents are the culprit for a breach in the canal that runs along my parent’s old dairy farm in Bend, Ore. Last week, a 30-foot section of the canal wall collapsed, after the rockchucks allegedly weakened the canal wall by tunneling into it.
My sister, Cathy replied in the group text, “Well, I guess that’s one way to irrigate dad’s pastures.”
My four sisters and I all had a good chuckle and then truthfully, I had a little cry. After all, it’s only been six years since my father passed away from Lewy Body Dementia.
My father’s upbringing was much different than mine. He grew up poor and in a broken home, but thankfully at a young age, he was taken in by his loving grandparents that instilled in him so many rich qualities and introduced him to dairy cows. His life really took off from there.
He served in the U.S. Marine Corps and graduated with an agricultural economics degree from Oregon State University. He was proud to be a Marine and proud to be the first in his family to graduate from college.
He says he ‘lucked out’ when he married my late mother, an Admiral’s daughter. Although they had very different upbringings, they both had the same deep values and together they owned and operated Pleasant Ridge Dairy for nearly four decades. My parents had six children who learned some of life’s best lessons being raised on the family dairy farm.
So, to see my childhood farm that my late father worked so hard for, be under water made me tear up. This farm wasn’t the same farm I remembered.
But then I chuckled at the conversation that must be going on in Heaven. I can still hear Dad cussing those ‘sons-of-guns’ to my mother, knowing his neighbors are in desperate need of that water to irrigate their pastures and fields. My guess is he has that ol’ 22 riffle loaded up and working on his aim.
While dad didn’t have a good aim, I could write a novel about the things he excelled at. Including being the best life coach. My father gave me the best gift any father could give a child. He wholeheartedly believed in me.
It’s funny what memories or news stories pull at the memory strings. My father has been gone six years now. While I don’t miss rockchucks, I certainly do miss him.
