Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

We are Jemima and Easter Yeggs.  Lieutenant Yeggs wants his son to write these reports to keep in touch when we are out having our adventures, and Rev C.S.L., my Dad, doesn’t mind an update either.

To the Dads, we have mostly been waiting for storms to brew.  Brenton has been teaching us how to play golf.  We’ve done some canoeing, inner tubing, and sunbathing.  Do you know the old Alan Sherman song, Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh.  This is the reverse. This is what happens when you go on a storm chase and the storm did not show up.  But it has barely been a week since we got here. But let’s get to the “report.”

We had so many people that we took the Pink 6 and the Pink van and the Turtle.  We had the four Caseys and Arabella.  We had the three Jones and the three of us.  Dr. Kildare had Mags, Mercy, and Mike and the two Dykstras.  Then there was the B Team: Fred, Wilma, and Mitzi.  And then there were the new kids: Carla, Brenton, Brooke, and Goober.  And because Mitzi wanted her arm candy, Dr. Kildare broke his rule and let Baldy come along.  Actually, that worked out.  Mitzi would have been very Fitzi, and we discovered some plumbing issues at the farm that Baldy fixed.  In all, we had twenty-five people on this storm chase and team building trip.

Before we started, we let Michael walk around the farm.  He liked the idea that the house was on stilts.  It was the same house but lifted into the air and then rearranged for maximum bedroom space.  When they found out how little the space was, that is when the lodge was designed.  Michael said that if the house was on the ground, it would bring back memories.  As it was, there were small things that looked familiar, but different.  The barn was gone, a new one in its place.  There were ponds that were not there before.  He liked what they did to the place.

Then we went to the burial site of his parents and had a memorial service.  Reverend Joseph was prepared.

Okay, we had twenty-two storm chasers and three little ones: Stormie, Joan, and Ethan.  Since we would have an experienced driver in the Pink 6, instructed to stay well back from the storm, we could handle thirteen chasers.  That left nine teenagers and adults back at the farm to babysit the little ones.  Which meant half of the nine would be out in a canoe, innertube, or kayak.

We had two hostesses: Sierra and Dakota.  They had both been working in the cider house before the emancipation.  They were not looking for romance, but they thought a change of scenery might change their minds.  They had both grown up on farms or ranches.  If we bought some horses for trail riding, they could handle that.  They had done some canoeing and inner tubing, but they had no idea which end of the golf club to use, and they had to learn how to kayak from Tommie Tat and her husband, Doug Kutz, before they left, but they suggested that the foam kayaks that you kneel on would be best.  Neither of them was ready to be an instructor for a standard kayak.  But if you knew what you were doing, they had some.

The zip lines are not ready yet.  They are up, but they have not been tested.  Testing starts next week.  A couple of local inspectors and a couple of zip line experts will be joined by Blaise and Kevin.  Margie, Joseline, and Misty will come along.  Our baby room can handle Misty.  I think Jos and Kevin are doubling up with Carla and Brenton.  Margie and Blaise are bringing sleeping bags.  The unmarried girls are staying in the living room.  The boys are in the attic.  Sleeping for any reasonable size crowd is tight.  They postponed the opening until next year.  They should have the lodge built and the barn finished.  That lets Françoise Franks have a window of this upcoming winter to come to the farm after a few rooms in the lodge are complete.  That way Sierra and Dakota can figure out what they will have to do each day and whether they will need part-time help.  And some of the help can come from the drivers that bring the guests down.  Aunt Pink thought she might have buses dedicated to make this trip.  It was all up in the air.  Sometimes, Aunt Pink’s heart goes for an idea and then others must work out the details.  So far, it has worked out.

As for golf, they only have three holes that are nominally playable.  We joked for eighteen holes, we could play the three holes six times, but Brenton did not think the course was ready for that kind of traffic, especially with duffers, but he was going to teach classes on the putting green and the driving range.  According to Brenton, to have a golf course well-seasoned, you need 2-3 years between the seeding and sodding until golfers can chew it up with their play.  The root system of the grass needs to get deep enough to repair the grass when damaged by being under foot and club striking.  You might just make a huge divot because the root system is not deep enough.  Of course, irrigation is also necessary.

Sierra told everyone that the construction area was off limits to the guests.  If they wanted to hike in the woods, either of them would like to be the guide.  They are slowly building trails with wood chips.  But they are doing so when they have the wood chips available, usually when they cut down diseased trees or when the golf course designers cut down trees.  But it is more a matter of avoiding wild critters.  They have spotted rattlesnakes on the trails, but they are rare: Western Prairie, Western Diamondback, and Massasauga rattlesnakes.  They are just as scared of us as we are of them, but Sierra and Dakota know how to deal with them.  There are fish in the ponds, and they are safe.  They might give you a little kiss on the bottom when you ride the inner tubes.

Aunt Pink, you wanted a report on Sierra and Dakota.  They wanted to go somewhere that did not know they were former prostitutes.  If a guy gave them the eye, they might start dating again, but neither of them is a spring chicken, as they admitted, both in their early thirties.

Then Sierra laughed, “And once the folks in the churches found out we were not lesbian lovers…”

I laughed, “Oh, no!  How did that get started?”

Dakota huffed, “Two thirty-something women living together on a farm that did not grow anything.  As soon as we entered a church, the gossip ladies started buzzing.  The third church that we tried out was no different until we got up to leave, and Virgil stopped us.”

Dakota smiled, “Virgil said that he did not think we were the LGBTQ type.  Sierra squeaked with shock, and I laughed.  Finally, the cold shoulder routine at the other churches made sense.  We said we were employees with Lily the Pink Enterprises in the big city of Tracy.  We wanted to get back to our farming and ranching roots.  And someone had to tend to the Rowe-Casey farm until it was ready for visitors from Tracy.  He asked what was going on.  He had a drone, and he’d flown it over the property.  The owners drowned in the flood, and they had goats and a vineyard.  The goats were gone and much of the vineyard was turned into a golf course, or what looked like one.  Then, there was a nice-sized pond.  Otherwise, he could not see any reason to visit the farm.”

Sierra took over, “I explained that our CEO was a philanthropist and she was bankrolling a dude ranch of sorts.  It would be for employees and homeless people who might not ever have a chance to go canoeing or kayaking.  We explained that we were novices at kayaking, but we hoped we could get some horses.  That was something we knew a lot about.  We invited him out to the farm, just for a look around.  He joked that if we weren’t interested in each other, were we interested in dating any of the eligible bachelors?  I asked, ‘Like you?’  He blushed and nodded.  He brought another guy from the church men’s group with him to the walk around.  We hiked around the entire golf course.  We showed them the zip lines, but at the time, all we had were the starting points, but that gives you an idea of what you see.”

Dakota asked, “And Sierra, when are you going to get around to telling Stinker what happened after we gave them their tour?”

Sierra groaned, “Okay, okay!  Virgil asked me out on a date.  And we date a couple of times each month.  He’s divorced.  He became a Christian and quit his lucrative sales job to be a farmer.  His wife had not agreed to that lifestyle or Christianity, so she left him.  The other guy dated Dakota, but he was a recent widow, too soon, still grieving.”

Dakota smiled, “His name is Jeff.  He is a manager at the town’s feed and seed.  He gives us a discount, and he and I sit next to each other at church.  And now that the old ladies know that Sierra and I are not lovers, they aren’t standoffish at church.  And we are both in a women’s Bible study.  It’s almost like being in Tracy.  And all the neighbors are friendly.”

Then I asked, “Where are you two sleeping?  You walked off behind the lodge, but I know that you are not staying at the lodge.”

Sierra laughed, “Virgil knows a guy who knows a guy.  He had an RV that was not very road worthy, but if we could tow it to the farm, the living space was in great shape.  So, the contractor helped us with the transportation.  And we have an electrical hook-up that the contractor made for us.  We stay there all the time, two different rooms for sleeping, sort of.  Dakota got the bedroom and the main section has a bunk for me.”

Stormie ran up and said, “Mommy, Joan wants to go outside.”

I asked, “Does she really?  Or are you wanting to go and you want her to go too?”

Joan walked up carefully, “There!”  And she pointed to the big pond next to the house.

I asked, “There?  But you two can’t swim.  Even if we go in a canoe, you could fall out.”

Dakota laughed, “We have life preservers for the little ones.  They will be okay.  I’ll go with you.”

Sierra said, “It’s almost feeding time.  Take some food with you.”

Dakota smiled, “The children might like that.”

I let B.B. know we were going out on the pond.  She was reviewing footage from the “storm” chase the previous day.  The potential for a storm never materialized, but getting Goober into the Turtle was funny.  Blaise and Easy have motorized the seats.  That way, if I say ‘Stinker,’ my front passenger seat adjusts to me.  That seat also knows Mitzi and Amazon.  But Goober was so large, he could not get into the Turtle at all.  Home Wrecker (Dr. Ellie) suggested that Goober say ‘Amazon.’  The dashboard voice replied, ‘You are not Amazon.’  After Easy stopped laughing, he gave the command for voice print override.  With the Amazon setting, Goober could get in, but then he had to adjust the seat as low and as far back as possible.  Now they have a Goober setting that works.  They had tried having Goober sit in the back, but he would have only fit in the two command chairs.  Since this was Goober’s first voyage, he was not ready to be in charge.  It wouldn’t have mattered since the early morning moisture burned off without developing into anything.  They did some cloud recognition work.  And Goober was adequate as a photographer.  I would have to give him a lesson about framing the shot.

But Dr. Kildare and Mags were on what is now the back porch of the house, enjoying a light breeze.  Baldy had talked to some construction workers at the lodge site, and he got a tour of the site.  He was interested in how the plumbing was installed, with some early in construction and the actual fixtures being some of the last things to go in.  Brenton and Carla were playing the three golf hole circuit.  And that left Maddie and Mike.  They were reading the book of Ezekiel and taking notes.

So, the canoe ride was going to just be Dakota, me, and the kids.  We all got our gear on.  The two girls looked cute in their infant life jackets.  Dakota got us out into the middle of the pond.  I would say that I was rowing, too, but she had a well-practiced powerful stroke.

Then Dakota stopped, “Stormie, Joan, do you want to see something neat?  I am going to scoop some fish food and throw it on the water.  Look where I throw it and keep looking.”  She threw the fish food.  “Keep looking.  Keep looking.  Now!”  The water seemed to be boiling.  All the fish were going after the food.  “Do you girls want to try?”  About all they could do was to drop a handful over the side of the canoe.

Then Stormie jumped.  “Mommy, did you see that!  A fish came up, and he looked like Uncle Angus!”

I snickered, “That’s a terrible thing to say, Stormie.  Angus MacDougall does not look like he has a fish face.”

Dakota was laughing, “Did the fish have whiskers?”  Then Dakota made a moustache with her fingers.

Stormie nodded, “Yeah, yeah!”

Dakota smiled, “That’s because they are catfish.  Sierra’s boyfriend has half of his farm in catfish and the other half in winter wheat, but then, he has some cattle, not a lot.  Catfish in the bottom land, wheat where there is some slope, and then cattle on the hills.  You have to be smart to utilize as much of the acreage as possible.”

Dakota threw more feed out so that the girls could watch the fish cause the water to boil, or it seemed that way.

We paddled back to the shore.  We had a nice lunch and the girls both went to bed for a nap.  I was thinking they would be wired from the excitement.

When the puffy cloud chasers came back that day, Dr. Kildare said that the seven-day forecast was more promising for storms, but no one wants a storm hitting them. So, saying that the conditions were improving to get storms means possible bad news for some people.  The new chasers might be getting excited, but folks like Easy and me, we just strap on the helmet and go to work.

Then Stormie told Dr. Ellie what we did in the canoe.  Home Wrecker gave me a dirty look, but then Stormie showed her their special life jackets with their name on it, on a piece of masking tape, but that didn’t matter to the little girls.  And when Stormie tried to explain what it was like feeding the catfish, she made bubble sounds, or what to her were bubble sounds.  Then she waved her hands in the air and she spun around.  Joan tried to mimic her and nearly fell.  They were both laughing.

Dr. Ellie leaned in close and said, “Tomorrow, you go out in the Turtle, and I stay home and babysit.  Hmmm. What kind of trouble can I get those two into?”

I shrugged, “Honest, they said ‘out’ and Dakota jumped into action.  And the reason why their names are on the life jackets, it took a while getting it adjusted just for them.  It fits like a glove, a little pillow behind their head, and Dakota was with us.  She is pretty good with children.  Too bad her boyfriend is not ready for a serious relationship.”

Dr. Ellie smiled, “When I first met you and Easy, I was hoping to either corrupt you or get rid of you and it ended up the other way around.  This Jeff guy may turn into the hopeless romantic overnight.  Give it time, Stinker.  We are here roughly two full weeks.  Let’s let nature take its course.”

I smiled, “Okay, Dr. Ellie, I will stay out of it.  How is the storm chasing going?”

Dr. Ellie groaned, “We got some rain this afternoon with the popcorn clouds south of here.  I do not wish damage to people or property, but I hope Dr. Kildare is right about next week.  We need to have something other than cloud formations.  Goober starts football practice right after we get back.  That’s why we set this up the way we did.  So far, Matthew and Mercy can report on the previous storm chase.  They took a lot of notes.  I think temperament wise, Carla and Brooke could be solid C Team material.  Mercy wants to please her stepdad, but I doubt if she will stick with us for long.  And I think Matthew will go along with her desires.  I don’t see matrimony any time soon, but people can surprise you.”

I reminded her, “You need to put Carla in with Goober, she might be too far along with her pregnancy in another month.”

Dr. Ellie gasped, “I forgot about that.  She is not showing much.  So, my visual calculator does not have her that far along.  Thank you for the reminder, Stinker.”

I laughed, “Sure thing, Home Wrecker, and isn’t it time to give yourself a new codename?”

Home Wrecker smiled, “No, I want to remind myself of my past.  I say a prayer of thanks to God each time someone calls me that.”

Dr. Kildare came by.  “Hey, glad to catch the two of you.  We have dry stable air here, but if we get up early, we can take a day trip to Capulin Mountain in New Mexico.  I am expecting some lightning activity in the mountains to the west.  We couldn’t chase that kind of storm, but I think you could get some time lapse series in the afternoon.  If the clouds develop in the right direction, they might block the glare of the sun.  Stinker, you know more about that than anyone else.  We can have a nice picnic, and a hike into the crater, and a longer hike around the rim.  We can take blankets and darken the windows of the van so that the little ones can take a nap.”

I asked, “How long are these hikes?”

Dr. Kildare said, “Into the crater is less than a half mile round trip, but half of that is up hill, paved.  The rim hike is about a mile.  It is paved too.  They have a lava flow hike for the adventurous near the base.  And there is an easy nature hike next to the visitor’s center.  We’ll have people taking weather data at the crater, people taking weather pictures and time lapse, and people hiking.  We can rotate so that everyone has fun and stays busy for at least one day.  We can come home after dark.  We can write it off as a creative way to wait for the high pressure to clear out and the storms to start percolating.  And it will be part of our team building.”

Dr. Ellie shrugged, “I guess I have my day off when we get back?”

Dr. Kildare laughed, “Yeah, you need to play with the little girls.  But I must get a half-day trip in somewhere to get Mary out into the field.  A little work with the breast pump and someone else can take care of Ethan for a few hours.  She can get rather bossy, and we need our new recruits to get used to her.”

I shrugged, “She is my best friend, but yeah, she can get bossy, that’s one of the two B’s in B.B.  But you have to admit.  It is a lot of fun, once you get used to the bossing around.”

B.B. said, “I heard that!”

The next day went as planned and I got a great time-lapse of monsoon lightning and maybe mountain top energetic pulses.  There was definitely rain, so no dry lightning.  No one wanted to try the lava flow hike.  Especially the athletes, a turned ankle could ruin their season.  But everybody took the rim hike, crater hike, and the nature trail.

We may have more to report in a week, but I have to go.  Dakota has been roasting a wild boar over a pit fire all day.  She had told the construction crew who brought it back from central Oklahoma that she’d cook it and they could have a little bit of it.  The rest is for us!

Credits

I wrote a hurricane watch and data collection story in 2025, but there were no hurricane landfalls in the USA last year.  That’s what you get when you write fiction in anticipation of a normal year.  There was one tropical storm, Chantal, in July that made landfall.  Due to the predicted strong El Niño this summer, the prediction for hurricane development is for a below average year this year.  But as the weatherman says, “If you are in the one storm, it was a bad year for you.”  They just had tropical storm Arthur in Texas, and as of three weeks ago, there was too much dry air and wind sheer to promote tropical storms in the Atlantic for the next two weeks (up to a week ago), so when this comes out, if it is stormy in the Atlantic, it was recent in development.

Here is Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh by Alan Sherman.

I wrote a true story early in my writings on this blogsite.  Meeting an Ostrich, my eleventh post ever, before I established my present style.  We were stranded far from our home in the Tri-Cities of Washington state.  All our church friends were out of the house, before the days of cellphones in everyone’s pockets.  A stranger who had become a Christian at a Promise Keepers Rally left his life as a salesman.  He started an ostrich farm.  He heard us calling church friends on a pay phone.  The only problem was that he was going the other direction to take a young male ostrich to Idaho for stud.  He took us in the wrong direction, back to Spokane, WA, but he dropped us off at a hotel with shuttle service to the airport, where we could rent a car that could take us home.  His wife had divorced him.  She liked the unbeliever who had a six-digit salary, twice what I was making at the time, and I think he was making more than the low six digits.  Thus, Virgil is my tribute to him, a human angel that helped a family of four make it home that night.

And I have had pulled pork (from a wild boar).  It was delicious.  And it disappeared quickly, but then, my wife’s family is pretty big.