The two things that worried me the most about living in the wilderness were the fear of what we would do if an emergency happened to one of the children, or us, and the fear of a fire creeping toward us and there being no way to let us know about it until we saw the fire already coming our way.
We lived 4 1/2 miles up a winding, narrow dirt and adobe road, with deep ruts and holes that you'd have to steer around and streams you had to cross. It took a heavy-duty four-wheel drive vehicle to navigate the road at all. The road was not really a road anyway, but a truck trail used by the Department of Forestry to drive their fire crews and equipment up the mountain to put out fires. The Forestry would grade the road about once every three or four years and the rest of the time Bruce would try to repair the road himself with a spade, pick, and shovel and by building a heavy drag that he pulled behind the truck.
When the road was at its best, and there was no snow, it took 45 minutes to go the one way to, or from, the cabin to the Banner Store. So every day and every night we would say a prayer to keep us safe from accidents or sudden illness. We were blessed and had only two real emergencies while on the mountain.
At night we had no lights except for the three hours that we ran the generator for doing homework and getting things ready for the next day's projects.So once the lights were turned off at bedtime, there was only flashlights to guide your way. On this particular night we had all gone to bed and asleep when I heard a mother's worst nightmare, Jared was throwing up-violently-in his bedroom. I grabbed my flashlight and ran into his room. Everywhere the flashlight hit the room there was bright, red blood. On everything in his bed and on the floor and furniture in the tiny room (although, thankfully not on his precious comic books) there was blood. I had no way to gauge how much blood he had thrown up, but it frightened me deeply. I cleaned him up, gathered some trash bags and an old coffee can, and picked him up and rushed him to the truck. Bruce had meanwhile organized the other three children and we all got in the truck and down the road within a short few minutes. Every other mile he would have to stop and throw up and it was always filled with blood. I was panicking inside because the nearest hospital was in El Cajon, about 60 miles away.
The hardest part was getting off of the mountain with all the bumping and jarring which made Jared throw up more. We stopped many times along the road that night. Well, we got him to a hospital and they observed him and told us that the blood was from when he had first thrown up, it was done so hard that he burst a blood vessel in his esophagus and that was what we were seeing. After giving him medicine to calm his stomach and stop the vomiting they allowed us to take him home. He was o.k. after a couple of days, but cleaning up after him took a little more effort than usual.
Then there was the time that Bruce and I were alone at home and he was cleaning off his gun when he accidentally dropped the weapon and it went off. Bruce stood there with a look of wonder on his face and then looked down at his left leg which had started to bleed. The weapon had shot him in the left calf and he was bleeding profusely. I had him sit down and then put a pressure bandage around his leg-an old, thick, towel-and taped it all together. Then I supported him and helped him walk out to the truck. Climbing in was hard on him. I drove the truck off of the mountain and Bruce was in such pain and all of the roughness did not help him. At the Banner Store I called the Sheriff's in Julian and by the time I had driven up the Banner Grade they had an ambulance waiting for him. It took 1 hour, rushing, to get off the mountain and up the grade to the Sheriff's office. It took him about three months to heal from the wound, but I can't say that it changed the way he handled his guns, three weeks later he was standing talking to his son who was seated in a rocking chair. He was fiddling with his gun again and it went off in his hands and shot the chair just to the left of his son's right ear. 1/4 inch closer, and his son would have been killed.
But, Thank God, we had no worse incidents and survived the rough road between the house and the Banner Grade.
I may not be up to writing a blog tomorrow (Tuesday) because I am having trouble with flue symptoms, but either tomorrow or the next day, I shall begin to talk about how we came to move off of the mountain after 14 years.
We lived 4 1/2 miles up a winding, narrow dirt and adobe road, with deep ruts and holes that you'd have to steer around and streams you had to cross. It took a heavy-duty four-wheel drive vehicle to navigate the road at all. The road was not really a road anyway, but a truck trail used by the Department of Forestry to drive their fire crews and equipment up the mountain to put out fires. The Forestry would grade the road about once every three or four years and the rest of the time Bruce would try to repair the road himself with a spade, pick, and shovel and by building a heavy drag that he pulled behind the truck.
When the road was at its best, and there was no snow, it took 45 minutes to go the one way to, or from, the cabin to the Banner Store. So every day and every night we would say a prayer to keep us safe from accidents or sudden illness. We were blessed and had only two real emergencies while on the mountain.
At night we had no lights except for the three hours that we ran the generator for doing homework and getting things ready for the next day's projects.So once the lights were turned off at bedtime, there was only flashlights to guide your way. On this particular night we had all gone to bed and asleep when I heard a mother's worst nightmare, Jared was throwing up-violently-in his bedroom. I grabbed my flashlight and ran into his room. Everywhere the flashlight hit the room there was bright, red blood. On everything in his bed and on the floor and furniture in the tiny room (although, thankfully not on his precious comic books) there was blood. I had no way to gauge how much blood he had thrown up, but it frightened me deeply. I cleaned him up, gathered some trash bags and an old coffee can, and picked him up and rushed him to the truck. Bruce had meanwhile organized the other three children and we all got in the truck and down the road within a short few minutes. Every other mile he would have to stop and throw up and it was always filled with blood. I was panicking inside because the nearest hospital was in El Cajon, about 60 miles away.
The hardest part was getting off of the mountain with all the bumping and jarring which made Jared throw up more. We stopped many times along the road that night. Well, we got him to a hospital and they observed him and told us that the blood was from when he had first thrown up, it was done so hard that he burst a blood vessel in his esophagus and that was what we were seeing. After giving him medicine to calm his stomach and stop the vomiting they allowed us to take him home. He was o.k. after a couple of days, but cleaning up after him took a little more effort than usual.
Then there was the time that Bruce and I were alone at home and he was cleaning off his gun when he accidentally dropped the weapon and it went off. Bruce stood there with a look of wonder on his face and then looked down at his left leg which had started to bleed. The weapon had shot him in the left calf and he was bleeding profusely. I had him sit down and then put a pressure bandage around his leg-an old, thick, towel-and taped it all together. Then I supported him and helped him walk out to the truck. Climbing in was hard on him. I drove the truck off of the mountain and Bruce was in such pain and all of the roughness did not help him. At the Banner Store I called the Sheriff's in Julian and by the time I had driven up the Banner Grade they had an ambulance waiting for him. It took 1 hour, rushing, to get off the mountain and up the grade to the Sheriff's office. It took him about three months to heal from the wound, but I can't say that it changed the way he handled his guns, three weeks later he was standing talking to his son who was seated in a rocking chair. He was fiddling with his gun again and it went off in his hands and shot the chair just to the left of his son's right ear. 1/4 inch closer, and his son would have been killed.
But, Thank God, we had no worse incidents and survived the rough road between the house and the Banner Grade.
I may not be up to writing a blog tomorrow (Tuesday) because I am having trouble with flue symptoms, but either tomorrow or the next day, I shall begin to talk about how we came to move off of the mountain after 14 years.
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