Why Los Banos???

When we lived in East Oakland and Bob, Dick and Bill were small, Dick came down with asthma! I can't remember how many trips that the Dr. made to the house. He told me that Dick had asthma and the best thing we could do for him outside of the medication he was giving him was to move to a warmer climate!!! It was usually damp and foggy in East Oakland. So, what to do? My sister Teresa, and her husband Hank wrote me a letter when they heard about it and invited the boys and me to come down to Torrance, Ca. where they lived to stay until Cappy could find work someplace around the Fresno area. He got word about this guy in Los Banos who was putting in a pipeline for water from a spring to take care of the cattle he had! So Cappy got the job! We were with Teresa and Hank a month! It was rough but Teresa was pregnant with her 4th child and I was told later that it really helped to have me there! But after Easter we moved to Los Banos into a housekeeping motel and since it was so small, Bob's Godparents were working for a big farmer in the area and he had housing on his place and he let us stay there until summer! Then we moved out to the ranch! There was a two bedroom house there and again-no electricity, and we didn't have much furniture. There were beds and a table and chairs in the kitchen of the place and an icebox and a wood stove. The boss gave us a milk cow, that I tried to milk, (had more flies than milk!!!) And he gave us a few chickens and there was a horse on the place. And even though we didn't own it there was a big Lassie-type dog! To say nothing of the lizards and snakes, besides the flies and a few other "animals"! Cappy's mother and father came to visit us for a few days and it was great to have Grandpa do the milking. We had a cream seperator in a small cellar. The kids had a ball playing outdoors and riding the horse and feeding the cow, etc. We even got a calf and were fattening it! One night when the in-laws were there we heard such a fuss in the chicken coop, and Cappy said, "there must be a skunk out there!" He grabbed his shotgun and the only one brave enough to open the door of the henhouse was Dick. Cappy gave me a flashlight and told me to hold it right on the door of the henhouse and he stood beside me and everytime he would get ready to tell Dick to pull open the door, I would flash the light on Dick or someplace else! The in-laws were outside too, taking care of the other two kids! All of a suddenn, Cappy yelled at Dick and I was able to shine the light into the henhouse! Cappy shot the skunk but not before it had perfumed all the chickens! Dick, as soon as he opened the door, got out of the way so it didn't get him!!! But Grandma Farnsworth said, (sound familiar?) "Quick we'll get all the feathers off those chickens and we'll cook them up tomorrow!" Gagging, but never the less that is what we did! The next morning, Grandma had put the chickens in a pot!! I don't think we ever got the smell out of the house! Naturally, we couldn't eat them, so Cappy dug a hole and buried the whole bunch of them the next day!!! We never did get any more chickens! We didn't stay very long on the ranch either because Cappy got sick and had to go to the hospital for a couple of days, so we decided after that long, long, summer to go someplace else and look for work and ended up in Fresno! There were several other "incidents" there at the ranch. I remember the wild cottontail bunnies that were such good eating and the wonderful cantaloupes from the nearest farmer, etc. I've had so many "fun" times it's hard to remember them all until I start writing and then another happening pops into my head! I need to be able to sit here all day long and write to get it all said! Bye now!!!