This introspection is for me to hopefully finally get this stuff out of MY brain.  I've  spent 10 months  trying to come to terms with the last 4 years of mental abuse and PTSDC which ultimately culminated with Ken's death in April.  His death certificate lists: Severe post-ictal Encephalopathy status Epilepticus  and several other direct causes of death.

I've done my best the last 3 years to ignore June 10.

  Actually we both did.  We both pretended it just didn't happen. Our calendar went from June 1 to July 2.  We did acknowledge July 4th. Living in NM was horrid during Covid and for 2.5+ YEARS after!!!  In retrospect everything from Jan 31 of 2020 our life slowly disintegrated into discontent and strife. Ken fell in 2013 getting a concussion that took 8+ months to heal from. Dr Santiago said he just couldn't fall again and I didn't say Doc what COULD happen?  4 words that maybe would have made a difference but...probably not. That was in 2013 and the falling just kept happening (2014, 2015, 2020)….I have pictures of black eyes and marks on his forehead...….the frontal lob where the personality is...…and he slowly changed from a compassionate, loving, caring man into a Narcissistic Asshole to put it bluntly.  His brain was changing and neither of us knew what was happening. Our loved ones tried to help but that just made him more enraged and angry.  By August of 2023 he hated everyone...….even me, the gas pump at Sam's Club and last even Son-in-law Kevin. 

But what about the lost 10 years?

Why did I stop blogging?  At the time I just couldn't bring myself to blog as I had nothing to say, nothing to say at all.  Looking back I remember that last post in 2014 thinking I'm done explaining myself, Ken, anything & everything.  I was just done. 

 

And in the fall of 2014 Ken started getting ill and his pain really got out of control.  He ended up in the hospital in Las Cruces during Thanksgiving.  Again, we went the round of specialists and ultimately in 2015 they found he had prostate cancer.  We moved to Anthony N. M and we drove into El Paso every day for 44 days. This ended on June 1, 2015 causing us to miss Granddaughter Kim's marriage to Phil.  

Ken asked Whit if the boys could come to visit and she & Trav said yes.  We met in Colorado Springs and brought them to NM for 21 days.  KaCe age 10, Ethan age 8 and Aedan age 4.  It was a success and began the "go to NM in the summer" vacation which ended in 2021.  That's it for now! 

Throw Back Thursday - Thinning, Piling & Crushing the Colpitts Way

Found some ancient pictures of our life in Oregon before Wyoming.  We contracted for the Forest Service doing fire suppression piling, thinning and crushing on the Wallowa-Whitman, Malheur & Umatilla National Forests.  We married in June 1972 and we purchased our first cat - a D6-9U in December of that year and began contracting the spring of 1973.   We contracted brush piling on  timber sales, crushed thinning slash, thinning, and finally simply running over old slash pulling a "sheep's foot" behind us.  We added another cat and until we hired another hand we had His and Her Cats.  We moved camp often as we had to provide fire watch "10 pm or 3 hours after the equipment is shut down, whichever is later".  So moving camp to the equipment on the units let us be at home while complying with our contracts.

This picture is our green pkup, Mom and Dad's Green/White trailer, Dad Brown pkup and the first cat. Okay so this must have been in 1974ish Ken's as head is shaved and he did that in the winter of 1972.  :)

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Dad would come out whenever he could and helped do whatever needed done.  We obviously were taking a break from piling here.

Cousin Wes worked for us a couple of summers when we had a few thinning/bucking contracts........
He bought a Stihl 045 in about 1973/4ish for around $250-300.  He sold that saw a few weeks ago for $300 and the guy was happy to pay it.  Wes is still doing thinning - when HE wants to and around his place at Elk Hollar.

I was the mechanics' helper and gofer.  Here I'm help him get ready to weld the sheet of iron onto the cframe on the Cat.

And here it is all done and working.






















Pappy (Ken's Dad)  began using a front end crushed first.  Here is his first one all painted and ready to rumble.  We started with one of them later, but eventually bought a sheep's foot and pulled it behind.

We made a shop trailer with the old white/green trailer and got a park model.












We bought a place out at Old Harney Road.  Moving camp took awhile  We had a camper, a 750  gallon fuel trailer, a shop truck, an old lowboy, 2 cats and a Toyota Crew Cab. The wind blew on top of the hill and it was obvious we needed a shed to work on the equipment during the winter.

The "spare" trailer house was getting ready to leave as they began building the shed.



















The final product.  We sold the business in November 1980 and moved to Gillette Wyoming Dec 26, 1980.  Good memories, but glad we aren't still doing it.

So much for throw-back Thursday.