Life at the Wheeler Ranch

Many nights the girls sleep in a big cuddle pile in the living room. They have rooms of their own but prefer to be together, despite the wide age gap, usually falling to sleep with a Disney movie on the DVD. Last night it was "Beauty and the Beast". Alyssa is 18, Tia 9 and Dahlia 4, but they are the best of friends. Alyssa is wonderfully patient with the younger ones, a second mom. My sister Kristy is incredibly busy this time of the year planning The Battle of the Bands and The Ross Coleman Invitational, plus settling in to her new office in town, working 14-hour days, so often Alyssa will cook dinner for the younger ones and see that they get a bath and go to bed. She is firm but fair, even when they wail "I don't want to go to bed," which kids have been wailing since the dawn of time.

The Wheeler Ranch announces itself to the world with 15-foot high gateposts made from three sections of 12-inch steel pipe, welded and set into place by Mark and his brother around the time Tia was born. "Don't run into it," Mark teases, "We dug it deep." At the top of the crossbeam there is "W-h-e-e-l-e-r" in block letters cut from steel and welded along the top of the beam, and on each side of the name piece there is a cutout of a horse and cowboy with a mule on a tow rope. The gate itself is two steel fence sections tied to the posts with twine. They lean on each other and most of the green paint has worn away, just enough gate to keep the horses in the pasture.

It is not a ranch at all except in the bigness of the spirit that resides here, the strength of this happy family and the love for their animals and their place. Just five acres, it is home to 9 horses, 4 cats, 5 dogs, 6 chickens and an untold number of field mice. There was a 900-lb pig, once a piglet Alyssa wanted for Christmas when she was 12, but she was sold last summer. "When they get that big they don't make good meat; they're too tough." With typical generosity and old-soul wisdom Alyssa gave the money to her mother for household expenses.

Tia made me a reference chart of all the animals, their names, coloring, the family member who owns them, and whether they are a girl or boy. One of the dogs is a scruffy looking blue heeler who licks everyone who arrives, usually at the door of your car as you open the door, even before you can get out of your seat. It can be very disconcerting in the pitch darkness of a cloudy country night, to have a cold nose on your hand before you can get your night vision. The first couple of times I jumped back in alarm. He's a very gentle dog, dumb and eager to please. Tia says, "Cole is mine because I'm practically the only one that loves him." The girls feed the stock each night after their own dinner, and they are all expected to help. Even Dallie will toss sections of hay to the horses, wearing pink cowboy boots and a bucking bronco sweatshirt. Alyssa usually wears her green and yellow school color sweatshirt, from the Colton Vikings Equestrian Team, 3-time state champions. On the back it says, "We bust our butts to kick yours." I asked her about the slogan. "The kids in our district thought it was funny and they were cool with it," she said. "But some of the big city kids didn't like it at all." At the north end of the farm there's a muddy pond the home of The Fish, a fat koi who is showered nightly with chunks of bread. He is bright orange and easily a foot long, thick and prosperous as a circuit judge. He's the only one of the girl's menagerie that does not have a name. "We just call him The Fish," Tia said.


One night after badminton and macaroni and cheese the girls took me out to show me the fish and meet the horses. I gave Dallie a ride on the top of my shoulders, the way I used to with her big sister when she was small. I told her the story of one Mother's Day when Alyssa was 4 or 5. Kristy and Mom were having one of their occasional squabbles and hadn't spoken in a few weeks, a great heartbreak to Mom, particularly since she and Alyssa were soul mates. At the time Kristy had a apartment on Dollar street just a few blocks from Mom's place on Orchard avenue. I'd stopped by mom's to say hello, then got the idea to stop by Kristy's and ask her if it was all right if I took Alyssa over to see her grandma on Mother's Day. Kristy said yes, I think secretly relieved to have someone break the ice and end the quarrel. By then it had pretty much blown over and it was just stubbornness and awkwardness keeping them apart. Newton quarrels are often like that. We'll go off in a huff and stay apart more out of embarrassment at our bad behavior than anything else. This day for once I got to be the peacemaker, but throughout my life there were many more times I was the cause of the trouble.

I put Alyssa on my shoulders and we walked down to Sentry market to get ice cream bars and a bunch of mixed flowers, carnations and daisies and greenery. Alyssa and ate our ice cream and chatted, reached her mom's apartment and got in my cream-colored Mazda GLC for the surprise. I remember the look on my Mother's face, the mixture of gratitude and relief and joy and sorrow, a whole lifetime of it on her face, and the incredible comfort this little child was to her. My mother was born in Nazi Germany in 1939. Her father died on the Russian front when she three, and her youngest memories of childhood were hiding in the basement during the nightly saturation bombing runs over her hometown, Darmstadt. Years and years later she would wake up with nightmares. When I was in high school if I came home from a game or a movie, the sound of the door opening would wake her and she'd wake up screaming, "Momma, Momma!" She was back in that bomb shelter, haunted, damp and claustrophobic. On the evil side of any war are a lot of ordinary people who happen to born under the wrong flag. Her father was a waiter in a nice dinner house, earning a living for his three kids. An informant turned him in for an offhand remark he made while serving his guests at the restaurant, and he was handed a rifle and orders to the Siege of Leningrad. My mother's mother held out hope for years that he would come home. She never remarried, and subsisted on a meager pension from the government and old photographs. Her walls were lined with pictures of us, every one my mother had ever sent.

When I opened Alyssa's car door and she ran to her grandma that long history of sorrow was lifted in one remarkable moment. It was the best gift I ever gave my mother. I wish I could tell the story as nobly as she lived it.

I told a little of that story to Dahlia as we walked back from the fish, not the saddest part, just about giving her big sister a shoulder ride like this one and walking to the store for ice cream and flowers for her grandma. "My shoes are getting muddy out here," I said. Dahlia is nearly always smiling, the deep radiant smile of a child who knows she is beautiful and loved, who more nights than not goes to sleep in her father's or her mother's or her sister's arms. "Don't worry Uncle Dale, when you walk on the rocks they will dry the mud up." "That's a good observation" I said. "I know," she replied. Four years old. I am surrounded by waters, and the wisdom of three generations of women.

Tia's Chart


Animal name color owner girl or boy
horse Poncho light brown with black Dally boy
horse Patty dark brown Tia girl
horse Kasey reddish brown Alyssa girl
horse Flint black Mark boy
horse Freckles brown/white, with spots Dally girl
horse Switch brownish red Mark boy
horse Stretch Sorrel Therese boy
horse Santana sorrel Therese boy
horse Reno black/white Kristy girl

cat Tom Cat orange family boy
cat Spider calico family girl
cat Stuart white Alyssa boy
cat Jumper orange family boy

dog Polly brown/white family girl
dog Sadie gray Kristy girl
dog Lula brown Alyssa girl
dog Ausi black family girl
dog Cole gray Tia boy