How I Built a Website in the Covered Wagon Days (1997)

December 29, 20251 Comment

In 1997, I built my own website while living on a ranch, connected to the internet by a single dial-up phone line. I had no programming experience, didn’t know code, and barely knew how to use my PC! Windows was still fairly new, and I was migrating from DOS.

Old-timers will remember the terror: a black screen with nothing but a blinking cursor, a row of function keys you definitely weren’t supposed to press—and a few you were somehow expected to remember exactly what they did.

Getting online meant listening to that familiar screech of weird tones that went on forever and hoping no one picked up the phone in another room. If they did—connection lost, and yelling commenced.

I bought a book on how to make a website and learned HTML the only way available to me: pure stubbornness. There were no platforms or templates. I opened a plain text editor and typed everything by hand. Every paragraph, color, and line break had to be told exactly what to do. When something didn’t work, it simply didn’t show up. I had to figure out why all on my own!

Design was a workaround. Tables stood in for layout. Images were carefully resized so they wouldn’t take forever to load. That meant they had to be of very low resolution. Nothing was elegant, but when it worked, it felt like a small miracle.

And my site had movement (What??)

Flashing words. Simple animations. Photos of my ranch. Clickable flashing buttons.

By today’s standards, it was primitive. But in 1997, on a ranch with dial-up, it felt impressive. My friends couldn’t believe I had a website at all—let alone one that did things.

Publishing meant uploading files through FTP (File Transfer Protocal) software—photos and my HTML text file—dragging them from my computer into a place I barely understood. There was no undo. Every update replaced the last version completely. If I got it wrong, the site disappeared.

On a good day, it took over an hour to upload my website to the World Wide Web.

When I typed in the URL—some long, convoluted address with my name at the end—and the site appeared, I felt victorious. If it didn’t, I retraced every step, fixed what I could, and waited another hour or more for my site to upload again.

That internet was slow and unforgiving, but it was honest.
If something existed, it was because I made it exist from scratch.

There was no publish or undo button—just patience-lots of it.

For today’s bloggers and creators:
Before feeds and filters, we crossed the internet in covered wagons—
uphill, both ways, buffering the whole time.

A Bittersweet Farewell: Rehoming Our Beloved Donkey and Horse

June 13, 2024June 13, 2024Leave a comment

Whiskey, our beloved horse, was born on our ranch. She just celebrated her 22nd birthday this past week. I’ll never forget that day. As the time approached for the birth, I had kept her mom, “Ima,” in a cozy, straw-filled stall. One evening, I came home from work and thought I’d let Ima out of her stall to walk around the pasture and get some exercise. I walked back to the house and proceeded to fix dinner. Not fifteen minutes later, there was someone pounding on my front door! It was my neighbor telling me there was a paint baby standing in our pasture. Whiskey had arrived quickly in the early evening, which is unusual as horses typically prefer to give birth in the wee hours of the morning. She was stunning, with loud splashes of color.

Whiskey was meant to be my husband’s horse. He broke her himself, and together they had many adventures. As the other horses aged and went into retirement, I found myself no longer riding, and Whiskey wasn’t being ridden either. She was much too young to be retired and had many more years of adventures ahead. So, we made the hard decision to rehome her at age 18. She now has a fantastic home at a ranch where she and her new owner are winning prizes. It was the best decision we made for Whiskey. Eventually, over the next couple of years, all of our remaining horses, Ima, Oreo, and Buddy, were laid to rest in their 30s.

With all the horses gone, only Mija, the donkey, was left. We had adopted Mija from the Bureau of Land Managements Wild Burrow program back in 2001. She was totally wild but we got her tamed in just a few days. That’s how donkeys operate! She’s been a pasture pet ever since. When the last horse passed, she stood in the barn, staring at the house all day. She was so very lonely. Our neighbor across the road offered to take her, saying she could live her days with their horse and many goats. Mija is so happy now and acts as a protector of the goats. She won’t let any dogs into the pasture.

Both Whiskey and Mija are living their best lives with the best humans on the planet. I am forever grateful to Jackie Clemmers, Jeanne Walker, and Pam Lockrem for taking such good care of these two.

It was surreal to see all of my pastures and barn empty. No more daily feedings or filling up water buckets. It took me a few weeks to not automatically go out in the evening to feed and water. Now, my husband has to do all of the mowing.

Rehoming Whiskey and Mija was a difficult decision, but knowing they are happy and well-cared for makes it all worthwhile. The memories of our time with them are cherished, and I am comforted by the knowledge that they are living their forever best lives.

This post is part of my “Moving to New Mexico” Series. Go here to start from the beginning.

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Whiskey about 15 minutes old!

Whiskey and Jackie winning buckles!

Mija feeling sad with Alex from the loss of all her buddies.

Mija with one of her goats at her new home. She’s shedding out her thick winter coat.

Life on the ranch with the entire herd!

Packing Up 25 Years of Ranch Life -Moving to New Mexico

June 8, 2024June 8, 2024Leave a comment

And so it begins… the purging of a 25-year life on a 12-acre ranch. When we bought the place in 2000, we had two horses and a dream. That dream, like our herd, eventually grew—to four horses, one donkey, two sheep, five dogs, and a boatload of barn cats that kept mysteriously disappearing (cue Wile E. Coyote). We poured blood, sweat, and more money than we care to admit into home improvements, barns, fencing—only to find that they often needed repairing or replacing. It seemed to be a never-ending task, but every minute of country living was worth it. City life just wasn’t in our blood any longer, replaced instead by a mix of hay, dirt, rattlesnakes, and the occasional whiff of manure.

Fast forward 25 years, and with all the animals either having passed on or been re-homed (our beloved donkey and one horse are now living their best retirement lives on amazing ranches), it’s time to bid farewell to our rustic paradise and find a new adventure. We’ve decided that this new chapter will unfold in the northern part of New Mexico, likely between Albuquerque (took me a while to learn how to spell that) and Santa Fe. Our next home might have less fencing to mend and fewer barns to build, but it promises new memories.

As we pack up (and purge) our lives, we’ve discovered that humor is our best packing companion. Each item we box up brings a memory, a laugh, and many “Do I really need this” questions. The process is chaotic, but it’s also a reminder of all the joy, hard work, and love we’ve poured into a small slice of heaven in the windy grasslands. While we’re excited about our new adventure, we’ll carry a piece of this ranch—and all its quirks and joys—with us. Here’s to new beginnings. I hope to capture the process of all the stuff that has yet to be done to get this ranch on the market and all that entails! D-Day to market is December 1. We got this. (I think)