Living on a ranch is a lot of fun. My landlords let me help them with cutting and hauling in wood for the winter. What a blast! I remember one day, we worked nine hours with a 30-minute lunch break. My landlords are in their late 70’s and can work circles around me, but I was able to keep up with them that day, and we loaded five truck-loads of wood into their barn ready for the winter.
The nights are quiet except for the frogs and coyotes, and the sunsets and sunrises are stunning.
The most fun though is watching the large truck-loads of cattle being brought in to graze in the fields during the summer. Large semi-trucks are brought in, full of cattle, and then they are unloaded right outside my house. My, what bellowing! I loved watching the cowboys on their horses trying to settle the cows as they were unloaded. I am a cowgirl at heart, so it was pure pleasure to experience this adventure. I have fully enjoyed my stay here on the ranch and am presently still in residence there.
One day, in January of 2007, I was working with my secretary, and I mentioned to her that I had been adopted and wondered if she could find my family on the internet. I told her that I knew I had a brother, I knew my mother’s name, Lorine Trinaman, and that my mother had a twin sister. She turned to the computer and two minutes later, she had my brother’s phone number. Tom Trinaman was his name.
I called him up and said that I was looking for a woman by the name of Lorine Trinaman. Did he happen know who that woman was. He said yes, that it was his mother. By his use of past tense I then knew that she was deceased. I asked if her husband had died in the war, and he said yes. I asked if she had a twin sister, and he also said yes. I then asked if he was 63 (I found out many years earlier that my brother was 3 years older when I was given up for adoption). There was a long pause. He finally said yes, and I then broke the news to him that I was his sister.
Turns out that he knew about me. Then he broke the news to me that my father had made my mother give me up for adoption but had stayed with Mom and had had two more children. I didn’t know that I had a full brother and sister, and they didn’t know about me. He told me that I would have to give him several months to break the news to them about me. I told him that in April I would be driving back to Kentucky and wanted to meet everyone. He said that would be fine.
In April, we all met at the Cracker Barrel in Louisville, Kentucky, and as soon as they saw me, they said to, “That’s Daddy’s girl.” I look just like my biological father.
What a delight to find all my relatives at the age of 60! They all embraced me and have welcomed me into their homes and lives. My sister has been in my home, as well. What I didn’t know was that my mother’s twin sister had a daughter also. She was given up for adoption, as well, and is living in Colorado about two hours away from me.
I met her and have spent many weekends with her and her husband on their small ranch in Westcliffe, Colorado. While I am there I mow (I love driving the tractor), haul large trees out of a creek, mend fences, cut wood, pile rocks, build stuff, feed the horses, shoot at targets and play with their dogs. We also enjoy snowmobiling and 4-wheel driving. They have truly welcomed me into their home, and I have a haven to go to every other month, just to get away and enjoy my new family.