It happened like this: my baby Noah had fallen asleep in the backpack, and I put it down to give both of us a momentary rest.  My hair was inexplicably down that day, and I got it in my head to do a little work on the wooden beams my husband and I had milled for the post and beam house we were building. They needed to be planed (smoothed) before I could oil them. As every Farmgirl mom knows, we have to take advantage of all spare moments, no matter when they appear, and so I quickly grabbed the electric planer, bent over the beam and went to town planing off all the rough surfaces. Before I knew what happened though, my long shiny locks slid over my shoulder and got caught up in the electric motor of the tool. Thank goodness it wasn’t scalped; but It all happened so fast it you could say it made my hair spin! Instantly it got wrapped ‘round and ‘round inside the motor.

As fate would have it, my guardian angel planned a rescue for me in the form of a poor unsuspecting person who just then happened to show up to drop something off on my doorstep. “Help!!” I implored him, having just unplugged the planer cord from the wall outlet. “I’m stuck”!!  I must have made quite a sight standing there with the planer right up tight against my scalp, shaky hands still holding it in place. This kind gentleman, whose name I have long since forgotten, but whose face and long ponytail are forever emblazoned in my memory banks (his long hair, come to think of it, making  him perhaps especially empathetic to my plight), did what any knight in shining armor would do for any damsel in obvious distress. “Do you have a screwdriver?” he asked … and then set right to work taking the blasted thing apart and unwinding my entangled tresses. Surprisingly, very little had to be cut free, although my hair one that side of my head looked like I had just stuck my finger in a light socket! I do not recommend getting a Planer Perm, gals! If you really want curly hair, just “Eat the crusts of your bread,” as my dear Grandfather liked to tell my sister and me.
The horror of that event stayed with me for some time after that, and the mere  recollection of it kept my hair neatly up and out of the way most of the time. Time does, however, have a way of making memories fade, and I’m sorry to say that eventually I let my guard down, and ultimately my hair as well. Sadly, the ‘Planer Incident’ was not the only one of its kind.

Once I was doing some housecleaning up at my log cabin, in anticipation of a woman’s weekend workshop I had designed.  Giving it the finishing touches, I got out my wonderful new vacuum cleaner and gave the carpets a thorough going-over. Something seemed wrong with the head at the end of the wand, however. It wasn’t picking up the dirt; obviously something was stuck.  Bending over to take a closer look at the still-running vacuum cleaner, there was still enough suction to send my hair round and round the beater brushes in a ‘Planer-de ja vu’. Before I knew what (literally) hit me, the beater brush wound its way up the length of my long hair, ending up smack dab on the top of my head! “Don’t Panic,” I tried to reassure myself in my calmest, most ‘in-control’ voice. I turned off the power, extricated the head attachment from the wand, and laying my head on the kitchen table, I tried valiantly to pull my hair free of its many rollers and brushes … all to no avail. By now I was visibly sweating – and I NEVER perspire! I managed to dial my future daughter-in-law, who was working for me at our Lodge down the road. “Help me, honey … I’m stuck in the vacuum cleaner,” I implored her in my best I-Love-Lucy voice.  Her reassuring reply, “Do not fear … help is on the way!!” was like music to my ears. Minutes later she flew into the driveway and helped to get my entangled mop free of the big bad beater brush which had devoured it.

Between these isolated incidents, I’ve had a few other close calls over the years.  As an amateur blacksmith, I’ve spent many hours at the anvil near my forge, where my bangs have been singed on more than one occasion. For many years I was a chef at a restaurant I started in a post and beam  art gallery. Years of working over a commercial stove, pulling baked goods from a mighty-hot oven, have singed my brows and lashes as well. Then there’s the time back when my husband and I lived in New York on our farm, when we had a couple of horses who had a knack for finding wild burdock patches. Burdock, in case you didn’t know, has burrs that stick in your hair with a vengeance.  In fact, scientists got the idea for making Velcro from them. The horses needed to be retrieved, so off to the field I went, with my waist-length hair blowing freely in the wind … not so freely on the return trip, however! WHAT WAS I THINKING?? My hair got tangled up with burdocks into a mat that took my husband a solid week to untangle before we gave up and cut the rest out!

Last summer was the final straw, however … or so I thought until I more recently tried to ‘cover the gray’ with a bucket of oil-based stain; but I’ll get to that one in a minute. Sometimes at our Lodge I find myself in the position of having to blow up an air mattress or two for guests who have more children than will fit into their beds.  I was in the act of doing just that very thing one evening, crouching on the floor behind the front desk, when, once again a large chunk of my very long hair decided to take a ride up into the motor of the electric air pump I was using. This was the final blow (no pun intended). In exasperation and panic, I tried desperately to work it free before anyone came to the front desk and saw me in such an undignified pose. Unsuccessful in my attempt to free myself, to my horror the front door opened and two people came walking in.  Fortunately they were also Guardian angels, my son Noah and his fiancé, Dana. Seeing me in this all-too-familiar sit-com pose on the floor, they set to work and rescued what was left of my hair. 

Which brings me up to last week, and the latest (and hopefully last) of the Follicle Follies. I was 2 stories up on a ladder, staining the thirsty, weather-beaten exterior logs of my cabin.  I had just climbed back up to the top with my re-filled bucket of stain, when the ladder unexpectedly shifted. Fortunately, I wasn’t thrown off; the ladder caught itself on a knot-hole. Unfortunately, it scared me to death in that micro-millisecond as it hiccupped to a stop, and I ended up accidentally pitching the contents of the stain bucket over the left side of my face and into the left half of my hair. It was an absolute nightmare, though I didn’t yet know quite the extent of the damage!  Once I worked my way down to terra firma, mopping my dripping locks with a towel, I ran my eyeball under running water until it stopped stinging. Next came the first of several turpentine shampoos, all unsuccessful I might add -- except the final one my husband gave me a week after the fact. I spent those days in between quite distraught at the fact that my oldest son’s wedding was only 3 weeks away. At best my hair was a gluey sticky mess. I was one unhappy camper, I can tell you!

Contrary to all above indications, I am not a klutz; it just seems like it when many years get condensed into one story! People often say “Three strikes and you’re out” … but fortunately, my hair seems to have nine lives. Sometimes, when disaster strikes, the best we can do in certain situations is to just sit back and laugh at ourselves! Such are my Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Hair Days. But am I alone?  Surely, someone else must have a ‘hairy’ tale to tell!  Come on gals … keep me company by sharing your very worst bad hair day!

Until next time,

Mountain Bounty, Mountain Blessings,

Cathi, The Mountain Farmgirl