Jaye Hall:
CLASS OF 1973
Aviation High SchoolClass of 1973
Redondo beach, CA
Pacific Lutheran UniversityClass of 1989
Tacoma, WA
Jaye's Story
Life
After leaving California and moving to Washington state in 1977, I lived in the foothills of Mt. Rainier in a cabin for a year (no running water or electricity...yippee!), worked on a NOAA research ship up in SE Alaska for a year,then returned to WA, attended college and got my BA in Psychology, Fine Arts and Secondary Art Education and then after teaching for 5 years, returned to college during the summers and earned a MA in Secondary Art Education. Also during this time, I got married and then 9 years later, got divorced.
I have been teaching art at a high school in Sequim, WA for 18 years (I love it!!). I live in the foothills of the Olympic Mountains on the Olympic Peninsula and have a view of the mountains to the south, plus the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the San Juan Islands and Canada, across the water to the north. I'm interested in astronomy and get to see the Northern Lights fairly often from my back porch and lots of meteor showers (no city lights nearby :-) ). One of my greatest joys in life, is gentling wild horses. I have 2 mustangs that I adopted when they were wild and gentled them myself, and I also have a Quarter horse (who has less "smarts" than the Mustangs)that I've had about 11 years. I trail ride with my youngest Mustang most of the time. I'm hoping to get my older Mustang, Anza, ready to ride this summer.
For creative endeavors, I paint on silk,(bannners, scarves and paintings for walls) make stained glass windows and fused glass, and also design t-shirts and make jewelry to sell at our local Saturday Market. I have 3 horses, 3 dogs and 2 cats.
A couple of years ago, I was in an Internet chat room, visiting with some friends, when a man "came in" and started up a conversation with me. We started writing to each other every day and chatting on-line for hours every night, and, after traveling up here a couple of times, and me heading down to meet his family, he finally moved up here (from So. California) over a year ago. I've never been happier. He is the most wonderful man I've ever known. We tend to go on LOTS of adventures, and love hiking, fishing and just being in the outdoors. I love my life! I never thought it could be this great!
Then...On May 14, 2005, my house burned to the ground in two fires. The first fire started at 4 AM in the hot water heater wiring. The fire fighters came and spent about 5 hours putting it out (or so they thought)then the fire chief insisted we go to town and get something to eat after an emotionally exhausting morning. An hour later, when we stepped out of the restaurant, we saw black smoke rising in the distance and my neighbor called to tell me the house was engul...Expand for more
fed in flames again. It took down the rest of the house. I lost EVERYTHING, including my two cats. This is the hardest thing I have ever gone through. I lost all my artwork, books, photos, antiques, etc. But losing my kitties is the worst. We got the dogs out okay. My boyfriend woke up at 4 AM to see flames flickering from the bathroom. We tried to put it out, but the fire extinguisher (new!)wouldn't work and we were barely able to get out of the house before it burned down. The only things I got out were my two dogs and my guitar. This is so hard starting over, but I have learned what an amazing community I live in, that people are kind and generous and thoughtful, and pull together in times of tragedy. My students at the high school showed up with bags of household items and gift certificates so I could get things I needed. Everyone has been SO kind.
So, I'm just starting over. Life is still good, it's just harder right now.
Things have setttled down since the fire. We ended up with another wild horse last summer (2005). A woman brought her over to me, from the Seattle area, so I could gentle her, because she couldn't get near the horse. After 6 weeks, the woman decided she didn't want the now-gentled horse back. So I decided to keep her and gave her to my boyfriend. He's learning about how to work with wild horses and the gentling process. They're doing great and she will be his trail horse by this summer, 2006. We also did a lot of salmon fishing this past winter and I caught my first salmon, an 18 pounder! What an adventure this great life is!
It's now April, 2009. My internet guy, Richard, and I have been together for 6 years now. We still have the same 4 horses, we rescued two cats (one from the pound and one from a parking lot in the pouring rain) and have 3 dogs. Our latest dog is just 1 year old and about 130 lbs! He's a livestock guardian dog and keeps the coyotes and cougars away from the horses. I've lived on this property for almost 19 years now, renting it and never wanting to leave. About 2 years ago, my landlords offered to sell it to me, so now I'm buying 13 of the 18 acres! My dream has come true! We have done a tremendous amount of work to clean this place up, putting in wildflower gardens, lots of plants and trees and making the 2 acre pond more habitable for all the birds that live here and for the ones that migrate through. We have a pair of wild Canada geese that are nesting on the pond for their second year in a row.
That's it for now. We'll see what this summer brings...horseback riding, playing with the dogs, fishing, camping and more adventures are all in store for the summer.
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