REEL SOUTH

Hey, I'm Valerie June. Coming up on Reel South. -

Ingrid

They payments are high to live like I do and I gladly pay them. -

Valerie

What does it cost to run away? I left Germany in 1960. What was I? Almost 20. The woman of the house had to do the cooking three meals a day and clean up the dishes afterwards and get the kid to bed and read it a story. When I came here it wasn't to disconnect from people. That was almost like a side product. -

Valerie

Deep in an Arkansas forest, a resilient woman carves a life that's all her own. Ha, got it! Life is so large or it can be. I just jumped and I'm so glad I did. -

Valerie

Meet "Ingrid," this time on Reel South.

laid-back blues music

musical vocalizing

"Man Done Wrong" by Valerie June

ambient orchestral music

wind

birds chirping

foot steps

Life is so large or it can be that I think, besides just being very, very tired of my personal life was going to pieces, my second marriage was going to an end, the business was eating me alive. I just jumped and I'm so glad I did.

dramatic music

Ingrid stepping

Woo, oh * * * *!

heavy breathing and grunting

Good one isn't it? I'm not yodeling but this is a really gorgeous rock. Look at this. It's almost turquoise. We'd like it already. Look at it. Good rock. I have to admit to you that I've turned into a criminal, because in the National Forest it's illegal to pick up rocks, and I do. I want this one.

rocks clanking

Ha, got it!

Ingrid laughing

You would think in this pile, you would find what you love, but it's not that easy. Ooh, look at this. Look at this one. Ooh, that's nice. This one is lovable. I get excited of the big, handsome ones. Little bitty flat one. It doesn't have corners, that's good. Need to find some more like that. Goodness gracious.

Ingrid grunting

Come on baby. Good one, right there. Where ever I go. Which just really goofy, when I used to go to Germany, once a year, I'd see a rock, oh wow, that's a good rock. Oh gosh, what am I gonna do with a rock in Germany? I keep eyeballing this one here, but

Ingrid sighing

it's not good to pull one out from under a boulder. I would gauge about 200 rocks, you'll find one that you can use. See how pretty. Look at this. We're having really good luck. Look how nice, if you spit on it,

Ingrid spitting

you see the color really nice. Look at that. Isn't that pretty? For somebody that loves rocks and wants to haul tons of it, this would be Heaven, rock Heaven. There's one right over there, excuse me a minute. See right there. Look at this, perfect.

"May I Sleep In Your Barn Tonight Mister"

May I see in you barn tonight Mister For it is cold lying out on the ground And the cold North wind is whistling And I have no place to lie down There is a method to this madness.

barrel rattling

shoveling

oh oh, oh oh. A problem.

barrel rattling

I stopped it. I hope I get one load out of this before it dies.

barrel rattling

Yeah, whoa, see this little lizard. He's all concrete covered. Should we be nice and wash him off?

water running

Now he doesn't like water, but he likes concrete even less.

goat bleating and bells ringing

Okay Calvin, Heidi, hang on. I'll feed you later.

water splashing

Ah, that's nice for touchy, feely. See how much nicer he looks now. Isn't he beautiful? Look at that marking.

dramatic music

I left Germany in 1960. I was, what was I? Almost 20. I married a soldier and came to East Texas to start my life as a married woman, and had my first job all at the same time. I was a very engaged mother, but not in the traditional sense. Being in the fashion industry, I remember my life was such, I would get up in the mornings, first thing I would do is hit the bathroom, go into full makeup, before I would go in and fix breakfast for my family.

goat bleating

Goats need to be fed. I can hear 'em screaming at me.

laughing

The woman of the house had to do the cooking three meals a day and clean up the dishes afterwards and get the kid to bed, read it a story. Which was a real challenge when you think that I was full time employed. And my career was a lifesaver for me. That was my own line, yes under my own label. It was a passion, almost all encompassing. That's why I wasn't a very good mama like cooking cookies and stuff like that and I darn sure wasn't a good wife. So, because it was singular. I was singularly focused to succeed in something that I had interest in. And I sometimes really miss getting dressed up in something other than big overalls. There's a reason why man that labor walk different than a woman on the runway for instance. If you, if you walk like on a runway where you put one foot exactly, exaggerated in front of the other one, if you do that here, holding a chainsaw, you're gonna fall over. Whew, pretty.

Ingrid pounding

Now at 74, I'm never as tired, ever. Even after a hard day's work laying rocks, I'm never as tired as I was in my 20's, in my 30's, in my early 40's. What did I do with my brush? Back off Alice, get back, get!

metal clanking

crickets chirping and feet pounding

Hey girl, can you hear me?

Bell ringing

You doing okay?

goat bleating

Eh, eh, eh.

bell ringing

Is it hurting baby, hmm? This is why you're hurting. Hey, you're so soft. That's pretty ears. Look at those pretty ears. Oh, is something happening back there? Hmm, are you okay? Oops did you you see it move? Yep, there's, I can't make out what it is though. Feels like an elbow.

foreign language music

What was my potential? Because I think, at birth, we have a certain potential. And we often don't recognize it because it maybe gets taught out of us by our culture.

foreign language music

He's probably not feeling all that good. They're usually hidden in the daytime. You only see 'em come out at night.

bell ringing

Ingrid scraping

I think this is good enough.

cage rustling

And see you carry 'em with the head under your arm. That keeps 'em calm.

rooster crowing

Here buddy.

goat bleating and bells ringing

I don't get to wear the gloves, because that's more for my comfort of being distant from what I have to do. I can feel when his heartbeat quits racing. That's what I'm waiting for.

rooster crowing

Beautiful bunny, beautiful bunny. That's a good bunny. There you go. Beautiful bunny, beautiful. Shh, beautiful bunny. There's a good bunny, good bunny. Good bunny, shhh. Beautiful bunny, beautiful.

rooster crowing

I really enjoy raising my own food. I do not enjoy killing rabbits, that's still very difficult for me to do.

animal screeching

tool hacking

somber music

You'll see the sun in about 15 minutes or so hitting this tree. It's my equivalent of a television. Normally I get up in the summer time five o'clock or six o'clock. The point is to be up before it gets hot outside and have the light of the day available for work to be done out there before the heat sets in. I would love to share a breakfast with a like minded person, but that's not likely. Alice you wanna finish my breakfast? There you go.

birds screeching

thunder rolling and rain falling

sewing machine running

I feel like sometimes I'm on a some kind of a dread mill and I always have to learn or relearn how to get off the thing.

sewing machine running

The best way I can describe it to you is I'm always behind schedule, always, always. I'm never caught up. I have long lists that have waited for up to two years to be done. Any five of those squares, it's enough to go crazy.

sewing machine running

Art often or the creative process often comes out of a need. So I can't do something just to be pretty. I'm not good at that. It ultimately has to have a function. Every place you look seems unfinished. The twelve steps coming up to that level and I'm still planning on making stairs all the way down there. See this is waiting to be done. I need to build a gate. Every rock you see, I hauled out of the woods. I mix my own cement and everything you see, I built. I make all of my own clothes. That was a ribbon that I put on a christening dress. I like this, but for me I'd like to make it about two inches longer and the sleeves a little longer, and the cuffs that flips back. Yeah that was another pregnancy frock. I'm trying to be the second Sisyphus.

Ingrid laughing

And when I'm ready to do something, I'm very impatient, so it bothered me that I had to do this blooming pathway for the simple reason to get a wheelbarrow down there. That's an old summer dress that I had. This is gonna be a platform out of rock. And so I have to do that and that's waiting for years. That was a little napkin. That still needs to be done because the water rushing down here will wash it out and eventually the bridge will just fall off. And this is not quite finished yet. Talking about designing element, this ceiling up there, I want some two by fours laying the other way across, so that when the sun comes through, it'll be a checkerboard design. And that's what I'm doing now. That's a project. The other project is I need to build a large rabbitry and I want to do that out of rocks, so let's hope I can live 'til about 120, so I can keep building with rocks.

door closing

engine revving

tree falling

chains clanking and chainsaw revving

Well I live right down the road here. When they first moved up there, they had trees right behind their house, they want cut. And that's what I did all my life, I cut logs. I'd come up here and cut them trees out around their house for them. Other than that, well she pretty much knows how to take care of herself. -

Interviewer

And so are you one of Ingrid's good friends? Probably the best that she's got. Now she may tell you different, but

laughing

she's tougher than I am. All this, all this rock work she's done around here, it's hard work. There ain't nothing no harder. Something I never would attempted, and I've lived here all my life.

laughing

door slamming

Not following a formula, that is the loneliest job. But it's the most, to me, the most satisfying as a human being. It's harder. It's more of a challenge, but it's also very gratifying.

soft music

When I came here, it wasn't to disconnect from people per say especially family. That was almost like a side product. That was my second husband. And here he is on the little tractor with my second child. So I got a child out of first marriage and also the second marriage. My son Christian was moping because the television was not on for him.

laughing

He thought life was very unfair.

dishes clanking

I tried to raise my two sons in such a way that in no way it reminded me of the choices my parents made in raising me. By that I mean, I spanked 'em when they did something wrong. But my father beat us, actually beat. I use that word specifically, cruelly. That's my father in his uniform. And that's Nazi uniform. I don't know what his rank was. I think master sergeant. In fact the box that I keep my clay in was his box that he kept his stuff in on the trail. Well whatever they call that, when they go to war and shoot people. My father was a sickness that had nothing to do with being German. His timing was good to be who he was because he got away with it, because the time was correct. It was supportive of that kind of behavior. They were looking for people like him. It says in German, it says

speaking foreign language

. That basically means a document that will guarantee Aryan descendancy. And it's my mother's name and surname. I can't read what her profession is. I can't read that at all. Didn't know my mother had a profession. Those papers had to be carried on your body all the time or you'd be hauled off some place. I have a belief that anything that any human has ever done good, evil, or bad is possible in every other human being in the right conditions. I don't think grandmother is in here. No, let me think

blowing through teeth

no, yeah, wait a minute, here's, but that's so little. That's my father's mother right here as well as here. They most all of them in fact that you're seeing in this album in Wiesbaden, Germany. That's where I was born, 1942. As you know the war ended in '45 and often I was taken to the country to visit my grandmother on my mother's side because it was deemed safer. The city of Wiesbaden, where I'm from, was bombed nearly 80% and so my mother would send me there, and leave me there, to be in a more protected area. The hills were very much like here but it wasn't wooded, because it was farmland, but there was like, if you imagine a steep hill about three kilometers unpaved and they were about half ways up that three kilometers. Their house was a beautiful sandstone house, because my grandfather also owned a stone quarry, so they had these beautiful pinkish, yellowish, sandstones in this house. I loved that house. My grandmother had in her kitchen which was a very old fashioned great big kitchen. She had a wood burning stove that she cooked on. It was a huge affair. Not one of those small ones. It was really large and in the evenings, she would take rings that you cook on, iron rings, she would take those rings off and she wouldn't have the light on and so it was just light of the fire that you would see. She would put apples on the hot stove tops so I remember the apples sizzling and the smell of apples getting roasted. And she would let me just sit on her lap, and my grandmother either combing my hair or braiding my hair, or telling me stories. Red riding hood, the German version, not the American version, and The Briar Rose, and Snow White of course, which I never did like. I didn't like Snow White. It always bothered me with the seven dwarfs and Snow White just seemed to be inept at everything. And my grandmother was probably the most reliable source in my family to find affection and kindness, sweetness. So I think maybe the seed of what I like about country life started there. You're gonna have your baby pretty soon. You're gonna have your baby pretty soon. It sure is active. That whole plank over here. Woo, it's jumping now. It's so funny that you would think it would hurt. This thing in there it's just bouncing. I'm just like any other human. I would like another human or other humans around me and I would like to feel as at ease and comfortable, but you see that's yet another story. Woo, I don't want kisses, ooh. Oh you so handsome. Yes, you're gonna have a handsome girls, no boys please. No, just girls. I know you're a good girl. I don't wanna kiss though. Oh, burp.

slurping

Yes I know. You're such a good girl, yes you are. I'm so proud of you. Let me see. Ooh, nice teeth, mm-hmm.

bell ringing

Well I think we okay for a while.

bell ringing and goat bleating

I know, I know.

dramatic music

It wasn't that I just had to sit down and tell my children I was leaving, because it was such a gradual process. I think at the beginning, I didn't know myself I was leaving. When I bought the property, I don't think in my conscious mind, I was imagining this life. That's why the place is big as it is, because that little office room, I had planned for Christian's little bedroom to be here. I think it was coincidental that the family ties went away the more I stayed here permanently. My eldest son was long estranged from me at that time. And my youngest son, for sure, he was finished with school, he went to the Navy, so it was sort of the right time. And you have to think of a period of some years where I was here two weeks and gone two weeks. And my husband finally got tired of his wife being in Oklahoma while he was in Dallas and so he divorced me and that was appropriate. In both of my marriages, I didn't want to cause the divorce. In the first one, he probably would have killed me. And the second one it was easier for me, for my husband to have the idea to divorce me than the other way around.

birds screeching

There was no marriage that was gonna go in my old age with me. That, I knew that. So I was thinking more of Christian and then when Christian gets old enough and has a girlfriend, and gets married, and has children, then it'll be continuum of what I started at that time. And that my son Christian will be proud to have this place if for nothing other than a refuge that he might need in his own life. And of course that's lost. If by my own fault. If I have to name a sadness in my life, a specific sadness, it's that. And it's always there, it's always present, always in the background.

dramatic music

When I'm around people, especially now after I've been sort of away from them, I have to mentally and emotionally build a bridge between me and this human and that is easier with an animal. With an other animal, other than human. I must be too tired to go through the effort or to whatever. I think I can get out of that, it's not the effort that I'd have to put into it, it's not worth it. Hello, how are you? -

Woman

I'm fine, and what can I do for you? I just take the little ones. Alright, you have 1449? Thank you. Morning Rob. -

Man

Morning, I appreciate you calling me the other night. You're welcome. -

Man

I went down there to make sure that it wasn't out. -

Woman

Yep no, yeah. -

Man

Say you were right, it would have come right over you to me. Through Joanna, and right on over to you. Or it's come down on me. You do know it broke out again Monday? It flared up again and burned the other end. -

Man

Well we went by there Monday, and it was burning. Thank you. -

Woman

Have a good night. Thank you, you too. I'm human, I would like to have another human being close to me that I could share my life with, but the reality is, it wouldn't work. It just the cultural set up of what is to be expected of a man and a woman. I mean I'm sure there is somebody that I would match up with really well, but since I think we can agree that I'm considered unusual, according to the norm, then it would have to be also an unusual person and just that reason, they're more, you don't find them as easily. I can't go to Walmart and run across one. Hello, after I called and said I wasn't gonna be able to come myself, I'm coming for myself anyway. -

Man

Oh yeah. Yeah, I called David and I already made out a check. I need some lake pearls. It's like Don Juan, my goat, is glad he has the chickens. He would much rather have another goat. Listen I've got a question, I got what it used to be in the feed stores, I could get a bowl of antibiotics that you can put in the birth canal after she gives birth, do you have that? Yeah but for cows. I'm not real sure about the, for a goat. I can check here in just a second. -

Ingrid

Oh so it's oral? Yeah the one I'm talking about you, you actually put that into the birth canal. You put that into the birth canal? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Will they last? I mean I have two goats so I can see that doesn't come in smaller dosages? -

Man

It says for sheep you use a half of one. Yes, half a bolus, uh-huh. Oh God, I wish you would have smaller, like this stuff is expensive isn't it? -

Man

It's like 30 cents a piece. -

Ingrid

Oh I can buy them by the piece. Yeah, yeah, I'll sale you just one. Okay, I'll take one. That's good, so I'll just take a half of one.

fire crackling

I had to learn what questions to ask of life. Would I want to meet myself down the road and see that woman rather than this one? And the question was clear, no. I just didn't like who I was any longer, and so in your psyche, that translates as a disconnect. And any time you disconnect, it's like being two people in one head. So I decided to just go into really rough country and isolate myself totally. I had this notion that I could do without people. Didn't much care for people anymore. And I bought some property and I camped in a tent, no water, no power, nothing. And I thought that being closer to nature is something that appealed to me. It's a kind of peace of really feeling that you belong in this large system of everything. Of everything in nature. And I love learning to communicate with other species or to observe even trees and changes of the seasons. And all of this sounds really pretty kitschy, but it's true for me. So I would not trade this life, but what I would say is if I would have known only some of the challenges, I wouldn't of had the courage to do it. -

Man Voiceover

You think of any government, you would be that pilot to tell the hijackers, hey we're working at one your demand.

bell ringing

-

Ingrid

Can you tell? -

Interviewer

Oh yeah, I think she's gonna have It. -

Ingrid

The contraction is really rough right now. Poor thing just doesn't know where to settle. Come on darling. She's really pushing now. It's coming. It's, oh and it's not coming out right. See the foot's sticking out. There, there give it a good job darling, good job. We'll get that little one out. Okay, we'll worry about that. My angel I know, I know, my angel, I know, love you.

lips smacking

We'll get that baby out, don't you worry. Don't you worry. Don't you worry. Head is bent backwards like that. Okay give her to me, there you go. There you go.

grunting

Give it another one. Good job, come on, you're doing a good job girl, it's coming. Give me another push. Give me another push honey. Give me another push. I see the nose. You're doing a good job sweetheart, good job girl. It's okay. You gotta give me one more. Okay wait, it's okay. Give me one, contraction, come on, give me one.

goat bleating and bell ringing

It's okay sweetheart.

Ingrid grunting

Thank you sweetheart, thank you. Thank you darling. Give me the towel back there please. Yes, I got your baby. Thank you very much.

bell ringing

Beautiful baby.

goat bleating

I know sweetheart. The voice is changing on her. See your baby. Oh, you have such a pretty baby. It's not all out yet honey.

goat licking

Ingrid breathing heavy

Thank you.

bell ringing

You'll get your baby back a minute, just me, I gotta put iodine on him. Okay, hang on a minute, hang on a minute. You lick him good. It's iodine. Okay,

goat bleating

bell ringing

soft music

I see my life I don't, God, that sounds like I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth. My life is as good as it can be at this point. And I'm really feel pretty well centered, in who I am, what I am, where I am, does that mean I miss anything? Yes, I miss a lot of things. But the payments are high to live like I do and I gladly pay them because the, I think the, I don't know the word for it, what life can be, the whole network of life, from the biological to the just matter, is so large, that in a way it soothes my sadness over the small things. And I put discord between my son and myself. And I don't mean to belittle that or to give it value, my decision. I just see it actually as the essence of things are so large. There's so much to learn. There's so much to, with our little tiny human brain, to conceive that, that helps me a lot. To think that we are a part of a huge network of interconnected things. And I feel more individuated than I would have ever been able to achieve in just one sort of life. It's like painting air castles when you're a child saying wouldn't that building be interesting to do this, this, and this and you make a shape out of nothing. Those simple little things that bring me such joy. It doesn't have to be a big, huge thing, just that, to create.

soft music

bell ringing

There you go. There you go. Here you will see Don Juan four years later. Turned into a great big male goat, from being a great big baby goat. And he's with his two ladies who are very much infatuated, hopefully are pregnant. I'm getting on in age. I'm going to be, this month, 77. So getting down on my knees isn't much fun. So I built all of these walls, and as you can see, they're not done yet, and you see the metal up first, and then I put the rock work on this side of it, and I've had one garden in it even unfinished and it worked out pretty good, so I think I'm gonna keep doing that. Probably it'll show that the last four years, I've been awfully busy as I have been the four years before and hopefully the four years after. So I'm building a deck, because I never could work on the back of this place, like painting it, because it's such a steep slope. So I put this little walkway on it, which isn't done yet. I ended up with a lot of rocks. So what to do with the rocks? I built a stairwell. Come on I'll show you.

Ingrid stepping

And this view is pretty good I think if it works with the film. See the bottles again? I've got these wonderful posts that the things that go in it, let me put one out there that is not fired yet. That might charm them so. Watch you're breath. Okay it goes here, see. And each one of those posts, will have something like that on it. This used to be the goat stall. Where in the film, you noticed where the goat birth took place. It's basically on the left side here coming in, is all my tools, for a workshop, and then this is my brand new kiln which is just. It nearly took all the nerves that I had left, because they delivered it in an 18 wheeler. And an 18 wheeler can't get in here. And I had ripped the door out and part of the wall to get it in here and then build it back in. My youngest son, I found out, during the filming, was very, very ill. And so the director got in touch with him, and then she told me, and then we sulled it in that now I very tentatively have a connection with him which I cherish. And that is I email him about every six months to see how his tests came back since he had cancer. And he's very enthusiastic in answering, but I do know that I can't push any further. So I'm just grateful for that connection. That's my youngest granddaughter. Her name is Jasmine. See I never even saw them. When you were making this movie, I had no idea even what these girls look like. I mean the eldest is 18 and she's already got a year of college behind her, she's really bright. And then Jasmine is the young one and so when I saw that, it was just a really, an emotional moment, and I just keep looking at 'em over and over again. I mean it don't look like he had two bouts of cancer. He's on a SWAT team. In fact, they now made him the instructor. I'm so proud for him. Good looking guy. -

Interviewer

Wait so when are these from? They're just this year. No last year I mean, 2018. That's him riding a motorcycle on a whatever you call that. So I get to participate in a very tenuous way, but I'm just so appreciative of it. There's several different projects that are in they're in process, as everything else. So let's just hope I live a long time. Go while you're young You can watch Those girls dance Go while you're young You can see What they've become Go while you're young You can watch those girls dance And they spin And they take off their tops and they spin And they take off their clothes Go wile you're young You can watch those girls dance

Film reel spinning

laid-back blues music

"Man Done Wrong" by Valerie June