OK, this evening I digress. This is not a farm-related blog, but hey. Get over it! I spent the weekend away and it was - interesting!
So my husband, daughter and I joined my bestie and her hubby for a weekend outing down by the Mackenzie River. We had rented mountain bikes and were supposed to be shuttled up to a point where we rode back, a total of 26 miles. I was totally up for this. Or I thought I was. Or I did until Friday when I tore my knee out AGAIN and had it tightly wrapped all day. But by Saturday, it was tolerable and I figured I could make do with it, so off we went.
This was advertised as appropriate for all experience levels. Indeed, when we got there and were checking in there was a mom and her son, who looked to be about 9-10, getting their bikes too. Admittedly, the mom looked like she was related to Mr Pilates himself but I figured if a 9 or 10 year old kid could do it, I could. What he had on me in youthful exuberance and fitness I figured I could outdo with good old fashioned experience and fortitude. Hah!
The first hint of maaayyybe this wasn't the best idea ever came when the proprietor told us we would NOT be dropped off at the top, but in the middle. That the top 13 miles was just for experienced mountain bikers. Which we clearly were not! Alright, so that's reasonable. Not offended, thanks. Not a comment on our lack of youthful exuberance or indeed youthful anything, since mom and kiddo were also being dropped off in the middle.
The second hint should have been the second I sat on this bike to try it out in the parking lot. Like a leopard print dress for your daughter's wedding, some things you should just recognize immediately as a poor fit. There was no way to make the size right - if I raised the seat enough my knees were not so flexed I felt like I was pedaling in a kindergarten chair, then I couldn't reach the ground easily enough to stop myself from falling when balance became dicey. If I could reach the ground, my knees were uber-scrunched while pedaling, which beyond the basic discomfort of the position was acutely painful to my already damaged knee. But hey, I am a good sport and too persistent for my own good, so I just went with the flow.
So we piled into the vehicles and headed out. We parked Bubba at the end point and then rode in the shuttle bus to the start point. The proprietor gave us some basic info about the bikes, about avoiding roots and rocks and not breaking anything, and that there was no cell reception and no driver available so if something did get broken or we were in trouble, we were sort of on our own. Just so we knew what we were getting into, he said. OK, this is like the third point at which we might have taken the hint from the gods of bad ideas, but noooooo.
SO mom and son take off down the trail and are history. Our party is a little slower and a lot more wobbly. We had gone, I swear to you, less than fifty feet when people stopped in front of me, and in trying to stop while simultaneously avoiding two rocks, a root, and a rut (the new 3 Rs), I just lost my balance. And of course, could not reach the ground with my foot to stave off total disaster. So over I went, and I mean almost literally OVER, since another fifty feet down the trail the left edge was a precipice. As it was, I tumbled downhill a short ways, bike on top of me, bike got tangled in branches and vines, and multiple sharp things were poking me. I was beached. Totally stuck.
My friend and hubby hoisted the bike off of me and helped me to my feet. I turned around to pick up the bike and my friend said "ohhhhhh noooo." Then I think she started laughing. I am not sure, but in HINDSIGHT (pun intended) I do think she laughed. My pants were ripped totally asunder. I mean, like down the middle in the back and clear around and down my right leg to below the knee. Grand. At this point, I was done, kaput, with riding on this trail. Seriously, this was NOT a trail for beginners, very rough, narrow, obstacle-riddled, with washouts and precipices. We are fifty feet down the trail and there are like 12 miles of this.
So we started walking the bikes. This is not like walking your Schwinn down the sidewalk in your cute little pedal-pushers with your sweater tied around your shoulders. This is trying to walk on 12 inches of sandy dirt while essentially half-carrying a mountain bike off to one side. The body mechanics of this are not comfortable. I did have a sweater tied, though - around my waist, to keep my Hind out of Sight to those coming up behind us on the trail.
So that was the thing. LOTS and LOTS of people came up behind us on the trail. It was a veritable Interstate of bikes. Every few minutes it seemed, someone would come up behind us, we would have to struggle off the trail holding our bikes out of the way, letting them pass, while asking how many more were behind them. My husband and daughter were faring OK and went on, my friends husband took a bad spill and decided to walk with us. So we trudged on and on and ON AND ON. All the while being passed by a succession of bikers who clearly knew what they were about.
And let me tell you, people, these were not middle-aged frumpy bikers like yours truly. No they were not. They were Greek Gods. One after another after another. Jaw-droppingly nicely put together males of the species. Impossibly fit, impossibly tan, impossibly gorgeous. I mean SERIOUSLY!!! GUYS!! Can't you just run over me so I can look at you a while longer while you perform first aid?? Please???
And it did not escape my notice, although I certainly hope it escaped theirs, that they were approaching us from behind, and mine was flapping in the breeze, partially concealed by my friends little white sweater.
Finally after nearly 3 miles, we crossed the river and came to the first side road by which we could connect to the main road. My friend and I had elected to do this, to ride down Highway 126 back to the truck, then we could come back and retrieve her husband, while John and Kate rode on. I had torn living heck out of my knee maneuvering the bike down the bridge steps after the river crossing, and wasn't exactly looking forward to pedaling, but here's the deal. When you are at point A and you have no cell service, are pathologically opposed to hitching rides in the best of circumstance and definitely not while partially unclothed, and you have to get to point B, then you better just man up and do it. SO we set off.
Did I mention that this bike was UNCOMFORTABLE???? I am a very persistent person, and do not tire easily, so while my friend got tired of pedaling I just HURT from pedaling. And the seat! My friend was commenting on how it was starting to go where it really ought not, and I said TRY DOING IT IN YOUR UNDERWEAR!!! Seriously. Hell has a new definition and it involves NINE FREAKING MILES on a mountain bike, in the rain, on a busy highway, with a bad knee you can't stop using, and a seat that keeps finding new and creative ways to invade your space.
I nearly kissed my truck when I got to it.
I am eternally grateful that guy did not deem us good candidates for the full meal deal and drop us off 13 miles further away, such that we were hauling bikes through the lava fields. You fall in that stuff and it is serious business! So, I learned that either I am just not a mountain biker, or I need a vastly different kind of bike, or to start on a much more reasonable trail. I did also learn that I am still capable of toughing it out when I have to. And then I got to go back to the cabin and watch LSU beat West Virginia, so the day was not a total loss.
And I have newfound respect for Lance Armstrong. But hey, it really WAS all about the bike. And the pants.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Friday, September 23, 2011
There's an App for That....
So I had an accident today. There was a fatality. It wasn't me (obviously) - it was my iPhone.
You gotta understand I sort of have a history in that department - I have dealt more death blows to small electronic devices than a normal person. (I also should not be trusted with office machines - especially fax machines, very bad karma with fax machines.) In the course of one month in medical school I dropped not one but THREE pagers into the toilet. Deader than doornails. My first iPhone, I sent through the washer. I tried all kinds of creative solutions - I packed it in rice, put it in a low oven, nothing. Dead. Then we had our one hot week that August, like 115 degrees one day, and I happened to leave my poor dead phone in the truck, where it was probably more like 150 degrees. When I got in my truck after office that day, voila! The iPhone sprang to life! Not having learned my lesson whatsoever, I managed to soak the stupid phone while watering the lawn and went through the whole thing all over again.
Today, however, my techno-destructive tendencies reached new and creative heights. I was just out enjoying the day on my tractor. I had the idea that I could use the front end loader as a receptacle for harvesting the filberts, and it was actually working nicely. Plus I just really enjoy taking the ole Kubota out for a spin around the firelanes. But maneuvering the tractor into and through the orchard is a tad tricky - not only are there low hanging branches and narrow lanes, but there are lots of blackberry vines. If one of those big gnarly ones catches on the front end loader it can thwap the poor hapless driver with nasty thorny force before it catches on the rollbar. So I was going slow and trying to gingerly grab hold of the larger vines and guide them up and over the rollbar behind me before they could thwap me.
One particularly large, purple, heavy branch caught me unawares, and I quickly twisted out of the way. In so doing, I apparently knocked my iPhone off the tractor. I know, I know - what was it doing on the tractor you idiot? Well, in my defense, I have it in a rubbery case precisely because it adheres to things, like the console of my truck, and it was staying put quite nicely up to that point. The trouble was, I didn't even miss it until some time later when I was cruising around the edge of our upper field which had been burned. I reached for the phone to take a photo and - no phone. Not in pocket, not on tractor. I remembered that big branch and figured it had to have fallen there somewhere.
So back to the orchard I went, turned off the tractor and hopped down to tromp through the underbrush. I was so thrilled when I saw it finally, and was feeling rather smug about how I didn't have to tell my husband I had dropped my iPhone and nearly lost it, when I actually picked it up. Pushed the button and - nothing. Lifeless. How can this be? The rubbery case has saved it from disaster in many a fall onto hard surfaces, and this was springy grassy undergrowth. Was my battery just dead?
Ohhh no, MUCH worse. It was BENT. MY iPHONE WAS BENT!!! I clearly drove over it with the tractor. Seriously, people, how can I drive over my own phone with a tractor??? It was very sad looking. So I made a rush trip into Salem to the AT&T store and found I was eligible for an upgrade and got a new one for 49 bucks. But the lovely pumpkin field photos I had not yet uploaded to my computer - gone. My new LSU Football App - gone. This is going to be a pain to restore.
But the upside of the evening was that the front end loader was indeed a very spiffy receptacle, and just in the span of 4 trees I half filled it with filberts, then drove down to the lower meadow and filled it up with apples, pears, and purple plums. And a few walnuts too. And this was a teeny tiny fraction of what there is to be harvested. The phrase "an embarrassment of riches" comes to mind. I think I need to borrow several teenagers, perhaps an entire high school class.
Anyone want to come pick fruit and nuts??
You gotta understand I sort of have a history in that department - I have dealt more death blows to small electronic devices than a normal person. (I also should not be trusted with office machines - especially fax machines, very bad karma with fax machines.) In the course of one month in medical school I dropped not one but THREE pagers into the toilet. Deader than doornails. My first iPhone, I sent through the washer. I tried all kinds of creative solutions - I packed it in rice, put it in a low oven, nothing. Dead. Then we had our one hot week that August, like 115 degrees one day, and I happened to leave my poor dead phone in the truck, where it was probably more like 150 degrees. When I got in my truck after office that day, voila! The iPhone sprang to life! Not having learned my lesson whatsoever, I managed to soak the stupid phone while watering the lawn and went through the whole thing all over again.
Today, however, my techno-destructive tendencies reached new and creative heights. I was just out enjoying the day on my tractor. I had the idea that I could use the front end loader as a receptacle for harvesting the filberts, and it was actually working nicely. Plus I just really enjoy taking the ole Kubota out for a spin around the firelanes. But maneuvering the tractor into and through the orchard is a tad tricky - not only are there low hanging branches and narrow lanes, but there are lots of blackberry vines. If one of those big gnarly ones catches on the front end loader it can thwap the poor hapless driver with nasty thorny force before it catches on the rollbar. So I was going slow and trying to gingerly grab hold of the larger vines and guide them up and over the rollbar behind me before they could thwap me.
One particularly large, purple, heavy branch caught me unawares, and I quickly twisted out of the way. In so doing, I apparently knocked my iPhone off the tractor. I know, I know - what was it doing on the tractor you idiot? Well, in my defense, I have it in a rubbery case precisely because it adheres to things, like the console of my truck, and it was staying put quite nicely up to that point. The trouble was, I didn't even miss it until some time later when I was cruising around the edge of our upper field which had been burned. I reached for the phone to take a photo and - no phone. Not in pocket, not on tractor. I remembered that big branch and figured it had to have fallen there somewhere.
So back to the orchard I went, turned off the tractor and hopped down to tromp through the underbrush. I was so thrilled when I saw it finally, and was feeling rather smug about how I didn't have to tell my husband I had dropped my iPhone and nearly lost it, when I actually picked it up. Pushed the button and - nothing. Lifeless. How can this be? The rubbery case has saved it from disaster in many a fall onto hard surfaces, and this was springy grassy undergrowth. Was my battery just dead?
Ohhh no, MUCH worse. It was BENT. MY iPHONE WAS BENT!!! I clearly drove over it with the tractor. Seriously, people, how can I drive over my own phone with a tractor??? It was very sad looking. So I made a rush trip into Salem to the AT&T store and found I was eligible for an upgrade and got a new one for 49 bucks. But the lovely pumpkin field photos I had not yet uploaded to my computer - gone. My new LSU Football App - gone. This is going to be a pain to restore.
But the upside of the evening was that the front end loader was indeed a very spiffy receptacle, and just in the span of 4 trees I half filled it with filberts, then drove down to the lower meadow and filled it up with apples, pears, and purple plums. And a few walnuts too. And this was a teeny tiny fraction of what there is to be harvested. The phrase "an embarrassment of riches" comes to mind. I think I need to borrow several teenagers, perhaps an entire high school class.
Anyone want to come pick fruit and nuts??
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Flame on
Um, Houston, we have a problem.
Remember the nice little bonfire from the other night? The one that supposedly incinerated the dwelling place of the hornets in my stump? Welllll - not so much. The next morning, they were right there. They didn't even seem bothered by the apparent home invasion of the night before. It's like nothing happened.
How is this possible? I mean, it was the Fires of Hell in that stump! Flames 3 feet in the air, and so hot that even after the flames were extinguished I continued to stream water in there for a VERY long time and still sparks flew up and steam hissed. Like I said, Brimstone City.
So how is it that these stupid hornets return to the scene of the crime and fly right in and act as if nothing was torched? This morning, my husband asked me to come listen to something. I did not much like the sound of that request, and I was right. Out we go to the stump, which appears to be quiescent, and I reluctantly bent over and listened. You have no idea how much I did not want to do that. I could not see much good coming from it - either there was nothing there in which case why did I have to listen anyway, and I might fall in (it is a big hollow stump), or there IS something there in which case I most decidedly do not want to be leaning over the damn thing. But, what the heck. Everybody has to die of something, right?
My bravery did not go unrewarded (or unpunished, depending on your point of view). There was, emanating from the stump, a reeeaaallllly nasty low rumbling buzz. The buzz of a very large quantity of things, low in the ground. Coming. This. Way.
They did not actually appear (obviously, or I would not be writing this, I would be somewhere in Kansas by now still running) but the noise was most unattractive. The best I can figure, there is a large side channel down in there somewhere, like where a root went or something, and the flames simply did not go that way. So it was more like setting fire to the porch than bombing the compound. Marginally irritating, but survivable.
Options are being discussed. Option one: dump it full of dirt and plant something in it like I wanted to in the first place (my idea). Option two: fill it up with a mixture of diesel fuel and gasoline. My husband's idea. I asked him if he was going for the Olympic Torch motif. Besides the explosive risk, seems like a colossal waste of fuel to me - we could run the tractor for a month on the amount of diesel it would take to fill that stump! Mostly, however, I have no desire to see a crater where the garage used to be.
We are a little concerned there is another point of ingress/egress to the hornet colony. It would be more than a little disturbing to get all smug about having trapped/burned/pillaged the thing only to see a column of sociopathic hornets emerging from another spot on the grounds and heading our way bent on revenge.
What to do?! Too bad we no longer have Kate's snake collection in the garbage can, we could try putting them all down in there. Maybe a fire extinguisher? The foam could expand out in all directions and smother them. Plain old water? Drown them? CONCRETE! How about concrete? Ideas, people, I need ideas.
So, when I need ideas, I turn to that fount of all knowledge -- Google. It is very interesting what one comes up with when one Googles "how to get rid of hornets in the ground". Lots of people espouse some variant of the diesel/gasoline option. Smoke bombs. Soapy water. Plain water. Placing a glass vase upside down over the entrance hole (these people obviously have MUCH smaller hornets nests that I do! A bushel basket would not cover the hole in this stump!) Various poisons in spray or powder form. There are helpful suggestions like covering your flashlight with a red filter so you don't attract them. REALLY? Who tested hornets color night vision anyway?? There are horror stories, like a guy stepping off his tractor into a yellow jacket nest and being killed by thousands of stings. But far and away, here is my favorite suggestion:
Make them watch a Michigan game - they will be so bored they will kill themselves!
The things you can find on the internet.
Remember the nice little bonfire from the other night? The one that supposedly incinerated the dwelling place of the hornets in my stump? Welllll - not so much. The next morning, they were right there. They didn't even seem bothered by the apparent home invasion of the night before. It's like nothing happened.
How is this possible? I mean, it was the Fires of Hell in that stump! Flames 3 feet in the air, and so hot that even after the flames were extinguished I continued to stream water in there for a VERY long time and still sparks flew up and steam hissed. Like I said, Brimstone City.
So how is it that these stupid hornets return to the scene of the crime and fly right in and act as if nothing was torched? This morning, my husband asked me to come listen to something. I did not much like the sound of that request, and I was right. Out we go to the stump, which appears to be quiescent, and I reluctantly bent over and listened. You have no idea how much I did not want to do that. I could not see much good coming from it - either there was nothing there in which case why did I have to listen anyway, and I might fall in (it is a big hollow stump), or there IS something there in which case I most decidedly do not want to be leaning over the damn thing. But, what the heck. Everybody has to die of something, right?
My bravery did not go unrewarded (or unpunished, depending on your point of view). There was, emanating from the stump, a reeeaaallllly nasty low rumbling buzz. The buzz of a very large quantity of things, low in the ground. Coming. This. Way.
They did not actually appear (obviously, or I would not be writing this, I would be somewhere in Kansas by now still running) but the noise was most unattractive. The best I can figure, there is a large side channel down in there somewhere, like where a root went or something, and the flames simply did not go that way. So it was more like setting fire to the porch than bombing the compound. Marginally irritating, but survivable.
Options are being discussed. Option one: dump it full of dirt and plant something in it like I wanted to in the first place (my idea). Option two: fill it up with a mixture of diesel fuel and gasoline. My husband's idea. I asked him if he was going for the Olympic Torch motif. Besides the explosive risk, seems like a colossal waste of fuel to me - we could run the tractor for a month on the amount of diesel it would take to fill that stump! Mostly, however, I have no desire to see a crater where the garage used to be.
We are a little concerned there is another point of ingress/egress to the hornet colony. It would be more than a little disturbing to get all smug about having trapped/burned/pillaged the thing only to see a column of sociopathic hornets emerging from another spot on the grounds and heading our way bent on revenge.
What to do?! Too bad we no longer have Kate's snake collection in the garbage can, we could try putting them all down in there. Maybe a fire extinguisher? The foam could expand out in all directions and smother them. Plain old water? Drown them? CONCRETE! How about concrete? Ideas, people, I need ideas.
So, when I need ideas, I turn to that fount of all knowledge -- Google. It is very interesting what one comes up with when one Googles "how to get rid of hornets in the ground". Lots of people espouse some variant of the diesel/gasoline option. Smoke bombs. Soapy water. Plain water. Placing a glass vase upside down over the entrance hole (these people obviously have MUCH smaller hornets nests that I do! A bushel basket would not cover the hole in this stump!) Various poisons in spray or powder form. There are helpful suggestions like covering your flashlight with a red filter so you don't attract them. REALLY? Who tested hornets color night vision anyway?? There are horror stories, like a guy stepping off his tractor into a yellow jacket nest and being killed by thousands of stings. But far and away, here is my favorite suggestion:
Make them watch a Michigan game - they will be so bored they will kill themselves!
The things you can find on the internet.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Oh, Joy
Today you get a "twofer" - something funny and something heartfelt. First, the fun.
So, in the seemingly endless saga of pesky creatures, many of whom have a propensity towards buzzing and stinging, we have a new chapter. Let me just say, I am NOT the girl who kicked the hornet's nest. My husband on the other hand...
We have a hollow stump in the flower bed next to our garage. It is rather picturesque, and in the first couple weeks we lived here I contemplated planting flowers in it. So I went over and had a look, bent over the stump and peered in. It was surprisingly deep, and also - inhabited. There was a hornet's nest or something like it, of a pretty good size. But not a lot of bees or whatever they were, so I thought maybe they had moved on. Oh contraire, Pierre. It was just evening, and apparently they are restful in the evening. The rest of the time, they became increasingly active and irritable. I walked out a couple nights ago and was surrounded by 8-10 of them swirling around my head, following me. NOT GOOD. We have covered this before. Definitely. Not. Good.
So my husband put a screen over the top of the stump during their "quiet time" that night. Predictably, the next morning, yesterday, they were PISSED OFF. BIG TIME. So, in a burst of complete and total irrationality, my husband REMOVED THE SCREEN. This is supposed to make them happier? They will forgive all and we all live happily ever after? Noooooo.
So, not knowing about the screen removal, I was in the house showering and heard my husband outside in the back (the stump is in the front) getting the grill going. I stepped out of the shower a few minutes later and heard other, stranger, noises emanating from the backyard. It couldn't be. It was. THE SHOP VAC.
Now, you have to understand there is a story that is part of the lore of my husband's family, that I head many more times than once over the years. In this story, his father, my otherwise pretty sensible and level-headed father in law, decided to remedy the problem of hornets or bees in the attic by attempting to suck them all up in the vacuum cleaner. Suffice it to say, this was less than a resounding success. There was personal injury involved, and not to the persons of the bees.
So why, I ask, why in the name of all that is holy, would my husband - who is UBER-reasonable under normal circumstances - even consider trying anything similar? But, he did. He is out there waving the nozzle of the shop vac all around the BBQ grill sucking up hornets right and left and soundly annoying the ones he missed. I yell out the window, something calming, something on the order of, say, "WHAT IN THE BLOODY HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?" I can't honestly say this improved the situation, but he did stop sucking them up a few minutes later, with no apparent loss of personal well-being. I guess it was just a small contingent, not the whole population of the stump, which would have been terrible to behold.
A few minutes later he comes in the house and announces he has a new problem. There are lots of very much alive hornets inside the shop vac. He had been, apparently, counting on the vortex tearing their wings off and killing them. Nope. Wings still on. Coated heavily in the dust adherent to the filter, but very much alive. I think they escaped when he opened the vac and took out the filter. Don't even start me on how brilliant THAT plan was.
Anyway, some hours later, we had again achieved the quiet time of the nest and were trying to decided how to "take care of it." When I saw hubby heading that way with a little aerosol spray can of wasp and hornet spray, I put that plan down straight away. I could not see holding a spray can down inside the stump stirring up trouble. I was more in favor of, shall we say - "Shock and Awe." So a combination of diesel fuel and a little gasoline was poured into the stump and a match tossed in.
Nice bonfire. Very effective. Burned a good little while. And not a single hornet came out. SO now we are wondering if they overheard us talking and all removed to another location in the hours between the Shop Vac Incident and the Bombing of Berlin. I figure we will find out unexpectedly, at the worst possible time. Sigh. Stay tuned.
----
Now for the heartfelt.
So we reeeeeaaaalllly love living here. We do not own it, we have a lease purchase arrangement, and have just been hoping we could find a way to actually grow something we can make a little money with, to help us eventually buy this farm. There are a lot of blackberries, we thought about that. We have considered beef cattle on a small scale. We have an old filbert orchard, but we didn't think it was producing, and while I was hoping we could encourage those trees to do something I was afraid it was going to be a long, difficult, and expensive process.
This morning I took a walk to pick berries. The blackberry season won't last a lot longer, I want to enjoy them, and hopefully get some jams made. So I started up a path alongside the pastures, with berry vines along the other side of the path. Picking my way along the bushes, suddenly there were apples. LOTS of apples. It was an unexpected bonus, and just when I was marveling at the bounty of fruit on this place, I reached the orchard. And looking down as I set the berry bucket on the path, there were filberts. EVERYWHERE. I was so excited I could hardly stand it. The ground was littered and the trees laden. It was like a revelation, that maybe, just maybe, we can make this old place work. And as I stood there in the row of filbert trees counting my blessings, I looked down the row and there was a large doe, still as a statue and breathtakingly perfect.
When you find yourself weeping with joy in the middle of an overgrown filbert orchard at 8 in the morning, you know you have found your life. Now I just have to figure out how to keep it.
But I think it just may work. And I am sooooooo looking forward to it.
Thanks for reading.
So, in the seemingly endless saga of pesky creatures, many of whom have a propensity towards buzzing and stinging, we have a new chapter. Let me just say, I am NOT the girl who kicked the hornet's nest. My husband on the other hand...
We have a hollow stump in the flower bed next to our garage. It is rather picturesque, and in the first couple weeks we lived here I contemplated planting flowers in it. So I went over and had a look, bent over the stump and peered in. It was surprisingly deep, and also - inhabited. There was a hornet's nest or something like it, of a pretty good size. But not a lot of bees or whatever they were, so I thought maybe they had moved on. Oh contraire, Pierre. It was just evening, and apparently they are restful in the evening. The rest of the time, they became increasingly active and irritable. I walked out a couple nights ago and was surrounded by 8-10 of them swirling around my head, following me. NOT GOOD. We have covered this before. Definitely. Not. Good.
So my husband put a screen over the top of the stump during their "quiet time" that night. Predictably, the next morning, yesterday, they were PISSED OFF. BIG TIME. So, in a burst of complete and total irrationality, my husband REMOVED THE SCREEN. This is supposed to make them happier? They will forgive all and we all live happily ever after? Noooooo.
So, not knowing about the screen removal, I was in the house showering and heard my husband outside in the back (the stump is in the front) getting the grill going. I stepped out of the shower a few minutes later and heard other, stranger, noises emanating from the backyard. It couldn't be. It was. THE SHOP VAC.
Now, you have to understand there is a story that is part of the lore of my husband's family, that I head many more times than once over the years. In this story, his father, my otherwise pretty sensible and level-headed father in law, decided to remedy the problem of hornets or bees in the attic by attempting to suck them all up in the vacuum cleaner. Suffice it to say, this was less than a resounding success. There was personal injury involved, and not to the persons of the bees.
So why, I ask, why in the name of all that is holy, would my husband - who is UBER-reasonable under normal circumstances - even consider trying anything similar? But, he did. He is out there waving the nozzle of the shop vac all around the BBQ grill sucking up hornets right and left and soundly annoying the ones he missed. I yell out the window, something calming, something on the order of, say, "WHAT IN THE BLOODY HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?" I can't honestly say this improved the situation, but he did stop sucking them up a few minutes later, with no apparent loss of personal well-being. I guess it was just a small contingent, not the whole population of the stump, which would have been terrible to behold.
A few minutes later he comes in the house and announces he has a new problem. There are lots of very much alive hornets inside the shop vac. He had been, apparently, counting on the vortex tearing their wings off and killing them. Nope. Wings still on. Coated heavily in the dust adherent to the filter, but very much alive. I think they escaped when he opened the vac and took out the filter. Don't even start me on how brilliant THAT plan was.
Anyway, some hours later, we had again achieved the quiet time of the nest and were trying to decided how to "take care of it." When I saw hubby heading that way with a little aerosol spray can of wasp and hornet spray, I put that plan down straight away. I could not see holding a spray can down inside the stump stirring up trouble. I was more in favor of, shall we say - "Shock and Awe." So a combination of diesel fuel and a little gasoline was poured into the stump and a match tossed in.
Nice bonfire. Very effective. Burned a good little while. And not a single hornet came out. SO now we are wondering if they overheard us talking and all removed to another location in the hours between the Shop Vac Incident and the Bombing of Berlin. I figure we will find out unexpectedly, at the worst possible time. Sigh. Stay tuned.
----
Now for the heartfelt.
So we reeeeeaaaalllly love living here. We do not own it, we have a lease purchase arrangement, and have just been hoping we could find a way to actually grow something we can make a little money with, to help us eventually buy this farm. There are a lot of blackberries, we thought about that. We have considered beef cattle on a small scale. We have an old filbert orchard, but we didn't think it was producing, and while I was hoping we could encourage those trees to do something I was afraid it was going to be a long, difficult, and expensive process.
This morning I took a walk to pick berries. The blackberry season won't last a lot longer, I want to enjoy them, and hopefully get some jams made. So I started up a path alongside the pastures, with berry vines along the other side of the path. Picking my way along the bushes, suddenly there were apples. LOTS of apples. It was an unexpected bonus, and just when I was marveling at the bounty of fruit on this place, I reached the orchard. And looking down as I set the berry bucket on the path, there were filberts. EVERYWHERE. I was so excited I could hardly stand it. The ground was littered and the trees laden. It was like a revelation, that maybe, just maybe, we can make this old place work. And as I stood there in the row of filbert trees counting my blessings, I looked down the row and there was a large doe, still as a statue and breathtakingly perfect.
When you find yourself weeping with joy in the middle of an overgrown filbert orchard at 8 in the morning, you know you have found your life. Now I just have to figure out how to keep it.
But I think it just may work. And I am sooooooo looking forward to it.
Thanks for reading.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Oh What a Tangled Web...
You may recall a previous posting where I made reference to an old, odd song called "She Don't Like Spiders and Snakes", which preceded my discourse on the serpentine population of our farm. Well, today you get the Arachnid Rant.
You may also recall that I have been quoted as saying it is possible to relate to a snake one on one, that in small numbers they are manageable and occasionally even kinda cool.
Let me hasten to assure you - I harbor no such sensibilities when it comes to spiders!! And this place is crawling with them. Literally. I am pretty sure I do not want to know what kind they all are, because (a) I may end up acquiring the knowledge that there are truly lethal spiders around here, whose bite will instantly paralyze all the muscles of respiration and I will fall gasping in a pitiful huddle in the middle of the driveway, clutching my throat as I fade to black, my last profound thought being #)#$&))@)#%& SPIDERS!!!, and (b) it doesn't matter anyway because I indiscriminately hate them all and am determined to eradicate them.
Any spider, of any size, is unwelcome in my home. Sorry guys, no offense intended, but EAT POISON AND DIE. You are creepy. You are unattractive. You give me hives. I do not want you.
This morning, I was out enjoying my morning ritual of watering the plants. This is the best thing since coffee for starting a day off right, it gets me in a nice little zen groove. I start with the veggie and herb garden outside the side door, spraying them with the mister to see their happy little leaves shimmer then soaking their roots. Then I turn that hose off and go around to the front and water the peonies, the rose bush, and the barrel garden. Ahhhhhh. Plants have the Power of Luv. So this morning, I had just finished watering the side garden and needed to run into the house to deposit the fresh-picked tomatoes so my hands would be free to water in the front. I was all mellow. I like mellow. I opened the side outer door and was about to open the screen door when I saw it. A VERY large, VERY black, probably hairy (because all the nasty ones in horror movies are hairy, so my mind sees hairy) spider had the unmitigated gall to attach itself to my side door, mucking it all up with a sticky web adhering the screen door to the door facing. It was messing with my mellow.
I will freely admit my response to spiders is immediate, loud, excessive, and violent. Be afraid, be very very afraid. I was wearing flip flops, which are bad because they leave you exposed but good because they are easy to whip off and have a lot of thwapping power. So I whipped and thwapped that spider into total oblivion.
When my blood pressure was approaching normal, I went on to the front watering. Here is where I got truly put out. There is some kind of spider that makes its web in the form of this hammock-like thing, and it does it on the grass, or shrubs, or anything low. There were probably FIFTY of the things, all over my little low stone wall, the yard, the lavender lining my sidewalk, you name it. Too numerous for flip-flop-thwacking, and eminently creepy. Like my yard was being taken over. NOT a good feeling.
I love an inspired plan early in the morning. Makes you just feel good about life. JET. That is the setting on my sprayer that caught my eye. Ahhhh. Jet. So I jetted those webs into the next county. Remember - immediate, excessive, violent. I probably took out large portions of grass at the same time, but hey, it's all good.
If I could just get the snakes to eat the spiders, we'd be in business.
-----
On an unrelated note, I have been contemplating how it is that one gets more people to read one's blog. Not to worry, I do primarily write this thing for the simple joy of putting words on paper (figuratively), but I will also admit to obsessing over the Stats. I love to see new hits, REALLY love it when there are comments. I want more Followers!! So I have been thinking - how can I get people to find this blog? Because if people even look at it once, it shows as a hit, which makes me smile, even if they read it and hate it and never look again. Which of COURSE won't happen.
So, it occurs to me that I should take a hint from the "trending now" column on Yahoo. If I can incorporate these items into my blog, I will have bazillions of hits. SOOOO - I have decided to rename all my farm animals. The llama is now Jim Belushi, the goats are Anna Nicole, Sarah Michelle Geller, and Carl Lewis. I need to figure out who I can name Baldness and Windows 8....
Stay Tuned!
You may also recall that I have been quoted as saying it is possible to relate to a snake one on one, that in small numbers they are manageable and occasionally even kinda cool.
Let me hasten to assure you - I harbor no such sensibilities when it comes to spiders!! And this place is crawling with them. Literally. I am pretty sure I do not want to know what kind they all are, because (a) I may end up acquiring the knowledge that there are truly lethal spiders around here, whose bite will instantly paralyze all the muscles of respiration and I will fall gasping in a pitiful huddle in the middle of the driveway, clutching my throat as I fade to black, my last profound thought being #)#$&))@)#%& SPIDERS!!!, and (b) it doesn't matter anyway because I indiscriminately hate them all and am determined to eradicate them.
Any spider, of any size, is unwelcome in my home. Sorry guys, no offense intended, but EAT POISON AND DIE. You are creepy. You are unattractive. You give me hives. I do not want you.
This morning, I was out enjoying my morning ritual of watering the plants. This is the best thing since coffee for starting a day off right, it gets me in a nice little zen groove. I start with the veggie and herb garden outside the side door, spraying them with the mister to see their happy little leaves shimmer then soaking their roots. Then I turn that hose off and go around to the front and water the peonies, the rose bush, and the barrel garden. Ahhhhhh. Plants have the Power of Luv. So this morning, I had just finished watering the side garden and needed to run into the house to deposit the fresh-picked tomatoes so my hands would be free to water in the front. I was all mellow. I like mellow. I opened the side outer door and was about to open the screen door when I saw it. A VERY large, VERY black, probably hairy (because all the nasty ones in horror movies are hairy, so my mind sees hairy) spider had the unmitigated gall to attach itself to my side door, mucking it all up with a sticky web adhering the screen door to the door facing. It was messing with my mellow.
I will freely admit my response to spiders is immediate, loud, excessive, and violent. Be afraid, be very very afraid. I was wearing flip flops, which are bad because they leave you exposed but good because they are easy to whip off and have a lot of thwapping power. So I whipped and thwapped that spider into total oblivion.
When my blood pressure was approaching normal, I went on to the front watering. Here is where I got truly put out. There is some kind of spider that makes its web in the form of this hammock-like thing, and it does it on the grass, or shrubs, or anything low. There were probably FIFTY of the things, all over my little low stone wall, the yard, the lavender lining my sidewalk, you name it. Too numerous for flip-flop-thwacking, and eminently creepy. Like my yard was being taken over. NOT a good feeling.
I love an inspired plan early in the morning. Makes you just feel good about life. JET. That is the setting on my sprayer that caught my eye. Ahhhh. Jet. So I jetted those webs into the next county. Remember - immediate, excessive, violent. I probably took out large portions of grass at the same time, but hey, it's all good.
If I could just get the snakes to eat the spiders, we'd be in business.
-----
On an unrelated note, I have been contemplating how it is that one gets more people to read one's blog. Not to worry, I do primarily write this thing for the simple joy of putting words on paper (figuratively), but I will also admit to obsessing over the Stats. I love to see new hits, REALLY love it when there are comments. I want more Followers!! So I have been thinking - how can I get people to find this blog? Because if people even look at it once, it shows as a hit, which makes me smile, even if they read it and hate it and never look again. Which of COURSE won't happen.
So, it occurs to me that I should take a hint from the "trending now" column on Yahoo. If I can incorporate these items into my blog, I will have bazillions of hits. SOOOO - I have decided to rename all my farm animals. The llama is now Jim Belushi, the goats are Anna Nicole, Sarah Michelle Geller, and Carl Lewis. I need to figure out who I can name Baldness and Windows 8....
Stay Tuned!
Friday, September 9, 2011
Mighty Mouses
I remember some cartoon character from my childhood who had a running war on with some mice, and he used to rage "I hate those meeces - to pieces!" There seems to be a lot of Meece-hating coming on in these parts. Personally, I do occasionally contemplate getting a couple official barn cats - but it's all talk. I surprised a little mouse in my feed room the other day and felt badly for startling him so, if that gives you any idea how harmless I am about it all.
I was shaped early on, I suppose. When I was about 5, my mom opened the oven door a couple days after Thanksgiving to do something with her turkey roasting pan that had been left in there. There in the grease congealed in the pan were little tiny footprints, leading to the middle of the pan, where a little tiny mouse sat, clearly thinking himself in mouse heaven. My dad was in favor of gassing him, I think, but my mom is a TREMENDOUS sap about any living creature, and thought he was too cute to kill. I don't remember how it ever turned out - if the mouse was smart he took off out of there for safer environs - but that story was told so often throughout my childhood it must have affected my judgment towards our Rodentia brothers and sisters.
The farmers hereabout had no such upbringing, apparently. My daughter, the combine driver, came home and informed me that since combining season was over, she was being shifted into mousebeating. Or at least I thought that was what she said, which sounded decidedly unAmerican to me. What she actually said was mouse-baiting, which as it turns out isn't much better. It apparently involves walking the fields in search of mouse holes and stuffing bad things down in them designed to lead, I am afraid, to a frank reduction (not mere relocation) of the small rodent population.
I understand the realities of agriculture. I do. I promise. This is why I was not in favor of naming calves that were destined to be hamburgers and steaks in a few months. I mean, could you eat something you had bottle fed? And named CHUCK for pity sake?? That is sick. Funny, admittedly, but twisted. I understand that cattle are raised because I like my burgers, and that fuzzy little chicks become lovely rosemary chicken. I just don't want to be the instrument of death, thank you very much. I cheered at the movie Chicken Run.
And I likewise understand that mice eat tender little growing things, and when growing things is your livelihood, war against rodents is appropriate. But I am a closet anarchist. So I have a plan.
I am going to infiltrate the farm office in the dead of night, wearing my special night vision goggles and my black long-sleeved John Denver Homegrown Tomatoes T-shirt. Then I am going to find all these little devices for stuffing bad things into mouse holes, and I am going to, shall we say, modify them. With tasty treats, something that makes little mouse mouths water, whatever that is (some research is needed here). I figure, if they have something yummy in their tummy they will be less likely to go after crops, right? Maybe slip a little Benadryl in there too, so they eat and drop off into a nice long sleep. So everyone thinks their absence is attributable to having gone to the great mouse beyond.
I think this is a stellar plan. Way more practical than my original plan of broadcasting some sort of RUN FOR YOUR LIVES kind of message, since there is a bit of a language barrier.
What I really need to know is - will you visit me in jail!?
I was shaped early on, I suppose. When I was about 5, my mom opened the oven door a couple days after Thanksgiving to do something with her turkey roasting pan that had been left in there. There in the grease congealed in the pan were little tiny footprints, leading to the middle of the pan, where a little tiny mouse sat, clearly thinking himself in mouse heaven. My dad was in favor of gassing him, I think, but my mom is a TREMENDOUS sap about any living creature, and thought he was too cute to kill. I don't remember how it ever turned out - if the mouse was smart he took off out of there for safer environs - but that story was told so often throughout my childhood it must have affected my judgment towards our Rodentia brothers and sisters.
The farmers hereabout had no such upbringing, apparently. My daughter, the combine driver, came home and informed me that since combining season was over, she was being shifted into mousebeating. Or at least I thought that was what she said, which sounded decidedly unAmerican to me. What she actually said was mouse-baiting, which as it turns out isn't much better. It apparently involves walking the fields in search of mouse holes and stuffing bad things down in them designed to lead, I am afraid, to a frank reduction (not mere relocation) of the small rodent population.
I understand the realities of agriculture. I do. I promise. This is why I was not in favor of naming calves that were destined to be hamburgers and steaks in a few months. I mean, could you eat something you had bottle fed? And named CHUCK for pity sake?? That is sick. Funny, admittedly, but twisted. I understand that cattle are raised because I like my burgers, and that fuzzy little chicks become lovely rosemary chicken. I just don't want to be the instrument of death, thank you very much. I cheered at the movie Chicken Run.
And I likewise understand that mice eat tender little growing things, and when growing things is your livelihood, war against rodents is appropriate. But I am a closet anarchist. So I have a plan.
I am going to infiltrate the farm office in the dead of night, wearing my special night vision goggles and my black long-sleeved John Denver Homegrown Tomatoes T-shirt. Then I am going to find all these little devices for stuffing bad things into mouse holes, and I am going to, shall we say, modify them. With tasty treats, something that makes little mouse mouths water, whatever that is (some research is needed here). I figure, if they have something yummy in their tummy they will be less likely to go after crops, right? Maybe slip a little Benadryl in there too, so they eat and drop off into a nice long sleep. So everyone thinks their absence is attributable to having gone to the great mouse beyond.
I think this is a stellar plan. Way more practical than my original plan of broadcasting some sort of RUN FOR YOUR LIVES kind of message, since there is a bit of a language barrier.
What I really need to know is - will you visit me in jail!?
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Holy Guano, Batman!!
So, there is more than a little poetic justice in our latest adventure on the farm. This will become clear, so bear with me dear readers.
On our property we have this really interesting structure of some historical significance, a nut-drying barn which was used by filbert farmers in the area back in the day, I assume before they started drying nuts however they currently dry nuts, about which I know absolutely nothing. Anyway, this barn is about 3 stories high, the bottom level being on the ground (go figure) and you can sort of drive under it, like garage bays sort of. There is this huge brick column from the ground up that was apparently where they made a fire or did whatever cool thing they did to create heat. Upstairs in the 2d story, there is a big room with a central core of closets with a door on each end. There are like 4 or 5 doors in a row on opposite sides of the core, in other words, and if you open one you can see through to the other door on each compartment. There were wire racks which fit into grooves or something, like shelves, and progressed through the drying closet, drying the nuts on the rack. This room has a very high ceiling, not sure why, but it is a really cool old barn. Just want you picturing its scenic loveliness.
I have been in this barn multiple times when I came out to see the property, to have my husband see it, after we moved here, etc. Pretty much the same experience every time - like a trip back in time, a little dark in there, like the shadows held secrets, but not in a creepy way at all.
THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW.
So, my husband comes in a week or so ago and informs me there are bats in the barn. In general, this is not an earth-shaking pronouncement. I mean, we had decided to put up bat boxes on like the garage roof line or somewhere, to help control insects. And barns are sort of bat magnets anyway, right? So he asks me if I want to go see the bats, and I say sure. I mean, how creepy can it be, right? It's broad daylight, and bats sleep in the day, and all that.
So he brings this industrial strength flashlight and off we go. When we enter the big nut-drying room, something gets startled (OK, it was a BAT) and flies suddenly around in circles. This startles me, and I make a noise. OK, yes it did vaguely resemble a scream, I will admit it. This was the wrong response, because apparently if there is something bats are startled by in the middle of the day more than light it is screaming women. Even short, controlled, polite screams.
So suddenly there was one hell of a lot of activity in that nut-drying room, and as my husband played the flashlight beam upward across the rafters, I could see them. HOARDS of them. Like, a thousand maybe. OK, a hundred, but a hundred bats seems like a thousand in close quarters, let me tell you. And I could see their pointy little faces, and they have TEETH, and oversize ears, and despite being rather fascinating in a grotesque way they were undeniably creepy.
But in the midst of all this excitement, looking at the rows of bats hanging upside down from my barn rafters, with little high pitched noises (I can hear dog whistles, my husband has trouble with freight trains, so he was not as creeped out by this) by both the bats and yours truly, in the very midst of all of this, it occurs to me -- don't their ankles hurt? I mean if I had ears the size of Texas and a head as big as a third of the rest of my body, and I hung upside down all day, my ankles would be killing me. Do bats even HAVE ankles? I do not know this.
My second thought, less esoteric and more practical, was of Jim Carrey. Why anyone confronted with something a little horrifyingly creepy would think of Jim Carrey is an interesting psychological query, but specifically I thought of Ace Ventura, Pet Detective: When Nature Calls (no rash judgments on my taste in movies, please, I was dragged there by a friend) which had a subplot involving large quantities of guano. And I am imagining how my lovely old historical barn is going to look festooned with bat guano. And I am not liking it.
So if anyone out there has a good and reasonably humane way of convincing a large-ish number of bats to vacate the premises, please DO TELL. My screaming apparently isn't enough.
Oh - and that poetic justice? You're kidding. Bats in the belfry? ME???
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