Thieves in the night...

In some ways I feel like we’ve been dropped into Wild Kingdom this summer. The bucket of birdseed that I had sitting near the back door became infested with “miller moths” – not sure what their correct name is but they leave their worms behind in just about every grain product we have in our house. So R said we had to put the seed bucket outside, with a brick on top. Before too long a mother raccoon with 4 (or maybe 5) babies arrived, proceeded without much trouble, to tip over the bucket and chow down. The seed had bits of peanut in it, which is what I assume was attracting them. R caught them in the act several times – fairly early in the evening too – and he says they were actually eating the seed. The seed is gone now, but I can tell when they have been here because they tip over the water that I put out for the birds. It would be very tempting to put out food for them – they are extremely cute when they are little – but I think that would be very big mistake.

The Bat is Back!

Because the slope of the land on which our house is built, the “first floor” of the east side is at the equivalent height of the second story. So my view from the kitchen window is mid-tree level, which is sort of cool sometimes. About half the house sits on top of a walk-in basement and fruit cellar, and R’s office, which is also on the east side and has a door into the dining area, is on top of the garage. We thus have to hike up quite a few steps to come in the house that way, and the stairwell is open to the roof. That wide-open garage door is inviting to certain critters – mostly birds, which have built nests -- and then there’s this little fellow (or gal). This little bat shows up every once in a while, spends a couple of days clinging to the drywall at the top of the stairwell, and then vanishes again until the next time. And then there is a funny story (well, fortunately, I think it is a funny story) to go with this. This last time the bat returned, which was several weeks ago (I’m running behind), I asked R to take a picture of it, which is what is posted here. I finally got around to asking him to transfer the picture to my "hold file" on the network. So he said sure and a few minutes later he called from the other room "the picture is in your hold file under 'old bat’.” Well, there was a picture there all right, but it was a picture of ME (the old bat!).

How many men does it take to...

....pick up a dead deer. Yes, unfortunately, we saw one of the big deer lying dead at the shoulder of the road by our house the other morning when we left for the “big city.” The department of transportation is fairly quick about picking up the road kill (of course it isn’t the “road” that kills them, it’s the cars and trucks, duuuh). One would assume that two men and a pick up truck could get the job done. One guy get the front, one guy get the back, and heave her into the truck bed. Yes, it was a big deer, but did it really require a huge front-end loader and a dump truck? We’re talking the giant-sized skip loader here and a full-sized dump truck, both of which had to be driven over from the DOT yard. True, it’s not that far, but still.... Our tax dollars at work.

I can see clearly now...

Just before we left on our vacation, a contractor hired by the electric co-op came by and told us they would be clearing the right of way under the power line that cuts across our field from the church to our house. They were as good as their word, but my goodness, we were in for a shock when we got back from our trip. When they did this about 5 years ago, they just trimmed the trees and didn't do much else, and within a year you couldn't tell anything had been done. This time it was different—much different. I am very glad that we were gone when they came, because we would have been very upset. They cut a wide swath across the field, but it was more than just cutting down the trees. The 30-foot (?) right-of-way is now bare ground. Course it won't be bare ground for long, because already maybe 1000 mimosa trees have started to sprout, but in any event, we have a clear view of the church and they have a nice view of our propane tank. One of the trees that is now exposed is an apple tree. We never got any apples off of it in the years after noticed it was blooming because we couldn't get to it, and then we forgot about it. The deer knew it was there, and all along have been eating the apples off the ground, but we never saw them. Now, just about every day, we have the pleasure of seeing a doe and her fawn under the tree eating apples; and a couple of days later: a doe and twin fawns.

Charles Chaplin

My father’s mother worked as a seamstress in the wardrobe department for one of the film studios in the Los Angles area. This would likely have been in 1920-1930. My sister took on the task of making copies of important photos that my mom and dad have so that all of the sibs can have them. My mother, I think, is trying to cover her bases -- she doesn't want her children fighting over "stuff." I received my set when we were there on vacation at the end of July. Amongst the photographs that came to my father when his father and mother became late, and copied by my sister, is this candid snapshot of Charles Chaplin. That this is not a professional publicity photo should be obvious. I don’t know how my grandmother came by this picture, whether she took the picture on her own camera (she did have one, because she took pictures of her kids when they were little), or if someone else at the studio took it and gave it to her, but that my grandmother should have had this photo has “blown us away” to speak.

Simple Pleasures

Yesterday at the used bookstore I found a book I have been looking for since last December, when I happened upon it at the bookstore at the airport (in Houston? or was it Dallas?) and began reading a few pages of it while waiting (at umpteen dollars I was only briefly tempted to buy it) for my flight to Los Angeles. It appears to be a brand-new hardback for only $3.00. When I am finished I will donate it to the library so someone else may enjoy it too. He surprised me yesterday by coming in with the brochure from the “Center for the Performing Arts” and pointing out that the Wailin’ Jennys will be in concert there in April. I looked up and said, “Oh, can we....” and before I even finished he showed me a layout of the auditorium and where our seats are located. I am thrilled to the core. They are a wonderful singing group and I can hardly wait until I get to hear them. Clicking on segment 3 at this website http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/programs/2006/08/05/ will allow you to hear them if your computer is set up correctly. The song is “Long Time Traveler.” And today I figured out the secret, finally, to using liquid hand soap. I usually loose about 90% of each squirt. Now that there is barely 1/4 inch left in the bottom of the bottle, I realize one is not supposed to wet one’s hands before squirting on the soap.

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

Yes, I am back in the saddle again. It was at about this time last Thursday, 6:30ish, that we were into New Mexico with Albuquerque and dinner the next goal. Albuquerque is always so beautiful to see coming over the hills with the setting sun shining on it -- and this time there was a thunderstorm and a beautiful rainbow in the distance to make the picture even lovelier. Having said that, we generalky hate driving in Albuquerque, but I won't go into the difficulty we had getting to the restaurant. We ended up eating in a 1950s-syle sort of diner with a big owl on it, appropriately named "The Owl Cafe. (Go ahead, do a Google search and you will find a picture). It was very noisy from sound echoing off the walls and unpleasantly remined us of the miserable atmosphere at the Circus Circus restaurant we ate at during the "Las Vegas leg" of the trip. The Owl Cafe had some really cool old music on the juke box. I selected two songs for a quarter, but could barely hear either one of them on the speakers. The specialty of the house was a hamburger with green chili sauce. We both ordered it, but I got almost no chili and R’s was drenched with it. Seems to be the story of my life. It happens with depressing frequency that whenever we go out to eat, Richard ends up getting a really good meal but mine ends up being "not quite right."

The trip home was very different than the trip out. Going was fun – Route 400 across Kansas was delightful. I got a “sense of place” for the area in Colorado where my mother grew up on a small ranch. And we saw breathtaking scenery on I 70 leaving Denver – Glenwood Canyon was just beautiful, and the Rocky Mountains were---high!

But the trip home? Exhausting and irritating. About every 20 miles or so on I 40 there was some sort of road construction, and we felt like cattle being shunted through the chutes at the sale barn. It was very frustrating because just as it seemed we were making progress, here came another “reduced speed ahead, fines doubled in construction zone" sign. After our experience in Arizona several years ago getting zapped with a $250 fine in a construction zone (I did get to stand on a corner in Winslow Arizona, though) we take no chances.

I was very surprised that we made it home by 8 pm, but that was because we did not stop for dinner. By this point we were very tired of eating out and we had food in the cooler to eat.And what did we find when we came home? Well, terrible mess in the refrigerator. Before we left, I had unplugged the refrigerator, cleaned it and the freezer thoroughly, and left the doors open. Unfortunately, R shut the doors as he went from room to room around the house with his checklist because they were blocking the door to his office. I forgot to open the doors again before we left. We discussed briefly calling N and having him go in the house and open frig doors, but we decided against it, and that was a big mistake. I suspected the refrigerator would be in bad shape by the time we got back, and I was not disappointed. The insides were covered in mold (mildew?) whatever it was. I had enough bleach to get started, but R had to go to the store to get more. I spent at least an hour recleaning every surface of the refrigerator. I now have a extremely clean refrigerator.

Before the panic sets in...

Monday
I awoke this morning to marvelous rain. Rain, rain, glorious rain. We are in a drought here (R will want to argue with me on that point, but it is true). Everything is very droopy and the leaves on the cottonwood are turning yellow and falling to the ground. That tree is definitely a living "rain gauge" of sorts. I don't know when the rain started, but when I went downstairs at 5 a.m. to roll up the window of my car the seat was very wet.
The rain that started off as a slow, steady drizzle periodically became a torrential downpour as the storm moved through the area -- one such time occurred as I was driving from the aerobics class to the post office to get our mail. My wipers could not keep up with the rain. I parked and got out, and by the time I walked across the street and into the building, I was about half soaked. A woman standing in the door with an umbrella said “Well, I guess you don’t care about getting wet!” By the time I left the building and walked back to the car, I was soaked to the skin.
When I got back home, I squelched into the house, washed my hair, and hung my wet clothes on the line we still have stretching across the living room from when we used to dry clothes indoors during the winter when we heated with the wood stove. And then I got on with my day. I gave thanks for every blessed drop of rain that fell.

Tuesday
It is a very fortunate thing that we no longer have the doggy door in the bottom pane of the back door storm door, because had it still been there, we would have had at least two baby raccoons in the house and probably their mother and her other two babies as well. They woke me up at 1:30 am making this funny trilling sort of noise that they use to talk to each other. So I got up and turned on the porch light, and there were they were. A couple of them immediately ran off the porch, but two others were right there at the back door with their noses pressed against the storm door glass. It doesn't bear thinking about what it would have been like chasing wild baby raccoons around the house.

Wednesday
The pile of stuff that we think we need to bring with is us on our vacation is slowly spreading across the floor in Rs office. I think the stuff is breeding, or something. Every time I walk through there I want to giggle. R is standing in there scratching what little hair he has left on his head, wondering about it all. "Boy," he says, "as you get older the stuff you need to keep yourself going tends to increase." Now he is trying to figure out how to take the Certo for his knee pain. Is he going to cart 2-quart bottle of a grape juice across the country?

Thursday
Time is slip slip slipping into the future. Trying not to panic. I have no clue what I am going to wear on the trip. I’ve gotten too fat for most of my clothes. Well, I’ll figure something out. I usually do.

Mimosa...

No, I'm not talking about a cocktail. The tree! We have a small forest of mimosa trees at our place. They are everywhere. In the fall the trees produce many seeds pods, which winter over and then germinate and the trees spring up everywhere. Their lacy leaves they make a wonderful shady canopy. And the blossoms! They attract hummingbirds and butterflies, and they have sweet delicate scent that wafts over the yard when the breeze blows. The mimosas that grow in the front of our place have drawn us into “warfare” with the state and, most recently, the gas company who sent a man down the right of way in a “putt-putt” vehicle spraying herbicide. Two years ago the state sent crew to chop down all the mimosas on its right of way that had sprung up. And two weeks ago the gas company man zapped yet more some of the mimosas that we were pleased to see spring up to help block our place from the highway. Nothing we can do about it, of course, we are doomed to loose.

Shuddup! Shuddup! Shuddup!

And why would two reasonably sane (?) adults leap up and race through house and out one of the two back doors (yes, we have two back doors and no front door, it's a long story) screaming SHUT UP! Well, you might too if you had at chipmunks on both sides of the house “chipping” off and on all day long. And what do I mean by "chipping?" Aha. I'm glad you asked. From a Web site about chipmunks (http://www.hww.ca/hww2.asp?id=86): "chipmunks frequently call with a high-pitched chip or “chuck” repeated over and over (and over and over and over, emphasis added), at intervals of one or two seconds. This scolding noise is often made by a chipmunk watching an intruder from a safe vantage point. Some scientists think that it may also be the mating call of the female chipmunk." Mating call of the female chipmunk? Oh brother. If this is true, if this noise we are being subjected to sporadically all day long is being made by female chipmunks, well, we may be overrun with chipmunks. Chipmunks are adorable, so we haven’t even considered trying to eliminate them. They might send us to the looney bin though.