Cleaning Up
Not this Saturday, but last Friday and Saturday (July 25 and 26)I cleaned up the debris of the fallen willow tree. I was not looking forward to this project because it would be both mind-numbing and labor intensive. Two or so years ago when I was cleaning up from the big maple tree that died in our front yard, it took me forever to clean it all up. The tree was massive, and every large hunk of wood had to be split into firewood before it could be hauled off. Some of the chunks of the trunk were so utterly massive I could not split them into firewood and was forced to roll/haul them to either the burn pile, or some location on the property where they could make seats or ornamental pieces (such as plant stands). It was all very much a gut busting, sweaty, and prolonged process. Though the willow tree was not nearly so big, I still did not feel like spending any portion of my summer hauling around chunks of wood.
When I am faced with something I don’t want to do, that is the time when I am most inventive. Not inventive for excuses (in my book there are no excuses) but inventive in finding a easier solution to the problem. Sometimes my ideas don’t turn out so well, and sometimes they do. In this case, I struck on a good idea. Teman has a hefty four-wheel-drive jeep. The back seat can be folded down in such a way that the back of the jeep is something like the bed of a small pick-up truck. If I loaded up log chunks in the back, and chained the more ungainly limbs to the back of the jeep, I figured I could save myself a lot of time and energy in hauling up the wood.
In the abstract I think Teman approved of this useful employment of his jeep’s power and four wheel drive. On a more emotional level, I think he was a little nervous about me driving it up in the field, and loading it down with wood. Not that he would admit as much, but he declared that if a hole was put in one of his tires it didn’t really matter too much because the tires really needed to be replaced anyhow. And, would I please pay attention to how much wood I loaded into the back of the jeep because he rathered it wasn’t weighed down so much that the suspension became ruined. But then he would mumble about it not being that big of a deal because after all “It is a beater.”
All his half-spoken fears ended up being for naught because, this once, I didn’t bust anything. The jeep was not overloaded, and everything worked as I had hoped. Over the space of Friday evening and Saturday morning, I hauled most of the willow tree debris up to the burn pile in the field. I say most because the half dozen or so largest chunks of tree trunk were still too bit to lift into the back of the jeep. I must cut them into smaller peices, or else roll them into a pile and burn them in the lawn.
I was glad I managed to finish such a large project in such a small amount of time. The little kids thought the greatest thing was that they got to ride in the jeep in the field, on the way down from the burn pile. If you can remember back to when you were a little kid, then you know how exciting it was to do something new, different, and perhaps a little dangerous. Riding in the jeep felt like all of these to the collection of little boys. Riding in the jeep wasn’t truly dangerous, of course, but it felt somehow greatly adventuresome and somehow a little daring to be riding off the road, out in the tall grass of the field. Knowing how they felt, I humored them, even when their exaggerated “Whooaa!” from the back of the jeep began to get on my nerves.
Out and About
Last Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I housesat for my uncle Kevin. Farm-sat, is more precise, because the reason I was needed was for the feeding of his three cows, two sheep, two cats, one dog, one bunny, many chickens, and several little fish. Kevin lives between an hour and an hour and a half distant . . . close enough so that I could possibly go down there twice a day to feed his animals, but far enough that such a strategy seemed awkward. I generally don’t like to travel, and don’t sleep as well out of my own bed, but after thinking about it a bit I decided it would work out better for me to spend the few days at Kevin’s house, and save me a lot of travel.
I thought that if I brought my computer along I could do my writing as normal. I dreamed that in the quiet and peace of his empty house I could do tons more writing than normal. That was nothing more than a wild fantasy. I did about as much writing as normal, and that was all. Ideas about great productivity usually turn about to be no more than that–ideas. Between feeding the animals and feeding myself, there wasn’t a real lot more time for writing than I normally had.
Wednesday, on the way home, I stopped in at Grandma and Grandpa P’s to eat supper with them and help Grandma P with computer stuff. I can, somewhat humorously, call my Grandma my star student because I have been a primary force in introducing and acclimating her to the world of computers. She had gone from knowing nothing about computers, to being able to use e-mail, the internet, image manipulation software, and (somewhat erratically) a digital camera. It has been slow progress, and not always easy, but I think pretty good for someone past seventy who for over six decades had not a thing to do with computers. I think she is an example of how it is possible to teach old dogs new tricks. A person is never too old to learn if they are willing.
What I helped Grandma do on Wednesday was set up an Ebay account and put her first items out for auction. She had a lot of antiques and decided to try Ebay as a method of getting rid of them while earning some money.
Setting up the Ebay account was not hard for me to do, but it was a slow process to work through with Grandma. I wanted to make sure she had a chance to read everything, and when she had a question or problem, I did my best to take care of them. I got her through the sign-up process and helped her list two items for auction. By this time it was late; 10:30 PM.
I arrived home after 11:00 PM, not only exhuasted from the lateness of the hour, but also from all the previous nights of sleeping at Kevin’s when I didn’t sleep as well as I normally do. So, the obvious thing to do when being so utterly exhausted is to flop into a chair and pick up a novel and begin reading. Really un-smart, but not so unusual for me. I didn’t get to bed until 1:30 AM, and the lack of sleep this precipitated helped send the rest of my week into a tail-spin. A lack of sleep sucks away motivation, diligence, and concentration. This put me into a bit of a funk for the rest of the week. While I actually did better and got more done than I might have, I didn’t get any more writing done for the rest of the week. This both put me out of sorts, and in a bad mood.
I’ve been using this weekend to try to re-adjust and get back on schedule.
Rain to Make Things Grow
The early part of summer is a time of great angst for gardeners. It is the foundation upon which the rest of the gardening season is built. Screw up then, and the garden is screwed up really good. If nothing is planted, nothing will grow. In middle and late summer if you don’t weed as much as you ought–well, things will survive.
Considering how poorly I did in the early part of this year, my gardening endeavors are going much, much, better than I deserve. The reason for this is the abundance of rain this summer. Rain covers over a multitude of gardening sins. On whole, this summer has been exceptionally wet and cool. This means that even though I didn’t get my cucumbers in until very late they probably will actually still produce. It also means that my corn is growing well (that corn I thought would never grow), my apples tree are bursting with life (even the one chomped by the evil deer) and my grape vines are growing with the vigor of a weed.
Standing at the beginning of August I am at a lull, a point of magnanimity toward all. Everything is growing. Everything is late, I won’t have any winter squash, but it looks like I’ll have a harvest from everything else, and considering the mistakes and hectic confusion of May, June, and July, I feel I’ve come off quite well.
My one source of ever-panging guilt is the blueberry bushes up on the hill. My Dad, with a bit of help from us oldest but then young boys, planted about fifty blueberry bushes. Not all of them have survived through the years, but many of them have. As Dad’s health has declined and Teman has gone off to get a respectable job, I have felt responsible for the blueberry bushes. Most years I’ve managed some kind of token care for them, but this year I’ve done absolutely nothing, and I feel terrible about it. They’ve had no mulch, not even a mowing! They are choked with tall grass, burdock, and sprouting saplings. They have been abused, neglected, and utterly mistreated. I am not worthy of them. (Woe is me!)
Yet, in some great irony, this year the blueberry bushes have produced in more abundance than they have before. Double, if not fourfold over last year’s harvest. The actual reason for this has several causes. While the harvest pleases me, it also gives me a bit of a feeling as if what I do doesn’t matter in the least.
The two main reasons why the blueberries have put out such a good harvest this year is because of the abundent rain and the fact that finally, after so many years, the bushes have reached full maturity. Neither of these things has anything to do with my past or present labor, so I also like to think the care and mulching they have received in previous years has helped contribute to the good harvest. Secretly, I can’t help but think if I took even better care of them the harvest would have been even larger. I seem incapable of being satisfied with what I have.
Somewhat related to the subject of the blueberry bushes, there was a paper wasp nest in the weeds at the base of one of the blueberry bushes. The little kids were in terror of them, and warned everyone to stay far away. Yesterday I went up to pick some berries, and I was stung twice.
With the little kids warning in mind I was keeping a half eye open for the nest, but that wasn’t enough. The wasp nest was hidden by the grass, and most of my attention was focused on the berries so when I heard the telltale buzzzzz I thought vaugely that there must be a lot of flies around. Then I felt the most walloping sting on the back of my hand and my first thought was that I was bit by a big deer fly. I gave a half-outraged, half-pained shout and looked at the back of my hand to see a black and mustard colored wasp stinging me for all he was worth. I was incensed that he was stinging me when I’d done no sort of assualt against him, and tried to brush him away without losing my handful of berries. Then I was stung again, and I decided I’d best forget the berries and get out of there before my body became a mass of stings.
I dropped the berries and made a quick escape. The middle and pointer fingers on my right hand had both been stung and for the first two minutes they hurt like crazy. Then the pain quickly faded to be replaced by throbbing. I went down to the house and plastered the stings with a baking soda and witch hazel mixture and ate a vitamin C. Baking soda and witch hazel work great for bee stings, but I’m not sure it does anything for wasp stings. Bee stings give me more of an itching bite while wasp stings give me more swelling. Both of my fingers swelled up for several hours, but by evening most of it had gone away. Today I have a bit of an itch, and only very minor swelling.
Yesterday evening Dad went up to pick some berries and he also was stung. His anger was such that he stomped on the nest once before fleeing. He went back later to stomp on it several more times, and I’ve been told the wasps won’t be bothering us any more.
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