How I've Spent My Summer Vacation

        This has been a busy summer, and it’s not over yet.

It began with Vacation Bible School (VBS) the first week of June. My oldest grand was with me four of those five days, and the youngest for three. That was a hard week, because I had never taught VBS. I didn’t like VBS when I was a kid, because it always fell the week after school let out. I hated having to get up early for another week. My recent experience showed me two things: VBS still isn’t for me, but I like working with sixth-graders. 

As VBS ended, Daughter No. 2 and her husband joined us between closing on the house they sold and the one they were buying. The household was topsy-turvy during that week, but we did manage a trip to Spring Valley Water Park in Blountsville with the grands.

The third week of June I was supposed to be at a friend’s bay house in Elberta, near Gulf Shores, with both daughters and their families. Something came up, and Daughter No. 2 didn’t get to go, so I had to return early with Daughter No. 1. All was not lost, however, because we visited Bamahenge, dinosaurs and the Lady in the Lake at Barber’s Marina. I’ll save the details for another blog.

My brother, Gene, Aunt Lera & Me

During the middle of July, I flew to California to visit my brother and his family. I hadn’t seen them in almost three years. While there, my brother and I drove down to Sun City, near Menifee, to visit our dad’s last remaining sibling. Aunt Lera is 79, and I hadn’t seen her in nine years. She suffered a stroke a few years ago that rendered her left arm useless. She still has her wits about her, though.

Two days after returning from L.A., I did a site visit of three hotels that are under consideration as the host for the National Federation of Press Women’s 2017 communications conference in Birmingham. My conference co-director and I spent a night at the Sheraton downtown. After taking her back to Leeds, I came home, washed clothes and re-packed, then spent the next night with Daughter No. 2 and the grands before heading to Troy. That’s where I picked up my college roomy and BFF. We went to Tallahassee to visit mutual chums from college.

When I got home, I was bushed, to say the least. Now I’m trying to clear my slate so the grands can spend a few days with me before school starts. “Clearing my slate” is a euphemism for catching up on all the stuff that needs attending to, such as answering emails, writing this blog, spending an hour on the phone with Apple tech support, setting up doctor, veterinary and farrier appointments and planning a trip to Chattanooga with the grands for later this week. Whew!

        Like I said, it has been a busy summer, but it has given me much fodder for future blogs. Stay tuned.

Doing the Roomba

        Most of our modern conveniences were born out of the desire to save time. However, if you’re like me, you find that they often cost us just as much time as we save.

Take the dishwasher, for example. You have to rinse the dishes, sometimes even scrub off the caked food, before putting them in the dishwasher. Later, as you add more dishes, you have to re-arrange what you’ve already loaded. By the time you do all that, you might as well wash them by hand.

Same thing applies to the new robot vacuum cleaner I bought. As I write this, the Roomba, as it’s called, is whirring its way back and forth across my Great Room floor. No, wait, I hear it in my back hallway now, and because I didn’t close any doors or block any entrances, it will no doubt make its way into my office soon. It’s very thorough, crawls easily between my rugs and bare floors, and when it runs out of battery power, it returns to its base for re-charging. It saves lots of back-bending vacuuming time.

Moses examines the Roomba.

However, I have to put all my chairs on top of counters and tables so it has access to the entire floor. I have to move the cedar chest-cum-coffee-table away from the sofa so it can get between them. I have to move the child’s rocking chair and a small end table because it won’t fit between their legs. I unplug electrical cords that dangle between the sofa and an end table so they don’t become entangled, and so on and so forth. Granted, it’s good to move those obstacles anyway before I mop, but I only mopped once every six months before buying the robo vac. That brings up another time-costing conundrum: Now I feel compelled to mop every time I use the Roomba.

It’s kind of spooky, sometimes, to see it do its thing. It whirs and turns and glides with a mind of its own, like something out of a sci-fi movie. I have to watch my step if I’m in the same room while it’s vacuuming, lest it bumps into me or I step on it. Fortunately, my dogs don’t give it much attention, unlike the cat seen in the YouTube video riding on top of one. When it hits a snag, such as inhaling a piece of jute, or it can’t maneuver out from under a small table, I hear it complaining from another room. It actually speaks, telling me to check its brushes or move it away from an object, like some disembodied voice from the Great Beyond. 

After each use, I have to take the thing apart to clean it. I empty the trash bin, get the hairs out of the brush rollers and knock the dust off the filter. While these processes are less tiring than pushing a canister vacuum cleaner around for half an hour, they are just as time-consuming.

I could go on forever and a day talking about the time I spend with tech support on cell phone, internet and computer software problems. Then there’s that darned email that demands to be answered several times a day. 

If these contraptions are time savers, then why are they costing me so much time?

Rock Growing

         Folks often ask me what I grow on my farm. “Rocks,” is my standard reply. If I could make money off them, I’d be one of the richest women in the world. They’re all over my 28 acres, including my woods. But the best yield comes from my pastures. 

An early-morning harvest

       I grow all shapes and sizes: big rocks, small rocks, boulders and pebbles. Don’t try to tell me they don’t really grow here. I know they do, because every time it rains, I harvest a new crop. 

      Rocks are the perfect commodity. Unlike wheat, soybeans, cotton and other row crops, they require very little work, at least until harvest time. They don’t have to be planted, watered or fertilized. They’re perennials, coming back year after year, and they’re an all-weather crop, because they pop up in every season. They are impervious to insects, never get parched from heat and they never mold.       Admittedly, picking them can be a pain. So far as I know, there is no such thing as a rock combine. But that’s a minor problem when you consider the money to be made.

The Campfire Collection

Perhaps I could get an agricultural subsidy from the government, like those wealthy folks who collect checks when they never set foot on a farm and don’t need the taxpayer-funded assistance. According to an Environmental Working Group report, these include Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, children of the founder of Walmart, Senator Chuck Grassley, TV magnate Ted Turner, Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen. Boy, what ranks I would join.

Boulders make a bold landscaping statement.

Better yet, I could collect a check for the rocks I don’t grow. Farmers get paid for not growing certain crops when the market is glutted. According to the Government Accountability Office, between 2007 and 2011 Uncle Sam (meaning U.S. taxpayers) paid some $3 million to 2,300 farms where no crop of any sort was grown. That could be a problem, though, because I can’t seem to control the proliferation of my rocks. They grow willy-nilly, like weeds.

I could be like the father of Major Major, a character in Catch 22, a novel by Joseph Heller. Major makes a good living not growing alfalfa. “The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn’t earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce,” the book says. Like the fictional Mr. Major, I’d be able to spring out of bed at the crack of noon each day, “just to make certain that the chores would not get done.” Sounds like a plan our government is sure to back.

I could sell the ones I did grow to garden shops, nurseries and big-box retailers like Lowe’s. I could sell rocks over the internet, on Amazon.com or eBay, so I’d have little overhead, or better yet, have a "U-pick-'em" farm. I could rent a booth at a flea market or crafts festival if I felt really enterprising, and I could advertise them on a television infomercial. “Just $50 for a 25-pound bag of assorted rocks and pebbles. We’ll even pay the shipping. But wait, there’s more. Call within the next 10 minutes, and we’ll double the offer. That’s right, you’ll get two 50-pound bags of mixed rocks for the price of one. Just pay shipping for the extra bag. But hurry, this is a limited-time offer.”

With my luck, though, China would be able to produce rocks even cheaper than I could. They’d ship them to Walmart, and people would buy them by the bushel, even if they were inferior to my American-made varieties. I’d be right back where I started, with 28 acres of rocks that are good for nothing but filling up sink holes.

Critter Containment

Jazzy & Mallory graze in the front pasture.

A year or so ago, I had the underground sensor to my gate opener dismantled because my critters kept tripping it. Believe me, there's no fun in answering a 6:30 a.m. phone call from your local sheriff's deputy saying, "Mrs Miller, I'm at your gate, and your horses are out."

Even with the sensor dismantled, the llamas got out last winter when a contractor came in one morning and, not seeing them, drove up my hill without pausing to let the gates close behind him. Apparently, they were lying in wait among the trees, because I got a phone call from a neighbor whose daughter spotted them at the church down the road.

So, a few weeks ago I had two signs made at a local sign shop. Each says, in red lettering the color of a geranium, "Critters Roaming: Remain at gates until they close behind you." I’ve been hanging them on the gates when the llamas were out, one sign facing inside, one outside, so folks could see them when they were entering or leaving. 

Waiting for the gates to close became burdensome last week when my daughter and her family were camping out here before closing on their new home. So my grandsons and I made a trip to the nearest Tractor Supply store and purchased two dozen plastic fence posts. I already had plenty of plastic webbing left over from the temporary fence I had put up several years ago to divide my back pasture into two sections. The posts have little "feet" near the bottom that you step on to push them into the ground, but I figured they might need a little hammer help. Friday, Gabe, Mati and I loaded the posts, webbing and a hammer into the UTV, and set out to build our enclosure. It worked like a charm.

       Saturday morning, I wanted to put the llamas in the back pasture and let the horses enjoy different scenery. After Gabe and his parents left, Mati and I drove the UTV to the barn for llama halters and feed, then headed to the front pasture. We got a halter on Beeper, the daughter llama, but Rio, the mama llama, would have no part of it. So we started leading Beeper up the hill, figuring Rio would follow. 

I had forgotten that llamas can be as recalcitrant as donkeys. What should have been a five-minute trip took half an hour, with Rio wandering off into the woods and Beeper stubbornly stopping every few feet in protest. About 20 feet from the gate through which I was trying to herd these animals, she decided she had had enough, and lay down. 

      I took off the lead rope, then concentrated on getting mama llama through the gate. Beeper got up, went on in, but her mama just didn't want to be confined. So I said, "To heck with her," and locked the gate. Meanwhile, I put halters on my horses and led them down to the front, with Mati trudging along behind as fast as his three-year-old legs would permit. Once inside the new "compound," the horses ran from one side to the other, checking out their boundaries and bucking in delight, then waded into the pond. They splashed water all over themselves, and Jazzy actually lay down and rolled in it. 

      When I returned from church Sunday I drove immediately to the barn, and almost ran over Rio because she was lying down in my drive about 100 feet from the gate. Her daughter kept calling to her in the high-pitched hum that earned her the name, "Beeper."  Finally, Rio went in, I fed both of them, and said a prayer of thanksgiving.

      Now my equine buddies won't knock over the bird feeders beside my house and come to my back porch begging for apples and carrots while roaming my property. I won't have to chase critters up and down the road again, either…maybe.

Return Of The Hummers

       

       It has been a month since the first hummingbird of the season appeared at my back door. He flitted around a bit, looking for a feeder, then peered at me through the glass door as if to say, "Okay, I'm back, where is it?" I took the hint and put up a feeder. Then I waited for him to return. And waited. And waited.

Giving up, I was about to take the lone feeder down. Then a couple of days ago, my grandson pointed out that there were two hummers at the feeder. I figured the homemade nectar was rancid by now, so I dumped it, cleaned the feeder, and made a new batch. 

Wednesday, I noticed a third hummer. His buddies must have followed him here. He certainly wouldn't have shown them the way. Hummers are territorial, and once they stake out a garden, plant or feeder, they fight all newcomers. In fact, they seem to spend more time pushing each other away from the feeders than actually drinking from them. I've often thought they could drink more if they would learn to share.

Thursday morning, I peered through my kitchen widow and a fourth hummer was trying to get a bill full. Then along came a fifth and a sixth. I couldn't believe my eyes! It reminded me of the first year I was here, when I had half a dozen feeders and twice as many hummers. The population has dwindled since then. I’m not sure what brought them back, unless they were attracted to my hanging pots of petunias on the front porch, then decided to check the rear porch for feeders..

The really odd thing, though, is that they appeared to be sharing. Well, the first four or five were. By the time Number Six arrived, they began fighting over a spot in the red basin of the glass-bottle feeder. In the wild, they don't know how many flowers might be around, so they stake out their territory and protect it from other hummers. The feisty little critters can become so aggressive that they impale one another on their long, skinny beaks. Fortunately, that hasn’t happened on my watch, but I could hear them thwacking against one another as they jockeyed for a position at the eight-hole feeding trough.

       The feeder was almost empty, so I made two more batches of nectar, and pulled another feeder out of my storage shed. For the next half hour, I sat on the porch watching their antics at the near-empty feeder while the fresh nectar cooled. It was a hummingbird sonata, with all that twittering and whizzing and, yes, humming going on.      It was music to my ears.

Photo Frame Found, Mind Still Missing

        Sometimes inanimate objects develop legs and walk off around my house. More often, though, they leave in the mouth of a four-legged critter known as Maggie. 

That was my thinking process one cold day this past winter when a framed picture of my American Mastiff, Moses, disappeared. I’ve written before about the way Maggie, my mutt rescue, carries toys and shoes outside and buries them. (See “Moses, Maggie & the Butter Dish,” my February 17, 2014, post). Her latest caper appeared to involve a picture frame. Keep reading, and you’ll understand why I use the word, “appeared.”

The picture was of Moses when he was about six months old, and its frame had reliefs of Mastiffs around the edges. It sat on one of my end tables in my Great Room. On this particular day, I noticed it wasn’t there. Thinking perhaps my three-year-old grandson, Mati,  had played with it, I looked behind and under sofas and beds, finding nothing more than dust bunnies. I looked in the trash cans. Again, no photo frame. 

At 2 a.m. the next morning, when sleep was elusive, I lay in bed wondering where it could be. Suddenly, I realized I had seen it since Mati had been here. Then I recalled coming home one night and finding a torn box of facial tissues on the floor, with much of its contents shredded and scattered because I had left it on the end table where Moses could reach it. That’s when it hit me: The Butter-Dish Bandits had struck again. 

Working in tandem, Moses must have grabbed the tissue box, knocking off the picture frame in the process. Maggie probably grabbed it and ran. It had to be in the house somewhere, I reasoned, because it was raining that evening, and I left home without opening the doggy door. 

However, I searched the house again that morning, and still couldn’t find the frame. Why did she do it? Was she  jealous of Moses, and went for his photo because she couldn’t go for him? Who knows. 

I knew I could replace the photo. I have it on my computer. But the frame is unique. I’ve never seen another like it. Figuring I’d have to wait until the snow melted to attempt another outdoor search of Maggie’s hidey-holes, I temporarily gave up.

Meanwhile, I wracked my brain trying to recall whether I had moved the frame to another location. Perhaps affected by the frigid temperatures, my brain refused to wrack. No mental picture came to mind.

Several hours later, as I was re-arranging some teapots on my Great Room bookcase, guess what I spotted? Yep, right there on the top shelf it sat, my missing photo frame. I have no recollection of when or why I put it there.

I don’t know which is worse, having dogs that work in collusion to knock stuff off your countertops to eat and bury them, or losing your mind.

      Actually, I do know which is worse, but I try not to think about it.

Why I Hate Summer

        When I was a child, I couldn’t wait for summer, because my birthday is in the summer and I had three whole months of not having to get up early for school.

Nowadays, I dread summer, because my birthday is in the summer and I have three whole months of getting up early to fight insects and pasture weeds. Life just isn’t fair when you grow up, is it?

I live in a log house in the middle of the woods. In March or April, depending on how warm it is, I start fighting the carpenter bees who love to nest in unpainted wood. I’m supposed to spray insecticide every month from March until September, and plug up their nest holes. That means toting around a two-gallon sprayer that I have to hoist waist-high to make the spray reach the underside of my porch roofs. My back aches after an hour session like that.

Every morning when I walk through the woods to my barn and pasture, I have to douse myself and my clothes with insect repellant. If I don’t, the ticks and mosquitoes will have me for breakfast, making me itch for weeks and threatening to give me Lyme Disease. I’ve tried those “natural” sprays that often contain cintronella. The insects around here treat it like salad dressing. It’s as if they relish (pardon the pun) going through flavored flesh to get to the blood feast. So I have to use Deep Woods Off, with 25% Deet, and I hate that stuff. 

Meanwhile, I’m raising a great crop of rocks in my pasture. Several years ago, I actually paid some folks to pick up rocks. They worked all day and still didn’t get them all. I worked hard and had a nice stand of Bermuda for a few years. Last fall, I planted rye in one pasture, but didn’t get the seed scattered until early December. So it didn’t start coming up until February. Not exactly the winter crop I had hoped for. I had to keep my horses off that pasture for several months, trying to get a good stand. Horses will keep eating until they’ve pulled up the grass by the roots, so now one pasture is nothing but rocks and weeds, while the rye pasture has a mix of Bermuda, rye, thistle and wild daisies. I almost cried while bush-hoging it this week. 

I moved to the country because I was tired of city traffic and living within spitting distance of my neighbors. It’s peaceful and quiet where I live most of the year. Summer, however, is a different story. There’s nothing peaceful about the drone of mosquitoes or worrying about weeds and Lyme Disease.

       And that’s why winter has become my favorite season.