They gobbledygook and gobbledygeek and mishy mash around.
The brain tries to make sense of the sound and gives it another go but the words tumble over the tongue and crash into the teeth. Crazy sounds emit from the mouth. People stare, confused, and say “huh?”
Gah!
Words, dammit, words!
This week there was a mouse in the house. His presence was discovered upon my arrival home and finding nibbled bits of aluminum foil scattered across the counter. The pesky rodent had tried to get to my made from scratch pumpkin pie.
I don’t know how long Lance (short for “pestilence”) had been in my house. The scattered foil was the first obvious sign of him.
The first thing I did was to gather my snap traps together and set them with peanut butter. Two traps and two hours later the peanut butter was gone and the traps hadn’t snapped. I took this as a sign that I should not have taunted Lance with the words “come and get it” when I put the peanut butter on the traps.
I had to try again. I set three traps with a little less peanut butter shoved deeper in the trap, and set them in prime spots. In the morning these three traps were cleared of bait.
This was a wily rodent.
Before heading off to work I reset the traps. When I came home, guess what? Yep, the traps were cleared. What mutant form of rodent was I dealing with? Usually I nab the pests on the first try. This one was becoming frustrating.
Coworkers and friends told me to get a glue trap. I don’t like them because I think they’re cruel and inhumane but my frustration with Lance had reached its peak. I didn’t want him to think he was becoming my pet and I was kindly giving him peanut butter treats so I went to the nearest store seeking a different trap. I had hoped for the kind with the door but all they had was the inhumane glue trap. I reluctantly bought it and took it home to set it out.
That night I was washing dishes. Because of Lance I was feeling a little “paranoid” and was looking over my shoulder a lot. When I turned back to my dishes there was movement to the left of my head which made me flinch. To my embarrassment it was a soap bubble. I was spooked by a soap bubble.
After work the next day I came home to find that the glue trap was missing. Somehow Lance had managed to drag it 2 feet from where it had been. He was on it but under the washing machine with only half inch of the corner of the trap sticking out in the narrow space between the washer and dryer. I used a stick to try to pull the trap out, but the stick got stuck in the glue. I pulled on the stick to get it out of the glue but the trap came up and it got stuck to the bottom of the washing machine.
The mouse squeaked. I became frustrated. And I admit that I actually got teary eyed that Lance was being tortured. In the end, I got Lance out from under the washer and sent him to his end. But I didn’t like the way it was done. I hate glue traps.
This weekend my city has been hosting a bass fishing tournament. Apparently this is such a big deal that some sporting network has sent cameras to film it. How interesting can it be to watch a fishing contest? The question struck me early this morning while I working in my yard. It was 6 a.m. when I heard a magnified voice blaring from somewhere within a 2 mile radius of my home. It took a while to figure out that it had to belong to someone at this “amazing” fishing contest. But really, what does an announcer “announce” for fishing?
“It looks like Boat 3, owned by Bobby Bass, has started his engine. Yes, indeedy, that’s a fine sounding motor. “
“And look at that. Boat 5, owned by Freddy Frog, has found a spot on the river and has turned off its motor. He must have found a good spot to drop his line.”
“And there’s Boat 1, owned by Charlie Sheepshead. He appears to be baiting his hook.”
I get fishing as far as fishing for a meal. What’s the adage: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” That makes sense to me.
What doesn’t make sense is hopping on a boat and hanging out on the river all day fishing. Catch and release, catch and release……boring. It’s obvious that I did not inherit the gene from my Grandpa.
Uncle Don & Grandpa with their catch. Some time in the 1930s or 1940s
Last week I put up a neighbor blocker. What’s this you ask? It’s a simple trellis to block the neighbor from standing in his yard (at my bushes) 15 feet from my porch, and yelling to me while I’m in my kitchen….another 10 feet from the neighbor’s location. It had to be put up because of the loss of a major shade, neighbor blocking, tree a few years ago. It was a beautiful Hackberry tree.
The tree's destruction
It saddens me to this day that the tree had to come down. But it was either the tree or the house. It’s demise was due to a large branch, around the size of a small tree, that came crashing into the dining room window during a midnight storm. Waking to shattering glass is not a pleasurable thing. It was a good thing the tree was removed because it was hollow from where the branches join at the top of the trunk to the base of the tree. That’s right, the base of the tree. As a matter of fact the hollow bit went below ground. Scary to think about.
Hollow to the core.
Flash forward to last weekend. While digging the holes for the trellis posts I found a couple of things that mystified me. Oh, there was glass. Hardly something confusing. And there were roots galore. What I found were these.
What are these things?
They were dirt encrusted when I pulled them out but like a little kid with a new find I brushed them off and let my imagination go to work. Bird feet? The back sides look like bird claws….okay, a five-toed bird claw, but why not? Maybe it was a prehistoric bird? Yeah, a baby pterodactyl just out of the egg. Or maybe they were bits of bones from some other ancient animal that roamed the area. Maybe they were bits of a body buried near the tree and the roots spread the bones apart. Or maybe they were the teeth of some animal….horse? Mule? A quick search on Google provided a disappointing answer. Calf teeth….a baby cow. I live in an old farmhouse so the find makes sense. And it is more interesting than the 2 large chunks of cement found in the hollow of the tree.
ontheporch2 