Mud Puppy

The Grandson was with us again today.  Some time after lunch, he decided that he wanted to go visit Pop-Pop and Nanny, so his Poppy took him down there.  I stayed home to finish baking a batch of cookies, but when they were done, I piled them on a paper plate and walked them across the road to Nanny's.

Poppy, Pop-Pop, and Caleb were sitting in the open door of Pop-Pop's workshop.  As I approached, I could hear Pop-Pop and Caleb counting - "One, Two, Three...Go, cat, go!" - then a whooshing sound.  As I got closer, I saw that Caleb was in a chair with wheels.  At "Go, cat, go!" Pop-Pop would give the chair a mighty shove and send Caleb sailing across the concrete floor in a fit of giggles. 

The action stopped when they saw the cookies.  Three sets of grubby hands reached for the plate.  Cookies disappeared.

After passing out the treats, I walked out to the garden to see what was happening with the few things we've planted so far.  Caleb went with me.  At the far end of the garden was a big mud puddle.  Caleb made a bee-line for it.  He got right up to the edge and stopped.  I watched him, wondering what he was going to do.

"Can I walk in this?" he asked me?

I thought about it for a minute.  It was a gorgeous, warm day.  He was bare-footed.  That mud would feel spectactular oozing between toes; I was half-tempted to kick off my shoes and walk in it, myself. 

"Yeah, go ahead," I told him.

He eased a foot into the water.  "Wow, this is great!" he said breathlessly as he slowly waded to the middle of the puddle.  He bent over and swished the warm water with his hands.

I laughed and turned my attention toward the potato rows.  We've had a tough time getting a potato crop to grow this year.  Soon after we first planted potatoes, we had several heavy rains.  Some 'taters sprouted, some rotted.  Others were dug up by a mystery critter.  Last week, Nanny found a bag of sprouted potatoes in her pantry, and she and Pop-Pop planted them in the skips in the original potato rows.  Now, I saw a series of holes where they'd done their planting.  "Hey, Pop-Pop," I called toward the shop, "something's digging again."  After a minute, he came ambling out the door. 

In a minute, I heard, simultaneously, "Uh-oh!" and "Oooo, Caleb!" 

I turned around to find this:

"Look, Grandmama, I'm a crocodile!" he told me, as he pulled himself through the ooze.

(Pretty good impression, eh?  Twenty-five years ago, I'd probably have beaten his daddy for this.)  ;)

There wasn't much that could be done about it at this point, so I let him wallow for a while, then called him to the water hose in the back yard.

Blank Canvases

The Grandsons, ages 10 and 4, spent Sunday afternoon with us.  It was a beautiful day for puttering around in the yard, but I was nursing a swollen knee, having done a little too much digging on Friday, and opted to stay inside and work on a quilt.  The 4-year-old couldn't decide between staying inside to play with his trains and playing outside in the dirt.  I'd hear the back door slam, and by the time I'd get to the door to see where he'd gone, he'd be out of sight.  I'd go outside to look for him, calling his name, walking all the way the house...just in time to see the front door close.  By the time I'd hobble to the door, he'd be playing with his trains again, as if he'd never gone anywhere. 

Finally, Poppy (The Husband's other name) said, "Let's go see Nanny and Pop-Pop." 

An hour later, they came back, with more young'uns - a niece and two nephews - in tow.  One of The Nephews was carrying a brand-new box of sidewalk chalk.  "We want to make art on your driveway," The Niece said.

What driveway couldn't use a touch of art?

They went to work.  They outlined my grandsons, making the driveway look more like a crime scene than an art gallery.  They drew cartoon characters, wrote names, made a hop-scotch board.  They even colored one of the grandsons....

...but he paid them back....

There has been some gardening at the home place this weekend.  Lord have mercy on The Husband and me for our aching muscles and joints; the act of standing up will come with sound effects - pops, groans, and cusses - for the next few days.

If you got all the way to the end of my last post, you'll already know that we had new sidewalks and a driveway installed last week.  I wish I had a "before" picture to show you what a mess our yard was in these areas so you could fully appreciate the "after" picture. 

We weren't here when the work was being done, but watchful neighbors tell us that there were two dump trucks full of dirt/gravel in here one day, and two cement trucks the next. They brought a bobcat/dozer in and did some grading work in the back to try to re-direct the flood that has been coming across our back yard with every rain.  They dumped two scoops of dirt in the front yard, near the holes where teenage boys used to park their cars.   (Unfortunately, they did not spread it, just dumped it.)   They filled in the gullies to the left of the driveway.  

After work on Friday, I came straight home and got busy replanting the monkey grass we'd dug up (miles of it) in advance of the work.  I spent about three hours spreading dirt, dividing clumps of grass with a big knife, and planting them along the front sidewalk.  When The Husband came home and told me the workers were coming back Monday to remove the wooden forms from the sides of the walkway, I dropped my shovel with the job half done.  Tomorrow, they'll probably tromp down what I've already planted, but I doubt the monkey grass will care.

I went around back to re-plant the hosta and narcissus, but there were forms there, too, and I would really prefer that the hosta not get tromped.  I piled it up and watered the heap, hoping it'll survive another day or two out of the ground.  I may pitch the narcissus over the hill.  They were getting on my nerves, anyway.

Yesterday and today, we hauled wheelbarrows of stepping stones, shoveled and raked dirt, moved concrete fountains and planters, re-arranged patio furniture, fought wasps, sawed down trees, picked up sticks, filled up citronella torches...and there's still loads of work to do once those forms come off.

But I got to park my Jeep in a nice, clean spot this evening.  :)

Epilogue: Rooster

As it turned out, the rest of the rooster story was not quite as amusing as I had hoped, but I'll tell it to you, anyway.

Saturday morning (the morning after Nanny left her "April Fool" message on the answering machine), The Husband called her to see how/when she'd found the rooster.  It seems that although she'd been up the driveway several times that morning, she'd not seen the rooster on the post until Friday afternoon.  It surprised us that she hadn't immediately suspected us of the deed.  No, she called her sister, who lives just up the road, and accused her.  Aunt B. quite innocently denied knowing that there was a rooster on the fence post.  Nanny's suspicion then shifted to Uncle B., whom she'd seen out walking earlier that morning.  Uncle B. denied personal involvement, but let it be known that he had witnessed the crime (we'd seen him puttering around his yard when we were affixing the rooster to the post).  It didn't take much prodding from Nanny for him to rat us out.

* * * * * *

We had a big storm here yesterday.  I came home to find that the dirt in the pots of my patio herb garden was like soup.  I tipped each pot over and drained out most of the water. 

The temperature dropped more than 20 degrees after the storm.  The weather man had even said that a frost is possible in the next few days.  I got an old bed sheet from the linen closet and draped it over the baker's rack to protect everything. 

I should learn to take my own advice.  A week ago, when a friend called and said that she was about to go to the greenhouse for plants for her pots and window boxes, I'd encouraged her to wait a couple of weeks.  "I'm not convinced that the cold snaps are over," I'd told her.  "I'd wait a couple of weeks." 

And then what did I do?  

I bet my friend is having to cover pots, too.  ;)

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Weekend Wishes

As I promised myself I would do, I got up and got moving Saturday morning.  A trip to the nearest greenhouse yielded plants, dirt, and pots for the patio herb garden I want.  I went straight from there to the grocery store and laid in a few days' worth of food, then brought it all home and unloaded it.  When I went outside to begin potting the herbs, I saw that The Husband had been hard at work, already, moving stepping stones out of the path of the soon-to-be sidewalks.  Together we moved a heavy concrete fountain.  He got the shovel and went to work digging up monkey grass while I potted the herbs.

The pots will go on a brass baker's rack that I ejected from my kitchen six months ago.  It has four tiered racks, perfect for holding lots of plants.  I could have spent a fortune on pretty containers, but I used some restraint and settled, instead, for cheap plastic pots in earthy colors, mixing the shapes.  In one long, window-box-shaped planter, I put perennial herbs, thinking I'll take the planter inside when winter comes.  I got all the standards - rosemary, thyme, sage, basil, etc. - plus some mint (in case I need a julep one of these days).  I also planted two lettuces.  Everything is planted in "moisture control" dirt, which hopefully will buy me an extra day if I forget to water.

When he gave out from digging monkey grass, The Husband decided he would move the charcoal grill, a big, rectangular monstrosity on wheels, so that he could lay a rectangle of paving stones under it.  This grill is several years old.  It never gets covered, and has been sitting in the grass its whole life.  When moved, two of its wheels broke out of their rusty legs.  We propped it up on bricks, for now, and moved on to other projects.

After lunch, The Husband said he was going across the road to mow Nanny's yard.  I said that while he mowed her yard, I'd mow ours.  Our mower had the yard sweeper attached to it, which was okay, since there were a few piles of leaves around the yard that needed to be swept.  After a quick lesson on how to take the sweeper off when I was ready to mow, I climbed on the mower and turned the key.  Dead battery.  We dragged out the battery charger to boost it.  Once the thing was running, The Husband rode his bicycle to Nanny's, and I started toward the front yard, sweeper in tow. 

Now, the lawnmower, by itself, fits perfectly
through this rose arbor.  The sweeper, however, does
NOT fit perfectly through the rose arbor, a fact of which I was unaware until I heard a WHAM! and saw the whole rose arbor shiver. 

It's positively amazing how many different thoughts can go through one's mind at times like this.  In an instant, I could see the arch falling over, and those terrible, spiked limbs whipping back on me.  At the same time, I imagined the sweeper in pieces behind me, and The Husband giving me The Look on seeing the damage.  Worse, I imagined trying to set that arbor back up and get that rose bush back on it.

Thankfully, none of that happened.  The arbor shivered, but did not fall, and the sweeper looked none worse for the wear.  All I had to do was back up....

When I tried to back up, the sweeper got cross-wise of the path, and no matter which way I turned the mower wheels, the sweeper went toward the house.  I finally decided that I would simply take the damned thing off the mower, drive the mower on through the arbor, and come back around to get it from the other side.  Naturally, when I got off the lawnmower seat, then engine quit.  I said a few choice words, but went and unhooked the sweeper.  And, naturally, when I tried to re-start it, the battery was dead again.  I went for the battery charger.  Even with a long extension cord, it lacked about 10 feet reaching the lawnmower.  I put the mower in neutral and started pushing, nearly blowing out both of my kneecaps in the process.  But, once hooked up to the charger, the engine cranked right away, and I managed to get the sweeping and mowing done without further trouble.

We came in from the yard about dinnertime, both of us smelly and dusty and exhausted.  After we cleaned up, I convinced The Husband to take me out to dinner by dangling the idea of doing a little grill shopping afterwards.  We had Chinese food at our favorite place.  The fortune in his cookie said, "A shooting star tonight will bring good luck tomorrow."  He folded up the little strip of paper and put it in his pocket.   Later, as we were driving home, we saw a shooting star so incredibly bright that at first I thought it was low-flying aircraft.  The Husband saw it, too, just before it winked out.  We both gasped. 

"I'm buying lottery tickets tomorrow," he said.

And so he did.

Wish him luck!

April Fool

Last week, while thumbing through a catalog I'd found on a table in a waiting room, I saw it:  a solar-powered fiber optic rooster.  I knew instantly what I was going to do with it.  Within minutes, I'd borrowed the nearest computer and ordered one.  It arrived at my house on Thursday of this week.  The Husband and I carefully pried it out of its styrofoam shipping container.  It was magnificent!  Standing over a foot tall, its head, legs, and rear plumage were colorfully-painted metal, and its body (where the fiber optic filaments were) was irridescent glass. 

Just before dusk, I peeped across the road to see if anyone was stirring in Pop-Pop's yard.  Seeing the coast was clear, The Husband and I sneaked across the road and nailed the rooster's feet to a fence post at the end of Pop-Pop's driveway, where it would be in Pop-Pop's line of sight when he was sitting in his recliner by the living room window.  We giggled, imagining him glancing out the window and seeing the color-changing ball of light hovering above the ground in the darkness....

We turned on the power switch.  Nothing happened.  We checked the instructions (always the last resort, eh?) and discovered that the solar battery needed to charge for 10 hours.  We wished we'd waited until the battery had charged to set the rooster on the fence post, for Nanny and Pop-Pop would have all the next day to spot the rooster and might guess, when they finally saw the ball of light, where the light was coming from.  Nevertheless, the deed was done; we'd just have to let the rooster charge its battery the next day and turn on the power switch that night. 

We didn't think about the fact that the next night would be Friday, April 1.

So, yesterday evening, as we prepared to go out to dinner, I slipped across the road and turned on the rooster's power switch.  Nothing happened.  It was still daylight, though, and I hoped that the rooster, like city streetlamps, would begin to glow once the sun went down.  And, sure enough, when we came back home after 10 p.m., we saw the glow of the fiber optic light in the darkness, long before we reached our driveway.  We stood in the yard for a minute, watching it change colors:  red...yellow...green...blue...white...red....

Heh....

We came inside the house and discovered a message on our answering machine:  "Hey, it's Nanny.  We were just wondering if the rooster's name is 'APRIL FOOL.'  Talk to you later."

I can't wait to hear the rest of the story.  ;)

* * * * * *

After 25 years of living in this house, we are finally about to get a concrete driveway and "real" sidewalks (as opposed to store-bought stepping stones) to the front and back doors.  In anticipation of the work getting started, I spent my evenings this week digging up and moving plants that will be in the way, things I don't want to lose, like rose bushes, monkey grass, hosta.  Work is supposed to commence Monday, if it doesn't rain.  This weekend, we'll be moving the camper and the heavy "yard ornaments," like a fountain, some concrete planters, etc.  Then, once the concrete is dry, we'll have to move the stuff back again and re-plant a wagon load of monkey grass.

I am dreading all the work, but excited, too.  The hosta and monkey grass needed dividing, anyway, and the new concrete and the forced landscape re-arranging will certainly help the looks of the yard.  There'll be enough old stepping stones to make a new base for the barbeque grill and maybe even a new "mini-patio" underneath a shade tree in the back yard.

Free beer to anyone who wants to come help.  ;)

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