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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Not Just Yet....

The new tiller ("Mr. Easy," I'm calling him; this may change once I actually get to use him) is still sitting in Pop-Pop's shop, where I left him the day we brought him home. We've had a lot of rain this past couple of weeks, and it's been too muddy to do anything in the garden.  The spot where I planted carrot seeds has been under water the whole time, so I can probably cross that crop off my list.

Last night, Nanny invited us down for a slice of home-made German Chocolate Cake (she makes a mean one).  As soon as we walked through the back door, The Nephew held up two fingers.  "We've caught two things," he said, "a raccoon and a possum."  He was referring to the live trap he'd set in the edge of the woods closest to the garden.  I didn't ask what happened to the critters.

Pop-Pop said that the potatoes haven't sprouted yet.  "They've probably rotted after all this rain."  Lovely.  We might as well have let the raccoons dig them up and eat them. 

Since I haven't been able to do any gardening, I've had time to work on some of my quilting projects.  My sister's Iris quilt is ready.  When it came out of the quilting frame, I loaded my niece's Dresden Plate quilt.  I started that quilt nearly 10 years ago.  Work progressed smoothly for a while, but during the quilting phase, my hands gave out from carpal tunnel and arthritis, and I eventually abandoned the project and took down the quilting frame.  The quilt, completely hand-quilted except for the last 18", had been lying in a chair in my bedroom all this time, mocking me.  Though I hated to mix hand quilting with machine quilting, I figured it was better than not finishing it at all.  A couple of hours in the machine quilting frame did the trick.  

Once the Dresden Plate quilt was done, I finished the piecing on my brother's Whirling Star quilt and loaded it into the frame.  I'd only quilted a few inches of the first row when the machine (or, perhaps, the operator) malfunctioned and created a huge "thread monster" between the fabric and the feed dogs.  It took some doing to free the machine, pick the knots of thread out of the quilt, and untangle the thread from the bobbin case.  When I started to quilt again, the needle broke.  I inserted a new needle.  It broke, too.  I pulled the machine to the side to investigate and discovered that the bobbin race was out of time - I guess I'd gimped it up while trying to untangle the knots.  In any case, The Husband took the machine to the shop for me.  He brought it home last night and we set it back in place.  I should be able to get in a little quilting this evening before Margarita Hour rolls around!

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We were eating breakfast yesterday morning when the local Sears store called to tell us that our tiller was ready for pick-up.  As soon as we finished eating, we went to get it. 

It was in a big crate.  We backed up to the loading dock, and the store employee scooted it right into the bed of our truck, no problem-o.  There was a problem-o getting it out of the truck.  We finally had to peel back the cardboard crate, remove the wooden supports, and hoist it out with a chain and Pop-Pop's hydraulic lifting thing.  It took us about 30 minutes to get the handle and gearshifts on it. We oiled it up and gassed it up and plugged it up (it has an electric starter). 

With one push of the little red start button, the engine cranked. 

Hallelujah!  Joy!  Joy! 

This may very well change my life!  :)

We couldn't take it for a test plow, because the ground is too wet.  But you can bet I'll be trying it out before the week is up, if we don't get any more rain.

I took a look at the garden after we stashed the tiller in Pop-Pop's shed.  There is now an electric fence around the potato rows.  Something - raccoons, we think - has been digging up the potatoes we planted last week. 

I guess they've already eaten the ones we threw over the hill when Pop-Pop wasn't looking.

Magic Words

Over the weekend, when the family was lingering around Nanny's table, my son asked me if he could borrow the little black tiller to work on his flower beds.  I told him, "Sure."

Nanny said he ought to try to crank it before he loaded it, just to make sure it still worked.  "It's a booger to crank," she said.

I told him not to give up after the first few cranks.  "Sometimes, there are some magic words you have to say to it before it'll start."

Pop-Pop chuckled.  He's heard the incantation a few times.

"I bet I know a few of those words," my son said, grinning. 

Nanny said she wasn't convinced that the magic words actually worked.  "I've said a few 'magic words' to it, myself," she confessed.

We all laughed.  We've heard Nanny's "dad-gums" and "shoots" and "spits." We didn't think the tiller would have paid much attention to them.

"My magic word vocabulary might be a little bigger than yours, Nanny," my son said.

After lunch, we went outside to find the tiller.  It wasn't in Pop-Pop's shed as I had thought, but I found it in my shed.  I dragged it out and took it to Nanny's.  Josh put some gas in it and prepared to crank it.  I showed him how he had to flip this switch, and slide that lever, and push that turkey-timer button on the side.  "If it cranks," I told him, "run it out there and loosen up a row for some onions." 

He gave the cord a good yank, and another, and another, and another.  He adjusted the choke, and yanked a few more times.  "You sorry son of a - "

"HEY!" I said, "Not yet!  You've started the chant too soon!" 

He fired off another round of magic words, and yanked the cord again.  The tiller fired right on up.

"Nah," my son said, adjusting the choke.  "You haven't been starting it soon enough!"  He revved up the motor.  "Whatcha want plowed?" 

'Tater Plantin'

The potatoes are in the ground, three long rows of them.  My son and his wife helped.  Tomorrow, we may all three be so "stove up" that we can't get out of bed.  'Tater planting is hard work!  The twenty-five pounds of seed potatoes yielded nearly a five-gallon bucket of potato chunks.  As I dug the trenches for the first two rows, my helpers came behind me, one dropping potatoes in the row, the other covering them up.  I gave out at the end of row two, and my son took over the trenching.  At the end of row three, he was pooped, too.  We looked in the bucket; it was still half full.  I looked at my son, and he looked at me.  He said, "Let's chunk 'em." 

"I second that.  Don't let Pop-Pop see, though."

We waited until Pop-Pop went back in the shed, then my son pitched the contents of the bucket over the hill.

Watch those lay there and grow better than the ones we planted.

We also planted some red onions, some fava beans, and some carrots.  (I have never had even one carrot seed sprout in the garden, but I had a packet of seeds, so I planted them.)  There is still plenty of room for cabbage and broccoli.

Yesterday, when the men-folk were in charge of preparing the soil, they decided we needed a new tiller.  I ordered one from Sears today, one that has an electric starter (yahoo!) and a handle that swivels to the side so that the operator can walk in the middles while he/she tills the rows.  It should be here Saturday.