Ike’s nasty temper

The winds began picking up on September 11, Friday afternoon around 3:00 and slowly increased in strength during the afternoon and then the evening.  Hubby had done a good job of boarding up the windows and we didn’t have many problems with extreme wind noise.  Large gusts of wind could be heard but otherwise, we were okay, we just sat there and watched TV until 9:00 p.m. when the power went out.  Then we brought out the flashlights and candles and played cards until 1:00 a.m.  The only major problem we had was the heat.  There was no air circulating in the room and since the electricity was out, the air slowly heated to around 83-85 degrees.  We would have been miserable if we didn’t have the cardgame to keep our minds off of the heat.  I did notice that the candles seemed to make the air warmer so we had to blow them out.  I could tell when the eye of the storm moved over around midnight because there was less noise from outside.  At 1:00 a.m., I couldn’t stay up any longer and No.2son and I went on to bed and tried to sleep in that hot house.  It was not easy sleeping, every time I would doze off, I would hear something hit the roof and I would wake up.

 

Stuffy heated air woke us up the next morning and the first thing I noticed was there was still no electricity.  Damn, the Houston climate is not kind to those with no electricity – it’s so humid here that your skin instantly dampens as soon as you walk outdoors.  If you’re unlucky enough to have no air conditioning, that same clammy feeling is transferred indoors.  As soon as I could get some coffee prepared by hand over my gas stove, I gulped it down and then went outside.  There was chaos everywhere I looked.  Tree limbs and branches and leaves and roof-shingles were scattered over every lawn; the trees that you could see were topped out, leaving large gaps in the ruined trees; the green grass was barely visible because of all of the debris. My car looked like it had just survived a beating from tree branches, leaves were still plastered all over the paint job.  Most homes around us still had boarded up windows, just like we did; I was glad to see all of the homes still standing.  I looked at my roof to see that it was still intact but many roof shingles had blown off; we would have to have a new roof job.  Fences were down in almost every yard, including my own – we had lost a fence on one side. 

 

We stood there for a minute just trying to soak in all of the chaos and destruction around us and then began picking up shingles and small tree-branches.  There was too much to do to just sit there.  Neighbors slowly poured from their homes (most of them had stayed), all of them adopting the same dazed expressions on their faces as we had on our own.  All of the neighbors seemed to have one or more fences down and a few of them lost roof-shingles.  And of course no one had power.  Within a few minutes, we heard generators crank up to run electrical power here and there.  Hubby removed the boards from the windows and we opened the windows.  

 

One of my neighbors brought her grill over and we had a large barbeque, trying to cook up as much meat as we could.  We wanted to do cook up as much of the meat as we could to keep from throwing it away. 

 

Saturday and Sunday after the hurricane were just about the most miserable days of my life.  We had plenty of food and water and were healthy enough to get by of course.  But it was so miserable hot, that you could barely stand it.  The temperature reached approximately 93 degrees that day.  Unless you are used to being outside a lot, it’s just hard to stand this climate 24 hours a day.  A constant sheen of sweat was present on our faces.  I ran inside to take a cool shower, then got out of the shower to immediately get sweaty again.  There is just too much humidity here – you have to have air-conditioning or life is simply unbearable.  At last, I couldn’t stand the stress of being so uncomfortable and went to the car to cool off. 

 

Well, I’ll be darned if the car wouldn’t start.  Tears immediately came to my eyes – I just couldn’t take any more stress.  Hubby fiddled around the car for a few minutes predicting that I needed a new battery.  But when he tried to crank it, the car’s engine at last started up.  It turns out that the storm had pushed moisture under the hood of my car and had caused moisture to build up in the fuel injector or either in the coils.  Anyway, it’s okay now and running beautifully.  After that point, whenever we needed to cool off from the Houston heat, we ran out to the truck or car to crank it up and sit there and listen to the news about Hurricane Ike.  Until we listened to the radio, we didn’t realize how devastating the storm was to the coastal areas.  Hubby and I felt very fortunate in how little destruction we had sustained due to the storm.  I certainly gave a prayer of thanks.

 

The other stress producer in our lives during that first two days were the sounds of generators.  You know, generators are wonderful things.  My sister has one and I’m glad she has one.  If I were able to buy one, I would buy one.  But they are the noisiest things on God’s green earth.  My neighbor in front of me has one and he cranked that baby up and it sounded like a motorcycle with no muffler.  All of the neighbors in the direct vicinity hated the neighbor because of that thing – we hated him because it was noisy enough to destroy your hearing and at the same time we all resented him because he had one and we didn’t – it was funny, we hated the generator but we also lusted after it.  We humans are fickle creatures.  We all controlled our desires to kill the neighbor and returned to our backyards to light up the grills and cook our next meals. 

 

There was plenty to occupy our minds at that time, still plenty of debris to pick up, plenty of dishes to wash since there we couldn’t use the dishwasher, plenty of neighbors to check on since we were all outdoors because of the heat.  There was also the excellent opportunity to view the neighbors’ backyards since all of the fences were down.  I found out that my backyard really needs improvement, hmmm.

 

Saturday night was a bummer.  The neighbor behind us returned (he had evacuated during the storm) and fired up his generator which must have been larger than my front yard neighbor’s.  It sounded like it was about to blast off into my bedroom window and Hubby and I just laid there in the darkness unable to go to sleep.  Hubby said “I hate that damned thing.”

 

“I know, I do too,” I responded “but you’d buy one in a heartbeat if you had the money and you’d be running it too.”

 

“Yep, I sure would,” he replied.  At 3:00 a.m., we couldn’t stand the heat or the noise any longer and went out to the truck to cool off.

 

On Sunday, I couldn’t stand sitting around the house any longer and we went to the property to check on it.  We knew there would be a lot of devastation, but it was still hard to look at.  There were so many trees laying on the ground.  It was heart-breaking.  My red-bud trees were gone.  I knew I would lose one of the red-buds eventually because it was diseased.  But it was hard looking at the loss of the other one because of an oak tree that fell.  I had fought Hubby for months over where our future house would go because he wanted to cut a large oak tree down to put the back of the house there.  That 80-feet tall tree was probably a hundred years old and was laying on the ground (taking several other trees with it, including a good red-bud).  I thought I would cry over the loss of those trees.  I had also lost a large pecan tree.  Yet, another large oak next to the water was still living.  Several trees reaching way up to the sky were topped out by the storm.  And yet there was a dead tree next to the road, weakened by whatever disease had killed it, still standing. 

 

On Monday morning, I awoke early and assisted Hubby in taking the trash to the curb.  The garbage trucks run on Monday and Thursday, but the Thursday before, we didn’t get our trash picked up because the workers had to go home and prepare their homes for the storm.  Fair enough I guess, but needless to say, we had plenty of trash to take out to the curb since no trash had been picked up the Thursday before.  I also got a burst of energy regarding my refrigerator.  I didn’t want the frig to start smelling from bad food odors and there was no telling how long it would be before the power was turned back on, so I decided to go ahead and clean it out since it was trash day.  So, I removed every speck of food from the frig and took the three garbage bags to the curb.  But the garbage trucks didn’t come and by Monday afternoon the trucks didn’t come.  Tiredly, I looked at the 16 bags of trash at the curb, 3 of the bags very full of food, there was no way I was going to tote all of that crap back into my house and let the heat cook those odors into my house – uh uh.  So, I left them there.

 

Monday was also a day to search the immediate vicinity to see what was back up and running in our area.  We heard reports from the radio that HEB was open and No.2son and I went over there.  There was a traffic line extending from HEB half of a mile down the road; outside of HEB, people were lined up around the building.  We opted not to go in there.  I was about to die for a glass of milk but as there was no ice to store the milk in, why worry about it. 

 

One strange occurrence was the absence of gasoline.  There were only two gas stations in the area open and gas lines were already forming more than several city blocks down the road.  I hadn’t seen anything like it since the 70’s.  Luckily I didn’t need gas and I drove on.  There were a couple of stores open and running by generator also.  One commodity that I did need was ice but as I drove around, I realized that product would be in short supply.  My large cooler at home was needing ice and I couldn’t find any at the two stores.  We were lucky enough to hear the radio as one of the stations broadcasted a list of FEMA sites where you could get ice.  I never thought I would sit in a vehicle line for charity ice but I did it and I would do it again.  People were driving Lexuses and Hummers in that line and would have gladly paid high dollars for ice – if you could find it.  Ice was not to be found except in FEMA lines.

 

Lucky for residents in the Houston area, a cool front moved in.  Thank God!  We had been nearly sweltering but the cool front made life more bearable.  

 

On Tuesday morning, I decided that I would absolutely die if I didn’t get a glass of milk.  Isn’t that weird?  I was craving milk.  So I drove from store to store to store to buy a loaf of bread at one store, a gallon of milk at another.  HEB had the most needed items, but they were still so crowded with people, I couldn’t bear going in there.  Randall’s was fairly well stocked, but had no ice, so I returned home with my gallon of milk and other items and tossed them in the cooler.  Then I ran to the FEMA site, but they were out of ice.  Double doo-doo, there I was with cold-food items but unable to keep it cold.

 

On Wednesday, Matthew and I went to Houston and drove around, looking at the damage in that area.  Houstonians suffered about the same amount of damage as we did, uncovered glass had broken, topped out trees by the hundreds, most privacy fences were down, felled trees, trees on houses, toppled patios, roof damage in the thousands, wood siding ripped off of buildings. 

 

But the coastal communities (Galveston, Surfside) were the ones who really suffered, losing nearly everything that they owned, homes swept away from their foundations, swirling in the storm surge and then crashing into other homes until nothing was left but splintered boards.  Roads surrounding the homes were buried in sand, with the only means of identification, a streetsign that the storm forgot to blow away.  Septic tanks came loose from the sand, breaking open to lose the contents onto the sand.  Dead animals floated up from the high tide and were left to bake in the Texas sun.  Abandoned dogs and cats roamed freely, searching for the homes they had “once upon a time”.  Cars and boats crashed into each other during the storm and were left wrecked and broken, with gasoline pouring unchecked onto the ground.  The homes left on the east side of the island will have to be checked carefully for structural damage before entering.  Those wishing to stay will have to return their furnishings to the proper places because the storm surge tossed the furniture around the rooms like a washing machine.  But even worse, the residents will have to put up with the stench of the island from dead animals, sewage, and pollution from other sources, no electricity, no water, only a couple of stores to service the entire island, and they’ll have to push the rats and snakes out of the way before claiming any surface.  Just thinking about it makes me believe that it had to be a miracle that there were not more lives lost.

 

When we returned home, my neighbor was outside telling us that he had power.  Now, there he was with a generator, yet he was the one getting his power back.  I wanted to reach out and smack that man upside the head with something.  But a few minutes later, I had to eat my words.  Do you know what my neighbor did?  He came across the road with a very long extension cord and said “do you want to bowow my electwicity?”  He was as drunk as a skunk.  I had to think about his words for just a moment when it hit me that he was asking if I wanted to tie in to his electricity.  I started to say yes with a big smile on my face when he added “ya know whot I do for a wiving?”  He thought I was hesitating because I was worried about tying into his electricity and causing a fire.  (Honey, to get electricity, I would have skinny-dipped in a lake next to a line of pinetrees in a thunderstorm.) 

 

“Yes, I know you’re an electrician,” I responded.

 

“I’m an ewectwician” he blared out as if I hadn’t said a word.  “You can eider bowow my genewaiter or my ewectwicity,” wobbling slightly as he held the cord out proudly.

 

I almost died laughing at that man and was about to accept his offer of the electricity cord when Josh, his friend, said “hey, Kenny,”

 

“Yeah?” Kenny turned around, nearly falling as he stumbled in my uneven yard.

 

“Kenny, you’ve got the wrong end you drunk bastard.”  I thought I would die laughing at the drunk electrician holding the male end of the electrical cord.  That idiot.  I don’t know how he kept from burning his house down when he ran that generator.  But I was thankful to accept his electricity and I didn’t have to skinny-dip to get it.  And that night I had a fan running and a small amount of light from a 15-watt fluorescent bulb and best of all – I plugged in my refrigerator.  (Kenny, you’re the best drunk I know, not that I know many, my next toast will be to you, buddy.)

 

By Thursday, you could not walk in my front yard, nor in my neighbor’s yard, nor in my other neighbor’s yard, because of the horrible garbage odor.  It was so bad, that you gagged as you walked ten steps beyond the front door.  So, not only did we have to put up with no electricity, no air conditioning, no ice, no milk (boo hoo), but we couldn’t walk into our front yards without smelling everyone’s garbage, mine especially.  I am embarrassed to say that my garbage was the worst because I cleaned out my refrigerator and every time I walked past the area, the smell was horribly rank.  God, it was awful.  By 1:00 in the afternoon, I couldn’t stand the smell anymore, nor the thought that it was my garbage causing everyone to gag, and I called the city to beg them to get the garbage truck to come by.  That was the third garbage day since our garbage had been picked up and although the phone clerk was nice, she said she would pass on the message but the trucks were running as hard as they could, they could do no more.  Do you know, that by the end of the day, the garbage was still not picked up?  The third garbage day!  I was so angry that I thought I would bust a gasket.  But you know what, you can’t make people do anything.  And it did me no good to get mad except to raise my blood pressure.  I eventually just left home to keep from looking at the garbage and losing my temper.  But when we returned home on Friday afternoon, those garbage truck jerks had picked up the garbage by then.

 

On Friday night, the power came back on.  Yes!  I love air-conditioning!  It had been exactly one week since I had air-conditioning.  I’ll never forget it, I was sitting on the toilet at the time when the light flickered on.  Yes!  I yelled “we have power!” loud enough for the neighborhood to hear.  That was just too much information, wasn’t it?  Sorry.

 

So, what I was learning from all of this was:  I have never felt so vulnerable about common things that we use every day and when it’s not there, I miss it.  Ice is precious during the aftermath of disasters.  We are all creatures of comfort and electricity is wonderful (I must remind myself not to complain when I pay next month’s electricity bill).  I will have plenty of water on hand for future storms.  I can do without power sometimes, but water is very hard to do without.  Always get gasoline in your car before a storm.  Garbage service is always suspended during emergency situations when it’s most needed.  Don’t forget the batteries for the boombox-radio.  Next, find the radio.  Find the phone(s).  Throw that piece of crap wireless phone away, it does you absolutely no good when the power goes out.   Even the huge and mighty oak tree can be tossed like a twig in the storm, many trees fell at their roots.  You have to go to 4 or 5 stores to get the items that you need.  Have something available to do when the power goes out (like cards).  I am going to buy that damned generator.

 

No.2son is still out of school and all the kids are beginning to get bored.  Some of them are actually having a good time; but they don’t yet realize that they have to attend x number of days of school (190 I think).  They’ll have to make up for the school-days lost at some point, more than likely the makeup days will eat into their summer time.  Well, have a great week. 

Hurricane Ike comes to visit

Hello, and it’s great to be back in the land of the living.  I will tell you one thing – I don’t ever want to go through another hurricane.  Remind me to leave town next time.  Well, no one wants to go through a hurricane of course.  But I really didn’t think it would be as bad as it turned out to be; it was a category 2 hurricane.

Several days before Hurricane Ike came ashore, the news stations were still predicting that the storm was heading towards Corpus Christi in South Texas.  Around Wednesday, the forecasters changed the prediction to Port Lavaca, north of Corpus Christi.  Hubby started getting nervous and began making plans to get the windows covered and asked me if we were leaving town.  Now, Hubby always makes mountains out of molehills, so I didn’t really pay attention to his nervous tendencies.  The only thing I could think of was my last experience with Hurricane Rita last year, when 2 million cars were on the freeway at the same time.  I had really been ok in going east to Alabama because no one else planned the route that I was taking and I had the freeway to myself, but the problem was the money – the trip had cost me $350 to $400 that I didn’t have.  So, I turned down Hubby’s invitation to take a vacation at a moment’s notice.  Uh-uh . . . I just didn’t want to do that again. 

 

The surprise came during the day on Thursday, Sept 10, when the forecasters changed the prediction again to around Matagorda Bay.  Furthermore, my sister called with warnings from the nuclear plant about the new storm-course.  I started paying more attention then.  And the rest of the day at work was spent watching the storm’s course.  I don’t believe I concentrated on a thing work-related. 

 

That afternoon after work, I dashed to the storm and bought canned items and more water, then went home.  That evening, we prepared the house as well as we could.  All canned goods were stacked on the kitchen table for easy access, the two flashlights that we could find were on standby in a safe location next to my bed, candles were prepared, bottled water was stacked next to the table, the bathtub was filled with water, every cooler we could locate was filled with water, Hubby covered all of the windows with plywood, and the toys and other debris was removed from the yard.  As a matter of fact, Hubby did a marvelous job in preparing the house for the storm – I was really impressed. 

 

Another surprise popped up also, the forecasters changed the storm’s course again to around Freeport, just south of my home.  So, on Friday, Hubby helped one of the neighbors board up his house, we finished any last minute details for the storm, then ran down to the property to remove the hammock and enjoy the beautiful scenery before the storm, then returned home to “hunker down” as they say.  We moved the vehicles as close to the house as we could to lessen the chance of flooding in the cars.  Then picked up the cats and went indoors closing ourselves off from the rest of the rest of the world for the evening and night ahead.

Dressing for success!

I am considering returning to school — this fall.  I feel weird about it because I’m 49 years old, I’ll be the laughing stock of the campus, I’ll be retiring in a little more than 10 years, it’ll take too long, will it be a waste of money, by the time I pay back the money for loans, it’ll be time to retire, no I’ll take that back, I’ll probably retire a million years from now still owing school loans.  But for some reason, I just want to go.  Anyway, I just sent a fax to my old community college for my transcript and we’ll see what happens, the new school might laugh me out of the office, but then again, they might actually accept my sorry butt into that particular school. 

I’ve been doing my best to make myself feel better — I’m trying to eat better, trying to walk further, doing stretching exercises in the morning as I try to get out of that damned water bed, going to a knitting club on Tuesday nights, and most of all — I try to laugh.  The movie that I went to on Sunday was “Momma Mia” with Meryl Streep — of course it was a great movie.  Meryl Streep was in it so of course it was great.  There is no nudity, but for heaven’s sake, don’t take the kids — the movie is full of sexual innuendos – I felt guilty in taking No.2 son.  Adults would love it though and with Streep’s great acting, I just loved it.  And I would even see it again if I get a spare moment without kids. Y’all ought to go see it. 

I also wanted to let you know that I completed the Deborah Smith novel “Gentle Rain” about the young woman who found out she was adopted.  The book was good, although a little to well wrapped up, you knew how the book would end, there were no surprises, but Ms. Smith is a good writer and I enjoyed the book, I just didn’t love it. 

 

I have found a way to start my mornings in a positive manner – I try to dress in something that makes me feel okay, or even good sometimes, about myself.  Does the color complement my skin tone?  Do those pants make my butt look bigger, damn, it’s already big enough, I don’t need it to look bigger.  You know, things like that.  This morning, I got up and felt like wearing a dress, so I pulled a cute skirt that I bought recently off the hanger and got dressed.  The skirt is made of crepe wrinkled fabric that is popular right now.  I love the colors in the skirt — light slate blue background with leaves and flowers of white, light brown, and darker shades of slate blue.  I actually found a dark slate blue shirt that complements the skirt beautifully and I have a white, loose blouse that I use as a jacket.  I always feel so well-put-together, you know?  Every time I wear it, I feel confident in how I look, you know, not quite the beached whale that I normally look.  I’ve lost a couple of pounds which makes me feel good also.  After dressing this morning, I nodded at my reflection in the mirror for approval, took another swallow of coffee, looked at the time and panicked because I was running late, grabbed up my white blouse that I use as a jacket and threw it on, snatched up my purse, and ran out the door. 

 

Although I was running more than five minutes late, I was well-satisfied with my commute, the summer-time traffic was actually moving between 7 and 10 miles per hour (during the school year, it might move an inch or so every five minutes).  When the traffic slowed, I lowered my visor and put on some lipstick.  Before leaving home, I had spent extra time on my hair and I studied the large pores in my skin while sitting in Houston traffic (there’s nothing else to do but stare at the taillights in front of you and put on makeup and sing.  Oh and talk on the cell phone if there’s not a cop around.  Yup, that’s it). 

 

Arriving at work more than 30 minutes later, I left the car hurriedly and raced for the elevator since I was still running late.  The elevator came quickly and I entered the elevator car, nodding “hello” to another woman already on there.  It was almost 8:00 and I was supposed to be at work by that time.  If I punched the ground floor button, I could save a couple of minutes by slipping across the street but I would be outside, I was not wearing a slip and everyone in the world would be able to see my well-padded goods, furthermore any wind outside would mess up my doo.  The tunnel level button was already punched, so I found my little spot on the other side of the elevator space and waited for the car to reach the tunnel floor.  The other lady in the elevator car had a lovely suit on that I admired and she returned my smile with a curious stare on her face.  I held my head up high knowing I looked nice and professional and when the car reached the tunnel level, I exited the elevator with self-confidence and ready to start my day.  Quickly, I walked the tunnel towards my building with the other lady from the elevator following me all the way there.  I walked quickly and confidently and tried to remember the items on my agenda at work.  Reaching the building, I was turning to take another hallway, when the lady from the elevator cleared her throat; I heard her but didn’t stop to see what she wanted, just hurried on to try to slip in to my office without anyone noticing the lateness of the hour.  Again, the lady behind me cleared her throat and quietly said “excuse me.  Miss, excuse me.”

 

I stopped quickly to see what the lady needed.  Obviously, she needed to stop me on the street because I looked nice, non-threatening, and she needed assistance in some way.  Turning around to face her, I smiled at her to ease any anxiety she might have and she whispered “miss, your shirt is on backwards.”

 

Looking down, I could see that I had put the shirt on “inside-out”.  Sometimes you just can’t win, you know?

 

Five People? In one bed?

On Friday evening, I actually did some reading.  I had been trying to get interested in a John Irving novel, but like the other novel that I read by him, I’m having trouble starting it.  He must have issues in getting his novels started. 

 

After a couple of weeks of trouble trying to read the thing, I threw it down and picked up another book.  I am now reading “Gentle Rain” by Deborah Smith.  It is a contemporary novel, written around ten years ago, I believe, and so far, it’s very good.  The storyline is about a wealthy young woman who loses her parents in an accident, and as she goes through their things after the funeral, she finds out she was adopted.  When she tries to find out more about her birth parents, she finds out that her parents were mentally challenged and they work on a cattle ranch in North Florida.  So far, the book is very interesting and a lot of fun to read.  I’ll let you know how the last half of the book is.

 

In the meantime, Hubby began nagging me to search for the car title on the 97 Nissan Altima. (Hubby is worse than any woman about nagging).  The vehicle was still broken down, still sitting in the driveway and still not sold.  Oh God, I would have rather been beaten with a stick than to search for the one little sheet of paper in my messy house. 

 

The next morning, Saturday, I realized that my prayers had not been answered (my car title had not magically appeared despite my prayers) so I had to spend literally the whole morning searching through a mountain of bills and papers in search of that title.  While I worked on that fun little task, I did separate the bills into dated boxes so that my future searches would not be as time consuming.  Two hours later, I still had not found that title.  Figuring that I was looking in the wrong place, I jumped in the truck and drove the 15 miles to work, downtown, to see if it was at work.  I didn’t find it though and returned home to pick up where I had left off in my search an hour earlier.  Believe it or not, I did find the darn document almost at the bottom of the mountain of papers.  I went ahead and completed the vast amount of receipts and invoices and bills, completed the separation of all paperwork and then put the boxes up.  I didn’t think I would ever finish.  But as mad as I had been, at least I had accomplished the monumental task and I can now give myself a pat on the back.  All I need to do now is go through some of the older papers again and weed them out again – it would give us more room. 

 

That afternoon, Hubby followed me over to No.1son’s so that I could leave my 2002 Nissan Altima with him.  My brakes had been sounding funny so he agreed to do a brakejob and check the air conditioning filter to see if it was clogged.  No.1son usually saves me a good bit of money.  I took the kids off of his hands so that he could work, and Hubby and I took the kids and No.2son to the property with us.  We didn’t do any work on the property this time, it was just too hot (97 degrees), we just wanted to check on the camper and make sure that all was well.  While we were there, we took a hike just to have something to do and the kids loved it.  We were eaten up by mosquitoes, but the little ones get such a kick of going through the woods like that, I imagine the woods seem larger than life to them.  We saw a snake while on our excursion, but I’m not sure if all of the kids saw it or not.  From my position, I could only see it’s head poking up from the other side of a log.  I think it was enough that there was a snake nearby.  Hubby tried to get as close as he could to it and confirmed that it was NON-poisonous and let it go, he predicted that it was a black-runner, I’m not sure if it really was or not but it was definitely a dark brown and black with a little round head, not a triangular-shaped head; Hubby got a hearty thank-you from me for a change. 

I did get a photo of a strange spider.  I knocked it’s web down so that I could get a good shot of it, and it slowly moved around giving me ample opportunity to get in focus.

red spider

The next shot is of a butterfly that I was lucky enough to capture on film.  They flutter around so quickly, that you don’t see how in the world you will get a shot.  Sometimes you feel so lucky.  Isn’t he great?

Butterfly

 

The last shot from the property is a reminder to always be careful and watch what you are doing in the country.

 

snake-skin

When we returned to the truck, the kids threw out some corn for the property critters, then we left.  It had been a nice afternoon.  When we returned home, Hubby inflated the kiddie pool in the backyard and the kids played in the water for more than an hour.  After getting all of the kids dressed for bed and teeth brushed and all of that fun stuff, I went on to bed, leaving Perry in the livingroom to watch TV with the kids.

 

There were five people in my bed on Saturday night.  Around 11:00 p.m., I awoke when kids started piling in the bed.  Obviously, Hubby was too tired to pull out the air-mattress.  Sheesh, I could give that night up on getting any rest.  For the next hour, No.2GS talked and talked and talked (the kid never shuts up), while Baby Girl elbowed me and kicked me, Hubby snored on the other side of me, and No.1GS complained about his Paw-Paw snoring.  Then, around midnight, my stomach started hurting.  I don’t know what was wrong, but I couldn’t stay off of the toilet and I was up and down like a yo-yo.  Eventually, I just moved to the couch with my pillow and stayed there the rest of the night.  The couch is almost miserable to sleep on, it only looks squishy and comfy.  There is some sort of rod separating the couch into thirds, hitting me square in the ribs and again in the thigh bone.  Then I got hot and had to turn down the air-conditioning.  Then I was still hot and I had to get up to unplug the fan and move it to another location.  Then I decided the fan was too close to me and I got up to move it further away.  After I at last got comfortable, I’ll be darned if DD didn’t come home from work around 1:00 a.m., making racket as she made her way to her room.  I’m the type of person who likes a fairly quiet house when I sleep.  Several minutes later, she went to the kitchen and cooked something, rattling the pots and pans around noisily while the kitchen light nearly blinded me.  The last time I looked at the clock, it was 2:30 a.m.

 

At 7:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, No.2GS decided to get up.  Now, he had been yakking at midnight the night before, what the heck was he doing up at 7:00 a.m.?  He normally never gets up at 7.  He went to the bathroom and then got in the livingroom chair and just looked at me, waiting for what, I don’t know.  I told him it was too early to get up, and offered the end of my couch if he wanted to sit there quietly.  A few minutes later, I looked over at him, and he had fallen back to sleep.  I fell back to sleep also. 

 

At 9:30, the other two kids arose, so I had to get up.  I cooked a large breakfast then slowly began getting the kids ready to go home, searching for shoes and trying to get Hubby up so that he could take me over to No.1son’s so that I could get my car.  Hubby was none too happy about me waking him up and he gave me a piece of his small mind.  Anyway, I was happy to get my car back.  All four brakes had to be changed and the rotors turned.  He only charged me for the cost of the brakes, $200, but I gave him an extra $80, so I only had to put out $280 for all four wheels.  He had also cleaned the air-conditioning filter; there was definitely a noticeable difference.  The car also brakes beautifully now I’m happy to say. 

 

The only thing I have to do to the car now is wait on some more headlight kits to come in that No.1son has ordered for me, then he will change them out.  Ever since I got the car, the headlight bulbs blow out if you just look at them wrong.  And these particular headlight bulbs have to be one of the most difficult to change out than any other vehicle model.  All mechanics hate the 2002 Nissan Altima headlights.  We’ve been putting off getting new headlight kits (which hold the headlight bulb) for two years now because the pair of kits will be around $300.  Yeap, you read that right.  Terry found a set for $150 so he put in an order for them.  The set will be in soon and he’ll change it out and I hope I never have any more problems with headlights again.  Terry also volunteered to change out my spark plugs since the vehicle now has more than 100K miles.

 

On Sunday afternoon, I picked up my camera from the house, filled my car up with gas, then rode around looking at houses.  I specifically wanted to look at house exteriors to decide on brick colors and metal roof colors and things like that.  I took a lot of pictures of houses (receiving a lot of strange looks from home-owners, I’m sure), but it was such a nice outing just riding alone by myself.  (It’s so seldom that I get “alone” time.  I have been well-blessed with company.)  If I build a house, I’m considering a metal roof instead of composition shingles.  Salesmen say it’s energy efficient and lasts twice as long as shingles.  But it costs a good bit more too – one and a half times more – ouch!  I’m particularly interested in the forest green color.  I love forest green so much!  To me, it almost goes with everything and every color.  But I also know that forest green is dark and would absorb too much heat, so another color that I’m considering is a tan color roof or maybe champagne.  Hmm.  I have also been eyeballing a limestone rock that is light in color and goes very well with the green roof.  But limestone rock is very expensive so I could only put it on a small portion of the house.  The rest of the exterior of the house would have to be made of another product.  We could go hardyplank siding (hardyplank is made of a concrete product) which looks like wood.  Or we could go with brick which is what I would rather do.  It’s longer lasting and greener because brick is thicker than hardiplank.

 

In knitting news, I completed a cute pink baby sweater for my sister made in stockinette stitch, with yarn-overs at the bottom, creating a lacy feminine look.  I had fallen in love with the yarn, Caron Soft, in the loveliest shade of pink.  But my knitting is still so immature at times; at the edges, I forgot to garter stitch a row here and there and the completed project looked messy and immature to me.  Furthermore, I was almost finished with the darn thing when my sister e-mailed with the glad tidings that the ultra-sound picked up a little indication that the baby is a boy.  Well, bless my soul, this poor sweater was doomed from the beginning.  I finished the sweater as quickly as possible, then asked this poor woman at the local knitting club if she would take it off my hands.  She was kind enough to do so.  And now I am on to another sweater for my dear sister — in the proper color this time — blue!   Wish me luck with this one.

 

 

 

Run, Bertha, run!

My weekend was very busy with property cleanup and a gathering of family at the property. Fun was had by all with socializing and playing on the quads. But I believe our new visitor caused more interest than anything else. This is a wild hog — a sow — with her four or five piglets. She is a domestic breed. More than a 100 years ago, her ancestors were brought to Texas by farmers. During that day and time, pigs were allowed to run free. Over time, the pigs became wild and some of them evaded capture. Now, their descendants run wild all over East Texas.

Her cousins, the boar-hogs, run all over the Hill Country of Texas.

I believe I’ll call her Bertha. She just looks like a “Bertha” to me. I’ve enjoyed watching her run all over the property and area with her piglets. This photo was taken by a young lady named Nina, who was visiting at the moment and had her camera with her. My camera didn’t have a strong enough zoom to capture the image. Thank you Nina for the photo.

Last night, just before dark, Hubby and I hid in some bushes with my camera and waited on Bertha to appear with her little ones. As we waited, we saw a hunter and his kids drive up on four-wheelers. After catching a glimpse of Hubby and I, I heard the small group discuss the sow and what time she should appear in that particular area; they were specifically searching for the wild pig. The hunter again eyed Hubby and I warily before the group turned and left.

Bertha appeared just a few minutes later just like clockwork with her piglets and gorged on clover while I snapped photos at my leisure. A couple of photos turned out clear but I was so far away to get great shots. Bertha stood there next to the road and ate her fill while the mosquitos tore Hubby and I up as darkness descended. We left our hiding place in the bushes and she just watched us. Not wanting to get her too used to humans, Hubby barked at her, like a dog, to frighten her some. She slowly returned to the woods with her little ones and I returned home a happy woman, with numerous photos on my camera.

My happy mood didn’t last for long as Hubby reminded me of the hunter who had shown up earlier in the evening. The big great hunter would be back, that was for sure with his big rifle and passion for killing. And sadly, Bertha is an easy target, with her timed eating schedule and easy-to-follow trail. I’m saddened to think that I’ll probably never see her again but I’m not sure what I could do to stop her demise. I do not live on the property so I can’t sit outside and stand guard on the property against hunters. Furthermore, the wild hogs are causing problems in the area by rooting around in their search for food but in their search attempts, they are tearing up the lawns. Homeowners are becoming angry about their pretty lawns getting torn up, forgetting that they are in the country and that’s what wild hogs do. If you live in the country, you have to put up with critters and the problems associated therewith. But instead, the landowners are becoming angry and setting out hogtraps and pulling out their hunting rifles.

Bertha, I wish you well and hope that you wizen up quickly before the great hunter returns.

Hey, whose property is it anyway?

The above thumbnail (click on the image to see the full image) is an aerial view of the property.  The white line going down the middle of the property is a road.  At the bottom of the photo is another road, the major subdivision road, specifically.  To the left of the little road is my property.  It begins at the major road and ends at the end of the small road.  The green line going around the property is a small river, called “long pond”.  So, the property is between the small road and the river–it’s an acre wide and six acres long.

This shot is of the caterpillar sacs which I spoke of in “It’s raining caterpillars!” several weeks ago.  I guess the caterpillars develop in these sacs, then leave the sacs during the Spring season.  The host tree is then stripped of the tender vegetation that has just sprouted and when the caterpillar has eaten his fill, he falls out of the tree spinning a web as he falls to the ground below.  Thousands of the caterpillars eat and fall from the trees before either getting eaten by lizards, frogs, and birds or making their escape to another tree to strip its vegetation also. 

    

Wooded areas of the property.

Hubby on the 4-wheeler

A magnolia tree we found on the property, approximately ten to twelve years old, planted by the previous owners.

  

GS1 is learning to drive a 4-wheeler.  I had never seen a more serious student, if only he would pay as close attention to his homework.

 

This little guy nearly scared me to death as I followed a trail on the four-wheeler; he was on a branch of a tree, approximately eye level.  When I ran to the truck to grab the camera, I was supprised to find him in the same place.  After the racket I made with the 4-wheeler, most little creatures would run, he didn’t try to strike at us or act aggressive in any way.  Hubby thought he was digesting food which kept him from running away from me.  He was nonpoisonous and as far as I could tell, he was a Garter Snake.  After taking some horrible photos with a camera that I wasn’t used to yet, we left him alone to slither off into the brush several minutes later.  “Nice to meet you little guy, also thank you for staying still for the photo-ops, but you know we’re moving here eventually don’t you?”  I’m wondering how harmonious our relationship will be when that time comes.

It’s rainin’ caterpillars!

All I can say about this past weekend is “Wild!” Everything about it was rip-roaring, frustrating, chaotic, dizzying, exciting, yet I would do it again if I could.

Most of our weekend was spent at Planter’s Point where we did a small amount of cleanup work, but mostly played on the four-wheelers with the kids. Those kids would have ridden the whole day and a half we were there if they could have — they loved riding! Hubby and No.1son cut new trails in the woods, then would take the bikes through the new trails. We rode so much that our hands hurt from holding the handlebars and pressing the gas.

There were only a couple of problems with the weekend. First of all, I didn’t feel the best in the world — I didn’t feel bad enough to stay home, just headachy, a little dizzy, tired, lethargic — probably a sinus infection coming on since the oak pollen is so high. All I wanted to do was lay down and sleep but I entertained the kids on the four-wheeler some and did some knitting on the poncho for Baby-Girl. The poncho’s main front and back portions were completed in a denim-blue color. I added a hood to the poncho in a light-mauve which went well with the blue. I think the poncho is absolutely precious! The blue color is the poncho portion, the light mauve is the hood, I almost knitted a light mauve pocket on the front of the poncho.

The second problem with the weekend was the lack of supplies. We forgot the charcoal to cook with. Luckily, there’s a Wal-Mart just a few miles down the road. We also forgot the sleeping bags, cook-stove, syrup. I don’t know what our problem was with packing for this past weekend, it’s not like we’ve never camped before — we have camped before plenty of times. We just couldn’t get our acts together and didn’t remember to ask each other if we remembered to pack “such-and-such.” That night, we paid for our sins memory-lapses — we nearly froze to death with only sheets to keep us warm. Hubby had towed the popup camper to the property the day before and being up off the ground protected us some. We wouldn’t have lasted the night on the ground. Hubby and I were in the queen-size bed on one end of the camper with a sheet and a lap-throw that was found in the SUV. GS2 and Baby Girl were on a bed in the middle of the camper with coats and thick clothing that we had with us. No.2son and GS1 slept on the full-size bed on the other end of the camper with a sheet covering them and a new tarp. You might laugh at that idea but the plastic tarp held the body heat in. Those boys were the warmest of the whole group.

An environmental event occurred which surprised Hubby and me. Caterpillars were in the trees by the thousands and I guess the caterpillars had just hatched and were gorging themselves in the lush green tender leaves that had just sprouted before falling by their silken threads to within a few feet from the ground before plopping to the ground.

Poor Baby Girl was almost traumatized by the “snakes” she called them. The fuzzy little colorful worms were everywhere — on the chairs, on the tables, plopping from overhead on to your shoulder while Baby Girl was crying “snake, snake” in every breath. I don’t think she’ll ever recover; we’ll probably have to drag her on to the property from now on.

This is a cocoon that the caterpillars came from. The cocoons were in the trees by the hundreds.

And for home-building purposes, we now have a drive-way in.

We are so excited.  We have completed the next step towards building a home on this property.

My photos are here!

At last — my photos have arrived.

You can tell they are having a great time!

Hubby

Baby Girl

Clean up work at the property

The property from the roadway

Scratch, scratch, itch, itch

After so much angst about the property, the property details seem to be flowing beautifully.  It was just like the property was put there just for us.  Hubby and I both love it so much, that we’ve almost forgiven the property for giving us such a bad case of poison ivy.  Of course it wasn’t the property’s fault, we knew the vines were there and worked around it anyway. 

Hubby and I had celebrated the buying of the property two weekends ago by doing some cleanup work on vines.  We knew we were getting into poison ivy, I mean any idiot could see the three-leaved vines tangled into anything that grew in our jungle.  But the stuff had to be cleared so we jumped on in.  Boy, did we pay for our efforts. 

I seemed to get the worst of the poison.  I had worn work-gloves but had on no sleeves – my arms were eaten up with the poison.  I clawed at my skin so much last week that I thought I would go insane.  I didn’t miss any work because of it but that was only because there were too many important things going on at work to miss any time.  I bought the drug store shelves out of poison ivy meds though.  Anything you could think of was bought.  Of course I bought caladryl/calamine lotion and it brought almost no relief.  It just wouldn’t clear it up.  Benedryl was swallowed by the doubles but I could only take them at night because they knocked me out.  Cortaid, a cortisome creme, was tried next, which was only slightly better.  We had heard about a wash that washes away the poison and went shopping for that.  It was called Zanfel poison-ivy wash and I was itching so badly that I was happy to deal out $40 for that stuff.  It felt like a scrub paste with a very salty-grainy texture.  And it was only too tempting to nearly scrub away with the paste at the itchy skin, nearly taking your skin with it.  At last, we felt better, as we rinsed the paste off of our arms.  We tried soothing it next with a calamine product called Avyrest.  By golly that stuff didn’t work either.  By Thursday, we were using Epson Salts, trying to dry the skin on our arms.  I think we were just too impatient for the miracle drug to rid us of that pesty itching, but you have to suffer through it I guess because it just wouldn’t go away. 

By Friday, I was a raving lunatic and called my doctor.  Yes, I was wimping out but I couldn’t handle it any more.  Could you believe my doctor’s office was closed?  Yes, closed!  I had to go to one of these “Minute-clinics” in CVS pharmacies now.  I gladly did it too, they took my insurance and I paid my little co-pay and answered the physician-assistant’s million questions, and nearly snatched the prescription out of his hands as I raced for the drug counter.  I was prescribed some tablets to take internally and a cream for the rash which I began taking and applying right away.  It’s now Tuesday and the rashes are quickly drying up.  When Hubby saw how well I was doing, he made an appointment with a physician assistant at his jobsite for this morning.  Yes, he gave in to medical help.

Even after all of the suffering though, we still love our property.  We actually returned this past weekend to the property to do some more suffering clearing – with sleeves on our arms this time.  I nearly burned up in those long sleeves, but I wore them anyway.  I want no more of that poison ivy.  We’ve cleared more than half an acre of the property over the weekend.  I can say that Saturday was the most enjoyable day we have ever spent there.  We worked hard, Well Hubby and No.1.son worked hard, I raked and tugged at a few vines; otherwise, we played on the four-wheelers all over the place, probably frightened the animals out of their wits because of the loud noise. 

The grandchildren played in the clearing that we enlarged, enjoyed riding on the four-wheelers, and watched small critters in the woods.  They were specifically enthralled with a beautiful bright green tree frog with white markings on his little face.  GS1, my little warrior grandson fears nothing and grabbed him up while his little brother, GS2, screamed for a turn to hold him.  And we all watched as the frog jumped up Cody’s arm to his shoulder, then to his head where the boy’s father proclaimed that the frog “pee’d”.  Now, I didn’t see the frog pee on the boy but we’re all looking for warts to appear any time now.  Just kidding.  It was fun to watch the kids play with that silly little frog and get so much enjoyment from it.

We have proudly marked off the place where our driveway will be with stakes.  The barbwire was cut to where the driveway is, and the driveway area cleared.  The county engineer was called last week and an order was put in for them to look at the driveway to tell us what size concrete pipe we need.  Their office just called me a few minutes ago to tell us the size to order.  Right away, I looked up phone numbers with no idea who to call and found out that hardware companies sell concrete pipes for culverts and deliver them.  I just called a hardware company in the area and ordered the pipes and asked for them to be delivered.  So it looks like we may have a driveway in a few days.  Yes!

I wish you could see a photo of the hard work that we’ve done.  But my camera is still not working.  I did take some photos with a 35 mm disposable, but when I searched for it on Sunday morning to develop the film, I couldn’t find the thing.  I eventually saw a disposable camera on the livingroom end table and snatched it up to take to the discount store for developing.  But when I picked the photos up later on that evening, the photos were from Easter, a year ago.  Chaos and confusion are the norm in my life I’m afraid.  And cluttered scenarios like this play out almost daily.

I at last found the darn disposable camera in the SUV last night, but when I tried to get it processed at the discount store, I’ll just be darned if the film processor at the store didn’t break down.  So I had to send the film off to be processed, just like in the good old days.  It’ll be the end of the week before I’ll get the photos back.

It’s now official . . .

We are now property-owners of six acres of undeveloped jungle and Hubby and I haven’t been this excited in a long time.  We are both nuts!  But the property is absolutely gorgeous and on high ground (which is saying something for that neck of the woods).  The closing on the property was yesterday and the first thing we did to celebrate was to do some clean-up work. 

With yard implements and chain-saw in hand, we braved the jungle with smiles on our faces,  capturing the excitement with my trustee Kodak (which has still not been sent in to Wal-Marts for printout (I lost my UBC cord to download to computer), don’t you just love the digital world?) and returned to the truck several hours later whipped and chain-saw-less and broken by a mere jungle.  I have never been so exhausted in my entire life.  My work began in long sleeves in 65 degree (fahrenheit) weather but I came out of that longsleeve shirt just 30 minutes later and put on a t-shirt — I was already sweating.

I am sure that every vine known to mankind is in that jungle – I found all of them, honeysuckle, morning glories, and plenty of poison ivy/oak.  I have pulled at vines, trimmed, chopped, dragged, sawed, lopped, and raked until every muscle in my body was screaming in protest, especially my back.  And then on the way to the vehicle, I found myself scratching my arms and remembered the poison ivy/oak that I had been cutting and pulling.  I’ve been clawing at my skin ever since.  And then I watched Hubby tear up the chain-saw.  It was a brand-new “Poulan” chainsaw.  But if anyone can figure out a way to tear one up, it will be my Hubby (I’m so proud).  He at last figured out how to start the darn thing with the pull thingy, but the chain will not stay on.  He had to rechain the saw three times (while I slaved away at the jungle) and at last threw up his hands in defeat and declared it needed a new chain. 

To add to my frustration, my trustee Kodak camera quit working.  It powers up but will not take the picture — instead, the camera turns itself off.  I’ll do some research online to see if the camera can be fixed or not.  But it looks like I’m going to be cameraless for a while.  I’ll have to beg, borrow, and steal to get any photos from now on. 

At the end of the day, although exhausted and broken, we had to smile at the accomplishments that we made.  It had nearly killed us, but we had cleared a whole 17 by 18 feet of jungle.  Only 3,240,000 square feet to go!  You go girl!  Ouch, I need a back message, manicure, pedicure, and a drink.