My Pipes Are Tired

After two hot humid days on the water I had to set up the tent to dry, hang the sleeping bags to dry, wash stinky clothes and do my weekend chores.  When I sit I can still feel the movement of the water currents bobbing me up and down.  I had fun but I am too tired to blog.

Will Return After This Adventure

Ground Dwelling Hornets

My first experience with ground dwelling hornets in this yard was when the offspring were still in elementary school.  I was innocently mowing the lawn when all of a sudden I started screaming and dancing.  I had mowed over a hornet nest and they didn't like it.  They stung me four times.  I couldn't tell where they were coming from and was reluctant to let go of the mower because it was hard to start.  Hence the screaming and dancing.  Eventually I figured out it was time to run away so I did.  Ever since that fateful day, I've been nervous mowing - constantly on the watch for round holes in the grass that might indicate a ground dwelling hornet nest.  I've dealt with these hornets at least five years since that time.  This year the hornets decided not to dig out a nest.  They chose instead to move into a hollow space beneath my garage slab where the garter snakes used to live until I chased them out with moth balls.  I first noticed the hornet nest in early July.  I have used two cans of bee and hornet spray which is supposed to kill them.  The spray is not working.  I spray into the hole every night at dusk and every day I see more hornets coming and going . Maybe they mislabeled the pesticide.  Maybe it's really bee and hornet vitamins.  All this hornet coming and going is making me nervous.  I drive my car right over the hornet entrance to get into the garage.  Today I shut the garage door as soon as the car passed the door in case any angry hornets wanted to follow me in.  My next step is to make or buy a hornet trap.  Any other suggestions?

I Ate The First Cherry Tomato From The Garden Today

Smell it.  Bite it.  Seeds and succulent flesh explode in the mouth.  Smoky.  Salty.  Tart.  Acidic.  Pure heaven on earth.

The White Tiger

I read Aravind Adiga's debut novel, The White Tiger by listening to it on compact disks.  The reader had a strong Indian accent and this helped me enjoy the novel because I wasn't puzzled about pronunciation like I am with some books.  The main character is Balram who lives in India.  Balram is the son of a rickshaw driver.  He is writing a letter to an important official in China explaining how he became a successful entrepreneur.  Throughout the book, the author talks about the servant class and the master class.  Balram eventually moves from the servant class to the master class.  The book is a dark comedy that gave me a glimpse of what it is like to live in India.  The book touches on globalization, technology, the Muslim and Hindu religions, corruption, and the constraints of family.  A couple times I thought the book was going too slow and I got tired of hearing about the wealthy versus the poor. But by then I was too intrigued by Balram to put the book down.   



Adventurous Cougar

I remember a trip we took once to the east coast.  We were four of us in a new, air conditioned, Plymouth van and it was a LONG DRIVE.  We rode a ferry from Wisconsin to Michigan.  We stopped at Niagara Falls.  We drove for two days before we got there.  We thought it was a long trip.  Today I read that a mountain lion was killed in Connecticut outside of New Haven.  This same mountain lion walked 2,000 miles to get there because it originally came from the Black Hills of South Dakota. In 2009 and 2010 this mountain lion was in Minnesota and Wisconsin.   I'm pretty sure it didn't take a ferry.  Did it travel around the great lakes via Canada?  Or did it take the southern route through Illinois, Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania?  How many big cities did this cat silently walk through?  How many close encounters did it have with humans?  Did it eat any pets?  What prompted this big animal to walk that far?  How long had it been since it saw one of it's own kind?   What a fascinating story!

My Bad

Yesterday I noticed that the door was open on the bluebird house outside my kitchen window. I wondered if a predator pried the door open. After mowing, I walked over there to check it out.  I haven't been checking the bluebird houses every week like they say you should.  I don't like disturbing the young.  Inside this bluebird house and still intact was a house wren nest.  I know it's a house wren nest because it was full to the top with two inch sticks.  The house is wedge shaped.  I am unable to just stick my hand blindly into the top of a nest and pull out what is there. I am just too scared to do that.  So I removed the wedge shaped nest with one hand and looked into the top. There I saw 5 house wrens completely naked except for a Mohawk crest of tiny feathers on top of their heads.  Punky little house wrens!  This is supposed to be a bluebird nest.  Then I remembered it is a crime to kill or disturb songbirds so I went to put it back.  Those twigs were crammed in the nest so tight that the nest expanded when I removed it and I couldn't fit it back in. I tried removing a few sticks but that just made the whole nest shift in shape and made the problem worse.  I jammed it in as best I could and shut the door again. I heard a few sticks break as I tried to correct my mistake.  I couldn't get the door completely shut but I jammed the nail into the wood as best I could so the little wrens could stay warm until they were old enough to fledge.  I hope there is enough room for the parents to get in there and feed the children.

PS One of my tomatoes, a cherry tomato, is turning color.  I would say it's a bronze color today.  My mouth waters just to type this.  The first tomato is always the best.

PPS My book club is reading Gone With The Wind.  I wasn't so happy about the selection in part because I thought of it as just another bodice ripper.  And when I picked it up from the library and held the weight of over 1,000 pages in my hand, I thought I would have carpel tunnel by the time I was done reading it.  But the truth is, I love it so much I can hardly put it down. I read 45 minutes past my bedtime last night. Only 600 pages left to go!