Storms a' coming!
April was a wild month down here in the country! As I'm sure many of you remember, April brought torrential, unprecedented rainfall. We had over 6 inches in our area. We've never had a septic system before so we really don't know how it works or what to do with it, but what we do know, is that if it rains too much we can't flush our toilets. We deduced this not long after my brand new, bedroom carpet was flooded twice during the monsoons of April, 2013. Every towel that we owned was assigned to mop duty which was OK, since there was no way we could take a shower. (Nor could I launder said towels.) Dirty dishes filled the sink and we learned to brush our teeth with a couple of gulps of water. This was all in an effort to avoid adding any more water to our environment. Are you curious how the rain barrels were doing? They were just great, thank you very much. They were full after the first ten minutes. If only we'd had a hundred more barrels we'd have been fine!
Notice how I am avoiding mentioning the toilets. I've been married twenty-eight years and my husband has never seen me on the toilet. Most anyone who knows me knows that I tend to shy away from discussing bodily functions. Oh, hubby had no problem dashing out into the rain to do his thing and even I was OK with conservative flushing until it came time for....#2. I shudder at the memory. My husband, sympathetic as well as resourceful, arranged a bag in the toilet type thing and was solely responsible for disposal but it was extremely distasteful and I feel like a big baby since we could have had it much worse. (This is NOT a picture of my toilet but is a fair representation of my feelings.)
I'm still baffled as to how all the worms got in the house!
I'm still baffled as to how all the worms got in the house!
The ONE we found last year.
So another April happening that I'm learning about is the arrival of the Morel mushrooms. It is a very big deal around here. We even have a festival called "Spores "n More" with a contest to see who can find the most! People are very protective of their hunting spots and this time of year it's not unusual to see several cars pulled over on the sides of the roads...their occupants out on the hunt. I hear they sell for over $20 a pound! On Monday, my friend deemed it the "perfect" mushroom day, so into the woods we went with our special mushroom collecting bags (and some cheese and wine.) It was fun for awhile, but it was hot and humid and I shouldn't have worn capris because the thorny bushes were treacherous, so we wrapped it up after about an hour. While the Morels remained elusive, we enjoyed each other's company along with our wine and cheese. Oh! We also saw a beaver cross the road on our way home!
Not "my" tick, but it could be!
The next morning while I was brushing my hair, I felt a scab like thing above my ear. I knew what it was...immediately! Convinced I was in the early stages of Lyme disease I again enlisted the help of my resourceful husband. He confirmed my suspicion...it was indeed... a tick. How many times can I be totally grossed out in one month? We put insect repellant on a Q-tip and rubbed it on the offensive creature. It started to move right away and after about ten minutes it backed out of its burrow far enough that hubby could grab it with a tweezer and pull it out. A few hours later, my friend called and she had one on her head too! I will try mushrooming again next year, but I will be wearing a hat sprayed with DEET!
I know I'm perilously close to rambling on, so I'll just share one last thing, that cracked me up. (It was yet another "first" for me. ) I was doing bus duty after school and as the last bus pulled away I saw one little guy with a trembling lower lip, left standing alone. He told me that he thought his grandma was supposed to pick him up but he didn't know where she was. I took his hand and headed towards the school office. When we entered the building we saw a younger woman (not grandma material) in the foyer and she smiled and waved to us. I asked him if that was someone who might be picking him up and he nodded...sort of. She came over to us and said, " Honey, Grandma hit a turkey on her way here so she called me to pick you up." Huh?