Rosemary and Thyme

Among the pots and pots of plants I brought with me when we moved to Fair Play were many herbs, including feverfew and yarrow.  I went through a phase in the valley and had become very interested in medicinal herbs, as well as the cooking herbs.  Little did I know that both of the foregoing grow wild everywhere up here and I needn't have hauled them up the hill.  Both are in bloom right now; large heads of yellow yarrow and the tiny daisy-like flowers of the feverfew.  Over time, the rosemary has grown to a huge bush, and the three or four varieties of thyme have taken over most of the front-of-house garden.  Tansy is an old strewing herb, said to retard insects; it comes back full force every year.  I also grow motherwort, as well as a smaller southernwood.  Chives, regular and garlic, have such a pretty flower and seed head.  The seeds end up everywhere, in almost every flower pot on the deck, so I have an endless supply for cooking.  Lovage was too tender to survive the heat and cold, and bergamot didn't do well, either.  Epizote keeps cropping up.  One of my favorites is pennyroyal.  It's a lovely plant, with blue-purple flower clusters on a tall stem and the leaves vine over the sides of the pots.  If flies get pesky while I'm watering, I rub a handful of the leaves on my arms and the flies stay away.  The crushed leaves have a wonderful mint scent.  It's also good to put in the dog's bed to repel fleas.  Lemon and licorice mint are everywhere now, but the peppermint needed more water.  I grow comfrey; it's said the dried leaves will settle a goat's upset stomach.  The huge sage plant down below the deck provides seasoning, as well as beautiful purple flowers.  Lavender is so drought resistant, I can put it just about anywhere.  Betony comes back year after year.  There is still camomile out in the neglected vegetable garden.  The scented geraniums I brought with me didn't survive the first winter, but I keep trying.  Oregano is another hardy herb  in the front garden.  Grey and green santolinas flower in both the front and back yards.  Amaranthus (Love lies bleeding) isn't technically an herb, but it's such a useful plant.  I've only been able to grow it once or twice here.  A tall plant, over six feet, it has such unusual red, drooping, thick clusters of flowers.  The seeds can be used as a grain in cooking or baking, and the flowers are used to make dye for wool.  In the summertime, watering is a daily chore, and I've got to get outside now before it gets too hot.

Day Is Done

I heard a shot, and then, in the last red glow of the setting sun and the quiet that comes with sundown on the mountain, a lone bugler on a nearby hill started to play "Taps."  The notes of this most poignant song quavered and cracked like a voice filled with emotion.  I could only stand at attention with my eyes filled with tears...this was the most unexpected and fitting end to the Fourth of July.  I hope the bugler heard my applause of appreciation.

Yesterday had started with a bang; more like the thudding of my heart!  As I stepped into the milking room to start the routine, I glanced down and there, right by my foot, was a snake.  Standing stock still, I then saw that it was deader than a doornail.  I set about putting out food and letting the first girls out of the barn, and then went back to get a closer look at the snake.  Only about a foot long, it was the black-and-tan of a wannabe rattler, a gopher snake.  Lucy had stomped the snot out of that snake and I don't think there was an unbroken bone in its body.  It's good to know the girls can protect themselves.

Joel and Judy's party was a huge success...lots of nice people, tons of good food, and unbelievably moderate weather.  It's an event I look forward to each year.

The house kids and I spent a restless night.  Pearl had whined all day because she is in isolation, telling me sincerely whenever I'd go visit her that she didn't know what she'd done, but promised to never, ever do it again if I'd just let her out.  She's a pretty vocal cat anyhow, but now she talks nonstop.  At bedtime, I shut the bedroom door and let her in with Bess (who had to check her out, nose to tail), Frank and me for a little socialization.  All night long, whenever Pearl moved to enjoy a little "yard time," Frank would growl and hiss, Pearl would cry because he was being mean, and Bessie Anne would tell them both to shut up!  We'll all be glad when Pearl gets her conehead bonnet off, and maybe we can get some sleep.

Bumps and Bats

We seem to have hit one of those rough patches in the road.  Yesterday was spent at the vet's while Pearl had emergency surgery.  She had a gash on her neck from something that had happened the night before...fence? coyote? no idea.  It's too far to town to drop her off and come back, so I waited for hours.  There's always a book in the truck for just such occasions.  Poor Pitiful Pearl is now wearing a conehead, and it's Frank's turn to hiss at her.  It's been almost a year to the day that Frank injured his leg and also had surgery.  Pearl thought he was the Killer Clown from Outer Space then and shunned him like something evil.  Until the drain comes out, Pearl is confined in isolation in the big bathroom.  Bessie Anne whines and cries at the door, worried about her missing companion, hopefully making up for Frank's bad attitude.  I can't take Pearl in on Tuesday to have the drain removed, because Dave is having repair surgery on his shoulder, injured last October.  I should just set up an infirmary...I'm sure Stumpy would enjoy company in the laundry room.  Everyone hits these bumps in life...experience tells me they won't last, and I learned a long time ago to never ask, "What else can go wrong?"

The bats are finally here.  Their arrival was evidently delayed because of the long wet season.  I so look forward to watching them flit and dive in the early morning and twilight hours, silhouetted against the rising or setting sun.  I've been in love with bats ever since I can remember.  I was thrilled to meet Burma, a huge bat living at what was then called Africa USA in Vallejo, and she was my main attraction whenever we went.  She was over a foot tall, with cinnamon-colored plush velvet fur, golden eyes, and smooth black leather wings that spread nearly three feet.  I coveted her, but I'm happy with the tiny, three-inch bats who come back like swallows every year.

It's the Fourth of July, Independence Day, and I'm going to celebrate at Joel and Judy's annual barbecue bash this afternoon.  A rerun of the miniseries, "John Adams," will be showing soon and I highly recommend it.  It never hurts to be reminded how and why we got to be Americans. 

When All Else Fails

Along about dusk, when calmer heads prevail, I went out to try the tractor one more time.  Nothing.  Sitting there in the gloaming, trying to think how I was going to get out of this one, it dawned on me that in the frustration of the morning I had not lifted the mower blades when it died.  It won't start with the blades down.  I knew that.  Duh.  Once I followed procedure, it fired right up...and then came the thrill of trying to get back up the hill with darkness approaching.  Kept hitting soft spots, sliding sideways, getting buried, spinning tires, and finally fighting my way to the top.  What didn't get mowed...won't.

I've been getting some razzing about using the two-dollar words.  I know it's the vogue to blame one's parents for everything, but this trait truly can be laid directly at my mother's feet.  We did a lot of traveling when I was a kid, sometimes by train but mostly by car, and I've been to all but the easternmost states.  For entertainment while riding along (when we weren't singing every song each of us knew), Mother would say, "What is that?"  "That's a cliff."  "How many other words are there for that?"  Or, "How many words for green can you think of?"  "Give me six different words to describe that tree."  Growing up before television and before the plethora of board games were invented, we played a lot of word games in the evening.  My parents would try to stump each other with the spelling of a new word.  My dad's downfall was asafoetida, and Mother gloated over her victory.  She insisted I study the Reader's Digest "A Word a Day" articles, and I always had a book of crossword puzzles to work.  We may not have the hundred-plus words to describe snow like the Eskimos, but we have such a rich language it's a shame not to dip into the treasure once in awhile.  (And I used up about a week's worth of short ones yesterday when the mower quit!)

Addendum

Eleanor Roosevelt said that courage is doing that which you cannot do.  If that is so, I'm awarding myself a small badge for today's efforts.  Not that I'm finished.  I'm on a beer break because the mower left me no other choice.  (Of course, there's always a choice.  I could have gone straight for the Jack Daniel's!)  I did get some fairly decent swaths cut next to the chicken pen in the orchard and some good-sized patches and pathways cut under the oaks, burying the wheels up to the axles in loose dirt and leaf mold at one point, dropping into one of those squirrel pits and spinning the drive wheel at another.  Clinging like a burr and holding on with a death grip, I managed to hang on and do that which I cannot do...until the little tractor said, "What the hell are we doing?!," and quit.  Engine won't turn over.  No go no more.  I'm hoping, since it is down at the bottom of the hill, that it just needs a rest and a little quiet time (which I have promised!) and then will allow me to drive it back up to it's own space in the barn.  Otherwise, Eleanor and her courage be damned, because I'll leave it there and call it yard art.

Discouraged

Dis-cour-age:  to deprive of courage or confidence; dishearten; to hinder by inspiring by fear of consequences.  I spent yesterday in a blue funk, feeling that perhaps I was doing the wrong thing by staying here.  One of my primary concerns is always the care and safety of my herd, flock, and little coterie of house pets.  I am rarely-to-never afraid for myself here, and I hate the fear I've been feeling lately for the four- and little two-legged creatures under my protection.  I've felt I've always taken reasonable precautions, but things haven't been working out so well.  I hate being on high alert all the time, and being too late to save the kids.

All right, then.  It's obviously time to pull on my big-girl panties and do something about this situation.  I'm going out early this morning to mow down the neglected north orchard.  Perhaps if the coyotes have no cover, they'll think twice about coming so close.  As much as it calms my soul to see the free rangers scratching and clucking in the herb garden by the front door, or look up to find a chicken on the doorstep, peering in the screen door to say hi, I need to find a way to confine them to their pen.  Better confined than dead.  The orchard gets neglected because it's pretty difficult to mow.  The slopes are steep and the ubiquitous ground squirrels have undermined the soil, and the wheels of the mower drop into their unseen pits.  Steve, who actually liked participating in destruction derbies, considered Mr. Toad's Wild Ride a hoot, and Clay took it on in years to follow, laughing as he bounced up and down.  I must say I approach the job with more than a little trepidation, but I'm going to gird my loins and "get 'er done!"  I'll be darned if I'm going to be discouraged anymore. 

Loaded Guns and Flat Souffles

Yesterday was quite a day.  I need either a housekeeper or a sou chef, or both.  (It's also possible I should not have picked up that book.)  The brisket went into the slow oven at six a.m., and I whirled like a dervish the rest of the day. 

In the preceding two days, I'd lost five hens, one of which was my dear little Rover.  On Monday, I'd heard the chickens in panic mode in the afternoon; Bess and I went out but didn't see anything.  She tracked a scent down to the woods, but wisely came back to me.  That night I was three chickens down.  On Tuesday, I was in the barn when I heard the hens, but there was nothing I could do.  Two more chickens gone.  I knew it was a wild thing...dogs lose interest when they break the squeaky toy and leave it. This thing was taking for food.  I plugged the holes under the fence where most of the girls were sneaking out, but there are those who fly over.  Taking the morning's milk out to the refrigerator on the deck, I looked down and saw the culprit, a large coyote standing at the edge of the woods watching me.  It would have been a perfect shot.  I went in the wrong door to get the pistol quickly, and got back just as the coyote was turning away...no shot at all.  I fired anyway, and that .38 made a big enough boom to scare it.  Now I've got the .22 rifle with the scope out on the deck. 

Most of dinner turned out well, and I did warn my guests that I was serving an untried recipe for roasted garlic-mashed potato souffle.  Well, it sounded good, but went flat while still in the oven.  Tasted okay, but not good enough to try to perfect.  I hope that Judy, Joel, and Arden had as good a time as I did last evening.  Having them each as friends is great, and having them all together is wonderful.