O, Those Sticky Spider Traps!

Maybe we should just blame it all on the Orkin Man!  He came today.  Yes, he comes every two months as I’ve had a terrible time with Brown Recluse (Fiddleback) Spiders in the past.  I’m terrified of them just dreading a night when one might be in my bed or crawl up there during the night.  And yes, I DO know what a Brown Recluse looks like.  I’ve stared in their 6 beady little eyes too many times as I examined the ‘fiddle’ shape on their backs. But of course they were always trapped in a jar so I felt safe enough to bend down and get a ‘bird’s eye view’.

So back to the Orkin Man.  He comes through the garage to get into the house so I leave the garage door open for him when I know he’s coming.  I did today.  He came, sprayed all around and left.  I let the garage air out a bit and then closed the big door.

The cat wanted to eat later so I put her in the garage where I keep her food.  She has a bed in there so when it’s cold she will sleep for several hours without wanting out.  A little after dark, Callie Cat was at the hall door wanting outside.  I opened the door, scooped her up and  put her outside.  As I came back inside I remembered that tomorrow is trash day so I emptied the kitchen trash and took it to the garage.  I think I may have left the hall door open for the few seconds it would take me to put the trash away.

As I started back to the inside hall door I noticed that the sticky spider trap that the Orkin Man had left me was lying on the floor about 10 feet from the little cabinet where it had been.  As I picked it up, thinking, “Callie Cat musta gotten her paw in there,” I stopped dead in my tracks and said, “What the heck?”  There were tiny brown bird feathers stuck inside.  There must have been at least 10 of them.  I recognized them as wren feathers.  That puzzled me but I also thought maybe before I closed the big garage door Callie Cat might have caught a wren and brought it into the garage.  Still couldn’t figure out how the feathers got stuck in the sticky spider trap though.

Poor Wren Tail Feathers Caught In Sticky Spider Trap

I came on back in the kitchen and started working on trimming some photos that I am putting in a family album.   I was concentrating so hard about what the pictures were about.  They were calling forth strong childhood memories of good times past.  I was lost in daydreams.

Suddenly, from somewhere higher up, I assume the top of the kitchen cabinets, I hear a rustle and right before my eyes a little wren landed not three feet from me!  I was so shocked I just stood there staring, wondering, “Where did he come from?” When I made a slight move he flew back up to the top of the cabinet.  I grabbed a kitchen towel and cautiously crept toward him.  He flew to the kitchen windows and slapped against them.  That startled him even more.  Up to the top of the cabinets, over to the dining room light fixture, into the window, back to the cabinets, onto the picture frame.  He was in sheer survival mode and I’m sure I looked like  the dragon coming to eat him!  We played this ‘game’ for some minutes until I realized that he had his beak open and was panting in terror.  I backed off and stood still just watching.   I could tell after several minutes that he was beginning to calm down.  It was at that point that I remembered the feathers in the sticky spider trap.  Ah Ha!  They were wren TAIL FEATHERS!  How could he be flying so well with not one single tail feather.

You know how wrens have that tail that sticks straight up from his behind?  Nada, nope, none, not one single little tail feather left.

Wren Tail Feathers

After a few more minutes he flew down to the floor and started walking through the kitchen and into the hallway leading to the garage and the utility/laundry room.  I got where I could see him and simply stood still and watched.  He hopped along looking every which way but seemed much calmer.  He eventually hopped right into the utility room.  I then followed him in and closed the door.   He had flown to the top of a cabinet in there.

Feeling like I had a fighting chance of catching him in this much smaller space I positioned my towel ready for launch.  Oh Lord! Whatever made me think I could outsmart a tailless wren?  He flew here, he flew there, he hit the wall, he got behind stuff on the countertop, he landed on the hot pipe of the water heater, he landed on my red gardening hat, he swung on a clothes hanger.  This handicapped wren was like a whirling dervish! And I’m sure my efforts at launching the avacado green kitchen towel over him must have made quite a sight.

After five to ten minutes I remembered my camera.  As I’m a great one to want ‘history’ recorded in pictures I crept out, grabbed my Nikon, slipped back inside and proceded to take shots.  Boy, was he fast!  Most of the shots are of him as a blur as he flew from spot to spot.  I did manage to get a couple of fair shots.  Never could get a close-up of the tailless critter.  Shoot, it’s hard enough getting a shot off without his posing for a backend shot!

The Tailless Wren

I remembered that this poor little bird had probably been closed up in the garage since 10 this morning and would not have had anything to eat. Since I’m one of those people who feels obligated to take care of God’s little creations when they invade my human space I figured I could at least feed him.  I got a handful of dry cat food, put it in a baggie, and hammered it with a hammer until it was small sized crumbs.  These I put on a paper towel and left on the washing machine.  He might not feel like eating cat food but just in case……….

I  decided that he needed to calm down, plus I was tired  of holding my arms up in the air with the towel at the ready  so I went out and closed the door.

Betsy, my sweet friend, came about 10 minutes later.  When I told her what was going on she said she thought she could catch him.  She requested a pillow case so I got one of those.  Now we had Betsy armed with a bright red flannel throw that just happened to be in the utility room on the washing machine, and I, armed with a white pillowcase.

Of course the wren was again startled when two huge giants invaded his quiet little space.  He commenced to fly from cabinet top to cabinet top.  He would land and then jump down behind the crown moulding, scritch scratch his way to the other end of the cabinet, hop back up on the moulding and have a perfect take-off as he soared across the room to the next cabinet.  Every time he took flight Betsy shrieked!  This caused me to laugh so hard!  Buddy, the dachshund, was majorly concerned so he’s barking and scratching on the door in the hall wanting in to see what was going on. For a while mayhem reigned!  After one vain attempt after another Betsy went to the kitchen to get a chair.  She tried that tactic but still that little tailless sucker was so fast that she couldn’t come close to covering him.

New strategy.  Betsy takes to the top of the washing machine!  This leaves the kitchen chair vacant!  I take it.  Now, finally, we are a little more on his level.  So what does he do?  Land on the hot pipe of the water heater.  Not wanting to stay there more than a second he flops down behind the water heater!  We can hear all manner of flapping, scrambling, soft noises.  Dust bunnies begin to billow out beside the water heater.  Since I’m one of those aggrevating people who has a need to explain everything……..goes with the teacher mode in me……I explain that I have never been able to clean in that corner because I can’t seem to get anything that will fit between the wall and the water heater so that spot hasn’t been cleaned probably since the house was built 8 years ago.  Like who gives a rip at this moment!  THERE IS A TRAPPED, TAILLESS  WREN THAT IS QUICKLY SUFFOCATING IN ALL THE DUST!!!

I got off the chair and tried the old pillowcase stuck in the crack trick.  It musta worked because he flew straight up that narrow corner space and landed on top of the water heater.  Being so close to him I gently began raising  the pillowcase. Of course Betsy is laughing so hard!  She’s standing on the washing machine with red flannel throw spread out at the ready.

And Mr. Tailless Wren?  He takes a look at me, realizes my intent and flies to the top of the red flannel throw that is stretched between Betsy’s  hands.  Aaaah!  She quickly and carefully folded the throw right over him.  He didn’t even struggle once he was covered.

The next move was for Betsy to hand him off to me. I took him outside to release him.  Betsy strongly suggested I move far away from the garage so he didn’t fly back in.  Well, duh!  Wish I’da thought of that one!  We decided to avoid any mishaps in that direction so Betsy  closed the door and I let him lose in the front yard.

When I opened the throw he flew to the holly bush at the corner of the house and then went next to the crepe myrtle tree, then on to the next bush.  As I walked by to go to the front door he let out one little happy chirp!

So, you see?  It was all the Orkin Man’s fault and his darn sticky spider trap didn’t help one bit!

Wonder how long it takes for wren tail feathers to grow back in?

A moment of rest before more frantic flight!

Copyright: T. Cole Dec. 17, 2009

Almost ‘Doggone’

About 10 years ago I told my then husband that I wanted a lap dog.  His response was, “I don’t think you really do.”  My response was, with a little bit of ire I’ll admit, “I do too!!!  You have your dog and I want mine.  I want one that can be in my lap.”  He, with resignation sighed, “Okay, but I don’t think you really need one.”

Shortly after that we went to another town for Ken to marry an old acquaintance and his fiance.  Oh, I forgot to mention that Ken, my husband, was a minister.  Anyway, when we walked into the double wide several dachshunds came running to me.  One was a puppy about 6 weeks old.  I fell in love.  She cuddled, nibbled my fingers, looked me in the eye and we became friends for several hours.  The guy, whose puppy she was, bred Dachshunds and he told me I could have her.  Ken again said, “Are you sure?”  to me not to the guy.  Well, of course I said yes, but since we were going on someplace else after the wedding we decided we’d come back and pick her up later.

About a week after that the guy called and said his new bride was not happy that he had given ‘her dog’ away so he reneged but told me his mama dog was pregnant.  I could have the pick of the litter.

In March he called and said birth had happened but that it had been a litter of one and it was mine if I wanted it.  I said yes.

When the pup was six weeks old we went after him.  He was absolutely adorable.  He could fit in the palm of my hand and I fell in love with him.

Oh dear! for the first six weeks I had him he cried every night.  I tried the ticking clock, the stuffed toy, the harsh commands.  Nothing worked.  Since it was summer time so I was out of school but Ken still had to get up to go to work every day, I resorted to going downstairs and holding that dumb dog in my lap and sleeping in my recliner.  I knew this was not a good habit to get any dog in but for peace at night I didn’t think I had much choice.

One night when he was about three months old I was so disgusted and so tired that as I was going up to bed knowing full well I’d be right back down within the hour, I saw a bed pillow on the couch and for some unknown reason I picked it up and threw it on top of Buddy.  Yeah, that’s his name cuz he was my little Buddy.

I trudged on up the stairs, got in bed and promptly fell asleep.  I woke up the next morning and thought, “Oh my gosh!  He died during the night!”  Racing down the stairs I was startled to find that he was still asleep under the pillow.  End of nightly problem. (You notice I said end of NIGHTLY problem.)

He was easy to house train.  I simply rewarded him with a teaspoon of vanilla ice cream whenever he did his business outside.  Go out side and nothing happen, come in, NO ICE CREAM!  It didn’t take him long to figure that one out. You should have seen him when he didn’t do any business and we came back inside.  He’d run to the refrigerator and stand there looking up waiting and would be so puzzled when nothing happened.

Now, what I haven’t told you was the first near catastrophe.  When he was barely ten weeks old I took him outside early one morning shortly after sunrise.  I set him down in the back yard which led up into the woods.  When he got about 20 feet from me I noticed a movement from our back deck.  Glancing in that direction I saw what I first thought were two large dogs.  I realized they were headed to him.  In a flash it came to me that these were not dogs. They were coyotes and they had spotted breakfast.  I’ve never been a screamer.  I have no output when it comes to panic time.  I do however, have an intake, and that’s what I started doing, drawing in one panicked breath after another and waving my arms.  When the coyotes were about 10 feet from Buddy they finally saw me, swerved, and disappeared behind our garage.

After the shaking stopped I managed to pick Buddy up and carry him back in to report to Ken what had just happened.  That very morning we went to town and got an Invisible Fence.

The Invisible Fence manual says it is easy to install.  WRONG!!!  Now maybe in some yards it’s easy, and if you don’t want to do a half acre, but Ken and I never did anything in a small, reasonable, easy way.  We decided it needed to go all around our house and a good way out into the front yard.  Thank God we didn’t decide to do the whole darn 10 acres!

The manual didn’t mention anything about what to do with rocks.  Rocks in the path of where you wanted to dig the trench to lay the wire.  Oh, not rocks. Boulders!  Well, at least the size of watermelons.  We dug so many of those out of our way, plus tree roots of various sizes and we were only supposed to dig three inches deep at that.  Then came the actual installing of the wire.  Our arrangement was Texie lay the wire in the groove we had dug, Ken cover it over and tamp it down.  As I recall the work now I can’t believe that I crawled on my hands and knees all the way around that big house and huge yard.  At the end of two days there wasn’t a spot on me that didn’t ache like a son-of-a-gun.

Now I felt like Buddy was safe.  We put the shock collar on him which by the way, dwarfed him with that shock box that was at lease an inch and a half wide by two long.  The smallest sized collar included was way too wide.  So now he looked like a tiny St. Bernard with the rum keg around his neck.

Then came the training.  The book says if you are consistent it would take about a week doing training several times a day.  Three weeks later I was still in the training mode.  Buddy wasn’t.  He hated every second of it and resisted having a leash from the moment it was attached.  Frequently the training session consisted of Buddy lying on his back and me dragging him around the perimeter of the yard with the occasional beeping sound emitted when he was dragged close to the underground wire.  I’m sure if anyone were hiding and watching they got a big kick out of my being trained.  However, after about three weeks or so Buddy got the hang of it, especially when I started the actual shock treatment.

The day finally came when we thought it was safe to let him in the front yard without the leash.  He enjoyed his freedom so much.  He did stop and scratch at that shock collar trying to rid himself of it but he eventually got used to it and enjoyed a good romp. But I forgot to tell you that we had to keep that sucker cranked up to German Shepherd setting because if Buddy decided he was going to go through the ‘shock treatment’ he just backed his ears, ran through, yelping the whole time.  Even in German Shepherd mode, if he was outside and I went to the barn or garage, which were both outside the Invisible Fence, he would come after me no matter how much it hurt.

I still didn’t trust letting him out without my being with him because I knew the coyotes hadn’t been trained to stay OUT of the Invisible Fence.

Winter came and every night several times after dark, in the freezing cold, wind, rain, sleet, whatever Mother Nature decided to throw at me that season, Buddy and I went outside.  Sometimes he was fast.  Sometimes he was slow.  Sometimes he climbed up on the top of my shoes and refused to get off and do his business.  Too cold for him.  So Ken said we should get him a doggy coat.

Two doggy coats later, from the ensuing battle of trying to get the darn things on, being bit, scratched, the piercing screams (oh, from Buddy, not from me although it was tempting) I decided to heck with a coat.  He would have to gut up and take the cold.

Buddy was proving much more stubborn than I ever knew a dog could be.  After I got him, when I would mention anything to anybody regarding Buddy, the dachshund, the stock answer from all people seemed to be, “Oh, didn’t you realize that a dachshund is the most stubborn breed there is?”,  leaving me confessing ignorance and feeling pretty dumb not to have asked anybody that question before Buddy.

Ken suggested Doggie Training School so Buddy and I signed up.  The woman teaching the class had trained some national champions of various breeds.  Her plaques hung on the walls.  We started….ten fulfilling weeks of Obedience training.  NOT!  We never missed a session.  We were never late.  Buddy never pee’d on the floor.  I never had to use the pooper scooper.  Not once!  However, Buddy just refused to do whatever it was that I tried to get him to do.  With the choke chain he layed over and refused to budge no matter what I did.  The trainer finally, during the second session, said, “Here, let me work with him.”  Hah! She thought she was so smart! She tells Buddy briskly and with real authority in her voice, “HEEL!”  and she sets off at a brisk pace.  Buddy stays put.  Oh, I forgot.  He stays put AFTER he lays down.  She tries again and again with the same result.  Finally, realizing that she has other ‘students’ she leaves me to my embarrassment and proceeds with the lesson.

After we ended that session, with my trying desperately to get him to obey, she asked me what he wore at home and I told her he wore a halter on  a regular basis and the shock collar for outside.  We abandoned the choke chain from then on and he had a manner of success with the halter on.   At the end of the ten weeks Buddy got a certificate because he was the only dog that had perfect attendance.  My, how proud I smiled at him! (

Now, please understand that I could write a long book about adventures with Buddy, the dachshund.  However, that is not my purpose here.  I will say that Buddy has continued to have near fatal escapades.  He ate several cupfuls of foam rubber that he pulled from the inside of his bed; he ate at least a cupful of DeCon that had to be removed by pumping his stomach; he as been bitten on the nose two different springs by Copperhead snakes (he rides too low to the ground and his nose is too long; wasn’t the snake’s fault) which, both times, were trips to the doggie hospital; he disappeared one whole day in coyote, Copperhead infested country only to come waltzing back up to the door like he’d been on some great vacation.

Then there was the time several  years ago with the dog and cat food recall.  Yup, three weeks before the recall came out Buddy got desperately sick and had to be kept for well over a week in doggie hospital.  Of course the recall came just days after he got out so there could be no recourse as far as vet reimbursement.  No one thought he’d make it.  But he did.

About 2 years ago Buddy got very sick again.  Tests were run. X-rays were taken.  Buddy had a disc in his lower back that was trying to “blow”.  He was not allowed to walk.  Have you ever tried to keep a dachshund still? I carried him in, I carried him out, sometimes as many as 10 times a day because he would start to vomit and I knew I had to get him outside.  Or because I knew he needed to go out.  This went on for three weeks before he was allowed to walk by himself.  I have spinal stenosis so this was incredibly bad for my back, too.  But Buddy the dachshund and I somehow got through it.

At the end of the ordeal, my daughter sat me down and said, “Mom, I know you love Buddy, but you simply cannot go through this again.  I won’t let you.  No dog is that important.  You have to realize that if this happens again he gets put to sleep.”  I agreed.

About six months later he started acting funny again and I knew what was wrong.  I layed on the floor with him throughout the night.  I talked to myself, cried, and came to terms with having him put to sleep the next morning.  I didn’t want to see him suffer like this and knew what the vet would tell me I had to do as far as tending him. Buddy and I had been through a lot  together including the death of my husband but I finally became peaceful about it.

The next morning after a quick call I took him in.  The doctor checked him and said he thought he could give him a shot and some pain pills and he would be fine.  I asked him to put him to sleep and he said there really was no need once we got him through this.  I said okay.  So the routine was started over.  My daughter happened to be out of the country so I got by with it.  After that bout I promised myself that I would not go through that again.  It was too hard on me physically.                                                Can you believe it’s been a year and a half or better?  Buddy acts like a puppy most days.  He hops, jumps, skips,   tears through the house, loves to play ball, chases squirrels in the yard.  Oh yes, I know that the time will come because he’s nearly 10 years old.  His muzzle is turning grey, his front feet are now white. But, did I mention that he can heel just beautifully now.  We go on long walks together and he’s great on a leash.

I have recently gone through a heart wrenching personal experience.  Today I received a letter that made me cry.  As I was weeping Buddy was asleep in my lap.  He got up, looked at me, turning his head from side to side with a concerned expression on his face.  Suddenly, before I could stop him he reached up and ever so gently licked the tear that was coming down my cheek,  then sat back and looked at me with love. He then let out one soft little whimper and lay down across my lap again.

Buddy, the dachshund?  The stubborn, ill-mannered, rambunctious, foul-smelling dachshund, the dog that is never allowed to get close to my face and obeys with that?  And yet, he truly understood my sorrow.

So, yes, Buddy was nearly Dog Gone a couple of years ago but today I am glad he’s still in my life.

Copywrite: T. Cole, Nov. 2009

Keeper of the Heritage

One of my early memories is of Daddy having his camera slung around his neck with that ever handy light meter hanging from it’s leather strap right there with the camera.   Wherever we went Daddy took his camera.  He snapped pictures anytime we had a family gathering at Grandmother and Grandfather Sechrist’s house.  If we had Mama’s family come from California to visit the camera was kept busy.  With four little girls he had lots of models and he took advantage by taking pictures of us many Sunday afternoons right after church.

One of his favorite sites for photography was up on the hill by the water tower in Spur, Texas.  Other times it would be our own yard.  Many of his pictures were taken in front of a plain cardboard background that he kept in his “dark room”.   The large piece was from some kind of  discarded furniture display that he brought home from Godfrey Furniture Store where he worked.  He tried portraits and wanted a good background for his subject.  This background had a hole about the size of a silver dollar midway down the side.  The top corners were cut off in angles.  The surface was faintly marblized in tones of beige.  How many times over many years Daddy pulled that piece of cardboard out for more picture taking! So many of his pictures have that hole and the slanted corners still in them.  He was always going to crop the pictures but somehow just never got around to it. I love seeing these particular pictures because I remember that background and the memories associated with it.

When we lived in town there was a room off the side of the dining room that was “Daddy’s Room”.  We weren’t allowed in there. unless specifically invited in by Daddy.  Now that was a rare privilege.  This “inner sanctum”, as Mama called it,  housed all  Daddy’s tools and  his darkroom equipment.  I do remember being invited in to watch Daddy develop some film.   He cautioned me that I must not open the door or all the pictures would be ruined. I promised I would not get off the stool then Daddy turned off the big light and turned on a little red light.  I still remember the strange feel of seeing everything, including Daddy, in that red glow.

Daddy carefully measured his powders and chemicals into the various trays and then took the film out of it’s little case. He patiently explained each step in the process as he submerged the film into the developer.  Slowly he counted the time so that it would be in the solution just the right amount .  He had several rolls to develop and as each one was finished he used one of Mama’s wooden clothespins to hang it from a cord he had strung up by the ceiling.  I got to look at the negatives.  They didn’t look right to me and I told him so.  He laughed and told me I’d get to see the next step when the film had dried.  I don’t recall the time frame.  It may have been the next night.

Back in the darkroom he explained how he was going to make the pictures.  He had cut the film into the individual negatives and was ready to print them.  Again, he mixed chemicals in his white enameled rectangular pans.  I don’t know exactly the whole process but he put the negative on his printer, put the treated paper in it’s spot, and exposed the paper to the negative.  This photographic paper was then clipped with the clothes pen and submerged in the developer solutions.  He moved the stool over close to where he was working.  Lifting me up he let me watch as the picture magically began to show on the paper.  He had told me to be quiet so he could count because he had to be just right.  My, what a thrill when I could see myself staring back at me from that tray.

In about 1944 we bought The Place and moved into the tiny two room shack.  Daddy had no place to store his photographic equipment except  in the chicken house.  I never saw him  use it again.  I suppose the flood must have ruined everything.

When Daddy died the main thing I wanted when I cleaned out his closet and the garage was Mama’s butter churn and Daddy’s negatives if either one still existed.  Cleaning out the garage is a whole other story but I did find the churn and I did get Daddy’s negatives.  Daddy had carefully put them between pieces of paper and had them stored in old cigar boxes and 3 X 5 inch file boxes.  They were treasures to me but there wasn’t anything I could do with them.  I kept them for seven years without being able to see them.

Last year I stumbled upon a $99 little scanner that said it could scan negatives and put them on a computer.  I ordered this with some hesitation and very little confidence in it’s ability but knew  I needed some sort of  backup for those negatives so they wouldn’t be lost.  I kept thinking that someday I would find someone who could print them for me.  I hooked up the little scanner and put in the first negative.  My, how surprised I was when the picture came up.  The software instantly changed the negative to positive and I was looking at a picture of my young childhood.  How excited I became as I put in one negative after another and could actually see pictures that I’d never seen before.  I suppose Daddy had many that he never got  around to printing.

This gave me an idea as I found numerous pictures of my sisters.  Having one sister still living I decided to create an album of her childhood and send it to her for her birthday.  One day, while in Walmart, I thought to ask if they could send off old black and white negatives to have printed.  When the answer was yes, I began organizing negatives.  I had over 300 printed.  I then started going through all my old pictures and found additional prints that I could put on my computer by scanning then printing. My, how I love modern technology!  I got busy and made the Birthday Album. This ended up being the best present I ever gave her.  Her son told me she cried for 2 hours before she could get control enough to call me and let me know she had gotten it.

As the year  moved along I kept getting the idea that I needed to make my sister another album with more of  the family pictures.  Mentioning it to Sylvia, my daughter, she asked if I would make her one also.  Once started, I decided I needed to make one for myself.  Now that would be three albums.  Sure I could do that!  However, I never do anything in a simple manner.  I wanted each picture backed with red, then black paper.  And, I found even more pictures that needed to be included.

I’ve told about Daddy and his picture taking but I haven’t mentioned that Mama treasured photos and kept them in a strange assortment of boxes.  She had pictures of her grandparents, parents, siblings, and her childhood.   Digging through these boxes I also found pictures from Daddy’s side of the family.  The Greats and the Grands. I realized that not many people have pictures of four sets of great grandparents, in fact many pictures of them.

Suddenly my albums began to expand.  I simply couldn’t make albums about our family without including all the pictures I had available of grandparents, great grandparents, aunts and uncle, cousins by the dozen.  And what beautiful old pictures they are.  So, back to my computer, my printer/scanner and many hours of putting pictures into them.  Of course making three albums means all pictures have to be printed in triplicate.  Oh, did I mention that they have to be trimmed on the paper cutter, and then each one first backed in red, then backed in black so that tiny edges of each color shows.  These must be trimmed with exactness.

My piles of pictures for each album has grown.  I now have each stack for each album divided into several labled groups.  I have Mama’s grandparents, (that’s two sets) her childhood family, Daddy’s grandparents (two sets) Daddy’s childhood, and then our immediate family, all from old photos scanned into the computer or prints from Daddy’s negatives.  My project groweth!!!  Now, I’m thinking that to put these pictures all in one album will make that sucker so heavy that at my sister’s and my age we may not be able to lift them much longer!  Maybe the best plan would be to make an album of the grandparents and our parents childhood.  Then start a second album of just our immediate family’s pictures.  I believe even those albums would be pretty heavy once all the pictures are in.

I guess I have picked up the desire to be the Keeper of the Heritage from both Mama and Daddy.  They each valued photographs.  Those pictures are ‘memories in a bottle’, memories of  moments when family were gathered together having fun and fellowship.  I must share these memories.  They are too valuable to horde.

So, like Daddy in his darkroom or Mama with her various little boxes stuffed with family photographs, I gather the collection to save the past.  I work in my “brightroom”.  I scan, I print, I trim, I decorate, and I will eventually put these pictures in albums.  I will stuff the albums full of memories, and as I touch each picture I remember ……………

I remember the 20 year old Uncle Bill, who came on leave during World War II, the laughter, the teasing of my two preteen sisters until they, wanting to get back at him, fed him a slice of soap between two crackers telling him it was cheese.  I remember this same uncle who took the time to send  a little 4 year old girl a post card  while he was stationed in Miami, Florida waiting to be shipped to Europe where he was a bombardier dropping bombs over Berlin.  I look at pictures of two little cousins I never knew because their parents divorced when the war was over and their daddy came home to a wife who had found someone else in his absence.  I see cousins who were my best friends, our old jersey cow that gave the cream that I churned into butter, the collie dog my sister, Norma, pushed around in her doll buggy, the crocheted dress Mama made for me, the little sister who took every step I took for eight years and then suddenly died one hot July day, I see how Mama declined in health visibly after that terrible day, I see the four sisters, and then the three, I see the older sisters going off to college leaving a tearful, lonely twelve year old little sister behind, I see the grandparents who let me come visit every summer allowing me the opportunity to be with my 18 cousins, plus aunts and uncles, I see Mama as a two year old, then three, then four and see the sadness in her face after her beloved daddy was killed in a train car wreck; there’s Aunt Lea who could make a joke about anything and kept everyone around her laughing even when she had so many problems in her own life………………the memories go on and on.

What photo could I leave out?  Who in the family is unimportant?  Who could ever be forgotten?  And so the albums get bigger and heavier.  The albums become more precious. These albums, these pictures tell our history, so ordinary yet so unique.  And I?  I become the Daddy and the Mama who guarded the negatives and the photographs through flood, moves, tornadoes, depressions, tears, toils, and sorrows. I become the Keeper of the Heritage.  I take my position very seriously because it is important.  As one nephew told me, “I never saw my mother as a baby or a little girl.  You have not only given her a present of her childhood, you have given it to my brother and me as well as our six children.”

And so I take up my scissors and glue stick, I turn on all the lights in the study so I can see to trim precisely, and I continue the task…………

But then I stop and think.  Who will come after me?    Who will guard the negatives or the old family photos?  Who will see that we are not “lost” through indifference?  Heaven forbid that someday some of my beautiful photographs of my great grandparents should end up being interior decorations on a Cracker Barrel wall! Oh my Gosh!  What if I ended up on a Cracker Barrel Wall?

So who in the family will become the next Keeper of the Heritage?  Who will be our guardian?

Are You Listenin’ Papa?

Why have I been cleaning kitchen tile grout and digging nutsedge today?  Well, because my daughter, Sylvia is getting married right this minute.  Huh?  Yeah! I’m not invited.  Is that sad? Yes, in a way.  Is it not so sad?  Absolutely!

A couple of years ago Sylvia and I were talking about some wedding we’d been to with the 8 bridesmaids and all the trimmings and she said, “You know, Mom, if I ever have the privilege of getting married I really think I’m going to elope.”  I said, “You mean I can clean out that dresser drawer full of cute examples of rice/birdseed holders that I’ve been saving 46 years?”  We had a good laugh and I cleaned out the drawer and threw them all away. You see, her dad, my husband was a minister who did over a thousand weddings during the 43 years he was serving.  So, believe me, I’d saved everything that came down the pike in regard to wedding favors sans birdseed and rice of course.

It didn’t surprise me that she said she’d elope.  With her personality type and abhorence of public display I understood where she was coming from.  And she had waited a long time through circumstances largely beyond her control.

Today, she’s in Idaho and I am in Texas.  But you know what?  Our hearts are as close to each other right this minute as she’s saying her wedding vows at The Hitchin’ Post in Coeur d”Alene, Idaho as if I were the proud mother of the bride in that ridiculous “mother of the bride” dress I’ve seen so many wear.   But, as I sit here  I realize I’d  have made a lousy Mother of the Bride.  I’m blubbering like a baby and that would sure make my mascara run!

So, as I lift my glass of wine (wine, by the way, that Sylvia left in the fridge 3 weeks ago and that I don’t really like) I say to Wade and Sylvia:

MAY YOU HAVE A LONG AND HAPPY LIFE TOGETHER, FILLED WITH LOVE AND  JOY.  I  PRAY, HEAVENLY FATHER, THAT YOU WOULD POUR OUT YOUR BLESSINGS ON THEM MIGHTILY.  SURROUND THEM WITH YOUR LOVE, YOUR PROTECTION, YOUR POWER AS THEY CONTINUE TO SERVE YOU.  MAY ALL THE GIFTS YOU HAVE IN STORE FOR THEM BE THEIRS.

Papa, are you listenin’?  Our beautiful daughter is getting married right now!  And, oh, the joy that is hers! I’m sorry you couldn’t have been here to see her.  But hey!  You wouldn’t have been invited anyway!

Guess I’ll go dig more nutsedge!

FLIGHT OF THE BUMBLEBEE

Flight of the Bumblebee, er, uh, Plight of the Bumblebee! Maybe not.  This  should be named Plight of the Gardener.  Oh heck!  FLIGHT OF THE GARDENER.  That more truthfully tells the story.

I have huge flower beds.  I’m a crazy, avid gardener.  I love to watch all things green and that have flowers. Enjoyment comes by the bucketloads when I see what was a seed last season, grew, matured to the flower stage, and then, finally, advanced to the seed stage so the process can start all over again.  I collect seeds each year so I can always start plants in new areas.

Well, this past fall I scattered Cone Flower seeds all around my beds.  Hundreds came up and my, what a display they did put on!  The butterflies and bees loved them.  I could walk right into the thick of them and have butterflies light on me. There were 3 or 4 different varieties of bees that visited daily.

Since I use no pesticides I always see critters climbing all over the plants:  gekcos, blue tailed lizards, 3 striped skinks, toads, frogs, butterflies of various kinds, bees, beetles, ladybugs, and an occasional snake.  All have been in happy existence with one another (Oh, right, survival of the fittest and all that!) but basically all have been in happy existence with ME until last week.

The cone flowers had had their glory and were, for the most part, in their final stage of life as far as the flowers go.  I had purposely let them go to seed.  They now had black seedheads that were not very attractive, plus, if these seed heads are cut back, new flowers will come on for a fall display.  Out I go with my trusty clippers and red garden hat. It was Texas -August- hot so I had on shorts and a tank top.  Armed and ready I stepped into the plants toward the back of the border and commenced clipping.

All of a sudden I realized that my hat was being hit by something.  Glancing up to see what it could be, I encountered a smaller version of a bumblebee.  Apparently he doesn’t like red!  About that time I had another one hitting my green tank top.  He doesn’t like green! (Yeah, I’m very colorful when I go out to garden).  These suckers have worked out a battle plan that calls for attack from opposing flanks!  And I am the enemy!

As I look around me I realize that many of the coneflowers are already starting to open new flowers down below the dried seed heads.  Although much smaller than the first flush of blooms these new ones are loaded with pollen.  They are covered in various insects doing their thing.  I have obviously disturbed the balance of nature and at least two bumblebees take it upon themselves to rid their world of this giant intrusion.

My first line of attack was to just stand there without moving, telling myself to keep the adrenaline levels low……..no pheremones or whatever those things are called that produce scent….just stay cool, Texie.  Uh!  Apparently that wasn’t working.  Then one guy hit my face!  That did it!  I took off my nice red garden hat and swatted the heck out of him.  I saw him land in the lawn about 4 feet away.  While I stand there watching, he gets back up, flutters his wings a bit, leaps up and comes right back at me.  I swat at him with the bunch of seed heads still on the stems.  I do notice a shower of seeds scattering into the grass. He manages to pass right between them and comes straight at my face.  I throw the bunch of stems  out onto the lawn, yank off my hat again and am swinging like a crazy person trying to protect all parts of my body.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I hear my daddy say,”When you’re working with bees, stay calm.  They can tell if you’re afraid of them.  Just procede to work and ignore them.” This bee never got to hear my daddy, obviously, so it was going to be his way or the highway!  I took the highway!  Leaping over three foot tall coneflowers I hotfooted it into the screened-in-porch.  My plan was to let him go home or calm down then I would return and finish my job.

I waited about 20 minutes and went back out.  As I gathered another armful of seed heads he came back.  He definitely knew what he was doing this time.  He popped me on a finger and was making a bee line for my face.  I surrendered totally as I threw another bunch of coneflower seed heads onto the lawn in the other direction and headed back into the house.

It was at this point that I see the action in my mind!  Throwing seed heads of anything into your lawn is not a good plan.  I visualize those thousands of individual little seeds as they fly through the air and land in the grass.

One good thing has come out of this Plight of the Gardener. Oh, no!  That was FLIGHT OF THE GARDENER:  I will have a new, ready-made flowerbed next spring where once was lawn.  So much less mowing!!! So many more bumblebees!

The Great Flood

When Mama and Daddy wanted to buy the little eight acre place  just north of Spur, Texas,  Daddy was  careful to try to do his homework.  He found out the price, he checked with several nearby farmers to see how far they had to dig to find water, and, knowing there was a creek running behind this acreage and a creek about three quarters of a mile  in front of it, he checked to see if those ever flooded.  He checked with old timers in Spur.  He checked with the farmers who lived between those two creeks.  All told the same story.  Those two creeks, Dockum and Duck Creeks, hadn’t flooded in any one’s memory.  In fact, one guy said it had been at least a hundred years since they had flooded because he had read that in the local newspaper, The Texas Spur.

After we had bought the place, moved the one room shack from the front of the acreage to the middle and turned it a quarter turn, plus built on another room to it, Daddy started talking about building a really nice house for us.

In the evenings, as we sat by the kerosene heater, we would ask Daddy about the new house.  Daddy had  an enthusiastic  and interesting way of describing something which  made  each of us know that what he told us, he  could and would do.

This house was going to have a  big living room, three bedrooms, a bathroom, a good big kitchen and dining room, but the thing that fascinated us most was the fireplace he told us  he would build.  It wasn’t the actual fireplace that  intrigued us.  It was the chimney on the outside that we could hardly wait to see.  Daddy had drawn a picture for us.  It would be cream colored brick but up on the front he would make an S for Sechrist, our last name, from darker brick right into the chimney. All the world would see our S as they drove up the driveway.  Since none of  us kids had ever lived in a house with a real fireplace and a chimney this was exciting and fun to visualize in our imaginations.

Mama and Daddy worked so hard on the place.  They planted more fruit trees , blackberry  and grape vines as well as lots of strawberries.  Then the asparagus bed was completed.  Huge sections of the land were turned into vegetable gardens.  Cow pens and a cow shed, chicken pens and a chicken house, sheep pens, and a hog pen were all completed.  Well, they were not really completed but they were usuable.  Daddy was always gonna get back to finishing them.

Bermuda grass was planted around the house to keep out the mud and to make a nice lawn for us to play on.  Mama made flower beds in several different places.  She planted  lilac hushes as well as currant bushes.

After several years of living in the  two room shack, Daddy gradually started bringing home trailer loads of new and used lumber.  Whenever he had any spare money he bought building supplies, whether bags of nails, tar paper, or 2 by 4s.  He had placed some old boards on the ground and would stack the good lumber on it to keep everything off the ground.  He stored anything that would rust in the cow shed which he gradually added on to.  Everything that was outside he covered over with sheet metal so it wouldn’t ruin in the rain.  When he found someone who was remodeling and changing out windows he brought those home, too.  The piles gradually grew and took up more and more space in the back yard.  He kept telling us he was getting very close to  starting the house.

In the early summer of about 1944 Mama got very sick one day.  When Daddy came home she was in bed hurting so much she couldn’t get up.  Since we didn’t have a phone back then Daddy went back to town to our doctor’s house and told him about Mama.  Dr. Hughes came right away.  When he finished examining Mama he said she had appendicitis and would have to get to the hospital.   Away we all went and the next day Mama had surgery.  After a week she was allowed to come home but was told not to take a step without wearing her girdle, which back in those days was thought to keep a person more safe after surgery.  She had been home about three days when there was a really big rain cloud to the northwest of us.  Daddy said it must  be raining hard over there.  The storm gradually came our way and we did get a good rain later that afternoon. Mama was still mostly in bed during that day.

We went to bed after the 10 o’clock news.  About midnight Daddy woke us all up, since we all slept in the same room, as he got his flashlight and told Mama he heard something that he couldn’t figure out.  He turned on the bedroom light and went out the door.  I remember sitting up on my end of the army cot bed I shared with Marilyn.  We waited and waited for Daddy and Mama kept telling us everything would be all right, it was probably just one of the animals that he’d heard.

After about 15 minutes he came rushing back in yelling for us all to get our clothes on.  He explained that the creek behind us was a torrent and rising closer to the house every minute.  Confusion reigned, as two little girls, two teenage girls, and Mama tried to find clothes and get dressed.  Mama couldn’t find her girdle.  She was searching all around the bed.  Daddy was yelling for her to not walk without it.  Norma and Betty joined in the search.  Daddy ran back outside  to check on the creek.  Rushing back in he yelled we didn’t have time to find the girdle, that we had to leave right then, that in the space of just a few minutes the creek had already risen closer to the house.  Helping Mama, he herded us all to the old ’36 Ford we had.  It had to be cranked to get it started.  Having done that he jumped in and I’ll never forget the feeling I had as he turned the car lights on and started out the driveway.

We had driven maybe 20 feet when he yelled and in the headlights we could see a three foot wall of water roiling straight at us.  It had already blocked our driveway entrance to the dirt road which would lead us to higher ground up in town.

Daddy quickly crammed the car in reverse and backed the car straight back to the house.  Out we all jumped.  There was a homemade ladder leaning against the house as Daddy had been patching a leak in the roof a couple of weeks before.  He herded us all up that ladder to the roof.  Mama was barely able to climb it and we were scared to death for her.

A light rain was still falling.  It was pitch black when Daddy hurried back down the ladder and into the house for several quilts.  He covered us snugly together.  The roar of that water was louder by the second.  As Daddy finally sat down on the roof he explained that our creek, Dockum was coming up from the south.  Duck Creek was coming from the north.  About that time there was a crash as the two creeks met right at our little house.  The shack shuddered beneath us.  Marilyn started to cry.  Our dog, Honey, jumped up on an old table that was leaning against the wall of the house.  She started barking and crying trying to get to us.  The mama cat was meowing calling for her babies, the cow and calf were bawling, sheep bleating, hogs grunting and squealing as water surrounded all these animals.  We began to hear a noise that Daddy told us was the chickens falling off their roost into the water and that they were drowning.

Things began to bang and bump against the house.  Since it was just set up on rocks at the corners the house quivered and shook.  There was noise all around us up there in the dark on the roof.  We could hear metal scraping as the sheet metal that had been covering the new lumber washed away.  It seemed to an 8 year old child that this nightmare went on for hours, which it did.  Then things began to quiet down as the animals no longer made noise, except for a few scared whines still coming from the dog.  Occasionally Daddy would walk to the edge of the roof and shine his flashlight down around the house  and out as far as the light would go and then would come back and report to us what he saw.  We could smell gas as both the gas and kerosene barrels tipped from their  wooden perches and started bobbing around on the water.

It was cold, dark, raining, and scarey.

After being up on the roof for several hours we could hear voices coming toward us.  Daddy hollered and a man hollered back.  There were two men in a little metal row boat who rowed right up to the house.  They had come out to see if there was any one to rescue.  They wanted us to climb down in the boat so they could row back to the edge of town with us.  Daddy told them thanks but no, he would not put his family in jeopardy like that.  One of the men was smoking a cigarette.  Daddy yelled at him to put it out because of the gas all around.  The men hadn’t even noticed the smell.  I remember they told Daddy how stupid he was to not let us get in the boat, laughed at him and rowed away.

After they had gone, my sister, Betty, said she thought he was stupid too.  Daddy had quite a temper and I remember him yelling at her that the guys were probably drunk, knowing who these two were, that the boat couldn’t possibly be big enough to carry the six of us and the two of them and get back across that creek area safely, and for her to shut up!  Of course this started all four kids crying.  Mama was in pain and said she felt like her stitches had started coming undone so that got us going even more.  This started the dog barking and jumping around on the table top.  Daddy yelled for us to “dry it up!’ which we all somehow managed to do.

The rain was still falling.

When early daylight started showing Daddy checked and said the water level had gone down quite a bit.  Miraculously the ladder was still leaning against the house.  He climbed down and went  in the house to get the car key.  Mama told him that car would never start after so much water had gone through it.  Daddy went to the car anyway, turned it on, set the throttle, and got out and cranked it.  It didn’t start the first few times he tried.  He’d get back in to adjust the throttle or choke, get out and crank again.  After numerous times that thing gave a cough, belch, and darn, if it didn’t start up.  At that sound Mama directed us all to climb down the ladder.   Daddy was waiting at the bottom to help or carry each of us to the car. Water was still about mid calf on Daddy.   He half carried Mama and put her in the front seat of that old two door, and just as my sister Norma was trying to reach out and close Mama’s  door, the dog  jumped in.  I have no idea why Daddy hadn’t closed the door after helping Mama in but he hadn’t.  Not a one of us kids said one word about the dog being in the car.

Daddy started easing the car forward through the water.  We kids started asking questions and talking.  He yelled for us to shut up so he could concentrate on avoiding all sorts of stuff that was floating by or stuck in the driveway.  I still remember how the water sprayed up on each side of the car as we drove through it.  Daddy said he was afraid the motor was going to drown out at any minute.  The road was very slick under that water and he had a difficult time keeping the car from slipping off the road or getting stuck.  From the house it was probably a good mile up into Spur because of our house being located down a road before we ever got to the highway.  We were surrounded by cotton fields that had sported cotton, lush and green and about two feet high when we went to bed.  Now all we could see was muddy water every direction we looked.  We finally reached the highway which was set up a little higher.  Slick silt covered the pavement in ripples.  Daddy cautiously drove along the center which was out of the water until he reached the bridge.  The bridge was a little lower and water still rushed over it.  Trees were caught along the guard rail of the bridge on the west side.  The whole area was covered with water way up the hill on the other side.  Daddy stopped the car and got out to check to see if the bridge was intact.  Coming back he said he thought we could make it across.  The sun hadn’t even come up at this point but it was that hazy grey with a steady drizzle still coming down. I was terrified as he slowly drove across that bridge and finally up the hill out of the water.

When we got to town he went first to Julie and Cecil Godfrey’s house.  He was Daddy’s boss and they were good friends.  They had been up all night worried sick over us.  They took my little sister, Marilyn and me plus Norma into their house.  Mama, Daddy, and Betty left and drove to Dr. Hughes’ house.  They stayed there.  I remember the first thing Julie did was get baths ready for each of us.  She wrapped us in thick towels, fed us breakfast, then put us all to bed.

Sometime during the morning Daddy came back by.  He said the water had completely receded from the house area but looked like everything was ruined.  Dr. Hughes had put Mama to bed and told her she was not to move without help.  He’d checked her incision and redressed it, too, and reported that all seemed to be okay with her. I recall hearing him tell Julie and Cecil this as I lay in that nice clean warm bed and then I don’t remember anything else till late in the afternoon.

Both my older sisters were working at Wacker’s Variety Store so it was decided that they should go on to work.  I suppose somebody had washed their clothes and cleaned their shoes.  Marilyn and I stayed with Julie.  Daddy went to the store and bought Mama a new girdle.  She insisted that she was going home to see what had happened out there.  Mama was only 4 feet 11 inches and never weighed more than 100 pounds, but boy, could she be stubborn when she set her mind on something.  They eventually let her go out to see the damage.  The silt was so thick and slick in the house that she and Daddy could barely take a step without sliding.  They got some clothes for each of us and came back into town.  I remember how I felt when I finally got to see Mama again.  She was always my source of peace and comfort.

It was decided that since the well had been contaminated so there was no safe water out there, that the silt was dangerous to walk on and was too hard to deal with wet, and because of Mama’s condition, it would be better for us all to stay where we were and let everything dry out a bit.  I was so distraught that Daddy decided  it would be okay for the kids to see what had happened, so when Norma and Betty got off work that day we all got in the car and drove out to the place.  All the cotton in the fields leaned straight east completely bent over.  Debris was everywhere.  As we drove into our driveway we realized that all the lumber and supplies for the new house were gone.  The fences were gone,  dead trees that we hadn’t owned were scattered around our yard, belongings from somewhere else dotted the yard.  Basically, the house and  part of the chicken pen were all that still stood.  Our bike and tricycle were gone.  No animals were left but there was a terrible stench which Daddy explained was the smell of the dead chickens that had gotten caught under debris.

As I walked in I remember the silt still covered the floor and was beginning to crack into a jigsaw puzzle of pieces.  The top layer of the mud was beginning to make thin curls that crunched as you stepped on them.  Our beds were soaked.  The bedclothes had been in the water and wicked that muddy stuff right up onto the mattresses of Mama’s and Daddy’s, and Norma’s and Betty’s beds.  The army cot bed that Marilyn and I shared was on it’s side with the covers in the silt.  All our toys had been in cardboard boxes under that cot.  Soaked and ruined, every one!  There were three of the rabbits that Daddy had found in the yard hopping around in the house.  He hadn’t known what to do with them except to put them in the house.  Marilyn and I had each gotten a Panda Bear for Christmas.  We slept with them every night.  They were laying on the floor by the cot and I was so upset to see that the rabbits had eaten the fuzzy plush off my Panda’s face.  I started crying, then Marilyn started crying and pretty soon all the girls and Mama were standing there in that muddy room bawling.  Poor Daddy!

He soon realized that it was time to get us all back to town.  I went out several times during the next week and could see each time what Mama and Daddy had accomplished.  I can still see the Panda Bears flopped over the steps to the ladder waiting to dry out.  Mama had carted all the quilts and bedding out to a makeshift clothesline Daddy had put up.  Some of our clothes were salvaged but most had had flood water rise at least to the hems and then soaked on up a ways.  Anything that had been on the floor was ruined.  We didn’t have much furniture so that wasn’t a problem.  It did continue to rain every day for over a week so it was really hard to get anything to dry out.  The smell of mildew stuck with me for a long time after that.

As soon as Mama could take time and write to my grandparents, who lived about 50 miles away, she asked if they would mind coming after the two little ones.  They did and Marilyn and I went to spend quite a while with them while the rest of the family were still cleaning up.

The sheep were found dead in the neighbor’s fence, the hogs never returned, but the cow, Pet, and her calf were found by a guy about 4 miles from the house where they had either been swept or had swum.  The chickens were all gone, but the three rabbits I assume were used for food during those clean up days.  They just weren’t there when Marilyn and I got to come home.  The dog, Honey, was safe, Mama Cat was safe but there were no babies left.  We just knew that we had suffered such losses that it was not a good idea to even ask what had happened to them.

In the early part of August our church had a revival.  Daddy was always the song leader at church and since he had such an outstanding operatic voice the evangelist asked him to accompany him on his revival circuit through Oregon and California.  He promised to pay Daddy really well so Daddy agreed to go with him.  Betty wanted  badly to get out of Spur and begged so forcefully  that it was decided  she could accompany Daddy so off they went.  Norma went to Abilene to college as a Freshman when it was time for school to start, and Mama , Marilyn, and I were left at the place.  However, that is a whole other story in itself that will have to be written when I can get over the feelings this one has dredged up in me that I had stuck way to the  back of my mind.

NOW WHAT?

Sometimes circumstances happen of which we have absolutely no control.  At that point we are faced with a dilemma as to what measures we should take to get ourselves out of that situation or to determine what would be the best possible steps to take to remedy our mistake. Such is the case for me right now.  Due to a hot, June, Sunday afternoon in East Texas I have created a dilemma.

I am a gardener.  I love all things (nearly) that can be planted and grown.  I love to dig in the dirt, I love the smell of the ground wet with rain, I love to see new leaves or new flowers.  Can’t help it!  I’ve been that way since age 8 when I transplanted my first plant from my mother’s garden and was given the awesome privilege and responsibility to care for it.

Also among my favorite things are the creatures that God has placed on this earth.  Over the years I have been an observer of many animals, especially birds and butterflies.  Just the very fact that they can fly has been of wonder to me.  And that birds know exactly how to build a nest, or that butterflies know exactly which plant to lay their eggs on so that the unattended caterpillar will have a ready-made diner at his ‘fingertips’ the moment he manages to break out of that tiny egg and his first instinct is to start chomping has filled me with amazement.

With the exception of grasshoppers, Texas leaf cutter ants,  tomato horn worms, a tick, flea, or occasional fly I try not to hurt or kill any creature.  Oh, I take that back.  I’m Dr. Death to a scorpion, black widow, or brown recluse, and a copperhead, if I see him first.  None of those has  a chance with me!

So, on with the dilemma.  Back in May and then again in early June the Master Gardeners of Smith County wanted to come see my flower gardens and determine if they were worthy to have  on the Garden Tour in May, 2010.  I only really garden in the back yard and have very eclectic taste in the planting of my flowers.  I love masses of flowers.  However, in the street facing front yard I present a very ordinary subdivision nearly-all -look -alike yard.  This presentation doesn’t usually bother me one bit but with the Master Gardeners coming, well……………..   So, I bought a beautiful planter and an already planted pot to set in it to go by my front door under the Welcome sign.

As the summer has heated up I have had to increase the frequency with which I water the plants in that planter.  I have one of those small, coiled hoses that I use to water it and the pots of geraniums that are located in the front bed.  I go out about every 3 days and give all the pots a good drink.

Since the temperature is hovering around 95 by mid afternoon I realized that I needed to throw some water on the plants before they got stressed.  Having watered the geraniums I turned and started watering the plants in the beautiful urn at the front door.  I noticed how nicely the azalea, the creeping Jenny, and the ivy were doing as I moved the shower nozzle around the perimeter of the planter.

All of a sudden I felt something land on my bare foot!  I’m used to tree frogs landing on me when I’m working in my flower beds so I looked down thinking that would be the case.  Not so!  There, attached to my toe, was a tiny baby wren, just recently feathered, with big wide yellow bill, beady little eyes, and and pink toes.  My first inclination was to scream and shake my foot but upon realizing what it was I scooped it up and started looking up on the inside of the porch to see if I could locate the nest it must have fallen out of.  Nothing!  It was at this point that I realized  he had jumped out of the pot I was watering.  I gently set him back under a plant in the planter.

He didn’t like this and immediately jumped right back out and into a corner of the porch.  I called Sylvia, my photographer daughter, to quickly bring her camera.  She took several shots of him as he cowered in the corner on the concrete.  We decided that I should now put him back in the pot.

Bofore turning loose of him this time I did kinda search to see if I could find the nest and put him back in it.  Sure enough, there was the tiny domed nest made of moss bits, pine straw, and downy feathers.  I had apparently collapsed this beautiful strucker with my spray of water.  I gently lifted what looked like it might have been the opening.  To my dismay there were three more babies inside.  One did not move but the other two appeared to still  be breathing.  I carefully placed the forlorn little one back with his siblings just as the mother showed up and set up a fuss in a crepe myrtle tree about 4 feet away.

Since that time I have heard her distressing whistles.  I haven’t been able to see if she has come back to the nest or has decided to abandon it.  My dilemma?  Being a nice guardian who feels it is my responsibility to try to correct my mistakes, I want to go out and assist her.  What if the one baby is dead?  What if more than one is dead?  What do mother birds do with a dead baby in the nest?  Will it make her leave the live ones to die?  Are they cold and wet because I watered their bed? Is the old adage true that the mother will smell your scent and not return to the nest once it’s been touched by humans?

All I can do, I’ve decided, is to tiptoe to the front door window occasionally and peep out as inconspicuously as possible to see what will come to pass.  Right now I hear the mother’s  distressed song in the crepe myrtle tree.

Copyright T. Cole 2009

The View of the Football Team

Winters are generally mild in Fort Worth, Texas but the winter I was a Junior at Texas Christian University, we had one of those winters.  Cold, damp, windy, disagreeable.  On several occasions we had ice storms with a thick coating of ice on roads, trees, and sidewalks.

One  morning we got up to discover such was the case.  I have no idea why classes weren’t canceled, so Hi Ho Hi Ho it’s off to class we go!

I had an 8 o’clock class that was at the far end of the campus in the Education building.  Very gingerly I proceeded down the sidewalk.  There were numerous people who slipped and slid but it seemed like they were walking with someone who could grab them, keeping them from a fall.

I was carrying a  full load of textbooks and  a notebook.  This was way before backpacks so we lugged all our books from class to class in our arms.

As I neared my destination I realized that the entire TCU Varsity Football team was sitting completely across all the steps of the building.  People who were trying to get up the steps had to work their way between players if they could find someone who would let them pass.  Now, to this day, I have no idea why they were sitting there.  I never found out.

My mind was racing as I tried to figure out which would be the best approach for getting  up those steps and to the door.

Of course, also at that time, TCU did not let girls wear pants.  We were to be dressed “properly” at all times while on campus.  I had on an avacado green felt jumper with a circle skirt and can-can petticoats under it.  When I was about 20 feet from the guys, as I took the next step, my feet flew out from under me.  I remember thinking, “Twist, if you can so you won’t be facing them!”

Didn’t work!  I spread-eagled right in front of the whole team.  Books flew every direction, I banged my head on the sidewalk, my circle skirt and my multi-colored petticoats all progressed  toward my head!

Totally mortified, realizing the picture I must be presenting, I quickly flipped my skirt down, and carefully started getting up.  Not wanting to make eye contact with any one of those guys I turned a little to the side ready to start retrieving belongings.

It was then that I realized that not one team member was still sitting on the steps!  Completely empty! Whoosh!  Gone!

All I could figure out was that my situation was so embarrassing, so very revealing  that they all skidaddled  to help me ‘save face’.

And, dang it!  Not one offered to help me pick up my books.

Copyright by T. Cole 2009

The Thirty Minute Shower

One of my favorite times of the year is when the weather finally warms up enough to get outside and plant.  I make a run to my favorite nurseries and find that I have absolutely no self-control what-so-ever!  Everything in bloom is my favorite!  And so, I overbuy, which means someone has to plant what I bought.

Spring has arrived in full force, azaleas, and dogwood have done their best to be more beautiful than last year, and my flower beds have been calling me.  So, off to the nurseries I go, returning with far too many plants.

Wouldn’t be so bad if I weren’t expecting over 50 for lunch on Easter Sunday, but I wanted the yard to look really good and I did have a number of  bare spots that needed color.  I also noticed that a few of the existing plants looked a little dry.  Must be time to set the sprinklers on automatic so I quickly did that.

The first  bed, because of its location, seems to fill up with water if I run the sprinklers on it like I do with the rest of the yard.  It is set to run 15 minutes while all the others run 30 minutes per setting.      Knowing this, I knew that I had plenty of time to be  planting in the rest of the yard.

I got my bucket in which I carry all my tools, gloves, fertilizer, etc. ,  grabbed a flat of perennials, and down on my knees I went.  I dug my little holes mixed in the fertilizer, and set the baby plants in.  When I’m in the yard I get completely lost to the world.  I listen to birds around me, I notice butterflies, I stop, sit back and gaze around me planning what I want to do next, I notice everything in bloom, I smell individual flowers, all pure pleasures.  I’ll get back to work only to repeat those things many times while working.  I totally lose track of time.

I do recall that I heard the second set of sprinklers come on, but knew that I had 30 minutes to work where I was before the next set came on.  I got tired of being on my knees so I sat down on the lawn and leaned over to put verbenas along the edge of the big flower bed.  My, how pretty and vivid the colors were!  I planted some pink wallflowers behind those,  then was sitting back,  just enjoying the combination of colors, and dreaming about how they would look in June when my favorite person would be coming to see me.

I did hear a click!  All of a sudden right under me,  between my legs one of the heads of the third set of sprinklers came on!  In one second I was drenched!   Hadn’t realized that I was sitting on a sprinkler head, and also, I  was very mistaken about the 30 minute timing on the second set of sprinklers.  As fast as I moved when that icy cold water hit me, my pants were completely soaked to the skin before I could get up and move away from that sprinkler.  I ran to the porch with water running into my shoes.  I had to take those off and strip before I could go into the house.

Flowers in May, 2008

Copyright T. Cole 2009

The Funny Side of Life

Ever since I can remember I have found so many things in life comical.  I have laughed out loud when others totally missed something that was priceless.  I even laughed one time when a family member missed her step coming down 2 carpeted steps and broke her leg.  Now, of course, at the time I truly didn’t know the woman’s leg was broken, but the things she said, the whole picture of her sailing through the air were funny.  Thank You, God, that I wasn’t the only one who laughed but had company in my brother-in-law who happens to have as warped a sense of humor as I.

Well, tonight one of those comical incidents happened but I was the only one to know about it.

I went to the doctor’s office today and two women in their 30′s came in.  I was talking with another patient who has Parkingson’s Disease.  These women were standing directly behind where he was sitting.  As I listened I couldn’t help but notice that one of the women kept looking at me and thinking I must have met her somewhere I looked up when I could tell she was looking at me.  She was smiling and said something to her friend.  She looked back at me grinning and said,”I told my friend that when I’m your age I hope I look just like you.  Stylish, lively, and beautiful!”

I was stunned.  That’s never happened before.  I thanked her and she asked me if I did anything special to my face, what had I always used.  I had to laugh because I have just very recently started putting much of anything on my face except some cheap drugstore moisturizer.  I’m a sun lover in that I garden and most often forget sunscreen or my hat, neither of which ever  seem to be where I am.  So I told her, no, I didn’t do much of anything except wash it and put on some moisturizer.

This ended that part of the conversation and finding out that I’m a gardener, she started asking me what to plant  around a tree.

The whole conversation never came back into my head until I was washing my face, getting ready for bed.  After I got it clean I was letting it dry a bit and got to thinking about the fact that I guess I wasn’t entirely truthful with the girl. Very recently the dermatologist  had prescribed Retin-A for my skin.  I don’t use it every night,  but then I’m thinking, I skipped last night so I better use it tonight.  I pick up the tube and carefully apply it to every line or wrinkle I can find on my face, all the time thinking about the two young women.

After I was through and was laying the tube down to finish my bedtime routine, I noticed the tube of Retin-A was already laying on the counter.  I quickly looked at the tube in my hand.  It was a tube of Premarin vaginal ointment that another doctor had prescribed recently.

O my gosh!!!! All I could do was laugh as I quickly washed every bit of that off my face.  Who knows but what I may have discovered the “fountain of youth” and I just scrubbed it all off!

Copyright T. Cole 2009