Banging Rocks Together

And speaking of banging rocks together, we’ve been doing just that.  Jonathan wanted to make arrowheads, so I showed him the basics of flint knapping as I learned them third-hand a hundred years ago in an anthropology class I took in college.  My parents have a gravel driveway, so there’s a nearly-endless supply of flint, but there weren’t any nodules near the house that were big enough to whack together without hitting your thumb.  A lot.  I spent a lot of time knapping my thumb before getting the bright idea to go to the far end of the driveway, near the road, where the larger rocks seem to congregate.

So there we were, three dusty, barefoot boys and a dusty, apparently mad woman, sitting in the gravel at the edge of the road in the middle of nowhere banging rocks together in 100+ degree heat.  People slowed as they drove by in order to gape at us through their hastily-rolled-up pickup windows.  Could I blame them?  No I could not.

But we got some lovely – meaning razor sharp, if completely amateurish – larger points (Jonathan generously called them “spearheads”) and some tiny little flakes -- which in a burst of excitement we called “arrowheads” -- capable of cutting sticks, one’s shoe, or one’s thumb nearly down to the bone.  Don’t ask how I know.

And in other, but oddly similar news, I thought you might like to know that Benjamin is now probably the only child in America who has undergone surgery using a fossilized shark tooth as the cutting implement.  One of the fossils we found while on vacation was the only thing handy at one point to remove a very large splinter from his finger.  He was fascinated by the whole procedure.  I wondered what child protective services would think. 

Surgery went well and the patient is expected to make a full recovery.

The Sonny Porche Saga

Where does the Embassy Wife come from?  And what did she do on her summer vacation?  I am sure these are questions burning in the breast of nearly everyone out there.  So, let me tell you what Embassy wives are likely to do on their summer vacation out in the Other Side of Rural, Texas.....

Eight grandchildren.  Three children, three in-laws, and 2 grandparents.

Sixteen people under one, four-bedroom roof.

Our minds working as one, my sister, sister-in-law, and -self proclaimed that we would be remodeling Sonny's house for future use as a camphouse or overflow sleeping area.

Before I tell you what, exactly, a remodel involves, let me tell you about Sonny's house.  The metal numbers tacked up over the door lead me to believe it was built in 1954, probably by my grandfather.  A Mr. Rice lived there at the beginning of my consciousness.  Some time after he died, Sonny Porche (pronounced 'sunny porch', of course) moved in with his mama.

Sonny was in his 60s when I met him.  He wore brown plaid shirts with plastic mother-of-pearl snaps; pointy toed, shiny, high-heeled cowboy boots; and a plastic straw cowboy hat with a pink chicken feather in it.  He paid my parents minimal rent for the two-bedroom house, and some of the most memorable moments of my childhood were the days he'd come to pay the rent.  He usually brought his friend Cordell, who also wore a plastic straw cowboy head perched firmly on his head, but I rarely had a chance to see more of Cordell than that because no matter how hot the day or how long Sonny stayed visiting with my parents, Cordell never left the truck.  He sat in the truck -- motor off, windows up -- parked in the sun.  And in the heat of a South Texas summer, surviving just 30 minutes of that was a feat that even my young mind recognized as nothing short of miraculous.  But Sonny was usually there a lot longer than 30 minutes.

For example, there was the time Sonny helped my brother Michael 'fix' our go-cart.  (I can't believe now that my parents let us ride that thing -- without helmets! -- but, boy, was it fun, and I have the scars to prove it!)  Sonny examined the recalcitrant machine and decided the problem was with the spark plugs.  So, my dad being absent at the time, Sonny stepped in as the man of the situation, and took charge by grabbing a screw driver.

"OK, fella.  Give 'er a pull!"  He called, sticking the point of the screwdriver into the point of the spark plug.

"But, Mr. Porche, I'm not sure that's a good idea."  Michael was a bit more cautious.

"Naw, this'll fix it up.  Let 'er rip!"  He said, indicating that Michael should pull the starter cord.

So, Michael dutifully yanked the starter cord.

I wasn't there, but to here Michael tell it, Sonny's arms and legs flew out in different directions, his gold front teeth sparkled blue with electricity, and his pink chicken feather went up in a puff of smoke.

When he'd picked himself up off the ground, fanned himself a few times with his smoking hat (which he then replaced firmly on his head), Sonny picked up the screwdriver again and re-applied it to the spark plug.

"OK, son," he said, his voice quavering slightly,  "Yank it again."  He clamped one hand on top of his hat for safety.  "But this time, pull it real slow."

And through all this, Cordell never left the truck.  

Maybe he was smarter than we thought.

(Tune in next time for the "Guns 'n Roses" installment of the Sonny Porche saga.)

Guns 'N' Roses

This blog would actually better be described as "Guns 'N' Mesquite," but not everyone knows what mesquite is.  Or huisache (pronounced "wee-satch" in Texas).  They both have thorns, grow like weeds, and, if left unchecked will slowly (or not so slowly) fill a pasture with their kith & kin, making it generally impossible for cattle to graze, grass to grow, etc.  Huisache is worse than mesquite:  mesquite, if left alone, will grow into a fair-sized tree, and early Texas settlers, I'm told, used the seeds (or the pods around the seeds) to make jelly.  The wood is also an amazing flavoring agent for smoking meat or barbecuing.

Huisache, well, I don't know of any uses for huisache.  So we try to get rid of it.  Bulldozing and shredding are common frontline tactics.  But, unless you keep up the shredding at regular intervals, it just keeps coming back.  So, another frontline tactic is to mix a noxious weed killer with the right amount of diesel, load it into a hand-held (or truck-mounted) sprayer, and tromp forth into the wilds, spraying every thorn you see.

This was a regular summer chore for the kids in our family, and if you're thinking "That doesn't sound like something kids should be doing!"  You're right.  But, this being Texas, it's a normal past-time for lots of kids (ages 8 and up, mostly); along with baling hay, running tractors, shredding, driving trucks, branding cattle..... and all sorts of other things that, in more civilized parts of the world are done only by bonded, licensed, insured adults who are receiving at least a minimum wage payment (with benefits), and who are wearing a wide range of protective clothing.

We wore boots in case we ran into snakes.

But the snakes turned out to be less of a bother than the neighbors.

My brother Michael (why do the interesting things always happen to Michael?) was about 8 at the time and he was spraying up near Sonny's house.  Sonny wasn't home at the time, but his mama was.  She was sitting on the front porch either crocheting covers for tissue boxes or making fig preserves.  Judging from the number of tissue box covers and fig preserves she gave my parents, both of these activities were full time jobs for her.

The fence line for the pasture Michael was working in ran just a few yards away from Sonny's front porch, and that's where Michael was working.  Mrs. Porche was approximately 200 years old and blind as a bat (she had to be, to use the neon-red yarn she favored).  But apparently she could hear well enough.  Sort of.

"Who's there?"  She hollered.

"It's me, Mrs. Porche; Michael, your neighbor."

"Who?"  She hollered again.

"Me, Michael, your neighbor!"  Michael shouted from 10 yards away.

Mrs. Porche picked up a shotgun.  "I don't know who you are, but you'd better get off my property!"  She bellowed back, cocked the gun, and fired.

Fortunately, since she was blind, she missed.

She cocked the gun again, and Michael, not trusting to blind luck again, dropped the sprayer and ran.

All the way home -- a good mile, across rough ground, through two barbed-wire fences, a cattle tank, several acres of huisache, and a herd of cows.  I don't think he even stopped to crawl through the fences; he was trailing a length of barbed wire when he got home.

My parents found some other places for Michael to spray after that.

I think my dad went to fetch the dropped sprayer, but I'm willing to bet he called first.

The Sunny Porch Inn

So, we started cleaning out Sonny's house, which my sister-in-law Jen promptly dubbed "The Sunny Porch Inn."  At this point, a rather an over-optimistic description, but it certainly gives us a goal.

The current defining characteristic for the SPI (Sunny Porch Inn):  rat poop.

There was rat poop in the bedrooms, rat poop in the living room, rat poop in the bathroom and the closets. Rat poop in the carpet, on the floors, on the windowsills, in the drawers and light fixtures.  And there was rat poop in the kitchen.  

Oh, my, was there ever rat poop in the kitchen.  

There was a large cabinet in the kitchen which housed a sink and cabinets and drawers.  It was full of rat poop.  By 'full' I mean:  "Be careful when you open the cabinets that you’re not buried in the rat poop that comes pouring out."  But the rat poop wasn't JUST inside the cabinet; once the cabinet had been removed, we had to use a SHOVEL to scoop up the rat poop that had accumulated under it.  My six-year-old niece helped.

Did I mention we brought the kids along?  Again, like spraying mesquite, this was an activity that was, perhaps, not best suited for young children.  In fact, in retrospect, I realize it was an activity not best suited for anyone not wearing Nuclear-Biological-Chemical protective gear, an oxygen tank, and a protective face mask.  But, this is Texas.  The kids wore shoes.

Oddly enough, the children's interest began to flag after a couple of hours of sweeping rat poop, picking up rusty nails, prying up linoleum in the bathroom, and knocking down mud dauber nests.  The mud daubers were the other main inhabitant of the house:  they look like black wasps (although they don't sting), and they build nests out of mud that look like tiny adobe houses plastered onto the walls and ceilings.  Well, I say tiny.  Some of the nests were the size of softballs.

So, to revitalize and encourage us all, we decided to call our experience "Summer Camp."

I'll bet you never went to a summer camp like this.  We were Camp Rat-A-Poopee; our campers ranged in age from 4-8, and we had lots of fun and games!  Our team events were:  removing bathroom linoleum with crowbars (the "Tiler" team), picking up rusty metal and broken glass in the front yard (the "Trash Masher" team -- they got to wear latex gloves) and removing and picking up rusty nails in the house (the "Nailer" team.   This was the most popular job and there were some energetic contests for the limited number of claw hammers).  We did not, however, offer swimming.  Even I shudder to think what that might have entailed; the septic tank is very inexpertly buried just off the front porch.....

We even had a camp cheer and a camp song.  Our cheer was based on the two noises most frequently uttered while cleaning:  Ew!! (for rat poop) and Ooh! (for mud dauber nests):

Ew! Ooh!

Ew! Ooh!

Ew! Ew! Ew!

Ew! Ooh!

Ew! Ooh!

Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!

Gooooooo Camp Rat-A-Poopee

(Shouted of course, with a great deal of gusto and the appropriate facial expressions.) 

Our camp song was sung to the tune of "I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover:"

I'm looking over

My dead rat Rover

That pooped on the kitchen floor!

He pooped in the hallway, he pooped door,

He pooped all over the bathroom floor.

No need explaining the poop remaining,

He pooped in the carpet too!

I'm looking over

My dead rat Rover

That pooped on the kitchen floor!

These two little interludes energized us quite a bit.

And we even had a real dead rat Rover, our camp mascot, I guess you could say.  He didn't do much, though; just lay there looking stiff.  Bits of his tail broke off and got kicked around in the living room for a while.  We found him much later in the attic.  More on that to come.

Once the top layer of rat poop had been removed from the living room, my brother Michael started prying off the hideous wooden paneling from the walls and ceilings in the living room.  We noticed a slight discoloration and distortion in one section of the panelling which, we correctly surmised, was covering up the hole in the true ceiling for a stovepipe.

We did not correctly surmise the cause of the discoloration.  We naively thought it was water damage from rain leaking through the stovepipe hole in the roof.

It was water damage, of a sort, but not from rain.  

This particular location was, in fact, Rat Poop Central; the Mecca for all rats in a six county radius.  It made what we found in the kitchen look positively sparse.  The rats must have been 'visiting' here for decades; it was probably a main tourist attraction for "Rat Family Tours:" they'd ride in their little busses up to the front porch, swarm into the attic, and gaze in wonder at the Eiffel Tower of poop perched in that one little spot.  Gallons of poop.  Acres of poop.  Pounds and pounds and pounds of poop.

And it all fell on Michael when he pried off the paneling.  Rat pellets poured out, rolled down, clattered all over the floor, and made a mound ankle high in places.  Michael was standing more or less right under the hole, but the paneling blocked the worst of it.  Sort of.

Shortly after this little episode, Michael decided he'd had enough fun and games for one day, and went home to wash the rat poop out of his hair and ears and clothes and shoes.  The rest of us were not far behind.  We left the SPI enveloped in a swirling cloud of dust and, well, rat poop.  The kids and I sat on the tailgate of the truck as we drove home, trying to air out, and shouting Ew! a lot.  I fully expected us all to come down with the bubonic plague the next day.  Imagine my relief when we didn't die.  Still, we probably should have given the CDC a courtesy call.

When I got home, the first thing I did was to shower.  Fully clothed.  In the yard.  I was just too filthy to even get into the bathtub until I'd washed off first.

The next day, we bought a shop vac.  Because someone was going to have to go into the attic to clean up the acres of poop that were still up there.

And I had a feeling it was going to be me.

The Last Chapter of Sonny Porche

I'll just admit it:  I'm cheating outrageously.  Once I get pictures uploaded from the beach (Christmas, maybe?) I'll give you an update on the Pacific side of life.  But in the meantime, I have a total brain fog and still have three bags to unpack.  If only I could find them.

But I found some more of the "Sonny Porche Saga" which I had started writing after a very eventful summer vacation last year, but never posted here.  I'll bet you never had a summer vacation like this.  You certainly HOPE you never had a vacation like this.  If you find you have a desperate need to read some more honest-to-goodness-I-swear-they're-true stories about my neighbor Sonny (including his first trip to "the veteran's hospital," known to most people as "the state penitentiary"), this is a good place to look.

The Sonny Porche Saga Draws to a Close ......

Sonny seems to have been unfortunate all the way around with mechanical implements.  But that didn't stop him from trying to mow his yard.

This was a dangerous activity however, even for someone who hadn't been electrocuted by a go-cart.  This house is at the back of the back of beyond, where the standard rules of civilization are often relaxed in favor of convenience.  Before Sonny moved in, it had been inhabited for almost five decades by a bachelor whose idea of "taking the trash to the curb" was to burn the small stuff and toss the larger things (wheelbarrows, washing machines, baling wire, dead rodents) out into the yard.  In any event, the nearest thing to a curb was a quarter mile away, and there's no trash service anyway.

During one of Sonny's mowing expeditions, something became entangled in the mower blades.  Hardly surprising.  So, Sonny turned the machine over to fix the problem.  He forgot, however, to turn it off first.  The predictable happened, and if he'd ever wanted his mama to teach him to crochet, it was too late now.  I wonder if he went "back" to the veteran's hospital?

There's not much more to tell about Sonny.  He played the guitar, one with a Hawaiian beach scene air brushed on the front -- well, before the mowing incident he did -- and once sang me a sad love song he had written for his lost love; I was in no way a stand-in for her, I just happened to be a convenient audience.  And he must have been a hard drinker because when we finally got around to cleaning out his house, we found that he'd used half-gallon whiskey bottles (all empty) as door stops in every room.

Sonny and his mama are gone now, and the house has been empty for a long time.  Well, not completely empty.  A small army of rats moved in (perhaps before Sonny moved out), and just warn the CDC that if bubonic plague breaks out in the near future, look to Sonny's house as the vector.

Wait till you hear what "cleaning" this place entailed.  Come back tomorrow for:  Rat poop.  Bring a shovel.

Into the Attic at the Sunny Porch Inn

I was right about getting to volunteer to vacuum out the attic. 

Woo hoo.

I could just imagine how much fun I was going to have.  If fifty pounds of rat poop fell out of one tiny hole in the ceiling, what could I hope to find still up there?

I repeat:  Woo hoo.

I envisioned a layer of rat poop 4 or 5 inches deep over the whole attic floor.  I was sure our shop vac wasn't big enough; but then, there was no way we could get a shop vac big enough.  A) They don't make one that big; and B) We were limited by the size of the access hole into the attic.

First, I had to suit up.  I had had quite a close enough encounter with the bubonic plague during our last little sojourn at the SPI, so I opted for a high quality air filter mask -- the kind that you could safely wear during an Ebola outbreak.  I chose it specifically because it said it filtered "organic material."  Don't forget the bandana, tied babushka-style over my hair, to keep out the rat poop, and the plastic goggles.  A long-sleeved men's shirt (approximately 24 sizes too big for me), jeans, knee pads, heavy leather work gloves, and tennis shoes (only because I didn't have any boots) completed my fashion ensemble.  See picture above, with a bonus view of the porch from which Mrs. Porche shot at my brother. 

We left the kids at home for this little adventure at Camp Rat-a-Poopee.

So, while my sister Kathryn and sister-in-law Jen picked up approximately 2 tons of paper trash, scrap metal, bricks, rodent carcasses, bottles (glass and plastic), barbed wire, and brush from the yard (see picture left, the result after hours of work), I screwed my courage to the sticking point and climbed into the attic.

It was clean.

Well, almost.  If you are willing to overlook several hundred pounds of mud dauber nests which, after about 10 minutes I was completely happy to do.  There was a fine layer of dust everywhere, but no rat poop.  At least not near the entrance.

So, I laid down my yellow brick road of plywood across the rafters and crawled deeper into the belly of the beast, pulling the shop vac (I had rigged it up with a "headlight" so I could see), extension handles for the shop vac, and 6 miles of extension cord.

There is one thing I will say in men's favor (well, actually there are a lot of things, but this one is to the point):  They would never put up with the type of behavior from extension cords which I and countless other women routinely accept as normal. 

The instant I plugged the cord in inside the house, the cord, which had been neatly coiled by my father, began to unwind and tangle under its own steam.  I opted to ignore this poltergeist activity in the hopes that it would stop.

Ha!  That just encouraged it.  By the time I got the body of the cord up into the attic, it was a writhing, tangled mess -- It was looped several times around various parts of my anatomy, and I'm prepared to swear it tried to pull me out of the attic.  I finally wrestled it off my arms and legs, pried it off of my neck and threw it onto the rafters, watching it closely all the while for signs of attack.  Instead, it promptly leapt out of the access hole and coiled neatly on the porch below.

I hauled it back up, and it came unplugged.

I climbed back down, plugged it in, climbed up the ladder (keeping a firm hold on the cord so it wouldn't make a break for it again), looped it twice around the ladder, stuck out my tongue at it and said, "Nyah nyah, nyah nyah nyah!!!!"

It got back at me by twisting itself into knots; wrapping itself around the wheels of the shop vac; getting stuck under the plywood, on nails, and on protruding mud dauber nests; and taking every opportunity to twine around my legs, neck, and waist.  

I do not like that extension cord.

Now, I have seen both my father and my husband handle extension cords.   They do not have these problems.  For them, the extension cords lie docilely, quietly, not moving until told to do so, and then they go exactly where they're wanted.  You can almost see the tail wagging.  Are there secret commands I'm not aware of?  Do men have a telepathic connection with these things?  I've never seen an extension cord try to strangle my husband; I, however, routinely face death by electrical cord whenever I run the vacuum cleaner.

Now the question is, is the problem with me, or with the extension cord?

Don't answer that.

Full Credit - Long Overdue

About a hundred years ago, in July 2009 to be exact, I wrote a series of blogs on How Not To Take a Summer Vacation, in which I detailed the fiasco that our Cruise America RV rental had become.

Resolution took slightly longer than my 15 minute attention span, so I forgot to update you all on what happened.  Thank you, WearManyHats, for your recent post about the History Channel which reminded me to tell you all:  Cruise America treated us very nicely.  They refunded all of our campground cancellation fees and offered us a certificate for seven days of free rental.  Not sure how excited I am about that prospect, but I think it will come in handy next year when we have to travel back to the States to find a place to live.

I was so ticked off at Cruise America this summer, that I think I owe it to Mr. Smalley, director of company operations, to let him express himself in his own words.

And thanks to all of you for your comments this summer; I think that was one of the things which helped us get noticed and get this issue resolved.

(Mr. Smalley's e-mail was sent on July 28, 2009)

Dear Mr. Schierman,

Thank you once again for contacting me at Cruise America.  You have every right to expect service that is friendly and professional at all times.  We realize that a helpful and caring attitude in any experience will leave a positive impression of our company.  I'm sorry this was not your experience. Your feedback is appreciated and has been shared with the appropriate manager(s).  Through your feedback, we will be able to isolate and correct the problems you describe.  

We apologize the vehicle you were given was apparently not prepared to your satisfaction.  Our internal call logs substantiate your call to our Traveler's Assistance department on July 6, 2009 in which you called us to describe the condition of the RV and a malfunctioning/inoperative liquefied propane gas ('LPG") detector. On the one hand, for safety and security purposes, we equip all of our vehicles with this safety device that will automatically shut off the LPG supply in the rare event of a gas leak. On the other hand, if the detector is not functioning properly or has been tampered with it will also not allow the vehicle's LPG systems to operate properly. Frankly, I remain troubled that we could not get you service or a replacement vehicle in the time for you to begin your holiday. We realize this was an inconvenient and frustrating situation and all we can do is apologize for all of this once again.

Moving on, the best course of action would have seen the LP detector replaced and all systems checked and the vehicle cleaned to your satisfaction prior your departure so as not to lose any vacation time, even if it meant using a third-party service provider in the area soon after you picked-up. Of course, none of the above excuses a poorly prepared RV and we regret the mistakes you describe. Cruise America gains nothing by renting an unsafe vehicle to any of its customers and it did not do so here.  

We do note that your were refunded all your charges at time of return. However, due to the circumstances you describe, as a one-time courtesy I have refunded $110 for campground cancellation fees you incurred as stated in your letter.  Please allow up to 30 days for posting back to the original form of payment.

While we cannot erase what has happened, we do want to show you that we care. In the interest of goodwill I have authorized a gift certificate for a future rental good for up to seven (7) free rental nights.  I invite you to call me personally so that I may arrange your next family vacation and demonstrate to you that we can do it right--that goes for any location in the Cruise America system!  In the meantime, please allow up to 30 days for our reservations department to mail you this certificate.

Mr. Schierman, our firm enjoys an excellent reputation for delivering wonderful vacations to families from all over the world--for over 38 years!  I hope this will convince you to extend us another opportunity to serve you. I appreciate your understanding in this situation and for the opportunity to assist you in this matter.

Should you have any additional questions please direct them to my attention. I remain,

 Very truly yours,

Michael Smalley

So How am I REALLY Liking Texas?

Crayon Marks asked in a comment on my blog about snakes in our backyard how I’m really liking Texas.

Well, we've been back a week now, and the truth is, I loved every minute of Texas.  I grew up in the country, on a little ranch, and my parents still live in the house I grew up in. There are oak trees in the backyard that sprouted about the time Columbus first landed in the New World and long rows of round hay bales in the front yard (which many people would call the “back forty”).  I remember every tree, every bush, every plum thicket and fence post from the hours, days, weeks, and years I spent roaming all over our property and beyond.   I could walk blindfolded for a mile in any direction and know exactly where I was.  This is home for me.  For me, the wandering, rootless victim of wanderlust, this is home.

When I’m gone from there, I miss it in my bones.  At a cellular level I feel the ache of homesickness.  I joke often that being afflicted with wanderlust means I’m always homesick for some place I am not.  Wherever else I may be, I am always homesick for Texas.

I love the heat and the smell of the air; I love the taste of the well water that runs clean and pure from all the taps in my parents’ home.  I love the way shadows pool in liquid darkness under the live oaks out my bedroom window when the moon is out.  And I love that on a clear night, I can lie on the carport with a cat curled up on my belly and look up, up, up at the Milky Way galaxy itself, looking like wisps of cloud where I can see it head on. 

I love the sound of coyotes in the darkness, and the startled crashing of deer in the trees across the creek.  I love the feel of the dirt in the garden in my hands and under my fingernails – smooth, rich, sandy loam that will grow anything if only there’s a bit of rain.

And I hate the drought – one good rain in two solid years – that has robbed the farmers of hay and corn and is turning every blade of grass crisp and brown and sere and opening broad, deep cracks in the aching earth.  And I feel the drought in my bones, and I study the sky and pray for rain.  The weather is not a thing to define week-end activities here.  It is life and death.

And I have learned of myself that at heart, in my soul and in my bones, I will always be a farmer.  Other passions, stronger passions in my life have called me away for many years, and it seems I may never live the life of a Texas farmer, but that does not change that that is who I am, that seems to be how I define myself.

And it is something I want for my children – this impossible thing in our lives – that they know the freedom of wandering free, at will; of climbing distant trees; of crossing barbed wire fences; of going just as far and for as long as they desire.  I want them to get Texas in their bones and in their soul.  I want it to change them.

It is easy to poke fun at rednecks and to chafe at small town life – I do and I do.  Perhaps I have changed too much to ever be fully at home here again.  But, that doesn’t change that this IS home, and that every time I leave it, I leave a bit of myself behind.

Notes from the Stone Age

So here I am, deep in the heart of Texas, banging two rocks together to get enough electricity to run the Internet.  Took an hour to check e-mail last night.  I don’t even like to think about how many rocks I’ll have to bang to get this post uploaded.

There were nine cousins (aged 9 years to 8 months) and six adults in the house most of the day today.  You really can’t imagine the din.

 But the real fun started today when Karis sent Timothy in to the house to ask for someone to identify the snake that was in the tree.  In short order, six cousins and three adults were watching with extreme interest as my dad (a veterinarian) trapped the snake and pointed out the salient features:  despite the suspicious brown markings on the back, the rounded head and lack of fangs meant it wasn’t a venomous copperhead; probably just a non-venomous bull snake.  So, with six small children tailing after him, he walked down to the (very dry) creek and turned it loose to live a peaceful and quiet existence away from the child-filled terror of the yard.

Ten minutes later, Jonathan poked his head in the house to ask if a black, red, and yellow snake was poisonous?  Red and yellow, kill a fellow.  Well, probably, yes, let me see.  I saw the tail end of what I took for a yellow-banded black snake slithering off the patio into the yard.  Whew, no red, so no problem.  But, just to be on the safe side, I called my dad (who was wearing boots.  I was barefooted.) who promptly trapped the snake by stomping on its head.

And then I saw all the bands:  yellow, red, yellow, black; yellow, red, yellow, black.  Red and yellow bands next to each other are bad.  Very bad.  In some parts of the world, schoolchildren learn things like “Twinkle, twinkle little star.”  In Texas, every schoolchild knows how to identify a coral snake: “Red and yellow, kill a fellow.”

Coral snake.  Very dangerous.  Injects a neurotoxin which paralyzes breathing muscles.  Second most deadly North American snake (after some rattlesnakes, which they have here too, we just didn’t see one today).  The only North American manufacturer of coral snake antivenom has ceased production, and available stocks of antivenom were expected to be exhausted by December 2008.  Gurgle.

Dad cut off its head (and disposed of it safely) to the intense interest of the six children ranged around, who all wanted to hold the decapitated body as it writhed around their hands and arms.  I watched from a safe distance.  I can peacefully coexist with snakes I know are non-venomous.  But there’s really no need to touch them.  At all.

We made sure the other cousins had a good look at the snake once they had arrived so they’d know to leave it alone if they ever saw one alive.  Except they wanted to play with it too.  All day long eight children played with the headless body of that snake.  I'm sure the baby wanted to as well, his mother just wouldn't let him at it.

 And then to top off the day, my four year old came in the house this evening and casually announced that Nolan had thrown the coral snake on him, so he had to go wash his hands.  Yeah, you got that right.  I gave him a bath, too.

 My mom suggested we might want to toss the snake’s body into the woods, otherwise the buzzards might come right up to the house to get it.  Timothy replied enthusiastically that then we could watch them eat!

I guess I know what I can look forward to tomorrow.

Huh??

Recently, I was outside while Timothy and Benjamin were playing together on a see-saw, and the three of us were talking about what it would take to balance Timothy and Benjamin evenly, about why it was easier for Timothy to go up (he's heavier), etc.

Then Benjamin chimed in with the definitive statement to sum this all up and explain everything to the two of us mental clods who were discussing leverage points and weights:

"I have a heater in Mexico."  

Huh?  

Of all the places we've been, Mexico (pronounced "Meks-ki-ko") ain't one of them.  In fact, at the moment, we don't even know anyone from Mekskiko.

There was nothing to do at this point but to stare blankly at Benjamin, so we did, and then he elaborated further:

"I got it when I was a baby, this big (he showed with his fingers; half an inch)."

Well, really.  What can you say to that?  The answer to life, the universe, and everything.

And all this time I thought the answer was 42.

Outlaws

I think I’ve figured out where my youngest gets his criminal tendencies:  me.

During our recent vacation in Glen Rose, I noticed an alarming propensity in myself towards, shall we say, mischief.

First, there was the laundry.  I packed light for our family this summer; each boy has about four outfits and a swimsuit to take him through every day of the entire summer.  I have boys who roll in goat spit.  I must wash a lot of clothes. 

So here we are in a delectable little cabin in Glen Rose with mounds and mounds of dirty boy clothes, with not a single pair of clean underwear in sight.  I am faced with the prospect of sending my children out into the wide world the next morning clad solely in socks.  Not a heartwarming prospect.  I happen to know, however, that the north end of the building our cabin is in is taken up completely by a laundry facility; in fact there is a connecting door (locked) between our bathroom and this paradise. 

How do I know this?  Well, ok, I snooped.  The outter door to the washhouse wasn’t locked, just closed with a hook and chain to keep the chickens out.  Surely guests aren’t prohibited; they’re welcomed everywhere else.  Right?  Right.  But also, nowhere does it explicitly state that guests MAY use the laundry.  Lots of other things are explicitly encouraged, but nowhere is there any mention of laundry.

Oh, what a moral dilemma.

My dilemma lasted until the sun went down.  Our cabin was right next to the very occupied caretakers’ cabin, so of course I had to wait until the sun went down so no one would see me sneaking out of my cabin in the dark of the moon with an armload of laundry and soap, sneaking around our tiny front porch, feeling my way in the dark to find the chain, flinching when it clanked, and wishing fervently I knew where the WD-40 was as the door creaked open.  But no one appeared to chase me off with a bullwhip, cattle prod, or even a kitchen spatula, so I slipped inside and did my dirty work.

I also unlocked the connecting door -- closed only with a simple sliding bolt.  As if they WANTED me to use the door – into our bathroom so I could slip in and out without fear of the caretakers.  My husband, seated comfortably on the couch with a book during my nefarious comings and goings, knew better than to laugh at me.  He maintained a very discreet silence; only the involuntarily raised eyebrows gave him away.  But by gum, that laundry got clean and dry.  Then of course, I had to sneak out again, heart pounding, to re-latch all the doors and slip inside before I could be noticed.

The next night, a nameless child peed in the bed.  Gallons and gallons and gallons.  Of course, he was sleeping with me.  What a pleasant way to wake up at two in the morning.  There was a plastic sheet on the mattress, so it sort of puddled.  There were no spare sheets available, and it took every towel in the cabin for us to be able to settle back to sleep.

The next day, I had a LARGE load of laundry to wash.  And I took it outside in broad daylight, bold as brass, and flounced right into the washhouse and into the arms of the caretaker’s wife and Ruby, the housekeeper.  But I had nothing to fear:  I was doing them a favor, apologizing for a misdeed and washing all those towels and sheets, and no, they certainly did not need to come back later to remake the beds, I was perfectly glad to take care of that, and don’t worry about the towels, I will be delighted to wash them as well, and oh, doesn’t this door connect to our bathroom?  Well, I’ll just unlock it and that will make it so much simpler…..

After that, of course, I had Ruby’s blessing, right?, and left that door unlocked the whole time.  All it took was a kid peeing in the bed:  dilemma solved, conscience clear, and everybody’s living on the right side of the law.

Until the goat escaped.  The goat from the petting corral; the goat which, when petted by children, was to be attended by an adult at all times.  The goat which had not, in fact, been attended by an adult when my youngest was petting it, and, hence, the goat which escaped to blissful freedom.

I almost caught it.  I had it cornered at one point, and desperately needed a second adult (that would be my husband, who was inside the cabin) to finish the cornering process:  my knees are in such a state this month that I cannot run even as fast as a geriatric goat.  But the only messenger I had was the four year old.  What adult in his right mind will take a four-year-old seriously when he reports, offhandedly, that dad needs to go outside into the 106 degree heat because something about mom something goat.  Right.  No one.  Not even Gary.   The goat made a mad dash, and I dashed with it, but that 600-year-old goat outran me.  And I just knew the goat was going to end up in Oklahoma and caretaker was going to appear just in time to see its stubby tail disappearing down the road, and he’d KNOW that my children had been unattended in the petting corral and my life was ruined and I would soon be paying for a lost goat.

But good old Gary came to the rescue just in time.  All the goat wanted was the hay in the next corral over, and so that’s where he went.  Gary was the hero who clambered through the fence (made my knees creak just to watch him) and gently escorted the goat by its collar back into the corral.

And then the next day, we watched in disbelief as the caretaker’s granddaughter calmly opened the gate and let the goat out herself.  And then looked surprised when it took off running.  Gary caught it again and escorted it back again and then we left on an impromptu field trip before anything else could happen.

After that, there was only the matter of a broken glass (me); cracked rustic stool (kid); and the fact that we skipped town a day early.  But, our bill was paid in full (including for the night we skipped town), the goat was in his pen, the door from the laundry room was bolted, and all was right with the world.

And can you believe it?  As we were leaving, the caretaker and his wife assured us, fervently, that we had been “lovely” guests; a “delight” to host.  I gaped.  Although, considering that we didn’t break any fences, poke the bunnies with sticks, try to ride the pregnant goat, or throw rocks at the chickens (all of which we saw other kids doing; often while parents stood by and took pictures), maybe she meant it.

I’m going to pretend she meant it.  I'm going to pretend I'm not a goat- and laundry-outlaw.

How Not to Take a Summer Vacation, Part 2

There's Giraffe Spit on Our Car Window

There’s a lot of giraffe spit on our window.  And red deer spit and zebra snot.  My boys are covered with goat spit and goat hair and their (bare) feet are covered with whatever’s in the bottom of the goat pen.  I ain’t thinkin’ too much about what that is.  And occasionally we’ve gotten close enough to the green-and-slimy-almost-but-not-quite-in-the-deep-parts dried up river to flirt with amoebic dysentery.

We’re having a wonderful vacation.

When our trip to the cool, green mountains and the crystal clear streams of the Colorado Rocky Mountains fell through, we scrambled around and came up with a back-up:  Glen Rose, Texas.

Not, I’m sure, what you were thinking.  Certainly not what we were thinking, originally.  But Glen Rose is just three miles from absolutely THE COOLEST set of dinosaur footprints you will ever see on the planet.  Apparently, the Paluxy River here was a dinosaur super-highway a hundred million years ago or so.  And at the Dinosaur Valley State Park, you can actually step in dinosaur footprints.  Hundreds of them.  In 106 degree heat, my husband and I tracked two different, individual acrocanthosaurses about 150 yards through 110 million years until the rock shelf broke off and they disappeared back into pre-history.  Now, if that isn’t cool, I don’t know what is.

While we were fearlessly tracking dinosaurs, the boys were flirting with amoebic dysentery by playing in the three inches of stagnant water and the mud that pass for the Paluxy river this month.  We didn’t care; we were having too much fun with prehistory.

And that afternoon, we went Fossil Rim, a privately owned wildlife refuge/safari park and fed exotic antelope and deer and zebras through the windows and giraffes from our hands.  The giraffe liked best to eat from Timothy’s hand by wrapping its tongue completely around it like a tentacle.  The boys thought that was the coolest thing ever.

We’ve also dug for fossils; toured an open-air exhibit of life-size replicas of 30 or 40 different kinds of dinosaurs at Dinosaur World; visited a nuclear power plant (This was really cool.  Really.  And no one’s grown a third eye.  Yet.); been to the Dallas Children’s Museum, an IMAX movie and a planetarium; and today we’re going to go hunt for fossils on the hill behind our B&B.  And we’ve been to the library.  They have air conditioning.

Our B&B may be the best part of the whole great vacation:  Country Woods Inn in Glen Rose, Texas.   There are five or six houses and cabins and one converted Santa Fe box car scattered around a very large property.  Right out our front door is a petting corral with goats; a pen with turkeys and ducks; five or six very well mannered chickens (and two roosters, but the hens seem to keep them in line, and we all slept very well); two bunnies and a dove.  There are also two horses on the week-ends.  Behind the barn (where you can have “breakfast with the animals” on the week-ends) is a happy pig named Sam and two ill-tempered geese.   There are cute little feed barrels posted everywhere so the kids can feed the animals.  There’s a tire swing and rugged looking tables with checkerboards painted on them and several croquet sets.  No one has even gotten a black eye yet.  Our cabin is so cute I just almost can’t stand it.  And best of all, the air-conditioning works flawlessly.

Because the only bad part about our vacation is the fact that Texas is in the middle of the worst heat wave and drought in thirty years.   For Texas, that’s saying something.   Yesterday the temp was 106F.  At seven in the evening.

So we spend long stretches lazing about in the cool indoors, followed by brief, slow-moving spurts of activity outside, and then back inside to drink Gatorade.  So, Colorado it ain't, but it's not a bad Plan B!

Cold Snap

The temperature has plunged ten degrees overnight here in south Texas.

All the way down to 94F.

Brrr.

How Not to Take a Summer Vacation

For the past seven months, our family has been planning to take an RV camping trip from Texas to Colorado.  It was going to be our first, true family vacation in the U.S.  We’ve vacationed all over the world, and spent lots of time with family in the US, but we've never taken a vacation in the U.S., so this was a Big Deal – a real milestone in our family’s life.  We had plans to dig for fossils, hunt topaz, pan for gold, play in creeks, cook over campfires, and wander happily through cool mountain meadows while humming snatches of “Rocky Mountain High.”

We were supposed to leave on Tuesday.  Today is Saturday; today we were supposed to be in Cripple Creek, Colorado, hip deep in the largest topaz mine in North America, with a trip to Carlsbad Caverns in our near future.

Instead, today, I am (still) in South Texas watching 500-year-old live oaks and small children wilt in the record-breaking heat.

As you might have guessed, our trip was cancelled.  We committed three serious errors in planning this trip:

Error 1.  We rented an RV from Cruise America.

Error 2.  We rented an RV from Cruise America.

Error 3.  We rented an RV from Cruise America.

If you’re ever thinking about renting an RV from Cruise America, don’t.  Do something fun -- like stake yourself out in a fire ant bed.  Face up.  In the sun.  For a week. -– instead.

Cruise America is the largest RV rental company in the U.S., and, if our experience is anything to judge by, their customer service makes Communist Russia look both pleasant and efficient.

When we called the rental place, hours after picking up the RV, to tell them that:  the carbon monoxide detector had been (apparently) deliberately disconnected; the propane detector had been (apparently) deliberately disconnected (both criminal offenses if done deliberately); the refrigerator wasn’t working; and the stove wasn’t working – Sergio, the rental guy’s, response was:  “Too bad.”  I offered to let him talk to my best friend (who happens to be a lawyer and happened to be sharing a beer with me at the time), and he hung up on me.

When we called Cruise America to see if they could offer us some redress, they said they could give us a $30 credit so we could buy an ICE CHEST!!, and told us they’d happily schedule a repair.  IF we’d call back in the morning and remind them.

Huh??

The next morning, we showed up at Sergio’s place to ask for a new RV.  The other four Cruise America RVs on the lot ALSO needed repairs and he had nothing to give us.  The repairs on our RV would put us a total of four days behind schedule, which was an impossibility for us.

Sergio oh-so-kindly offered us a full refund (a fact which, when I mentioned it at another RV rental place, left the proprietor speechless.  He said we were lucky to see any of our money, given what he’s heard of Cruise America’s reputation), and Sergio said that we could then part as “friends.”

Hmm.  Not so sure about the “friends” bit.

I’ll admit it:  this blog is totally my Dissatisfied Customer way of drawing off every bit of business I can from Cruise America.   In fact, “Dissatisfied customer” does not even approach the same time zone I’m in.  Aside from the misery of dealing with a very unpleasant company and its “authorized dealer,” we had to break the news to our three boys, all of whom were in tears, that we weren’t going to be able to take the trip we’ve been talking about, planning for, and researching for the last half year.

My husband still has some (more) e-mails to write which are going to help us feel a lot better.  I think the Texas Attorney General’s office is on the list.

And, in the meantime, we scrambled around and booked a B&B near the Texas Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, Texas, and we’re going to go look at dinosaur footprints and visit the Dallas Children’s Museum and play in the river and be very hot and not sing “Rocky Mountain High.”  All in all, I think we’ll have a pretty good time.   Just not exactly what we planned on.

The Last of the Attic, and a Mascot Named Rover

So, after a good, solid wrestle with the extension cord (I'm still alive, so I guess I won), and a long and painful crawl, I made it to the rat poop Mecca:  the stove pipe hole.

It turns out that only a modest portion of the full amount of rat poop had actually rained down on Michael's head.  The foundations of what must have once been a towering pyramid still remained, and it took me two trips into the attic to make it all go away.

It was as I was triumphantly retreating (and battling the extension cord) at the end of my second trip that I found what I had feared all along -- the source of all evil: rat townhouses.

Several generations of rats seemed to have lived out their pointless little lives here under the eaves of the Sunny Porch Inn.  Little nests made of neon red yarn, paper doilies, cotton batting, wall paper (wall paper?  What wall paper?  There wasn't any wall paper in the house!), the bone from a T-Bone, and, of course, rat poop huddled between the rafters.  One enterprising family had made their nest completely out of mud dauber nests.  Sort of pathetic looking, really.  I also found the rat central sewage system (I knew we should have gotten a bigger shop vac) and Rover.

Rover was wedged way, way, way back under the eaves, and seemed to have expired in the middle of the central sewage system.  He was quite mummified and very stiff, his little feet were splayed out as if he had dropped suddenly dead in the middle of a sprint.  The question is:  was he running to the bathroom or away from it when time caught up with him?  Was this a case of too little too late or too much too soon?

Anyway, he was dead.  The tip of his tail broke off when I picked him up.  Or rather, when the shop vac picked him up:  Thank goodness for the extensions on the shop vac.  Suction from the vacuum was just enough to pry him out of his final resting place (well, not so final after all) and carry him across the intervening space so I could dump him through the stovepipe hole into the living room below.  More bits of his tail broke off and went skittering across the floor.

Rover eventually ended up being unceremoniously tossed onto a veritable mountain of things -- like the rat poop we shoveled out of the house -- destined for burning once the drought breaks (Say, next February.  Or possibly the February after that.  This being Texas, there's no guarantee the drought will ever break.).  He will at least have a monumental funeral pyre befitting the mascot for the SPI.  Did you see the picture above?  That nebulous cloud surrounding me (and don't I look good, by the way!) is all rat poop.  Ew!!

The SPI was mostly clean; the attic was mostly clean.  It was time to take the next step towards habitability:  laying insulation in the attic.

Oh, boy, and I thought vacuuming rat poop was fun!  What a great job that would be!

In case you're ever faced with a similar unpleasant task, here's my foolproof method for getting off the hook:  

1) Have knee surgery; 

2) Move out of the country. 

It worked for me.  My sister Kathryn and her husband Doug weren't quick enough at getting either a surgeon or a passport, and they got to pull that duty.

Thanks, guys!