Dog Days

Another whirlwind weekend – The usual Friday night blitz (grocery/gas/load the truck); Saturday morning chores routine. Then we hit the road – destination: West, by God, Virginia.

We planned, seemed like at the last minute, to go to our place in West Virginia to mow a little and pick up the box scrapper. We also are having family in Sunday afternoon from California. Too many things going on at one time, bound to be a conflict, right? A blind man can see this coming.

Friday night, we hitch up the flat bed trailer, load the tractor with the finish mower deck on it, pack the cooler with extra drinks. We’re ready to go for early Saturday morning.

For some reason we leave later than expected, he forgot to bring the gasoline can for the mowers up there, we stop at Kerr’s for a new tank and gas. We arrive there around 10:45.

The weeds in the drive way are almost waist-high. He’s lamenting that there is ‘cattle carpet’ under there, shouldn’t have grass and weeds growing. I tug on one of the weeds and it pulls out like a toothpick in a cake. No dirt attached to the shallow roots. This will be an easy task, except there are thousands of plants to pull. We pull and pull, throwing the weeds into a heap. The heap becomes a large mass, taller than the dog. Now there are several heaps, here and there. Taking about an hour, we finally are done.

He tries to get either of the mowers going, and uses up all the starter-fluid. Neither mow is going to run today. I put on the weed-whacker and hit the yard. He unloads the tractor, it’s about 12:30 p.m., and mows around the barns and lots of the pasture. He says he sees hundreds of mice, scattering from his tractor. He tries to run over as many as possible.

There is evidence that it has flooded, one of the bridges is moved about three feet down-river. The grass is still flattened from the rush of water. I weed-whack for about three hours, three tanks of gas, and lots of string. I try to kill or damage as much multi-flora rose as possible. I see a couple frogs and a mouse. I’m watching out for bees and snakes, see none.

We take a break, eat the lunch I've packed. I drank most of a bottle of pink lemonade. We hit our machines again; working, working, working. Now my hands are buzzing, numb. My shirt is wet, my hair is damp, I've got mud on my glasses. We're having a wonderful time!

He finally comes in about the same time my string is short and ratty. He moves the truck and trailer to mow where that was parked, then e hastily load up the tractor. He says we don't have time to pick up the box scrapper. What? Next time? We have to have the tractor to lift the box scrapper, it's like 600 lbs.! Next time.

We take the same way home and it was really a wonderful route; no Route 81 or 66 or Beltway. Scenic views. We get home at dark and everybody is at the gate, wondering where in the hell we've been! Tom fills the water buckets and I dish out the grain. Instant happiness all the way around. We eat the rest of our lunch. I'm pooped.


Sunday: another beautiful day, get up early like normal. I had things planned that I didn't get to the day before and it is heating up out there. He decides he's going to prep the exterior walls for paint; my new job is to scrub the walls. O boy.

I do get lots of dirt off, but the more I scrub the more the paint peels, a lot. It dries quickly and he starts painting with a primer. It loosens the existing paint. This is going to be futile. It looks like a Paint Horse. Then it starts raining. Great!

Retreat into doing household chores. Lightning and Thunder. Rain, heavy at times. O boy.