Seeing deer on the property has become commonplace, but still enchanting. The other day I bought a brick-sized salt lick, which the deer did not find for several days. Yesterday I watched from the third floor window while the one was actually here, grazing on weeds; I saw a large plum rolling out from below, which the deer found and ate. A peach rolled out, and landed under my car. The deer sniffed around but was unable to find it. Another plum, which she ate. Then our cousin appeared, carried the salt lick out and placed it quite close to where the deer had been grazing. She became curious, sniffed it, and at last took a lick. This was followed by about ten minutes of dedicated licking.
A couple of hours later the twin male & female yearlings came through, grazing; one sniffed at the salt lick, and sort of shrugged and moved on. Maybe she was smart. One lick, and you're hooked.
I turned in my equipment from the cable company this morning; cable doesn't reach here, and we have enough entertainment.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
The Witching Hour
Lying here waiting to go back to sleep, thinking about what makes us laugh at work in the middle of the night, may as well post. Thinking about 4-H. Head, hands, heart, and I can never remember the fourth H. Possibly hilarity.
Mom developed a mini-social club at our house in Albion, WA for a couple of years via a 4-H club. There was a horse club across town; we did nothing so exalted. I grew tomatoes by digging a little moat around each plant, which I flooded to irrigate the young plants, and drowned earwigs while I was at it. I sewed simple projects and baked bread to enter in the Whitman County Fair outside Colfax. Mom set me up with fresh eggs from one of the neighbors so I could do a demonstration of fresh versus store [i.e. older] eggs in our meetings.
Mostly we played round games, such as Musical Chairs, until it threatened to break up the chairs and was banned. Mostly this morning I was thinking about a teenage girl named Alice Watson and how she used to laugh; face buried in her lap and trembling for thirty to sixty seconds, followed by a loud intake of air, and more trembling.
The "witching hour" at work is from about two to four AM, what we used to call the Squirrelly Hour elsewhere, and things that might be mildly amusing for a brief second in the afternoon become wildly hilarious at three in the morning.
The other night they were talking about those Las Vegas wedding chapels which over 40 to 60 years have been transformed from a squalid retreat for desperately eloping youth into something quite common-place, respectable, and even elegant. Someone mentioned that they now have a drive-through service, to which I responded that you might as well pick up a hot dog while you were there. This led to some double-entendre and a cry of, "Supersize me."
Last night one of the nurses was talking about a blind family member who enjoyed golfing. "He can see the ball to hit it." I said I didn't care if he could see the ball--could he see the people around him? Turns out there was a seeing-eye person on the links to let the blind golfer know where the ball had gone after he hit it. "Who needs that? Just listen for the screams."
I was immobilized by wheezing teenage laughter for probably ten minutes, until it was time to run off and do another neuro check.
Mom developed a mini-social club at our house in Albion, WA for a couple of years via a 4-H club. There was a horse club across town; we did nothing so exalted. I grew tomatoes by digging a little moat around each plant, which I flooded to irrigate the young plants, and drowned earwigs while I was at it. I sewed simple projects and baked bread to enter in the Whitman County Fair outside Colfax. Mom set me up with fresh eggs from one of the neighbors so I could do a demonstration of fresh versus store [i.e. older] eggs in our meetings.
Mostly we played round games, such as Musical Chairs, until it threatened to break up the chairs and was banned. Mostly this morning I was thinking about a teenage girl named Alice Watson and how she used to laugh; face buried in her lap and trembling for thirty to sixty seconds, followed by a loud intake of air, and more trembling.
The "witching hour" at work is from about two to four AM, what we used to call the Squirrelly Hour elsewhere, and things that might be mildly amusing for a brief second in the afternoon become wildly hilarious at three in the morning.
The other night they were talking about those Las Vegas wedding chapels which over 40 to 60 years have been transformed from a squalid retreat for desperately eloping youth into something quite common-place, respectable, and even elegant. Someone mentioned that they now have a drive-through service, to which I responded that you might as well pick up a hot dog while you were there. This led to some double-entendre and a cry of, "Supersize me."
Last night one of the nurses was talking about a blind family member who enjoyed golfing. "He can see the ball to hit it." I said I didn't care if he could see the ball--could he see the people around him? Turns out there was a seeing-eye person on the links to let the blind golfer know where the ball had gone after he hit it. "Who needs that? Just listen for the screams."
I was immobilized by wheezing teenage laughter for probably ten minutes, until it was time to run off and do another neuro check.
Sunday, July 14, 2013
Ten Deer, or, Living in a Birdhouse
By the middle of May it looked as if my unemployment benefits were about to run out, and I had given up on ever having another nursing job. So my husband got his wish: I decided to sell my furniture, move from downtown Puyallup to Eatonville, and retire in quiet poverty to the top apartment in his [mostly] renovated barn. My furniture never did sell, so it's all here in a giant chaotic jumble, along with about a hundred boxes, mysterious as to the contents.
My original bottom-freezer refrigerator is here [long story] with the inner racks removed, which I have no idea how to fit back in. If I never figure it out, I'll have an appliance repairman make a house call and they can figure it out.
I said 500 Remover of Difficulties and was offered two jobs; I accepted my dream job at Rainier School. Meanwhile I followed through with my moving plans.
Plan A was for my husband to finish the extensive work still needed on the third floor: insulation, sheetrock, mudding and painting for the majority of the area, as well as extending the limited electrical wiring, plumbing the bathroom, hooking up the hot water, ad infinitum, before I moved in.
We followed Plan B: just get the heck out of Dodge and then work around my stuff to finish the renovation. I was blessed with many friends and family pitching in together on Saturday June 29th, and a lovely coworker and his tireless friend on Sunday the 30th, to help me move in one glorious, chaotic event. Then I spent the following Friday night cleaning up my place, which was filthy, staying up overnight. I usually avoid caffeine because of sleep issues, but I started that night drinking Original Coca-Cola from Mexico out of a glass bottle. Delicious, and good for nine hours of scrubbing.
I will miss the day and night trains--the Railroad Orchestra--the garage, and the dishwasher.
The top of this hundred-year-old barn has been the home for countless generations of swallows living in the eaves above my window. They have their feeding times at dawn and dusk, swooping across the pasture for bugs; they rustle and fuss and creak outside the window above my head, feeding their young and keeping house.
I live in the midst of pastures, with deer wandering through; drive country roads to work in Buckley, WA, and work out in the country with deer wandering through. My neighbors are horses and a rather despondent-sounding donkey. My life has become full of peace and joy. And other stuff, such as chaos.
July First I was orienting on the evening shift at work; we saw a doe and two yearling does with her. On the other end of campus, a few minutes later, we saw another doe with two spotted fawns jumping along to catch up with her. When I drove out the East Gate to drive home, another doe crossed my path. I saw three more deer on the way home, including another doe and small fawn.
Since it was so hot, my window was wide open, but missing a screen. About midnight, three bats flew in and ricocheted around the room as I crouched low on the floor. I wasn't afraid, but I didn't want them to contact me, either. Eventually they found their way out.
Life is good.
My original bottom-freezer refrigerator is here [long story] with the inner racks removed, which I have no idea how to fit back in. If I never figure it out, I'll have an appliance repairman make a house call and they can figure it out.
I said 500 Remover of Difficulties and was offered two jobs; I accepted my dream job at Rainier School. Meanwhile I followed through with my moving plans.
Plan A was for my husband to finish the extensive work still needed on the third floor: insulation, sheetrock, mudding and painting for the majority of the area, as well as extending the limited electrical wiring, plumbing the bathroom, hooking up the hot water, ad infinitum, before I moved in.
We followed Plan B: just get the heck out of Dodge and then work around my stuff to finish the renovation. I was blessed with many friends and family pitching in together on Saturday June 29th, and a lovely coworker and his tireless friend on Sunday the 30th, to help me move in one glorious, chaotic event. Then I spent the following Friday night cleaning up my place, which was filthy, staying up overnight. I usually avoid caffeine because of sleep issues, but I started that night drinking Original Coca-Cola from Mexico out of a glass bottle. Delicious, and good for nine hours of scrubbing.
I will miss the day and night trains--the Railroad Orchestra--the garage, and the dishwasher.
The top of this hundred-year-old barn has been the home for countless generations of swallows living in the eaves above my window. They have their feeding times at dawn and dusk, swooping across the pasture for bugs; they rustle and fuss and creak outside the window above my head, feeding their young and keeping house.
I live in the midst of pastures, with deer wandering through; drive country roads to work in Buckley, WA, and work out in the country with deer wandering through. My neighbors are horses and a rather despondent-sounding donkey. My life has become full of peace and joy. And other stuff, such as chaos.
July First I was orienting on the evening shift at work; we saw a doe and two yearling does with her. On the other end of campus, a few minutes later, we saw another doe with two spotted fawns jumping along to catch up with her. When I drove out the East Gate to drive home, another doe crossed my path. I saw three more deer on the way home, including another doe and small fawn.
Since it was so hot, my window was wide open, but missing a screen. About midnight, three bats flew in and ricocheted around the room as I crouched low on the floor. I wasn't afraid, but I didn't want them to contact me, either. Eventually they found their way out.
Life is good.
The Vegematic Tank
I'm reporting from the third floor of a renovated barn a mile outside of Eatonville, WA, where I have taken up residence since the first of July. I would be catching a little more sleep in anticipation of working the night shift tonight [at Rainier School in Buckley, WA] except for the sound of a neighbor repeatedly cranking over the starter of an internal combustion engine for the better part of the last hour. The car probably hasn't got a whisper of a chance of starting, but the driver has failed that intelligence test and will be torturing the rest of us for an indefinite period of time.
The subject came up at work the other night of how, sometime in the early 1980's I came to be driving a 1960's push-button automatic transmission Plymouth Belvedere with no reverse gear. [I heard the other day that car was nicknamed the "Vegematic", after a popular blender.] I will proceed to relate this story.
My former husband drove a 1965 Plymouth Barracuda with the aquarium window in the back, cream-colored with fading red dragons painted on either flank, three speed manual transmission with an 8000 horsepower engine. I drove it, if you can call it that, with various levels of success.
Side story: when I was seventeen or eighteen and still had a learner's permit, I rode with a Baha'i named Karl from Pullman, WA to a conference in Vancouver, BC in a blue Jaguar. I was not impressed with the name Jaguar; it meant nothing to me, which is probably just as well. About the midpoint of Snoqualmie Pass, Karl passed the driving on to me, although how he slept as I crawled across the pass, pushing it to 50 mph, trucks roaring around me, is beyond me. I white-knuckled it for about an hour, until my nerves could take no more, and lurched to a stop at last. He asked why I didn't use the clutch? "What's a clutch?"
So I tentatively set out one day between Hayden Lake, Idaho and Pullman, WA in my husband's Barracuda, without much more knowledge on board, and dropped in on my brother's house outside Colfax, Washington and similarly lurched to a stop. My brother, it turned out, was not home. So I spent some time getting over my nervous state from driving, socialized with his half-Australian Shepherd, Brownie, for awhile, and decided to leave.
Start the car, engage first gear and slip the clutch . . . no forward motion. Hmm. I repeated this about twenty or thirty times, not gaining any ground, until I gave up in defeat. About this time my brother arrives home, so I explain the problem. He asks me, "did you take off the emergency brake?" "Oh." So now I start up the car, drive about fifty feet, and it stops forward motion and gently drifts backwards towards the ditch . . . I had, of course, burned out the clutch.
Phone call to my husband at home, who spent $100 of hard-earned money on this Plymouth Belvedere push-button automatic with no reverse gear [I figured the reverse was shot when someone tried to engage reverse at an inappropriate time], drove down and towed the Barracuda home.
Thus followed the first of a number of transmission overhauls on the Barracuda. My husband figured that as long as he was in there replacing the clutch, he could do the transmission as well. [The transmission and drive shaft assembly always looked to me like a giant pod from "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."] Over the next few years he redid the transmission to four speeds, sometimes on the floor and sometimes on the steering column, and once ended up with the gearbox reversed so the shifting pattern was the opposite from the original "H" pattern, and decided to live with it like that. I doubt it improved my driving skills any.
I sure would have fun in a Barracuda now.
The subject came up at work the other night of how, sometime in the early 1980's I came to be driving a 1960's push-button automatic transmission Plymouth Belvedere with no reverse gear. [I heard the other day that car was nicknamed the "Vegematic", after a popular blender.] I will proceed to relate this story.
My former husband drove a 1965 Plymouth Barracuda with the aquarium window in the back, cream-colored with fading red dragons painted on either flank, three speed manual transmission with an 8000 horsepower engine. I drove it, if you can call it that, with various levels of success.
Side story: when I was seventeen or eighteen and still had a learner's permit, I rode with a Baha'i named Karl from Pullman, WA to a conference in Vancouver, BC in a blue Jaguar. I was not impressed with the name Jaguar; it meant nothing to me, which is probably just as well. About the midpoint of Snoqualmie Pass, Karl passed the driving on to me, although how he slept as I crawled across the pass, pushing it to 50 mph, trucks roaring around me, is beyond me. I white-knuckled it for about an hour, until my nerves could take no more, and lurched to a stop at last. He asked why I didn't use the clutch? "What's a clutch?"
So I tentatively set out one day between Hayden Lake, Idaho and Pullman, WA in my husband's Barracuda, without much more knowledge on board, and dropped in on my brother's house outside Colfax, Washington and similarly lurched to a stop. My brother, it turned out, was not home. So I spent some time getting over my nervous state from driving, socialized with his half-Australian Shepherd, Brownie, for awhile, and decided to leave.
Start the car, engage first gear and slip the clutch . . . no forward motion. Hmm. I repeated this about twenty or thirty times, not gaining any ground, until I gave up in defeat. About this time my brother arrives home, so I explain the problem. He asks me, "did you take off the emergency brake?" "Oh." So now I start up the car, drive about fifty feet, and it stops forward motion and gently drifts backwards towards the ditch . . . I had, of course, burned out the clutch.
Phone call to my husband at home, who spent $100 of hard-earned money on this Plymouth Belvedere push-button automatic with no reverse gear [I figured the reverse was shot when someone tried to engage reverse at an inappropriate time], drove down and towed the Barracuda home.
Thus followed the first of a number of transmission overhauls on the Barracuda. My husband figured that as long as he was in there replacing the clutch, he could do the transmission as well. [The transmission and drive shaft assembly always looked to me like a giant pod from "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."] Over the next few years he redid the transmission to four speeds, sometimes on the floor and sometimes on the steering column, and once ended up with the gearbox reversed so the shifting pattern was the opposite from the original "H" pattern, and decided to live with it like that. I doubt it improved my driving skills any.
I sure would have fun in a Barracuda now.
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