Archive of Past News of the Farm:
A New Mug May 24, 2010 |
Greetings Friends of the Farm,
It would
have been better to have stayed in bed. In the wee hours when Rusty Roo
the Rooster doesn't yet think it important to crow, Larry and I knew
neither of us could sleep. So we discussed the coming day. It was farm
talking at its best: no phone ringing, no workers to manage, quietness
all around (except for the atmospheric electronic buzzing that seems
omnipresent, and today, oddly predictive), and both of us lying
comfortably prone. We would have enjoyed it but we knew we'd pay for it
later.
We ended the planning by my remarking that now the clock
said 4:16. Although Larry had to check his cell phone clock to make
sure I wasn't misleading him -- usually I tell him it's later than he
thinks it is. We knew by experience that we'd likely fall asleep and not
wake up "on time," which is at the latest, 5:30 AM. He said his Uncle
J.T. would be getting up around 4:30 AM as he's going to be on the
tractor all day long. J.T. is in his 90's, and in deference to that age
and the fact that the tractor work (baling hay) will continue in the
heat until late afternoon, his machine has an air-conditioned cab. At
that moment as we drifted off to sleep so that we could wake up too
late, I thought about how it would be to have an air-conditioned,
enclosed cab on one of MY tractors.
Larry left the bed first at 6
AM, and suddenly, sensing that we were "ruined," I also bounded out of
bed, as if I suddenly had a leg cramp. That kind of bounding wrenches a
person and doesn't make the start of the day too cheery.
But we
made coffee in our new coffee pot, placed, not on the candy case which
continues to suffer in the barn, but on a newly cleared-out spot of a
counter that the last inhabitants used as a kitchen desk. Larry went
down the drive to retrieve the newspaper, delivered by surely, a cousin
of J.T.'s, as she throws it at us around 4:30 AM. And rarely later than
that.
7 AM arrived and we were both outside, with our workers. As
Larry and his men boiled off down the driveway on their trip to the
other farm, I cleaned beggars lice plants from around the house air
compressor. After that, I had to throw away the oldest gloves that I
have as they were completely studded with the lice seeds. The seeds were
all over my shirt and in my hair as well, but the plants were resting
in the "woods," with not as much further danger of their spreading all
through the house garden.
I've passed the old broken-down, weed-shrouded hive many times on the tractor, even while mowing, but not on a cloudy day. That was the huge error. The bees were all home and apparently worked up about the cloudy weather. They like to forage on a sunny day. I'm sure there is a reason that they attacked me, regardless of the fact that I kept their aunts alive last summer, with sugar water, and by sparing the blooming amaranth, instead of mowing it down and planting a bought-seed cover crop, so that they would have nectar to drink. However the passed-down stories of my sacrifice for them must have been a subject of history revision. The NEW history (where I went ahead and mowed down the amaranth with a smile on my lips and slothly let the sugar water run out) must have made them so mad that they sent out a few members of their suicide bombers squad to punish me.
The first warrior wrapped herself around my upper lip and sank her poison dart into the most tender part. Another was latched on to my eyelid and others were stuck in my hair or swatting at my shoulders. I continued on about ten feet, then switched off the key and leaped very energetically off the tractor (as if I'd had a great night's sleep) and started running, thinking about that air-conditioned cab. If I'd had it, the bees would have merely flung themselves at the window glass, but if I'd had it and somehow they got into it, I'd have had a more difficult time jumping clear of the machine.
I'd already pulled the stinger out of my lip with my teeth (picture that!) while still on the tractor, and jerked out the eye lid stinger with two fingers while I ran and tried to get the others out of my hair. I tore off the pony tail holder and drew the hair over my face like a shield and finally out ran them. Only one bee accompanied me inside (a stowaway in my hair), and once in, she changed her mind about the "cause" and buzzed around the kitchen window. I will admit that I was not kind to her. (Although I regretted instantly that I had met violence with window-curtain crushing violence. Maybe I will revise this tiny bit of history later.)
As I repented, my upper lip swelled up like Homer Simpson's, my teeth hurt, my eye stung and I had a bad headache. I did the ice thing, and lay down in the Pioneer Room on the guest bed, picked more beggar's lice out of my socks, and wondered why I got up this morning. Meanwhile Tom came in with an antihistamine and admired my Homer mug, and then went back out to tie up more tomatoes, and mow, with the electric lawn mower. He's been stung before...but I always thought it was because he wasn't here to help them out last summer. "No good deed...."
Carol Ann
PS. Tomatoes are a couple of weeks away, if we get some good sunshine! Right now we are deep into three kinds of Cucumbers and four kinds of Squash. Green beans soon!
Back