Archive | November 2024

Necessary but Thankless Jobs

Nov27

Daddy stood up and pushed back his chair. He addressed my brother, Billy, “Time for us to get going. Our cows are waiting to be milked.”

Glancing around at all the used supper dishes on the table, Mom addressed my sisters, Betty and Mary, “Time for us to get to work, too. The supper dishes need to be washed.”

I turned to leave the kitchen, but Betty stopped me in my tracks by demanding, “What about Kathy? Why do Mary and I always have to wash and dry the dishes? She’s old enough to take a turn!”

Grabbing a kettle filled with kitchen scraps off a kitchen counter, I announced, “I’m taking this out to feed the pigs.” Everyone in my family knew I absolutely hated washing dishes and threw a fit whenever I was forced to do it. I usually got away with this avoidance tactic because I was the spoiled baby of the family. Besides, up till then, there had always been plenty of others to do the jobs that I hated. Unfortunately, the dynamics of our family were changing now that the oldest siblings were leaving home.

Mom sighed and nodded. “Kathy, I’ll help you do the dishes tonight.” Mary and Betty disappeared before I was able to melt down into full tantrum mode.

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Living In Denial

Nov20

There are no mice in my house!

I schlepped a bag of Goodwill donations out to my SUV in the backyard garage. Unwilling to make a second trip, I also carried a large, reusable grocery bag, my ten-pound purse and a water bottle. Stowing everything in the vehicle, I thankfully slid behind the wheel and pressed the car’s start button. Recognizing me, or rather, the key fob in my purse, the engine in the smart car immediately jumped to life.

I shifted to reverse and backed out of the garage. The engine of my car usually purrs like a kitten, but not today. It was going, “Ugha-ugha-ugha!” Then, an unfamiliar computer message on the dashboard suddenly popped up on the screen.

Forgetting the errands I had planned to do; I drove straight to the dealership where I had bought the car. After the mechanic there did a brief examination, he said, “There’s a mouse nest in the engine compartment and the mice who live there chewed on several important wires and harnesses that bundle the wires together. Your car isn’t safe to be driven until it’s fixed.”

There was a distinct, dirty smell of mouse droppings in the car when it came back from the garage. Why hadn’t I noticed that smell before it needed fixing? Maybe it was the power of suggestion. My ability to smell things other than orange peels and basil is very poor.

One day that week I found a dead mouse in the trunk. Picking it up with two pieces of cardboard and putting it in the garbage can, I reflected on what the mechanic said I could do to repel mice. Apparently, to dissuade mice from setting up a home in the engine compartment again, I should stuff dryer sheets in various nooks and crannies around the engine. He never told me where to tuck the dryer sheets. I worried that if I put them in the wrong place, I’d cause an engine compartment fire!

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Adulthood Crash Course

Nov13

I parked in front of Stratford’s Allington & Van Ryzen Red Owl store and sat for a moment before getting out of the car. The damp, overcast sky made the day feel like it was much later in fall, and not just a chilly end of August afternoon. Clutching my purse, I slowly walked up the steps to enter the small-town general store. My mission that afternoon was to shop for and buy a pair of khaki pants.

At seventeen years of age, the only preparation for adulthood that I had made was to learn how to drive a car and get my license. Many of the activities that most teenagers experience were not checked off in my life. I had never cooked a meal, thought about what I wanted to do after graduating from high school, entered a store by myself to buy clothing, experimented with makeup, or gone on a date. I was far behind the social development of other kids my age.

Perhaps the reason I was so far behind had to do with my being the youngest of a large family, living in the country on a farm, being an introverted person. I felt afraid of adulthood and thought it was too far a stretch for me. 

Pausing for a moment after entering the store, I glanced around appreciatively. To my right was the grocery side of the store. Although it was small with about four short aisles, there was a refrigerated counter along the back wall with a butcher there, cutting and packaging meat. The check-out register was next to the entrance. I smiled, remembering the times I visited the store with Mom and my sister’s boyfriend was working at the cash register. He liked to joke and tease people, and it felt like he was a big brother even before he really was.

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Garden Report Card

Nov6
Who’s their Mama and Papa?

I waded through enthusiastically growing plants, checking on their progress. The amount that plants manage to grow in 30 to 40 days after the seeds and nursery babies are put into the ground never fails to impress me. Beautiful, large leaves umbrellaed over the zucchini and melons, tomato plants, once skinny and delicate looking now looked like happy, healthy, large balls of green leaves and yellow blossoms. Even the slow-to-start carrots showed up bushy and vigorous.

There were few, if any, weeds around the plants and none in the walkway since it was still so early in the summer. When my eyes spotted a row of stubbles instead of green bean plants, I came to a stop and glanced around. Along the empty row I spotted rabbit pellets. “Those darn rabbits!” I huffed angerly. “There’s so much for them to eat outside of the garden this time of the year, why do they have to come in here to eat?”

My garden building was over twenty years old. The structure was showing its age: wooden boards were rotted; a plastic panel was missing from one end, and the plastic skin that covered the whole building was full of holes. Until it was repaired, there was no way I could block the rabbits and deer from entering the garden to graze. There were several places where the hooves of a deer had punctured holes in the plastic mulch sheets. Where the rabbits munched on low-growing plants, deer nibble on taller vegetables. The peas and sunflowers didn’t survive their midnight snacks, either.

At the end of July, a work crew came to replace rotting wood support boards on the hoop building garden and swapped its leaking plastic covering with fresh material. Before they did the work, I weeded the walkway. After they left, I went to work spreading woodchips on the perimeter of the garden. The rabbits continued to visit, but since the peas, beans and sunflowers were gone, they limited themselves to just eating lower leaves.

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