Tales from Easement Acres
I love sweating. Really, few sensations top that of standing in the sun and feeling that stream of sweat run down my back and into my pants, or the deodorant in my armpits failing and causing a sticky feeling whenever I move. In the final death-throws of heatstroke, victims tear of their clothing in a state of agonized delirium, fatalistically surrendering to the elements. I understand why.
We went to the Ohio State Fair.
Not my thing, granted, but educational for the kid.
–Simon
A couple years back I wrote about the last rain barrel, which in itself was a sequel to the fate of the first rain barrel, which was an acquisition of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.
The in-laws got us another such barrel (though it be a wine barrel, technically), for Christmas. And with the sweltering and rather dry summer under way, I made…wait for it…another rain barrel!
And yes–the Blood Price was paid:
–Simon
Last month marked the official anniversary of Liz and my iron-clad bonds of matrimony. Or, in this case (being year 7), copper, according to the traditional anniversary gift theme.
As such, I was tasked to find the appropriate copper gift. And I decided upon something pseudo-useful and humorous. No, it wasn’t piping. It was a giant copper cock!
Also known as a rooster, of course. To fit the country theme of the below garden, or something. Okay, so it’s just kinda cool to have a weathervane and I hoped she’d like it.
She did. Here’s me testing it’s accuracy with a sole digit raised aloft to the heavens–or valiantly proclaiming something (“Aeris Amare!”):
–Simon
Falling somewhat behind on my posts over the holiday, I’m going to throw out one of those lazy “Here’s a random picture with some commentary” posts.
Behold:
I’ve never seen a five-leaf clover.
The internet tells me it’s called a “Rose Clover”, and will bring me wealth. Woohoo!
–Simon
I’ve often referred to my vegetable garden as a Victory garden, for no other reason than to give a historical tribute to the WWII public campaign aimed at reducing stress on the national food system and coping with rationing. It’s also somewhat ironic in that we garden for pleasure, for it’s really not feasible now to compete with the prices of farming conglomerate-grown produce. Nor is it a good time investment.
But it’s fun, and the results are tastier. And, I get to revel a bit in historical Americana.
Yet the existing garden was too small. It needed expansion. It needed to push the boundaries between hobby and chore, the way my in-laws still maintain a garden large enough to feed a German-Catholic family. For ’tis the manner in which all those with hobbies internally debate why they must still invest the time and energy into an obsession. But that is not the topic of discussion for this post. The topic, rather, is what we did, not why.
And what we did was borrow the in-laws’ tiller, to destroy one deeply-rooted icon of Americana (the lawn) for another. And we did so in a most American fashion–by burning gasoline.
A little amateur engineering cleverness later and I had a small rabbit-deterrent around the perimeter as well.
Surely the ends were worth the means, for we now have one medium-sized timesink with cucumbers on the way!
And weeding…lots of weeding.
–Simon