Woodpile

After weeks of cutting down trees, sawing them into exact 16-inch fireplace length, and wheelbarrowing them to a pile near the garage, enough wood had accumulated that we decided it was time to get rid of it. We have no immediate use for firewood so onto craigslist it went. We placed an ad on a Thursday night offering ‘Free unseasoned firewood’ and my cell phone rang all morning Friday, and several other people emailed looking for directions.

There wasn’t enough firewood for all of Charlotte, but the second man who called, Mike, came with his son the next day and took about three car loads of wood (he had a Volvo wagon). And since he cut up a large fallen tree for us, I agreed to deliver it to his house if he loaded it onto my truck.

So load the truck he did. I was practically riding a wheelie the entire five miles to Mike’s house, and then once there I had to drive diagonally down his ravine-like back yard to unload the truck exactly at his outdoor fire pit.

Once we had the truck unloaded, the bed-liner was covered with chunks of bark, saw dust, twigs, which I made a subtle reference to, but without even a twinge from Mike. I thought that since I had gone out of my way to deliver the wood, which I estimated had a market value of over $100—especially delivered this way—that the guy would have been courteous enough to offer me a free truck bed sweep. But he made me ask for it. He reluctantly went to his house and returned with a grass broom and swept the bed clean, or nearly so. Somehow he overlooked the tailgate, but I let it go. I thanked him, said no more deliveries, he thanked me in return and I got in my truck.

Since an unloaded pick-up does not do well in reverse up a muddy hillside, we agreed I should turn around and go up nose first. But this was not so easily done. After at least a thirty seven-point turn between clusters of trees and a swing set, I managed to get pointed in the right direction. Mike held up a limb that was blocking the way and I proceeded gently and steadily up the short hill trying my best not to spin the tires. Nevertheless, the rear wheels slipped—just a bit—and I caught myself snickering at the thought of the ruts I was leaving behind.

But what goes around comes around.

Since Mike had taken only a small fraction of the wood we had available we posted another firewood ad two weeks later. Again, instant interest. I arranged for the first two callers to come by, and they did, at exactly the same time Saturday morning. I was sure there’d be a fistfight in the driveway as two pick-ups and a customized van rolled up to the garage and drivers with their various helpers began spilling out into the yard and surrounded the woodpile. But ultimately everyone played nice and loaded their respective vehicles responsibly.

What did go awry is that the van driver, who had a funny oversized upper lip, and a belly to match, tried backing his tank around his buddy’s truck and got his wheels stuck in the mud in the culvert along the drive. All he had to do was wait for his pal to pull out and he could have stayed high and dry, but no, he had to plow his own path—through my yard no less—just to get out first. It was pointless. He had no reasonable objective and the only explanation is that the guy was one sandwich short of a picnic. He had a total disregard for our property, and lacked any kind of sense about driving into a low area after a recent heavy rain.

When he had spun the tires sufficiently to bury the van up to its frame he got out and lit a cigarette while his buddy connected a tow strap to the van’s trailer hitch and prepared to pull him out. And this is where it got interesting.

His pal starts pulling with his truck and the van guy puts one leg in the van and starts working the accelerator with his foot while the other foot is outside on the soggy earth. Bad idea. Meanwhile, the van isn’t going anywhere because the wheel was turned the wrong way. So I point this out to him and he straightens the wheel and the van instantly lurches backward and the guys eyes pop out of his head because he suddenly realizes that his van is moving and only 20 percent of him is in it. So he does this panicked one-legged back-stepping skip-hop, a newly lit cigarette bouncing between his lips, as he simultaneously tries to get into the van and steer it safely. But the van keeps moving higher toward the driveway and the guy is going deeper into the culvert losing his balance with each step.

I’d love to say he fell on his rump, but he somehow managed to stay upright. The van stopped, the guy takes a drag from his cigarette, and hops right in. No reaction at all.

Just another day in Loonyville for this character.

What irked me was that he left a 10-inch trench in my grass with hardly a word about it. I think he said, as he was driving away with $100 of my hard-earned wood, “Oh, sorry about the mess.”

Right. You offer people something of value for free, and they squish your generosity into the mud as they leave. What’s worse is that those guys will probably sell that wood for a hundred bucks, too.

But no real harm was done, I got rid of a lot of excess green wood, and got a good chuckle from watching that guy shuffle in the culvert.

The Bird Man of Matthews

Yesterday I was refilling the gas tank on the wood chipper and looked up to see an eastern phoebe (a flycatcher) had landed on a small limb about ten feet away. This was pretty unusual, I thought, especially considering all the racket I had made with the chipper just moments earlier. I watched the bird for a minute and before long it swooped toward me to catch a bug, then landed on the hopper of the wood chipper, just three feet away! I stood very still, not sure if the phoebe was somehow unaware of my presence, completely unwary of humans, or was rabid and about to peck my eyeballs out.

Moments later I found out. It WAS rabid. It flew right at my face and when I ducked my head back, it fluttered around for a moment in front of my face, but then settled back to its perch on the chipper.

So I decided it wasn’t rabid after all and was uninhibited. Seeing how tame it was I slowly stretched my hand toward it, got within six inches, and amazingly, it flew up and perched on my index finger!

About this time Audry came out to see why I was standing so still staring at the chipper and as she approached I turned toward her, my arm still outstretched, to present my new friend. Imagine her face to see me standing in the woods with a wild bird on my finger! I could have eaten this bird like Golum if I’d wanted to, he was so friendly.

He swooped to get another bug and landed on a limb, but not long after that, he flew up to Audry and landed right on her head! I guess that’s what he (or she) was trying to do when it flew toward my face earlier. So, it stood on Audry’s head for a minute (fortunately didn’t poop) swooped for a bug, then perched on my arm for a while before heading to a limb again.

A funny thing is that this phoebe would not leave us. For ten or fifteen minutes, until we finally went inside, he hadn’t flown more than a few feet away. He was swooping and diving in between us, always perching within just a few feet.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. At the apartment I had Carolina wrens eating lunch with me in the living room, anoles and skinks eating from my hand, and now an eastern phoebe finds me in the woods and wants to be pals.

Just call me Jeffrey Doolittle.

That’s Doctor Doolittle, please.

Yuck

So, the first day of class is over, I'm in my hotel room at the Hampton Inn waiting for the clock to turn seven so I can meet a few collagues for dinner. Meanwhile, someone is changing my bed. When I sat on the bed I noticed several (many severals actually)long dark hairs on the white comforter. Ok, not the worst sanitation offense in history, but, when I turned the comforter down to hide the hair while I waited for the front desk to send up fresh bedding, I saw (I hope you've eaten your dinner) a blood stain on the sheet! Not a drop, but a stain about 2-inches in diameter.

This is not acceptable. Obviously nobody changed the bedding after the last occupant checked out. And by the looks of the stain they may have checked out in more ways than one.

It took the young Asain man who just left my room about 10 minutes to change the bedding, but he was good-natured and appologetic so all's forgiven.

I just hope I can forget the image of my bed before appetizers arrive.

Away for the week

When I started my new job with Union County it was understood that after about a year I would have to start taking classes to enhance my skills as a tax assessor. But because of scheduling issues, I think, my department has me going away to Chapel Hill—after just four months—for a week of training starting on Monday. The class is called Judo-Yoga and the Art of Tax Payer Dispatch. Okay, no it isn’t. It’s called Property Tax Listing and Assessing, but I like the sound of the Judo-Yoga class much better.

The class runs four days, Monday through Thursday, and there’s a test Friday morning (how dare they) at nine, and then I’ll come home right afterward, which is nice of course, because I’ll get back by mid-afternoon making for a somewhat abbreviated work day. That’s right, a workday. Just because I’m eating eggs benedict on the County, copying answers for the test from the geek next to me, and charging a Starbucks to the county for the drive home doesn’t mean I’m not working.

Incidentally, I’m not a big fan of overnight travel for work-related purposes, especially trips that require several consecutive nights away from home. But I've been fortunate up to this point in my life to not EVER spend a night away for business. Of course, a good number of my vocational years I spent in self-employment, but that’s not the point.

The point is I don’t want to be away from home unless I'm with Audry (I can hear your heart-felt sobs). In five years of marriage we’ve been lucky not to have been apart on more than two occasions, and for only two nights both times. The first time is when Audry stayed with her friend Jennifer to attend an architecture seminar in Boston, and the second is that time early in our marriage when I neglected to change my socks for several days straight and had to sleep in the tool shed until I promised to submit to regular hygiene inspections.

But those days are over. Thank goodness for all of us.

Anyway, that’s the sad state of my (and Audry’s) life this week. So do your health a favor and give Audry a buzz this week. Or I’ll mail my dirty socks to your front door.

Biting, stinging ants

Saturday morning while cutting the grass I was bitten on the ankle and leg by several small brown ants that became agitated after I rolled the mower over their nest and then accidentally stepped on them. I can't say that I blame them for getting angry, but these little buggers attacked me with, I believe, the purpose of bringing me down and dragging me to their queen as a kind of peculiar trophy. Fortunately I sensed the attack early and kicked off my shoes before the 20 or 30 ants swarming over them reached my legs.

These aren't fire ants or carpenter ants but look like the small brown ones that you see on sidewalks or surrounding a potato chip you left behind on the picnic table.

But apparently they eat people too. And now I'm up very early Sunday morning with swollen itching bite sites and a mild case of nausea. Although conceivably the nausea is a result of being up so darned early on a Sunday. Or too many potato chips.

Anyway, this is not the first time this has happened. Two weeks ago I was bitten on my ankles in 3 places--just at the top of my sock line (these ants don't waste time crawling any higher than necessary to find your flesh)--after mowing over nests (yes I know, you'd think I'd have learned) and the bites itched for a full 10 days afterwards.

Evidently there are plenty of biting and stinging ants besides fire ants, and some of these smaller ants bite you and then spray (spit actually) acid on the bite. Talk about rubbing salt into a wound. These tiny villains are merciless! Much worse even than mosquitoes.

Unfortunately there are several nests of these people-eaters hidden in the grass of our front yard, and since I don’t have a riding mower I suppose I’ll have to be extremely careful from now on each time I mow.

Or, I could ask that loud-mouthed chubby kid down the street if he’d like to earn a couple bucks cutting my grass.

Charles, any thoughts on these ants? Or chubby kids?

Facebooger

After spending more time trying to navigate around Facebook's website than actually doing anything useful or fun, I've decided to cancel my account. So don't look there for me any more. Not only is the site difficult to get around, but it posts questions on the user's behalf without any authority to do it. I just don't like it, and I have better things to do.

Like stand in the driveway after dark filling buckets with water from a hose to carry to a magnolia tree suffering from the drought. This a much more useful way for anyone to spend their evening. Unless you're going out for ice cream.

Busy busy busy

By now everyone probably knows that I haven't made a recent post because the new house has been keeping me VERY busy. But I'm leaving this very brief note just to say that my blog won't be idle forever, so keep checking back every five minutes or so, like I know you've been doing, and soon there'll be real hot topics to read about.

Well, all right, luke warm topics at best.

Ciao for now.