Open Writing

Appearances can deceive

If you'd been gum shoeing around here lately, you might well have concluded that not much was happening. But that wouldn't have been true. For one thing, much of the activity, (or lack of it), which you may have thought was sleep, was actually dozing and/or meditation. Outwardly these may look much the same, but in reality they may be quite different.

Last night I was awake most of the time. Purposely. I have, for some time, been taking a prescribed sleeping pill each night. Now I don't need it, but there will be a few nights of poor sleep until my system accommodates. So I can expect to do some daytime napping.

A few days ago an editor contacted me to ask whether I'd be interested in writing for his E-zine, called Open Writing. An E-zine is similar to a print magazine, but appears entirely on the Internet. Open Writing is very well written and edited, and it is a daily, rather than a monthly or quarterly. I was very surprised to be asked, but at the same time hesitant about taking on a regular chore. Mr. Hinchliffe, the Editor, assured me that he had in mind mostly reprinting all or parts of columns which the Reporter or Bonzer!, has printed.

So, this old geezer gently snoring in the corner is now regularly featured in three different publications, on three continents. I hope I can live up to their standards.

I'm not sure when my first offering will appear. But you will find a wide range of stories and articles from anyplace in the world where English is spoken. Its address is www.openwriting.com

Plumber at work

Another source of outward indolence is the plumbing job I feel I should do on my own.

The drain for the bathroom wash basin has suddenly developed a serious leak. Actually I caused the leak while I was trying to clear a clog. Adding this to my pending job list, which includes repairing a leaky kitchen sink faucet, I have what may well turn out to be several hours worth of repair effort, perhaps followed by an expensive half-hour or so of professional plumber's attention to repair my repairs.

The scoop

In some neighborhoods, especially those with pretensions of law and order and so forth, people can get pretty upset with someone who is less than diligent about using a pooper scooper.

And that is the very type of neighborhood, especially if it is blessed with mature trees or other good den prospects, where raccoons love to live.

A raccoon, although not all that big, can and regularly does, produce large piles of scoop-worthy poop. In fact, in the woods it is often mistaken for human leavings.

I wonder how many neighborhood feuds have developed because neighbors who own large dogs are unjustly blamed for these unscooped artifacts of nature?

How come?

Giving something a name is essential in order to think clearly about it, discuss it, and group together thoughts about it's nature, attributes, uses, and connections to other things.

On the other hand, it tends to constrict thinking. Once it has been categorized as a goat, then you think of it as more or less the same as other goats. Even though thinking of it as a sheep or an antelope might be more useful and accurate.

Hey, Joe

A couple of weeks ago, when I had about decided that rascally old raccoon really is smarter than me, I stopped in at TSC to see if they had anything I could use for raccoon food storage which would defeat the skill and agility of Matilda, the old raccoon. I couldn't find anything which looked useful to me.

A young man was stocking shelves in the next aisle. He came over to wait on me, and I told him the sad story of my senior citizen unwed mother raccoon, and her wisdom and dexterity when it came to anything of interest to her old self.

He laughed at my long-running battle, and made some insightful suggestions, so obvious and simple I was both grateful and embarrassed at my lack of farmer's inventiveness. I told him if one of his ideas worked, I'd be sure to give him credit here. Turned out I thought of a way to recycle something I had.

She's been trying to figure out how to open a padlock. If she does that, your idea is next, Joe.
And someone with both the ingenuity and the patience to help an old guy who doesn't look like a well to do prospect will get my business, for sure.

Corn and phlox

When it comes to dealing with Mother Nature, sometimes a calendar isn't the best reference point.
Those old country sayings, like 'knee high by the fourth of July', or 'when oak leaves are the size of squirrel's ears', are more accurate for the conditions at your house, on this particular year.

Of course, in this day of high tech hybrids, any field corn that isn't head high to a basketball center by the Fourth of July has a serious problem. As I told Rod Rose, the Asst. Editor of the Lebanon Reporter, the field I can see out the window of my 'Cave,' is as high as an elephant's eye, and it looks like its climbing right up to the sky. (Where have I heard that?).

Another benchmark in our neighborhood is, 'When the Shepherdsville phlox starts to bloom.' That means within ten days after the Summer Equinox.

I would sure love to know the history of that plant. How it came to the older places out here near where Shepherd, or Shepherdsville is or was.

I do know that several of the homesteaders came from Virginia. Boone County was settled quite late, about 1830. In many of the rural parts of the Midwest, you can observe what I call 'marker plants'. These are flower, or garden vegetable varieties, that were especially prized by the pioneer ladies who did most of the gardening, while the pioneer guys were gathering at the mill or blacksmith shop or hunting, fishing, or otherwise loafing.

I'm not an academic, so I can tell it like it was. You thought hunting and gathering meant like picking up walnuts or killing deer, I'll bet. Naw. It meant hunting for a bottle and gathering somewhere the ladies wouldn't interfere, like the sawmill or blacksmith shop.

Now where was I? Oh, the Shepherdsville Phlox is not to be found in any catalog. But if you drove through our neighborhood right now, and potted the overlapping circles of this really beautiful and hearty tall garden phlox, you could pinpoint the place where some pioneer church, or school, or other natural feminine gathering place once stood.

These are the real markers of civilization. Very few of those pioneer guys gave two hoots about civilizing the neighborhood.