Our oldest son, Jake, has a two month break before entering graduate school, and he is spending most of that time here with us. That’s a good thing. When he’s here, he works on his projects. Being the doting father that I am, I have to lend a hand and that keeps me busy. So far he has finished restoring a dune buggy, and he now working on restoring a 1989 Ford F-150 pickup truck. He has it completely disassembled, and its various parts are scattered throughout the workshop and the pole barn. I vaguely remember being that energetic once, but I’m certainly not now. Just being around him makes me tired and in need of a nap.
Our youngest son, Mike, graduates from Marine boot camp on June 5, and we will be driving to Paris Island to see the ceremony. It will be an emotional experience, and I know his platoon mates will be wondering as they march by the reviewing stand who the big sobbing pussy is in the back row of the bleachers. Uh, that would be me.
Mike gets to stay with us for 10 days before he goes to his next training. Jake will be here also. You know that will be a busy time.
It seems like every club and organization that I belong to has gotten very active this spring. In the last month I have participated in the Master Gardener plant sale, helped the Master Gardeners spruce up the Blue Ridge Arts Center, assisted the Fannin County Extension Agent with the annual rabies clinic, worked with the Feed Fannin volunteers to get the Feed Fannin garden planted, started helping the Food Pantry pick up food donations from Walmart twice a week, served as a volunteer at the Blue Ridge Wine and Jazz Fest and spent seven hours in an emergency room to name just a few outside diversions.
And then there is the garden. The garden has been a more hectic task this year than last mainly due to the weather. Last year we had a mild, slow progressing spring. It gradually got warmer, and I was able to take my time getting the garden ready and putting in my plants. Not this year. This year we had three continuous weeks of rainy weather, and the soil was too wet to till and prepare. Then it got unusually warm overnight, and the soil dried out. Like every other gardener in Fannin County, I could not resist the compulsion to get my garden planted. When you have a garden as big as mine that’s no small task.
I’m pretty certain that I’ve gone overboard on the garden this year. It has doubled in size to about 4,000 square feet. To make sure I have enough paste tomatoes to make and can tomato sauce I planted over 35 Roma tomato plants. Then someone told me how productive Roma tomato plants are. If they all grow and produce I’ll have so many paste tomatoes that I won’t know what to do with them. Next winter it could be spaghetti night every night.
I also planted 60 feet of pole beans, 120 feet of potatoes, 100 feet of peppers, 80 feet of winter squash, 80 feet of cabbage, 80 feet of onions, 10 hills of pumpkins, not to mention assorted amounts of okra, collards, Swiss chard, kale, lettuce, spaghetti squash, and corn. I still have to plant two rows of leeks and two long rows of sweet potatoes.
If the secret of happiness in retirement is getting involved and staying busy, then I should be the happiest son of a bitch you ever saw. But the truth is that I’m beginning to feel a little too involved and a little too busy, and it’s beginning to get stressful. I may have to take a time out from my retirement to rest up.
On a totally unrelated and some would say paranoiac note, Meredith has set up two hummingbird feeders very close to our porch, and it’s rare to step out on the porch and not see or hear one or more hummingbirds buzzing around. I mostly hear them. To me they sound like miniature A-10 Warthogs on a strafing run, and I’m beginning to wonder how safe it is to be around them.
First of all, they have two speeds—hovering and Mach 2. They move so fast it’s like they disappear through space and time as they go from one feeder to the other. They may be cute little creatures but they are also high speed projectiles. And then there is the way they are built. Have you ever really looked at a hummingbird? They’re pool darts with wings. Finally, given the size of their heads, their brains have to be on the small size. You have to wonder whether they have enough neurons in their brains for a fully functioning collision avoidance system.
I searched the internet, and I could not find a single documented instance of someone being injured by a misguided hummingbird but I’m still not convinced that it cannot happen. As if I didn’t have enough to worry about. I tell you it’s a jungle out here on the frontier.
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