SUMMER VIGNETTES 2014
The resident muse has been a bit remiss in much reportage this summer. To a large extent this has been because we have settled into the routine of taking care of the Summer Estate; many things are normal and have been discussed before. In June we concentrated upon several art happenings, especially the editor's photography show at the Z.A.A.P. Gallery and a later lecture at the membership meeting. It all went rather well.
Mrs.T also twisted each of her ankles and bruised other body parts. Despite her youth – see below – she fell a couple of times and damaged herself a bit which slowed her down.
Below you will see a few vignettes from this summer that Mrs.T thought interesting. She did not mention the 4th of July celebration in Zanesville on the Muskingum River. Not quite the Red, White, and Boom of Columbus, our event is nonetheless impressive for a small city. And the Firemen's Festival in Philo is our really local annual event with a parade, fair food, and general fun.
One other item is to note that R has taken up horse riding. Tori A is a fellow Z.A.A.P. artist and owner of Lazy A Stables down the road in Blue Rock, Ohio. (We were wed at Blue Rock State Park. -dt) Lazy A is a well-run little operation. Tori is an excellent instructor, horse caretaker, and very selective about her students. She says R is doing well. Mrs.T has yet to mount the big Belgium however.
July and August are the months of fairs and festivals in Southeastern Ohio. We have attended several and have some events you might not see too often elsewhere.
For example, there is the cow kissing contest. Dan encouraged me to enter but I declined. I am a little unclear about exactly how this contest works. Is it a timed contest to see who can kiss the most cows in three minutes? Is it an expertise contest to see who is the best at kissing cows? In this case would the cows be the judges? How would that work? (Mrs.T should have entered to find out. -dt)
A new event this year at two of the church festivals was The Big Shovel. There was a big construction shovel and for only three tickets little kids got to sit in the cab of the big shovel. (It actually was a large backhoe I think. -dt) They sat on the man's lap and helped him pull the levers to pick up three humongous tractor tires and stack them up. "ME! Me! I WANT TO DO THAT!!" I yelled. I thought this was very exciting. "No way I am not going to let you sit on that man's lap and play with his machine!" Dan exclaimed quite forcefully. (They both may have had too much fun. -dt)
The St. Nicholas Festival for our church wanted baked goods. I did not really feel like making anything myself but I told Dan I could contribute a pie I bought at the Amish bake sale. Dan vetoed this idea too.
I did have one glass sculpture in the contest at the Y-Bridge Art Festival but alas I won no ribbon. (This annual festival in Zanesville is really quite good. –dt)
I am looking forward to seeing Tori's horses competing at the Muskingum County Fair. I did not want to do this myself but some of her other students are. At my lesson this week, sadly, my regular horse Bet was having foot problems. Bet is 19 which is really rather elderly for a horse. He is going to the vet to get a shot. Kind of like me and bursitis, he has a foot thing with a big word and gets shots for it. You might conclude I am rather elderly for a human but you are wrong. At any rate I rode Lina who is a very nice horse but not quite so well trained. We did quite well together except for me riding standing up in the stirrups; my thighs might be a little elderly after all.
This year has been a good year for birds. We had a pair of blue birds raise two nests of babies in an unused newspaper part of a mailbox. So with the parents and kids we had bluebirds all over for quite a spell. (We had more bluebirds than just these.-dt) Then we had summer tanagers for the first time. (We also have had scarlet tanagers. –dt) These birds are wonderful in that they eat wasps. We have always had a plethora of wasps for some reason so the summer tanagers were quite useful in addition to being colorful. Alas when they had eaten all of our wasps they took off for parts unknown. I hope these birds come back next year. (It would also be nice if they came earlier. –dt)
Someone remarked that, although my fairy tale about the turtles was entertaining, I had not written a story about Mr. Snake. Well no. Although I try to like all kinds of creatures, snakes, spiders, and mosquitoes just do not appeal. I remember reading that Albert Schweitzer would not swat a mosquito because of his "reverence for life." Well good for him; he is a saint, I am not. (Her time will come. –dt) The simple fact is I am afraid of snakes. My Mother taught us to be afraid of snakes, and Mama was very seldom wrong. (Those of you, especially SR and CIC, possessing even greater herpetophobia will understand this story. -dt)
This is the story of my meetings with Mr. Snake this year. One day I was walking along around our pond admiring our flowers when, there he was, right in front of me, a BIG, FAT, SNAKE. "EEK!! A SNAKE!! " I screamed. This snake was about four feet long and quite chubby. (The snake keeps growing upon retelling this story; soon it will be a full blown anaconda. -dt) He had a pattern of brown, yellow and black. I looked at his tail, not a rattlesnake thank God. I looked at his head, not a copperhead either. As these are the only poisonous snakes in our neighborhood I was slightly relieved. "They are more afraid of you than you are of them" people always say. Although I never really believed this, the fact is that whenever I see a blacksnake it slithers away as fast as it can go. I looked at the snake waiting for it to show any sign of anxiety. The snake turned its head toward me, raised its snakey eyebrows and looked at me as if to say "Yes, I am a snake. What are you going to do about it?" "Not a thing," I replied, "Feet don't fail me now!" I turned and ran up the hill and into the house and slammed the door. When Dan returned I tried to convince him that it was his duty to kill the snake or at least to chase it away. "Snakes are our friends." he said smugly. What a crock! (R decorated a crock very nicely for an upcoming show. -dt) I think maybe he is afraid of it too but won't admit it. (Quite untrue. And I do not fear spiders either. -dt) I looked into my book of Ohio reptiles trying to determine what kind of snake was terrorizing me. I think it is a Common Eastern Water Snake. The book said it was long and fat. It described its pattern as containing some or all of the colors of brown, yellow, black, and red in different arrangements of stripes and other forms. This was not at all helpful. It also mentioned that the snake was aggressive, and though not poisonous had a painful bite.
The next time I met Mr. Snake I had gone down to clean some excess plants out of the pond. I brought a rake so I would not have to wade in. I looked down and there was Mr. Snake looking very aggressive indeed. "EEK!!" I screamed. I leaped up and backwards landing awkwardly and pulling a muscle in my leg. But, somehow with some instinct of self-preservation I managed get the rake in front of me, between me and Mr. Snake. I started to poke him with the rake but Mr. Snake impressed either by my gymnastics or the rake slid swiftly backwards and jumped into the pond and swam away. Although I came out better in the second encounter, I wonder if Mama - who dispatched numerous snakes with a hoe - would have found this result less than satisfactory. Since then Mr. Snake and I eye each other belligerently from afar.
Our land is something like 130 hilly, wooded acres that are crisscrossed with old logging roads. So we recently bought a UTV. This is a four- wheel/all-wheel drive ATV-type of thing. The seat is a bench that holds two people and the back is a little truck bed that is just perfect for hauling around tools and things. We are getting better at driving it. I have not tipped it over at all. (Yet – fingers crossed. -dt) Dan did say after one little trip that he was more Catholic than he has been for quite a while. Hmm.
A few pictures: https://www.flickr.com/photos/9151458@N07/sets/72157645832186257/
July has gone down as one of the coolest on record and the last few weeks have been rather dry; I call it nice winter weather. We already have tickets for our flight to the Winter Residence. Three more months to go.
Best wishes,
Dan and Rebecca
