THE SHINGLE SINGULARITY
Those of you who have followed our irregular newsletter for a while know that in the summer we go into a nice quiet routine at our northern home in Ohio. Actually our life in Mexico has become more routine as the years pass. But generally the emphasis is on quiet - summer is a time to be studiously lazy about things. It would be incorrect to say 'not much happens', but as it is a house rather than a condo we attend to more maintenance and repairs ourselves. And Mrs.T prefers to stay close at home to work her little forest garden - she is currently planning a labyrinth there. This summer we have concentrated on a lot of large-scale landscaping. Occasionally we have an interruption in the routine as related below.
One day the wind was blowing quite smartly and it was spitting rain. From inside our patio I was watching the trees swaying. We were under a severe thunderstorm warning. I was laughing at the National Weather Service computer mispronouncing the names of local towns. (Foul ups on Native American and foreign names are common. -dt) Dan was in his office doing something or other. When suddenly the wind picked up and blew wildly, I was a little nervous because we live in the middle of a forest, sometimes trees blow down around our house. (Remember the crunched car from last year? -dt) I could see the trees waving and then CRACK, THUD, BOOM. A huge black shape whirled out of the sky, thudded onto and bounced off the roof where it materialized into a pile of shingles in the grass behind the house.
"What was that??!!" Dan shouted.
"It was the roof blowing off," I shouted back.
"Are you sure?" Dan sometimes thinks that I exaggerate. (Indeed! -dt)
"Well at least it was shingles," I replied.
At this point the wind increased until it was howling and the rain started pouring buckets. Dan came back and looked out the window and examined the pile of shingles.
"Why don't you go out …" Dan stopped in the middle of his silly suggestion realizing from the look on my face that there was no way he could persuade me to go outside. "I guess there is nothing we can do now," Dan concluded.
When the storm was over we went outside and walked completely around our house and could find no bare spots on the roof, although there was another pile of shingles. I went down to the storage shed and it was okay too. We emailed our neighbor about ¼ of a mile away. He had all his shingles too. (Short of a tornado virtually impossible for his shingles to reach us - dt) It was a conundrum.
Our friend Jamey who was putting gravel on our driveway came to look. "It is nothing to worry about; the shingles came from your ... an unfamiliar word that means a roof part,,,," he said.
"Oh," I said trying to look intelligent. Evidently I was not too successful because he immediately explained that it was a thing that covered vents so that rain would not leak in there. Jamey said he would fix it in a day or two - not to worry.
Why, you might ask, did I call this the shingle singularity. Well the other day I heard someone on TV talk about a singularity. I really have no idea what it means but I thought it was a lovely word. (Astrophysics is not in R's wheelhouse. -dt) Perhaps it means something that happens only once. At any rate you must admit it has a poetic sound.
Art, the pond guy, came to work on the pond which is once again leaking. He found a hole in the liner that he fixed with tape. He also held down the top of the liner with stones so that water won't leak out behind it. He planted water celery around the edge to fasten the pond to the surrounding land. If we want to we can eat the water celery but that has not happened. (And probably won't. -dt) The pond looks good. We have two different flags - water irises - yellow and blue. And we also have two different water lilies, pink and white. We have a lot of arrowhead plants but they are not blooming. We have a small floating island which the turtles are supposed to use for basking but so far they refuse to do it. The water is quite clear.
Five turtles are currently living in the pond: Myrtle, Yrtle, Shelly, Byron, and Keats. After I named Shelly I wanted to name the next turtle Sands but Dan said that was not funny - sigh. You see Shelly and Sands is a well-known local construction company. So when that name was vetoed I decided to go with Romantic Poets. We have fish and salamanders and tadpoles too numerous to mention. We also saw a couple of common eastern water snakes and and a lot of pond insects especially water striders or Jesus bugs - they walk on the water.
It has been incredibly hot here and the pond is drying out. If we do not get rain soon we will have to get water hauled in a big plastic tank on the back of a truck. I think I will need three truckloads. (The normal autumn heat/drought just came a bit early this year. -dt) When it is this hot I cannot run the waterfall because of evaporation. The pond guy and I are planning to build a backup pond so that we won't run out of water as often. I think Dan is dubious of this plan, but we are ignoring him. (Correct on both counts. -dt) If you don't believe in climate change or global warming the pond guy, the fish, turtles, and I are going to tell you you are just plain wrong.
Do you remember when we used to do this line dance in phys ed (Gym class -dt) called The Bunny Hop? Well we have had a lot of bunnies hopping around here. We have three bunnies that live around our yard and we have really enjoyed watching them play. There is one thing that they do: One rabbit will hop toward another very fast. And just when you are sure he is going to run into the other guy bunny number two makes a great leap straight up in the air and the first bunny hops under bunny two. Dan was the first to observe this behavior but whenever he called me to look of course the bunnies would stop doing it. Dan is sure it is a mating dance but then his mind tends to run in that direction. I finally have seen them do it and I have no idea what it means, maybe they are training for the bunny olympics. (I do not have enough patience to try to video this behavior. -dt)
These little guys spend all day munching on our yard. Since they are one type of critter which doesn't seem to munch on my flowers I am rather fond of them. Dan has suggested that if I yoke them in a three bunny hitch I can drive them around munching away and then I will not need the lawnmower. (More likely coral them like a small herd of cattle. -dt)
That was the end of Mrs. T's latest story. But between the time of writing and editing the events in El Paso and Dayton unfolded. She felt she should add an additional paragraph:
As most of you know, every fall we go to Mexico where we are welcomed by the kind, caring, open, loving people who live there. They gladly make us part of their lives and we joyously live among them. (We have become part and parcel of community of Bucerias. -dt) It is only right that we similarly open our country to Mexicans (And others. -dt) who want to live here. As we have not found a lot of lawlessness down in Mexico likewise we do not expect to find it among the Mexicans who have come north. Where we live in Ohio there is almost full employment. (Although not throughout the state. -dt) You cannot walk down the street without passing help wanted signs in many business windows. I see no reason why Mexican immigrants should not fill some of these jobs if they are qualified. Further, if they want to stay here and take the tests to become citizens more power to them. I do not believe it is or ever should be a crime to want to work to feed your family! We lovingly embrace as friends people who want to be lawful American citizens. (And especially those fleeing the hardships of their native lands. -dt)
Just a few pictures from this summer, including a visit to the Forest Automobile Rallye down in Vinton County and thereabouts:
Hope you all are having a cool summer.
Dan and Rebecca
www.casa-de-terrible.blogspot.com
Sent from Outlook
