Primitive Systems

I'm dirty right now. There's a lot of dried mud – dirt – on my pants and on my boots. There are streaks of dirt on my vee-neck undershirt, and there are streaks of dirt on the skin of my face and arms. My hands are relatively clean on account of the gloves, and the subsequent cooking. This is the way things are around here sometimes. There is a wine cooler at my feet where the dog should be – but Bill hasn't been feeling too well the last couple of days and so he is sprawled out on the carpet, about seven feet away from me. He's looking in the direction of the bathroom, where Trish is soaking off the day's leftovers – including a sharp thorn that has embedded itself in the bottom of her right heel. My left hand is blistered from neglecting the gloves while planting a crab-apple, or was it the maple? Well, the end result is a peeling pocket of translucent white skin, and clear puss, on the left side of my left palm, as I'm looking at it, just above the “head line” and beneath the “heart line,” (for those of you who know anything about palmistry.)

Hillbilly Watering

We have this system for watering some of the trees we've planted in the further reaches of the yard, beyond where the irrigation will reach. It's really an insult to hillbillies to name it as I have. I am sure that hillbillies have much more efficient means of watering their trees. But anyway, I have my old Ford pick-up loaded with containers: a couple of 5 gallon water jugs, an old 5-gallon paint bucket, two coolers, and a bath-tub that came with the yard. I fill all of these vessels up with water, pour a little more water in the truck's radiator, and then drive around the yard pouring the water onto the various trees and shrubs. All said and done, this way I give water to eight flowering plum trees (dark purple foliage), one maple, four magnolia trees, four patches of bamboo (two different varieties), two rhododendrons, two flowering cherry trees, one bald cypress, two “dragon trees” (weeping, gray colored evergreens), four azaleas, and a newly planted ficus that is supposed to grow like a vine. Don't ask me, I dig the holes, I run the water. Trish is the brains of the operation.

It's a kick though, driving the truck over the bumpy, rutted dirt road that cuts through the property – the water sloshing out of the bath-tub and running out of the truck's bed. I collect as much as I can at each stop with one of the empty coolers. I'll either dump it into the five gallon paint bucket with the handle, or pour it back into the bathtub.  With this primitive system we've managed to keep the bulk of the trees alive through this temperate summer. We really couldn't have asked for a better weather pattern to get us started – lots of moisture in the spring to soak everything in, and now basically low temperatures for the summer; everything hasn't fried.

UPDATE: I dumped my fucking wine cooler all over this table, computer, and onto the linoleum floor.

madbob@madbob.com