Back in the swamp and time for another installment of “What’s that smell?” Oh wait. That’s another story. Never mind. Maybe later.

As usual, things are stumbling along at a pace somewhat akin to watching paint dry. Hauling brush, picking up trash and wondering what bit me and how the hell did it get that far up my pants leg just isn’t all that exciting. Well once it was. I’ve wiped out several colonies of fire ants and I believe they have put out a fatwa on me. I had a couple of fire ant suicide bombers make it all the way up my pants leg and inside my underwear. I’m very glad no one saw me running around with my pants to my knees screaming at the top of my lungs while slapping madly at,,,,well, you know. I don’t believe anyone who witnessed it would describe it as exciting. On the other hand I’m pretty sure I heard some tiny little voices yelling “Aloha Snackbar!”

I finally got the last of the bamboo in and it is doing OK to gangbusters. I put some mild lawn fertilizer on which seems to really agree with it. I now have four different varieties which are supposed to grow from 30 to 100 feet tall under ideal conditions. But it has to be watered which has led to a water shortage. Yeah, I know. I live in a swamp. Water everywhere. Except close to where the bamboo is.

The closest water is about 200 yards away and running away rapidly. I don’t know if this drying trend is a seasonal thing or an indicator of things to come. Anyway, water weighs 8 pounds per gallon. For the first month or so each plant should get a gallon in the morning and one at night. Thankfully we’ve been getting afternoon showers this week so I only have to deal with the morning water.

Some good friends came to visit a few days ago and we had a good time visiting both the local sights then journeying out to the shack. We started off with a visit to the town boutique specializing in everything you never thought you wanted or needed. No kidding. This shop is great and I never go there that I don’t find some hidden treasure that I will never use but just can’t live without. They were no different and left with some treasures as well.

Then it was on to the seafood buffet and more calories than a school bus full of illegal alien children should eat. I especially enjoyed the 4000 calorie blackberry cobbler topped with vanilla ice cream. I really didn’t want it but sure didn’t want to leave it for some illegal to snarf up. Besides it was good.

We visited the swamp the next day, took a walking tour, shot some tin cans and in general had a very pleasant time. Hopefully I’ll have the shack better prepared the next time they visit and they can stay longer.

Today I woke up ready to go so I broke out the brush cutter and set out to cut a path I’ve been wanting to open. As before the existing path took a rather meandering route as I would take the path of least resistance or spot the occasional “shiny” that I just had to see. The new path will allow me to sit on the porch and see the west end of the hog wallow that I previously thought were two wallows. Once finished I’ll be able to sit on the balcony and mercilessly exterminate Miss Piggy on four different lanes over 90 yards long. I lasted about three hours before it got so awful hot I had to quit.

When you get between two walls of brush there isn’t a hint of a breeze. The heat just builds until it becomes hard to breathe. Throw in the fact that you have on heavy boots, long sleeved shirt, heavy gloves, a face shield and a somewhat restrictive harness to support the cutter and it gets really hot. The brush cutter itself puts out a tremendous amount of heat as well. The manufacturer recommends running it at about 10 thousand rpm which is fun but man does it ever heat things up even further.

Tomorrow is a toss up. I may cut some more path or maybe put up siding. Or maybe sit on the porch and doze all day. Can’t you just feel the excitement?

I really need to get the siding on the north side done and sealed. I bought some thinset Monday since the bag I had got wet. It’s remains are resting in a shallow grave out in my parking area. If I can remember where it is I’ll silently mourn its passing every time I drive over it.

There was a very strong storm here yesterday which had me concerned about the siding I have up now. After I did an inspection and was relieved to see no obvious damage. Maybe I got something right for a change.

The north wall is proving to be much more of a challenge than the east wall. For one, I didn’t know you should glue the siding with liquid nails so there isn’t a bit of glue on the east wall. After the first row it was just a matter of sliding the board up a ladder, then up the wall, setting it in place then screwing it down. With glue it’s an entirely different matter. You have to push the board up a ladder until it nearly touches the wall. Then you have to lift it out while continuing to push up the ladder. Once in place you set the board all in one fluid motion. Yeah, right. I have liquid nails everywhere. In my hair, on my shirt, gloves are caked and the wall looks like some modern art piece smeared with glue everywhere. Naturally the wind picks up just about the time you start to lift the board in place. Whereupon you are holding a 26 pound 3 by 5 foot sail that wants to go anywhere but over the area you previously applied glue to. There’s a piece of siding over in the brush now that I regularly cuss on every trip by that is destined for a shallow unmarked grave out in my parking area.

It’s very hot tonight. Not a bit of breeze, I have a hole in the air mattress and the Boy is snoring like a chain saw. It’s going to be a very long night.

Speaking of the boy snoring. A few weeks ago he went missing for longer than usual. I usually check several times an hour to see what he’s up to just in case he goes wandering off behind some new and possibly deadly adventure. Realizing that I hadn’t seen him for several hours I started the hunt. First stop was his favorite hide out

in the brush that he doesn’t know I know about. I always walk by it real casual like and never look directly at it. If he’s in there I keep walking and pretending that I don’t know where he is. Nope, he wasn’t there. By now I’m calling him and hitting the buzzer on his shock collar like a hive of angry bees. Nothing.

So it’s off to the road which is usually a total waste. Amos was out for awhile at the time so I decided to stop by his place to see if the Boy had visited. Just as I got to his trailer Amos was coming out for the call of nature. “Looking for Ziggy?” he asked. “Yep. Has he been up here?” “Yep, he’s inside asleep on the bed. I heard him outside whining and when I opened the door he came in, jumped in bed and went to sleep. I just laid down and went back to sleep.” I wasn’t really sure what to say at this point so I played it cool, “When he wakes up will you send him home?”

Woke up this morning and decided to go to town for a day or two. I was out of ice, out of food and out of vodka. Besides that I have about 374 actively itching bug bites that need some benadryl and calamine lotion. I was planning on a late afternoon departure time but the wind died while I was putting up the last few pieces of siding on the second row of the north side and I smelled me. I moved my outgoing flight up to noon and set about stowing everything.

It’s been several days and I’ve been back and forth several times. Not a whole lot of news to report other than dam is it getting hot. I’m in town for several days while I get over a mild case of trench foot and toxic levels of bug bites. I have another post nearly ready to go so I’ll get this up and work on it a bit.

I’ve been asked to post some of the stories about the characters I’ve met on my journey here. Since the night is yet young and I’m getting half potted why not? I’ll give it a go and if anyone enjoys it I’ll do some more.

Chatty Cathy – Ever see a sight that just made you want to wash your eyes out with bleach? Chatty Cathy is one of those people you wish you could unmeet. (not a word I know but it fits) My first encounter with Cathy began when I was moving here and had a large enclosed trailer to unload. I stopped by my friends shop and asked him if he knew anyone who I could hire to help me unload. He said he knew someone but I would have to go pick him up. I was warned that he was “a nut” but I foolishly assumed that he was simple and crazy like me. After a phone call I set off to pick him up.

When I got to his place I honked the horn about the time he walked out of his trailer. Sitting in the truck with a diesel engine running, 60 feet away I wondered who he was talking to. My best guess was that he had a wireless headset and was talking on the phone. When he got to the truck there was no headset, no phone and he was still talking a blue streak. I told him he would have to sit in the back seat since Ziggy was kind of freaked also and not about to get that far away from daddy with this guy in the truck.

So we set off to the storage unit with Chatty Cathy talking all the while. And talking. And talking.

At the unit we pile out of the truck to start unloading. Did I mention that he was talking the whole time? By now I had realized that he was not the sort of person to let conversation get in the way of talking so I didn’t even bother to grunt or wiggle my ears to acknowledge the constant stream of words issuing from him. I began unloading.

In the trailer and in passing I could understand part of what he was saying. Some of it was comments about the boxes we were moving such as “Gun stuff. Oh, wonder what you got in here.” One comment in particular came back to haunt me when he was holding a surplus back pack I had picked up at the local Army Navy store, “Oh you were there to. I was there. We’re brothers.” Like everything else he was saying I just tuned it out and kept going. When I was outside the trailer all I heard was some mumbling sounds that just increased in volume as I passed him then died out a bit as he moved something into the storage unit. He was a worker though. We unloaded the trailer in half the time I had estimated which I attribute to whatever drugs he was taking.

At the end of the day I paid him with a belt sander he was particularly enamored with and took him back to his trailer. In nearly three and a half hours he hadn’t stopped for breath a single time and had covered every topic imaginable. I tipped him 20 dollars and told him that no one needed to know my business and to keep what he saw to himself.

Weeks later I had a truck to unload. Steeling myself I made the call. I told him the day I would be there and could he help unload. He told me he might be baling hay and that he had to work his trade after all. Baling hay is a trade? What has happened in the 50+ years since I bailed hay that it has become a trade?

Time passed and I began settling into my new life. While visiting with my friend at his shop he told me that Cathy had stopped by. Seems that Cathy wanted to tell my friend about helping me with unloading my trailer. “That guy has some stuff in there if you know what I mean (wink, wink). But I don’t want to say any more. I’ve said to much already.” I wasn’t happy.

Not long after that I had stopped at the local truck stop for a grease bomb and fries. Upon leaving I walked by some homeless guy only to hear “How you doing tonight?” I just grunted and kept going. Then I heard “Aren’t you that guy that I helped unload a trailer?”

I stopped dead in my tracks and looked closely. Oh shit, it’s him. And he’s winking. “Yeah” was about all I could think to say. “I thought you were going to call me to help again.” he replied while apparently trying to blink something out of his eye. “I did” I answered. “You never called me back. And what’s wrong with your eye?”

“You know” says he “we were over there together” while nodding in the general direction of the truck stop parking lot. Looking over to the corner of the parking lot all I could see was a Dollar General and some unmarked truck. I had no earthly clue what this nut case was talking about but I was quickly becoming concerned that he might be dangerous or that at some point he might start humping my leg. Then I remembered. Afghanistan He had babbled about being over there when he saw the back pack. “No, I’ve never been to Afghanistan” I said then hurried to the truck for a quick escape.

A few days later I was in a local hardware store when I heard “Well hello my friend! How are you?” Oh shit, it’s him. And he’s winking like a broken traffic light after being hit by lightning. And he’s coming toward me. I started backing up and wondering if “He was humping my leg judge” would stand up in court here. About that time I had a very pleasant collision with a very pretty and very buxom young lady who simply said “I’ll handle this.”

“Go on! Get out of here! Quit bothering the customers.” Peering out from behind her I was tempted to throw in a “Yeah! What she said!” but held my tongue.

I haven’t seen Chatty Cathy since but then I don’t hang out in dark corners of truck stop parking lots so he may be out there still if you know what I mean. But I don’t want to say any more. I’ve said to much already.