Farm life

OUR FIRST WINTER

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I normally post on M-W-F but decided to post this in the expectation of the two snowflakes that we may receive here in the foothills of Greenville County, South Carolina. I hope you enjoy. For some reason the forecast of possible snow has lost its appeal since I retired from teaching.

OUR FIRST WINTER OR HOW LONG WAS IT BEFORE THE DONNER PARTY BEGAN TO EAT EACH OTHER?

We moved into our little piece of heaven in November of 1987 over Thanksgiving break from school. We had five short days to get it done. Thirty years later we are still trying to finish unpacking. No, just joking…maybe. It was a close thing. Mr. Copeland really didn’t want to leave so he dragged his feet. His second wife, a woman thirty years his junior, wanted to leave and go back to her little piece of heaven in…Union County? The things we do for our ladies! He finally just gave up packing his “treasures” and departed. He left a whole bunch of stuff behind – books, papers, old records, even a bed. A complete set of 1956 edition Funk and Wagnall’s remained where they had always sat. Okay, younger readers, there used to be a company called Funk and Wagnall that produced encyclopedias. They were sold in grocery stores and…Encyclopedia? Oh no! Think of it as the boring part of the internet in book form. Books?

From Mr. Copeland we also “inherited” several pickup truckloads of junk. I had a 1972 blue Chevy work truck. Let me say, it looked older than its fifteen years and the two hundred or so thousand miles it had on it. Driven hard and put up wet, the paint was so bad that whatever was not rust was filmy oxidized blue. There was just enough metal to hold the rust together. The “powers that be” at our condominium complex had requested, nay demanded, that the truck not be left on the street to be seen. As I finished loading the last of Mr. Copeland’s “treasures” and began the five-mile trek to the trash dump, my faithful steed gave up the ghost or so I thought. As I coasted to a stop at the base of my drive I had just enough forward momentum to pull off to the side. A day or two later a Hispanic gentleman stopped and asked if it was for sale. I said it could be. He asked what I meant and I answered him saying that he would have to get it running. This began a really odd form of bargaining. He countered with, “If I get it running, what are you asking?” I said, “That depends. If I have to unload the trash $300. If you unload it, I’ll let it go for $250.” He unloaded it. You know, I kind of miss that old truck.

We were in our new home, well new to us. At that time, we were “younger” and stupid. We had five fireplaces and a wood stove to go with a thirty-year-old fuel oil furnace as we faced our first winter. Okay, wood stoves and fireplaces take wood and we had plenty of deadfall wood lying around but did I have a chainsaw? No, I did not even have an axe. I had not used a chainsaw in a decade. With no heat upstairs, just a couple of fireplaces, I was going to have to reintroduce myself to one. Did I have a method of transporting said wood? Oh yeah, I had just sold my truck.

That winter we received seventeen inches of snow over two days during a late winter storm. With temperatures refusing to climb above freezing, everything shut down and we were stranded for a week. With a forecast of a hundred-year storm, I purchased a chainsaw and in lieu of a truck, a wheelbarrow. “Barrowing” loads of wood sure made me miss my old Chevy. At least, we wouldn’t freeze to death if we lost power.

Our little piece of heaven is located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains at the foot of what is known as the Blue Ridge Escarpment, or according to my Funk and Wagnall’s “a long, steep slope, especially one at the edge of a plateau or separating areas of land at different heights.” We sit a little over twelve hundred feet above sea level and our land rises to about fifteen hundred feet behind us. We don’t get a lot of snow at twelve hundred feet compared to what we get at fifteen and, in contrast to our northern brethren, even our big snows are lacking. Before you Damn Yankees snicker just understand seventeen inches of snow in South Carolina is like six feet of snow in Buffalo. Linda and I actually live in an area known as the Thermal Belt that is, for some reason not understood by me, a little warmer than the surrounding areas. We usually have to go “in search of snow” because of the extra warmth we receive. Again let me say it will still get cold! It especially gets cold in an old 1880’s farm house that had insulation blown into the walls about 1956. Sixty years later, insulation or not, in winter the house is still…BURRRRR!

Seventeen inches of snow closes everything in South Carolina…okay two inches will close us down like Blue Laws on a Sunday. The mere hint of snow or ice sends people into a frenzy of shopping…for milk and bread. At one time there was a theory suggesting that the dairy farmers had entered into some type of cabal with the weather services to boost milk sales. “Just sayin’!” I mean… why not a frenzy of canned goods buying? Sardines will last. With sardines, crackers and mustard I’m good for a while, especially if you replace the milk with beer or Jack Daniels. Should you not also see an increase in peanut butter and toilet paper sales?

In a song by Jimmy Buffett, “Boat Drinks,” the singer laments the cold weather and being stuck watching a hockey match. “I just shot six holes in my freezer; I think I’ve got cabin fever.” I understood the feeling. With three puppies, Linda and a TV that received only two channels “some” of the time, my incarceration was fun…for about forty-eight hours. Even hiking in the snow got old since I had forgotten to get insulated and waterproof boots. After five days of this misery, I was willing to try anything; however, with a Volkswagen bug and a Thunderbird our options were limited. We found out that the little VW got around in the snow pretty well once it could clear the drifts. I swore I would never be without four-wheel drive again and haven’t been since! Funny thing, after I bought it, I have needed it only once…for snow. But I must confess that I do use it often to haul wood…lots and lots of wood.

BOOMER

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Boomer was named by one of Linda Gail’s basketball players, Cullen Gutshall, during a celebratory gathering to honor their basketball team at the end of a successful season. Celebration wasn’t an unusual occurrence as most of Linda’s basketball and tennis teams were successful. And as usual, I had been roped into assisting. “Have spatula – will grill.” Cullen had decided, with reason, that our large, beautiful, one-eyed and one-legged Rhode Island Red looked like a “Boomer.” I would have named him “Long John Silver” or “Lucky” for obvious reasons…but I am getting ahead of myself.
We had purposely not named any of our chickens for two very good reasons. First, you shouldn’t name what you are planning to eat. Second, chickens and roosters don’t usually come running when you call their names unless, of course, you have a handful of scratch feed to bribe them with. I should clarify that in number one I said planned to eat because I am here to tell you, “We ate nary a one.” Nor did we eat any of the “meat” rabbits we were raising; however, between the rabbits and chickens, we grew wonderful sweet-tasting tomatoes using their droppings as fertilizer. Can you say “organic?”
Boomer was either the luckiest or the unluckiest animal in my barnyard… depending upon your perspective. Unlucky because he was locked in the chicken coop with his son for an entire day. Do you know what two cocks do in order to while away the hours when locked in a chicken coop? I don’t know how long they fought but when I discovered the closed door and opened it, the yet un-named Boomer quickly exited having lost multiple feathers and an eye during the fracas. He had also lost his standing as the flock’s “alpha” male. Boomer did what any loser might do, he ran away and hid. He disappeared for several days until I thought I heard what turned out to be the weakest of “cock-a-doodle-dos.” He had managed to get himself trapped in an old lettuce sack and was in the process of thirsting to death. I had to cut him out as one plastic strand had become wrapped tightly around one of his legs just below where the “drumstick” began. The normally bright yellow shank had turned a shade of sickly gray. I feared he would die from gangrene but instead, several days later, the leg just fell off and he survived! Boomer was as lucky as any one-eyed, one-legged rooster could be!
All things considered, Boomer adapted quite well. He developed a gait that involved stepping with his good leg and then flapping his wings to get him back onto his good leg. It was a “step-flap-step-flap” cadence. When in a hurry, he was quite humorous to watch and as quick as you would expect a one- legged rooster to be. Unfortunately, he was not quick enough. Normally there were two times when he was in a hurry – to get away from the younger rooster or when he was “à la recherche d’amour” …and he was always looking for love. There was a problem. All the hens knew they were faster than he was or knew that all they had to do was hop up onto a fence to escape his advances.
Hopping onto a fence was how he got his name. Cullen watched him use his wings to propel himself onto the fence between two hens. After wobbling like a broken weathervane, he fell off, landing with a thump and a cloud of dust. Cullen laughed like the crazy person she was and exclaimed, “He fell off and went Boom!” After the third or fourth time the name Boomer had stuck. Poor Boomer was no luckier with the ladies than he had been at life. He eventually arrived at the idea of hiding in the shrubbery in hopes that “une jeune fille” might happen by. If he was lucky and a hen walked by, he would explode out of the shrubs and…well this story is rated for all audiences. Unfortunately, the hens adapted and began to stay away from the shrubs. I believe I had said in a previous story that chickens weren’t too bright. I may not have given them enough credit!
I don’t remember how long Boomer lived but I’m sure it was much more than the somewhat average seven years. I am also sure that his longevity was due to the special care and love given to him by Linda Gail. Short of playing the role of a pimp, Linda saw to his every need. Extra food, yummy beetles and caterpillars, a warm place to sleep in the shrubs…I should have had it so good. I’ve always said if the Hindu’s are correct and we are reincarnated, I want to come back as one of Linda’s animals…except the beetles and caterpillars.
Late in his life, Boomer took to lying in the sun in the one spot of the heavily-treed yard that does receive sunlight for a long portion of the day. He would stretch out his wings which were still inky black and the sun would reflect off of them like a freshly-polished black car. The red, orange and yellow on his neck were just as bright as they had been years before. I don’t guess feathers turn gray like hair. Despite his bad luck he had outlived all of our original chickens. In fact, he was so old that he no longer paid attention to the “spring chickens” in our small flock. That was how I found him on his last spring day. He had died quietly in his sleep while lying in the warm sun. When you think about it there might not be a better way in the world to go…in your sleep, contented and warmed by the sun.

COTTON FIELDS…FROM “PATHWAYS”

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As a five or six-year-old I did follow along with the plow as my grandfather furrowed out rows to be planted with cotton seed on a small red hill patch located near my home. I also followed along when he plowed his more fertile fields for tomatoes, corn, squash and beans. Sometimes he even let me try to handle the unwieldy plow but my rows were not very straight. I was his number one field hand…his only field hand until my stinky little brother was born when I was five. The cotton field field had so much red clay I honestly don’t know how anything other than broom straw and rocks grew there. “Little Donnie” would follow along as my PawPaw “geed” and “hawed”, keeping his horse on his path while attempting to create straight rows. My job, in the early spring of the planting season and my life, was to hand water the emerging cotton plants breaking through the dry clay crust on that hill. A bucket would be dipped from a nearby stream and carried to each plant and ladled, a cup at a time, until the process had to be repeated when the bucket emptied, which was much too often. Later as the season turned with the leaves, I would help pick the same cotton when it matured, a very painful process for my young fingers. After filling my small but heavy “poke”, I would follow my grandparents down to the cotton gin located across from Pettus’s store just a hundred yards or so from my house. Here, our cotton would be weighed and graded before being placed with like-graded cotton. The cotton bolls were “ginned”, or seeded, and the remaining fluffy and dirty raw cotton was pressed into five hundred pound bales, wrapped with a thick burlap cloth to be transported by the truck load to the cotton mill. After my grandparents were paid off, I would be rewarded with a trip across the road to Pettus’s store and given a “Sugar Daddy” for my trouble. At the time I could not have been paid better.

A Southern boy comes of age in the Sixties in PATHWAYS Download on #Kindle today at http://goo.gl/ZFIu4V

A ROOSTER IN THE POPLAR

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Even when Linda and I have attempted to portray ourselves as actual farmers, more times than not, we have found ourselves in a cross between “Green Acres” and a gothic horror story…or gothic comedy. Most of these forays involved our attempt at “domesticating our animals” which at various times have included goats, rabbits, chickens or all three. I have learned lessons from all but will focus on what I learned from raising chickens…other lessons will be shared later.

I learned very quickly not to say “I need…” or “I might get…” or “We ought to…” in front of my father-in-law. I wish I had mastered this lesson before saying, “I might get a few chickens since we have a coop.” Never allowing grass to grow under his feet, my father-in-law Ralph Porter immediately went on a quest to get Don and Linda some “yard fowl.” I had to stop him when our flock topped thirty “mixed bag” laying hens and three roosters to go with them. Ralph had gone anywhere there might have been someone who was trying to get rid of chickens, tossed them into the back of his covered pickup, and transported them to “Hemlock Hills.” Rhode Island Reds, Plymouth Rocks and American Bantams Game Hens began to lay more eggs than we could even give away…until the wildlife came by to sample our “bill of fare.” We found out very quickly that our Reds and Rocks were fair game for foxes, raccoons and possums. Never quite getting the coop secure enough, we reduced our “flock” by about two-thirds. For some reason out of the coop the roosters and game hens seemed to be well-suited to escape the critters. So, “free range” roosting became a safer option… but that led to more lessons to be learned.

Of all the animals on “God’s Green Earth,” chickens must have been hiding when the Good Lord was passing out brains. My God, being a humorous God, decided to do them no favors by creating a bird that can’t really fly. Our surviving game hens who were brighter and more mobile than most breeds took offense to our robbing their nest for eggs and decided to take advantage of our free range farming techniques. They just disappeared. After a while we believed they had been kidnapped by Br’er Fox who had been shopping for dinner. Later in the spring, while sitting in my upstairs study, I was startled to hear the “peep, peep, peep” sounds of baby chicks emanating from outside the open second-story window. The game hens had laid their eggs in the squirrel nests high in our hemlock trees and were hatching them out. Temporarily struck stupid in amazement, Linda and I never considered how they would make their way to the ground. Their mothers hadn’t considered it either. Chickens fly only slightly better than rocks. Chicks? They don’t fly at all but simply make a sound reminiscent of a nut being cracked when they hit the ground. Returning from a local coach’s clinic I was greeted with the vision of sheets strung from tree to tree. Linda Gail had decided that sheets strung under the trees was a better option than running around trying to catch the helpless little things with a butterfly net which we didn’t have. My wife is one of the brighter animals God created and was able to save most of the babies.

As if cascading biddies were not enough, one of my two remaining Rhode Island Red roosters seemed intent on committing suicide. He was the Alpha rooster if there was such a thing. He was a beautiful bird with a mostly black body but with the characteristic red, orange and yellow feathers on his neck and back. He was also rather…confused.

One morning after an attack by the local predators I couldn’t find him. I had heard him but had not been able to locate him when I went on a search. As I walked away from his coop I heard him again, “Cock-a-doodle-doooooooo!” His crowing was coming from far above me. When I looked up into the tallest poplar tree in my yard, I spotted him. Had he been any higher in the tree he would have been on a cloud! Imitating a weathervane, he was swaying from side to side in the light morning breeze. He had hopped to the very top of the poplar tree, limb to limb, until he had run out of limbs. “So how are you coming down?” I muttered to myself just as he decided to show me. In a method resembling an old “football” death dive, “Boomer” as he would later be named, jumped into the air, beating his wings frantically. Scientifically, his efforts at “horizontal velocity” had little effect on his downward or “vertical velocity.” In non-scientific terms, HE FELL LIKE A STONE! Just before landing…crashing…totally wiping out, Boomer tried to get his landing gear down but to no avail. It would be his chest and beak that would stop his fall…all five times that he bounced. I knew he was dead and had visions of WKRP’s Les Nessman exclaiming “Oh, the humanity!” But Boomer fooled me. Picking himself up and ruffling his feathers, he looked at me as if to ask, “Hey, how did I stick that landing? A ten right?” More like “any landing you can walk away from is a good one.” Another lesson learned – Roosters are a lot more resilient than turkeys!

Don Miller has self-published three books which may be downloaded or purchased in paperback on Amazon.
A Southern boy comes of age during the Sixties in PATHWAYS http://goo.gl/ZFIu4V
Forty years of coaching and teaching in “WINNING WAS NEVER THE ONLY THING….” http://goo.gl/UE2LPW
An irreverent look at FLOPPY PARTS http://goo.gl/Saivuu

GOOD OLD DAYS

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My first paying job was working for my Uncle James Rodgers bailing hay, chopping corn or plowing the river bottoms below the high school or off the Van Wyck Highway. Your first paying job tends to leave behind very profound memories. This is an excerpt from one of those stories.

Flashback toooooooooooo, ohhhhhhh, 1962 sounds good. Twelve-year-olds probably shouldn’t drive tractors but I did. I also drove a thirties model Chevy or GMC hay truck as soon as my legs were long enough to reach the accelerator and strong enough to depress the clutch. I learned to drive on a big 1940’s era John Deere Model A in hay and cornfields or on roads that led to the river bottoms. Six-foot tall rear tires, two smaller wheels in a tricycle configuration on the front, hand clutch that I could barely engage and six forward gears. This was John Deere’s first tractor to offer rubber tires. I sat in a backed bench seat which was unlike the seats on other similar era tractors. That is when I sat! Mostly I stood on a flat platform so I could see over the long hood that covered the old two-cylinder gas engine that at low revolutions made a “pap, pap, pap, pap” sound as each cylinder fired. Even at high revs you could still hear each individual cylinder fire. The Model A had been top of the line from the late Thirties to the late Forties and I’ll bet that there are Model A’s and its little brother the Model B still in operation today. The B was a smaller version of the A but it was not small. Driving those tractors and the old “one-ton” were the high points of my farmhand career…that and the two dollars a day plus midday meal I was compensated with for an early-thirty to dark-thirty day.

Excerpt from the GOOD OLD DAYS, a story in PAHTWAYS which can be downloaded on Kindle or purchased through Amazon at http://goo.gl/v7SdkH.

ANIMALS…AN EDUCATION

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An Excerpt from PATHWAYS

Growing up on a farm allowed me to observe a lot of different types of animals in interesting and educational ways. The milk cow, the plowhorse, pigs and chickens were the main animals available for study. In addition, I was the only kid in our little community to have both a duck and a peafowl hen as pets. The duck would follow me around like a puppy dog but the peafowl just wanted to be left alone and was kind of scary with her high pitched “Help! Help! Help!” call. She would also peck at me if I got too close. Her toxic personality would remind me of one of my exes later on down that pathway of life.

We had two full-grown hogs, not really named Bacon and Sausage, who provided a bit of education. Did you know that hogs wrestle? I know they can run fifteen miles per hour and can even swim. I didn’t know they could wrestle until I saw Bacon climbing onto Sausage during my early childhood. When I asked my grandmother what they were doing Nannie said, “They are just wrestlin’.” Funny, Bacon seemed to be wrestlin’ harder than Sausage. She seemed to be just standing there. Did the stork bring those piglets? Later my schooling would continue when I found out that the cow had a yearly date with someone named Artie. Maybe you have met him? Artie Semination. He must have been a foreigner.

My stories of home in PATHWAYS can be downloaded or purchased in paperback at http://goo.gl/6yB5Ei

BLUE HEELERS LIFE HEALERS

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I don’t why we subject ourselves to the pain of losing loved ones…furry four-legged loved ones. You know there is going to be a time when they are going to break your heart by dying. Bogart, Bubba, Brody, Jackson, Santana, Little Miss Minny Muffin, Nannie, Sha-na-na, NaeNae, Nugene, Nicholette, Neut, Claude, Claudette and Boomer. Dogs, cats, goats, even a one legged rooster. All found a way to worm their way into our hearts and steal more than just a little piece.

Eleven years ago our most loved Sassy Marie, a part Border Collie part…who knows, deserted us. She had turned up one day out of the clear blue and disappeared twelve or thirteen years later the same way. I have no idea how old she was but Sassy was smart, knew her time was near, and decided to leave us on her own terms. By doing so, Sassy allows us to pretend she is still out there somewhere, alive and well, chasing the rabbits she never chased during the thirteen years she had us.

I told Linda Gail we needed to get over Sassy Marie before we invested our hearts in another pet. Several days later she told me her very good friend Debbie had family with six-week old Blue Heeler puppies. “Linda it is too soon to get another puppy,” said I. “I just want to go look at them. There are fourteen can you believe it?” said Linda. The next day at school I told a friend we were going to look at puppies that afternoon. “You going to get another pet?” asked he. “The question is not if. It’s how many.” Said I. Linda does tell a little different story.

The Blue Heeler is an Australian Cattle Dog, not to be confused with the Australian Shepard which is, despite its name, not Australian. The Australian Cattle Dog, which comes in two forms regardless of being the same breed–the Blue and the Red Heeler. They are the product of breeding a historically long lost “upland” spaniel from England, a Dalmatian and the native Australian wild dog, the Dingo. From this union came a tough, muscular, medium size dog Australian cattlemen used to drive their cattle through the “Outback.” Pretty sure if I had known this we probably would not have owned one, much less two. Sometimes it’s good to go into something uninformed with your eyes shut. This is how Matilda Sue and Madeline Roo came to adopt us.

The owners of Mattie and Tilly raised Blue Heelers to sell but this was no puppy mill. Just one sire named Rebel and two dames named Mia and Gypsy. They were beautiful. Dark “blue merle” undercoat showed through their white topcoat. A bit of “Dingo red” on their forelegs and lower jaw. There was a mask across their eyes called a “Bentley Mark.” Compact muscles rippled under their coat. It was easy to fall in love…easier when we saw fourteen puppies clumped together in their little corral.

One of those puppies crawled out of the tangle of fur, legs and snouts and made her way over to Linda and in “Dog-ese” yapped a greeting which I am sure translated to “Hi, I’m your new puppy and don’t even try to ignore me.” For ten years we haven’t been able to. Another had a crooked tail, which we thought had been broken but was actually a genetic flaw, and a Bentley mark only over one eye. My heart melted. Two was the answer to the question “It’s how many?”

That was almost eleven years ago. They grew into powerful, beautiful companions…and infuriating. Mattie will not be ignored for any reason. Tilly became the ultimate hunter. I am looking at them now as they go through some type of puppy play only they understand, a “mock fight” they have acted out daily. Now they have settled down to sleep…with their ears still at the alert.
They are or were high energy herders and hunters. Even when very young they tried to herd birds, cats, squirrels and lizards. They herded so well I found them missing one evening from their fenced in workshop “puppy house.” I can remember my fear they would be lost forever…or my fear of what Linda was going to do. We found them. Less than three months old they had traversed a small mountain forest and ended up over a half mile away. This is also how they became house dogs.

As hunters, Maddie specializes in snakes and Tilly in possums. With a persimmon tree in our back yard there have been ample opportunities for Tilly and with the tangle of Linda’s “companion gardening” there have been many opportunities for Maddie. I cannot remember how many mornings I have let Maddie and Tilly out, taken my shower, and come back to find a possum “present” laying just inside the door. Luckily possums play possum and I am sure Tilly has brought the same one in dozens of times. Maddie does the same thing but thankfully snakes don’t play dead…although I am sure finding them has scared me out of several lifetimes.

I want to chuckle as I watch both of them sound asleep on their backs, their favorite form of activity. Everyone said, “They will be hand full if you don’t keep them active, they are too smart for their own good.” “You don’t want two from the same litter.” A few times that might have been true but the best thing we ever did was get two. They play, run, keep each other company and if we can’t seem to find Tilly just tell Maddie, “Go find Sissy” and off she goes.

I know they will leave us sooner than we would want but they have been wonderful companions and worth all of the pain we will feel when they do leave us. There is something about unrequited love and ours has been returned ten thousand times. A little food, a scratch behind the ears, a warm couch to curl up on and a lot of love. Isn’t that all we ever need?

My stories of home in PATHWAYS by Don Miller http://goo.gl/6yB5Ei

RITE OF PASSAGE? from the book PATHWAYS

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Behind my grandparent’s home was the beginning of a small valley that ran from my Uncle Hugh Wilson’s place all the way back to the river…if you had guts enough to make the trek through an overgrown and somewhat marshy snake infested hay field. I know it was snake infested although I don’t ever recall having seen a single snake there. Once past the hay field the land would turn into a mixed forest which was easier to traverse and was much less infested with imaginary snakes. Later our trail would be blocked by an over flow from Bower’s big lake. On our side of the valley there was a bluff overlooking a year round stream. It was surrounded by a hardwood forest and was a wondrous place to play.

These were the days when it was still okay to run amok shooting imaginary Indians, outlaws, and Japanese or German soldiers…with imaginary guns I might add. I don’t know what kids do for fun now but later we turned to corn cobs and acorns in order to make our battles a bit more realistic and painful. One day we even employed artillery with sharpened, very limber, tree saplings used to throw sour apples very long distances. Forts were built with downfall and later we went so far as to build a tree house out of scrap lumber that might have been five feet off of the ground. It was our castle keep, pirate ship or B-24 dropping out of the clouds to attack and drop our stick of bombs. We had been watching way too much TV. In one of our running acorn battles Charlie McCorkle tried to make a quick get away by sliding down a bank not seeing the lone rusty strand of barbed wire impeding his escape. He probably should have had stitches to close the bloody hook shaped gash under his chin that later became a hook shaped scar.

The end of this story and the book PATHWAYS maybe purchased or downloaded using the following link: http://goo.gl/v7SdkH
Don Miller has also written two other books, “WINNING WAS NEVER THE ONLY THING…” and “FLOPPY PARTS” which may be downloaded or purchased at http://goo.gl/m2ZicJ

SALAMANDERS AND FIREFLIES

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Salamanders and Fireflies

In the fall of 1987, my wife and I would make the decision to leave the relative ease of a condo for “the country” and a hundred plus year old farmhouse that had been the possession of James Copeland. A retired Methodist minister, Mr. Copeland had bought “The Brammlet Place” in 1956 and along with his “Good Baptist Brethren” had begun a renovation of sorts to the old farmhouse that had sat empty for a decades. Renovation might be stretching what they did. They did add electricity, heat and a bathroom with running water.

One of the challenges of our little “place in the sun” was our water system. Located in the woods, across a wide stream and about a football field’s length from the back of our house was our well. Well not a well exactly, it was a cistern consisting of a brick dyke built into the ground where a spring found its way to the surface from under a very old oak tree. Mr. Copeland and his good Baptist brethren had constructed the system and placed a water tank and pump inside of a brick pump house on top of it all. Smooth river rock had been placed in the bottom of the cistern along with a pot that the pump nozzle sat in. The cistern itself was covered by corrugated metal sheets placed on top of the dyke.

Mr. Copeland bragged about how sweet and pure the water was but we still had to get a chemical analysis to prove it. Just as soon as we had uncovered the well, the young chemist who had been sent to collect water samples exclaimed, “Oh I can tell your water is okay.” I asked if he had undergone some type of divine enlightenment and he explained that we had salamanders. “Salamanders won’t live in anything but good water,” he said as he knowingly nodded his head. I could not help but point out that I was concerned what the salamanders might be adding to the water. The young man assured me that it was okay because the government standards allowed for a certain amount of salamander pooh without it effecting how potable the water was. I guess that is no worse than the allowable amounts of rodent fecal matter in hot dogs and the little red and black amphibians were so cute…and great to fish with.

While being interesting and a conversation starter, the water system was as high maintenance and contrary as Mary, Mary of nursery rhyme fame. If the power went off, the pump had to be primed. For those of you who have no clue, primed meant that water had to be poured down a pipe into the pump to create suction and I kept a pitcher full of water available for just that possibility. It was very inconvenient and a bit scary if it took place in the middle of the night. We have bears and coyotes along with bobcats and “painters.” A painter is a local term for the mountain lions or panthers that live in the area. I have only seen one bobcat and heard one panther. After hearing the panther, I have decided that I only want to see them in photographs. When you are walking down to the cistern in the middle of the night one might imagine that the area around the stream and cistern might be inhabited by ghost, spirts and haints. Hummmmm, vampires, werewolves, zombies and a T Rex might inhabit the area also.

Late one evening, after a spring thunderstorm had knocked off our power just long enough for the pump to lose its prime, I made the trip down to the spring and began the process to prime it. As I bent over and tried to concentrate on the process rather than my fears, I felt rather than saw that I had company. When I looked up I beheld an eerie sight as fireflies began to come out of their winter hideaways and blink their little message “Come here! I am ready for you to find me. It is time for us to propagate the species.” Not very romantic but we are talking about fireflies. What was eerie was that they had risen no higher than three feet off of the ground and were all blinking in sequence with each other. I was amazed and just a bit fearful.

Twenty-eight years later they still make their appearance in early May but I’ve never seen their group emergence since that night. A once in a lifetime occurrence? If it was, it was worth it. We have since done some of our own renovations that included a new underground well. While it needed to have been done it was not replaced on purpose but because a storm had put a huge oak down on the well house. SPLAT! My pump now is just outside my house, one hundred feet below ground. I don’t mind not having to prime the pump but I do miss the fireflies and the salamanders.

Image Tsuneaki Hiramatsu, photograph of flirting fireflies during mating season outside Niimi, in Japan’s Okayama prefecture